Britain Has a Russia Collusion Scandal Now. It Looks Exactly Like Trump's.

[DonViejo]

Britain Has a Russia Collusion Scandal Now. It Looks Exactly Like Trump’s.

By Jonathan Chait

June 22, 2018
1:24 pm

The most important thing to understand about the Russia scandal is that it perfectly fits a clear pattern of behavior. What Vladimir Putin is accused of doing to help Donald Trump win the presidency is essentially identical to what he is either accused of or proven to have done to help many other right-wing candidates in many other countries. As the plot in the United States is slowly exposed, a remarkably similar one in the United Kingdom is quickly surfacing.

Months before the United States narrowly elected Trump, the United Kingdom narrowly elected to withdraw from the European Union. Both votes advanced Russian foreign policy goals — in the latter case, by splitting up the Western alliance. (Trump has energetically pursued this strategy, too.) Russia employed many of the same tools to influence both elections. It deployed social-media bots and trolls to spread its message. It recruited friendly candidates who gave voice to previously marginal Russophile positions. And, as the newly surfaced evidence suggests, it indirectly financed the campaign.

British magnate Arron Banks supported the Brexit campaign with the largest political donation in British history. Leaked documents obtained by British reporter Carole Cadwalladr suggest Banks had more than mere philanthropic motives for this donation. Banks met several times with representatives of the Russian government, contradicting his previous claim to have met with Russians just one time.

More significantly, the documents suggest the Russians dangled a lucrative business deal. He would have the chance to buy in to a gold-mining consolidation, “potentially netting a profit of several billion dollars.” Banks denies that the gold deal ever happened, or that any of the meetings included any surreptitious collusion. “It’s a convenient political witch-hunt, both over Brexit and Trump,” he insists, using the same term favored by Trump.

To say that Bank’s defenses appear suspicious is a substantial understatement. If his meetings were innocent, why did he lie? If he never consummated the Russian gold-mining deal, why did he tweet at the time that he was investing in a big gold-mining deal?

Link to tweet

more
https://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/britains-russia-collusion-scandal-looks-just-like-trumps.html

[calimary]

1. Spreading like a cancer.

[BigmanPigman]

2. Very, very similar.

[triron]

3. What a coincidence that both elections were decided by a small margin of popular votes.

[NewJeffCT]

4. All these people lying about meeting with the Russians

If they have done nothing wrong, why would they need to continually lie?

[renate]

5. I've wondered ever since January 2017 when the Russia stuff really started coming out here

Whether Putin orchestrated the Brexit vote too. Like our election, it was a surprise and in contradiction to all the polls, and like our election it was 100% in Russia's interest.

And I believe that Brexit is quite unpopular in Britain now, even more than before. Another referendum would seem to be in order, especially now that Putin's interference over here is so well established and there's no reason to think our election was a one-off.