"Compromise Your Guy, Then Install Your Compromised Guy"
by tristero
Last night, Rachel Maddow summarized brilliantly the importance of the Michael Cohen plea deal. Go to her show page and watch, from beginning to end, the segment titled "Lifting Russian sanctions key to Trump deal exposed by Cohen." It's all very simple:
Using Maria Buttina (who was subsequently accused of being a Russian agent) to ask Trump an obviously planted question re: lifting Russian sanctions, Trump was compromised by the Kremlin during the election. So were top members of his team. Russia then worked hard via leaked documents and social media propaganda to install the compromised Trump as president of the US.
Trump would get his Moscow Tower (aka, oodles of money) and Russia would get the sanctions lifted (which would enable, among other things, opportunities to seize more Ukrainian territory).
The breathtakingly brazen and stupid criminality of the scheme that Maddow describes feels exactly like the sort of stunt Trump, Putin, Cohen, Flynn, et al would try to get away with.
Please watch "Lifting Russian sanctions key to Trump deal exposed by Cohen."