Department, raising the specter that on the Qatar issue they are instead negotiating directly with Jared Kushner, as they have in the past—and second, more shocking by far, because the Trump administration has asked Zinni to “introduce” the “Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA) concept … to regional [Gulf] leaders.”154 The MESA concept, an outgrowth of the Red Sea Conspiracy, had previously been seen as MBS’s brainchild, but with Zinni’s resignation, it is revealed to be as much the Trump administration’s work product as anything developed in Riyadh. Moreover, Zinni’s decision to exit the administration includes his own observation that “other members of the administration are carrying [MESA] forward”—another likely reference to Kushner or Kushner’s allies within the administration.155 That Kushner is quite possibly, in cooperation with MBS, one of the chief architects of MESA appears to be confirmed by Zinni’s posting at the time of his departure from government service: as CBS notes, Zinni “coordinated with former national security adviser H. R. McMaster and Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.”156
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After a January 20 television appearance in which he reveals that Trump’s negotiation with a Russian businessman and the Kremlin over a prospective Trump Tower Moscow lasted from the fall of 2015 through Election Day 2016, Rudy Giuliani disappears from America’s airwaves for nearly two months—with Axios reporting that “Trump did not want him on TV for a while after his last round of interviews.”157 Several months later, Michael Cohen will disclose that Trump had originally “instructed” him to lie to Congress by falsely stating that the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations ended on January 31, 2016, the day before the first Republican primary. This is a lie that would allow Trump to argue, if implausibly, that he had never negotiated with the Kremlin or Russian oligarchs while he was officially a candidate for public office—an apparent, if clumsy, attempt to circumvent accusations of bribery.158 When Cohen’s statement to Congress that the negotiations in fact lasted through the Republican National Convention is contradicted by Giuliani, America learns from Trump’s new attorney that Trump had told him that a series of conversations about the Moscow tower “was all going from the day I announced [my candidacy] to the day I won.”159
Cohen’s allegations regarding the Trumps will also include a claim that Ivanka Trump’s attorney (Abbe Lowell, who represents Jared Kushner as well) suggested edits to Cohen’s congressional testimony about Ivanka’s knowledge of the Trump Tower Moscow project that would have made that testimony untrue.160 In fact, despite Ivanka saying she knew “literally almost nothing” as the Trump Tower Moscow deal was slowly taking shape during the presidential campaign, Cohen will testify to Congress that he briefed her and other family members on the progress of the project on “approximately ten occasions.”161 Moreover, BuzzFeed News will report in June 2018 that Ivanka was so involved in the 2015 Trump Tower Moscow negotiations that she put Cohen in touch with Dmitry Klokov, a former Russian government official who “said a meeting between Trump and Putin could expedite a Trump tower in Moscow,” and who then offered to set up that meeting.162 When Cohen ultimately declined Klokov’s assistance, he received an email from Ivanka that “questioned [his] refusal to continue communicating with Klokov.”163
As the special counsel’s investigation wears on, current and former federal prosecutors will opine to U.S. media outlets that the lack of any FBI interview with Ivanka is troubling, given that, in addition to what Cohen has alleged, Ivanka was with her father when he crafted a false statement for his son Don to give regarding the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower; was with Trump in Bedminster, New Jersey, on the day he decided to fire FBI director James Comey; spoke briefly with Kremlin agents at Trump Tower on the day of the infamous June 2016 meeting attended by her brother, her husband, and her father’s campaign manager; was instrumental in lobbying Trump to hire Paul Manafort, and played a similar role in Michael Flynn being hired for the presidential transition team over objections and contrary advice from both President Obama and Trump’s first transition chief, Chris Christie; and, according to Adam Davidson of the New Yorker, oversaw a real estate project through 2016 alongside “the Azerbaijani Mammadov family, who the Trumps knew were likely laundering money for the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps].”164 The Associated Press will note, too, that along with her husband, Ivanka aggressively pushed for an urban-renewal “Opportunity Zone” program that would benefit Cadre, a real