Greed is good? Well maybe in the movies but in reality when ya get caught, especially in elections, it brings Media to your front door 24/7/365 – PB/TK
The Exxon-Treasury Fight And The Roots Of Russiagate – By David Halperin / July 30 2017
When the Treasury Department announced on July 20 that it had fined ExxonMobil $2 million for violations of U.S. sanctions against Russia, there were multiple ways to view the dispute. Was it best understood as an awkward battle pitting Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin against Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was ExxonMobil’s CEO at the time of the alleged misconduct? Was the decision a case of principled career Treasury staff standing up to Exxon and Russian bad behavior in defiance of pro-fossil fuel, pro-Putin President Trump? Was Tillerson, given Exxon’s alleged defiance of U.S. law on his watch, morally qualified to be our nation’s chief diplomat? Was the Treasury action the final insult for Tillerson, who seems to have been frustrated at every turn by Trump and his own lack of effectiveness, triggering a resignation?
But the most relevant context for the Treasury fine on Exxon is, in fact, the thing we’re all talking about anyway: Russiagate.
As we wrote back in February, if there was, in fact, a corrupt bargain between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, or a tacit understanding, the outlines of the deal seem straightforward. Trump wanted help to win the most prestigious and potentially lucrative prize available in America: the Oval Office. What Vladimir Putin wanted most, what he has wanted desperately for several years, is also crystal clear: for the next U.S. president to lift the major sanctions that have been strangling the Russian economy. And Trump repeatedly signaled as a candidate that he might do just that.
To be sure, there were reasons besides the sanctions that Putin might have wanted to help Trump win: Trump lacked Hillary Clinton’s national security and government experience and thus was potentially a weaker adversary; Trump was calling into question U.S. alliances and commitments overseas, including NATO; and Trump repeatedly expressed personal admiration for Putin. As president, Donald Trump seems, disgracefully, to have exceeded all possible expectations as to these factors.
Continue to huffingtonpost.com article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-exxon-treasury-fight-and-the-roots-of-russiagate_us_597de928e4b0c69ef70528ff
