employee who speaks to the New Yorker appears to confirm that the company did work for Trump, saying of Psy-Group’s disinformation techniques and the post-election “increase” in “interest in Psy-Group’s services”—as expressed by what the company was hearing from prospective clients in 2017—“The Trump campaign won this way. If the fucking President is doing it, why not us?”69 This increased interest in Psy-Group sees its founder, Burstien, giving presentations on Psy-Group’s capabilities all around Washington. Per the New Yorker, “As part of [his] presentation, Burstien point[s] out that Russian operatives had been caught meddling in the United States; Psy-Group, he [tells] clients, was ‘more careful.’”70
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The Washington Post reports that by the first day of the transition period, Trump and his team have already outlined “a very specific policy position” on how to approach the Russia-Iran axis—and their position is identical to that of MBZ and his Red Sea co-conspirators.71 As the Post reports, the Trump transition and presidential administration “and the UAE appear to share a similar preoccupation with Iran.… Trump advisers were focused throughout the transition period on exploring ways to get Moscow to break ranks with Tehran.”72 According to a former intelligence official who met with Trump transition officials, “Separating Russia from Iran was a common theme [in their conversations]. It didn’t seem very well thought out. It seemed a little premature.… [T]hey hadn’t even taken the reins and explored with experts in the U.S. government the pros and cons of that approach.”73
The second day after Trump’s election finds multiple Russian officials communicating to the media that “the Russian government … maintained contacts with Trump’s ‘immediate entourage’ during the campaign.”74 Russian deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov speaks at slightly more length on the issue, telling a journalist, “I cannot say that all [of Trump’s entourage], but a number of them maintained contacts with Russian representatives.… I don’t say that all of them, but a whole array of them supported contacts with Russian representatives.”75
The Trump transition team responds to the Kremlin’s confession with a grave misstatement that at once misleads the media and the public on the existence of Trump-Russia, Trump-Saudi, and Trump-Emirati contacts: the transition team’s press secretary, Hope Hicks, tells U.S. media, “We are not aware of any campaign representatives that were in touch with any foreign entities before yesterday [November 9], when Mr. Trump spoke with many world leaders.”76 Hicks would later reveal to the special counsel’s office that she spoke to none of Trump’s foreign policy advisers or national security advisers before representing that no one on Trump’s campaign communicated with foreign nationals; instead, she spoke only to domestic policy advisers, including Kellyanne Conway, Jason Miller, and Stephen Miller—the last of whom, despite being a domestic policy adviser, was in fact present at Trump Tower on August 3, 2016, when Donald Trump Jr. met with Joel Zamel, an Israeli citizen.77 Hicks will tell the special counsel that she may have spoken to Bannon and Kushner as well—two men whose campaign briefs spanned both domestic and foreign policy—but she could not be sure.78
That Trump and his transition team immediately evince a policy agenda with respect to Russia and Iran identical to that of the UAE without consulting domestic foreign policy experts is telling. Former U.S. ambassador Michael McFaul, who speaks to the Trump transition team during the transition period, comes away with the impression that the team doesn’t realize how much Putin will have to be offered to curtail his support for Iran. “When I would hear [their plans],” McFaul will say in spring 2017, “I would think, ‘Yeah, that’s great for you guys, but why would Putin ever do that?’ There is no interest in Russia ever doing that. They have a long relationship with Iran. They’re allied with Iran in fighting in Syria. They sell weapons to Iran. Iran is an important strategic partner for Russia in the Middle East.”79 It is unclear if the transition team reveals to McFaul its pre-election plan to eliminate all U.S. sanctions on Russia in compensation for its abandonment of Iran, a move that would end a punishing regime of financial restrictions on the country that has “shaved off,” per the Council on Foreign Relations, 1 percent to 1.5 percent of Russia’s economic output and could, in the long term, have an even more significant impact—as it is keeping the Kremlin from fully exploring the Arctic for oil.80 Just a single potential drilling partnership that the Kremlin has had to forgo because of sanctions, an agreement