Unscorious moment

Donald Trump’s decision to appoint ex-governor of the state John Huntsman to appoint an ambassador to the United States in Russia caused a resonance in Washington. This is one of the first embassy appointments of the new administration and one of the most noticeable: as acute as now, the “Russian question” has not been in the USA since the Cold War. But even then there was no talk of the intervention of Moscow in the American electoral process. And now there is and, it seems, it will be a long time

Fifty-seven-year-old John Huntsman, ex-governor of the state of Utah and ex-Posol USA in Beijing, lived in Taiwan in his youth, speaks freely in the Mandarin dialect of Chinese. But he never had any business with Russia, he had never been in it and did not say almost anything about it. He is not close to Trump ideologically and does not share the anti -globalist pathos of the president. In April 2016, he supported Donald Trump, but later, due to the accusations of a candidate of sexism, he withdrew his support. Moreover, Trump considers him one of the main perpetrators of the “dishonest” trade relations of the United States with China - in any case, he thought in 2012, as it appears from records on his Twitter. In addition, Khantsman, whose appointment to Moscow will almost certainly approve the Senate - an ambitious person and is unlikely to maintain a “low profile” as an ambassador in Moscow. But Trump needs him for balance, like a centrist and an experienced diplomat.

There was a time when mention of Russia had to literally look for in American political news. Now, perhaps, in the Kremlin and in the White House, they would have preferred that these references be smaller. Investigations on the issue of the possible intervention of Moscow in the American electoral process are used both in the FBI and Congress. And Trump has already been reckoning with this.

Strange traffic

Anatoly Soviet Ambassador to the United States (from 1962 to 1986) Anatoly Dobrynin once told how at the end of August 1968 the Democrats candidate, Vice President Hyubert Humphrey seemed to complain to him that President Lindon Johnson did not help his presidential campaign at all. Dobrynin reported this conversation in Moscow. From there it was an indication: “To directly contact Humphrey with an unspoken proposal to provide him with any possible help (including financial) in order to elect him to the President of the United States.” Humphrey, of course, refused - “to our mutual relief,” added Dobrynin.

But with Trump it turned out differently. When at the beginning of the summer of 2016 the National Committee of the Democrats discovered a gap in his cyber protection, Crowdstrike specialists, specializing in cybersecurity, were invited. Those came to the conclusion that the culprits of hacking are most likely “Russian hackers”, and related to the Russian special services (see NT No. 1 of January 23, 2017 ). Apparently, Trump was then assured that it was almost impossible to establish crackers, and he repeated whenever they asked: there is no irrefutable evidence of Russia's involvement in hacks and cannot be, it was necessary to better defend their servers - the Republicans did not hack. Couldn't or did not want to hack?

The expert community began to look after the servers of the Trump election headquarters, and at the end of July 2016, a strange interaction between the server installed in the New York Trump Tower, and the servers of the Russian Alfa-Bank and California SVB suddenly discovered. The compounds, of course, could be random - you never know the spam by mail. However, further observation was shown exclusively by weak traffic. The Trump server did not engage in any mass marketing newsletter, but was configured in such a way as to accept formations only from certain, very few IP addresses. When experts sent a ping-request, in response they received an error message. In other words, the servers of Trump and Alfa Bank installed a closed communication channel.

One of the experts guessed to accommodate the journal of the activity of this channel with the events of the presidential campaign. It turned out that activity increased sharply in acute moments - for example, during the days of the national party congresses in July, especially when the Trump team edited the Republican Party’s election platform, removing the promise of a defensive a lethal weapon from there, and the candidate himself doubted the need for NATO and hinted that he could recognize the annexation of Crimea. The most stormy surge occurred in August, in the interval between congresses and debates, when the rating of Trump and Clinton candidates was equal.

