THE OTHER COLLUSION SCANDAL.

AuthorGottiinger, Paul
PositionUnited Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia's collusion with U.S. President Donald Trump

This isn't some new scoop. Many parts of this story have been covered in the media. There is simply so much going on with the administration that it's easy to miss this thread.

Yet there is at least as much evidence that Trump has been purchased by the crown princes and de facto rulers of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia as there is to support the idea that he's been bought by Vladimir Putin.

During the first two years of his presidency, Trump's foreign policy has lined up tightly with the interests of the United Arab Emirates' Mohammed bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, and Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman. In a remarkable number of instances, Trump has sided with these two crown princes over his own State Department, intelligence officials, and even Cabinet members.

The Emirati and Saudi influence campaigns are not totally separate from the one involving Russia. During the early days of the Trump Administration, representatives of both the Emirates and Saudi Arabia pushed Trump to curtail sanctions on Russia in exchange for Russia rolling back its relations with Iran.

Like Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have repressive autocratic governments with atrocious human rights records; however, unlike Russia, these two countries have enormous wealth and can operate under the cover of being U.S. allies.

While much has been made of the Russian meeting in Trump Tower on June 9,2016, little attention has been given to another secret meeting in the same building involving offers of direct assistance to the Trump campaign. While there has been extensive reporting on how the $130,000 paid to Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels, might constitute a campaign finance violation, it appears that the Trump campaign may have secretly received up to $2 million in indirect assistance paid by a foreign government.

And while claims of "no collusion" in regard to the Russia investigation are hotly debated in the media, there seems to be substantial evidence of direct coordination between the Trump campaign and the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These governments were given unofficial, direct access to the White House and have made significant foreign policy requests outside of any State Department channels.

Moreover, there is compelling evidence that people within and connected to the Trump organization received direct financial benefit from these arrangements.

To say that Donald Trump's first presidential trip abroad, to Saudi Arabia in May 2017, was a lavish affair would be putting it mildly. The Saudi Kingdom saw the trip as a way to help reset U.S.-Saudi relations after a cool relationship with President Barack Obama and, as a result, it went all out. It reportedly spent $68 million on the event, which included sporting events, auto shows, a performance by country music singer Toby Keith, the projection of a five-story image of Trump's face on the wall of his hotel, and a multimillion-dollar dinner in his honor.

During the trip, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates donated $100 million to Ivanka Trump's World Bank fund for women entrepreneurs, while presenting Trump with a chance to show off his supposed skills as a deal maker. Trump bragged that he had nailed down $350 billion worth of American weapons sales to Saudi Arabia; experts said the actual amount was far less.

Since this initial trip to Saudi Arabia, members of the Trump Administration have continued to visit the Saudi Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates frequently. In the last week of February 2019, Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, met the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with the leaders of the Emirates and Saudi Arabia the month before; and Energy Secretary Rick Perry visited Saudi Arabia in December 2018.

The Trump Administration has consistently taken positions favorable to the two countries. For instance, Trump backed their decision to institute a punishing blockade on Qatar, just days after Trump left Saudi Arabia. Trump did so against the advice of Rex Tillerson, then Secretary of State.

In November 2017, Trump praised Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as he instituted a crackdown on wealthy Saudis in which they were detained and tortured until they agreed to hand over substantial amounts of money.

In May 2018, Trump overruled his own Defense Secretary, Jim Mattis, and pulled the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal, which the Crown Princes bin Salman and bin Zayed had been pushing him to do.

Trump has also looked the other way as the Saudi Kingdom cut off relations with Canada and forcibly detained the prime minister of Lebanon, and Trump got rid of the limited constraints Obama had imposed on U.S. arms exports to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen. Human rights groups have documented...

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