Wayne Madsen — Strategic Culture Dec 4, 2017
Former US National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Click to enlarge
In the federal grand jury indictment of Donald Trump’s national security adviser, retired US Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller clearly states the foreign power that colluded with the Trump presidential transition team before Trump’s January 20, 2017, inauguration. That foreign power was not Russia, or China, or Britain. It was Israel.
Immediately after Mueller announced that Flynn agreed to plead guilty to a single count of making false statements to a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, Israel’s influential propaganda team, which has penetrated every broadcast bureau and newspaper and magazine editorial office in New York and Washington, DC, went into action. Flynn’s indictment, which spells out one of his two false statements to the FBI, provides the false statement made by Flynn: “On or about December 22, 2016, FLYNN did not ask the Russian Ambassador to delay the vote on or defeat a pending United Nations Security Council resolution.”
Kushner and his main controller, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, had caught wind of plans by the outgoing Obama administration to abstain on an Egyptian resolution, UN Security Council Resolution 2334, submitted to the Security Council on December 21, 2016, to condemn Israel’s settlement expansion in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Specifically, the resolution demanded that “Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.” The American abstention on 2334 broke with long-time US precedent to veto any anti-Israeli resolutions in the Security Council.
Israel used its considerable influence over the Trump team to kill the UN resolution, which was scheduled for a vote on December 23, 2016. Flynn’s indictment states
Flynn requested, on the order of Kushner, that the Russian ambassador in Washington delay or otherwise block the Egyptian resolution. The indictment states: “On or about December 22, 2016, a very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team directed FLYNN to contact officials from foreign governments, including Russia, to learn where each government stood on the resolution and to influence those governments to delay the vote or defeat the resolution.”
Flynn’s statement of offenses reads: “During the January 24 [2017] voluntary interview [with the FBI], FLYNN made additional false statements about calls he made to Russia and several other countries regarding a resolution submitted by Egypt to the United Nations Security Council on December 21, 2016.” The Flynn indictment further states, “Specifically FLYNN falsely stated that he only asked the countries’ positions on the vote and that he did not request that any of the countries take any particular action on the resolution. FLYNN also falsely stated that the Russian Ambassador never described to him Russia’s response to FLYNN’s request regarding the resolution.” Flynn lied on all three counts.
Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak rejected Flynn’s request to interfere with the UN vote. This episode, far from showing “collusion” between the Trump team and Russia, demonstrated that Russia was not acceding to demands from Trump, Kushner, Flynn, or anyone else, including United Nations ambassador-designate Nikki Haley who tried to convince US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power to scuttle the Security Council vote. According to Foreign Policy magazine, Flynn exerted tremendous pressure to sink the UN resolution. The magazine reported, “The Trump transition team approached the State Department with an urgent request: Hand over any cell phone numbers, emails, and other contacts of ambassadors and foreign ministers from the Security Council’s 15-member states.”
Trump succeeded in convincing Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to order his UN delegation to delay the vote. Egypt then withdrew its sponsorship of 2334. However, four members of the Security Council — Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal and Venezuela – counteracted Sisi’s abandonment and brought the resolution to a Council vote. It passed and was enacted due to the American abstention. It is quite certain that the Obama administration sought the assistance of its intelligence and military ally, New Zealand, in bolstering Malaysia, Senegal, and Venezuela against furious backroom opposition from Israel and the Trump transition team. Trump and Kushner decided that just prior to Flynn’s indictment, they would demonstrate their fealty to Israel by announcing that the United States was going to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Such actions, far from showing “collusion” with a foreign power, point to conflicted loyalty, at the very least.
It is not known who on the Trump transition team harassed, via cell phone and e-mail, the ambassadors and foreign ministers of — in addition to Russia, Egypt, New Zealand, Malaysia, Senegal, and Venezuela — China, France, Britain, Angola, Japan, Spain, Ukraine, and Uruguay, but Kushner’s and Trump’s extended business syndicates have significant financial interests in Angola (diamond mining), China (real estate and Ivanka Trump’s clothing apparel manufacturing and retails sales), Britain (Trump’s golf courses), and Ukraine (Kushner and Trump business partners).
After Netanyahu told New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully that New Zealand’s support for the resolution would be tantamount to a declaration of war against Israel, New Zealand pulled its sponsorship. Kushner, according to those who know him, would have been more than capable of joining Netanyahu in threatening diplomats and the governments they represent at the UN. In a fit of rage, Netanyahu recalled Israeli ambassadors to Senegal and New Zealand, canceled all assistance programs in Senegal, and disinvited Senegalese Foreign Minister Mankeur Ndiaye from a planned visit to Israel. The Israelis called in the ambassadors of the United States and the ten other countries that voted in favor of 2443 to verbally reprimanded them. A planned visit to Israel by Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, who is Jewish, was also canceled. Israel also blocked work visas for employees of five UN specialized agencies active in the West Bank and expelled the spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Israel’s collusion with the Trump presidential transition team points to more than just Trump, Kushner, and Flynn violating the Logan Act of 1799, an arcane law prohibiting American citizens from engaging in their own foreign policies. By convincing Trump, Kushner, and Flynn that Obama was behind Resolution 2443, Israel co-opted the Trump transition team to do its bidding. The Logan Act is immaterial when Trump, Kushner, Flynn, and others committed virtual treason against their own country to further the political aims of Israel.
There has never been a successful prosecution under the Logan Act and likely there will never be one. However, those who possessed access to classified information – Trump, Kushner, Flynn, Haley, and others – who were simultaneously taking orders from Israel on matters of US national security, could be found guilty of violating the US Espionage Act. Israel’s “Greek Chorus” of supporters in the US news media and Congress brought up the Logan Act to minimize the damage caused by collusion between Israel’s skink-like ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, Netanyahu, Kushner, Flynn, Trump, and Haley to kill the resolution. If the Logan Act had any enforcement teeth, it would have been used a long time ago to indict George Soros, Sheldon Adelson, Haim Saban, Paul Singer, and other pro-Israeli billionaire influence-peddlers, who represent the interests of other nations and engage in their own foreign policies.
The phoniest aspect of so-called “Russiagate” is that the political scandal involving Trump, Kushner, Flynn, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, and others hardly involves the Russian government. Instead, Eastern European-Israeli oligarchs, along with their thousands of offshore shell corporations located in places as far-ranging as the British Virgin Islands and the Isle of Jersey to the Marshall Islands and Seychelles, along with well-placed American agents-of-influence for Israel, are front-and-center in the scandal that now threatens to bring down the Trump administration. It is practically impossible for the US corporate media to be convinced that the proper tag-line for the Trump scandal is “Israelgate,” not “Russiagate.”
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!
No comments:
Post a Comment