SVB - Silicon Valley Bank slipped away from this story. California registration deceived his journalists. Meanwhile, this bank is directly related to Russia. He has an agreement with the Sberbank of the Russian Federation on venture financing, banks hold joint events. One of the SVB managing directors is a graduate of the Moscow Financial Academy Vera Shokina, the organizer of the meeting of Dmitry Medvedev, at that time of the President of Russia, with Russian programmers during his visit to Silicon Valley in June 2010. A convenient roof for contacts with Trump’s environment, even if Vera Shokina is not known about this.

Belly, but not the same

On March 4, 2017, Trump wrote on his Twitter that during the 2016 election campaign, Barack Obama seemed to instrue special services to start wiretapping his election headquarters. They say that after getting acquainted with these accusations, Trump's predecessor was beside himself with anger. And Obama can be understood, because in fact everything was different. Back in June 2016, having caught the strange behavior of the Trump server, the FBI appealed to a special court for sanction in accordance with the law on monitoring foreign intelligence (FISA). The court in the warrant refused, because he did not find quite convincing grounds for surveillance for US citizens. In October, the FBI made a second request - he was either satisfied, or he was not. One way or another, it is precisely on the press reports about the requests of the FBI (there are no official evidence or refutations on this score) and the loud accusation against the Obama administration, which Trump erupted completely unexpectedly for his team, is being held. But the fact of the matter is that in the requests of the FBI it was not about wiretapping, but about the suspicious connection of servers-the headquarters of Trump and two banks mentioned above.

Trump's angry Philippics on Twitter may be an ambush for himself: after all, if the warrant was received, then there were enough grounds.

180 degrees

The ex-adviser of the president of national security Michael Flynn spoke five times on the phone with the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Washington, Sergei Kislyak, shortly before Trump's inauguration, Prosecutor General Jeff Sessnes, as it turned out, met with a sour in front of the presidential election. But when Moscow and Washington, as if having conspired (in this place should be put up by a smiley), announce publications about numerous and regular, as it now turns out, contacts of the Trump team with representatives of the Russian government “witch hunting” and “maccartism”, then they are engaged in the substitution of concepts. The point is not that Flynn and Sehns met or called back, but that they hid the facts of meetings and calls. Even under the oath. Even in the testimony in front of the FBI.

But if Moscow really hoped to get something from the election of Donald Trump, then there was clearly nothing from this venture. The Russian topic has become dangerous for the new administration. Any softening of positions in relations with Russia will be regarded as a confirmation of suspicions of backstage conspiracy. And the Trump administration intensively demonstrates firmness.

The point is not that Flynn and Sehns met or called back with the representative of Moscow, but that they hid the facts of meetings and calls. Even under the oath. Even in the testimony before the FBI

On February 2, when the UN Security Council (SB) discussed a sharp deterioration in the East of Ukraine, the new US Permanent Representative to the UN Nikki Haley received an instruction to sharply condemn the actions of Russia. She said about the Crimea: “The United States still condemn the Russian occupation of Crimea and call for its immediate termination. Crimea is part of Ukraine. Our sanctions associated with the Crimea will remain in force until Russia returns Ukraine control over this peninsula. ” This was the first official statement of the new administration in the Crimea.

On February 28, on the agenda of the SB stood a draft resolution on sanctions for the use of chemical weapons by the government forces of Syria. Russia and China voted against. Nikki Haley said about this: “Russia and China have made a egregious and unjustified choice today. They refused to hold Bashar Assad regime liable for the use of chemical weapons. They turned their backs to defenseless men, women and children, suffocating from the poisonous gas, who poisoned their Assad forces. They ignored the facts. Their friends from the Assad regime turned out to be more expensive than our global security. ”

On March 7, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met in Washington with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavel Klimkin and assured him: the sanctions against Russia will remain in force and henceforth, until Russia is fully fulfilled by the Minsk agreements and the return of Crimea to Ukraine.

So today it is with a hypothetical joint struggle against ISIS*, agreements in Ukraine and at least a weakening of the sanctions regime - in a word, with all that Moscow was counting on.

* ISIS ("Islamic State", IG) - an organization banned in Russia as terrorist.