Follow the money by Ruth Neuwald Falcon

About halfway through Rachel Maddow’s show last night, I realized I was having trouble breathing. I think I did all right through the opening segment about how BP—remember BP and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill?—has just been approved by the Trump administration for “a $5 billion oil drilling project in ultradeep waters of the Gulf of Mexico over protests from Democrats and environmental activists who said the venture posed significant risks to wildlife and communities.” This one is a thousand feet deeper than the Deepwater, which is still lying at the bottom of the sea. As Maddow said, “What could go wrong?”

My chest tightened a bit when she talked about Alexander Smirnov, who was convicted of “bringing fake stories to the FBI about President Biden supposedly taking bribes.” Mother Jones revealed yesterday that Trump’s DOJ has, for the last year, been “helping him to get out of prison. On March 4, in a move that has drawn no media attention (emphasis mine), the department quietly filed an unusual brief—submitted by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche—supporting Smirnov’s attempt to throw out his sentence and withdraw his guilty plea.” Oh, and by the way, the FBI said Smirnov is linked to Russian intelligence. Not Kash Patel’s FBI, would be my guess. This is happening while, Maddow said, “Russia reportedly is using Russian intelligence to help Iran kill American troops and target American facilities in the Middle East.”

I think the segue to the next item may be when the elephant took up residence on my chest. “Also quietly,” Maddow went on, “Trump’s Justice Department has moved to drop the largest Iranian sanctions case ever in history.” As The New York Times put it, “A Manhattan federal judge on Wednesday took a first step that could lead to the dropping of criminal charges against a Turkish bank that has been accused of laundering billions of dollars of Iranian oil and natural gas proceeds… The request was made jointly by the U.S. government and the bank.” Again, the emphasis is mine. Why would our government make such a joint request, especially now?

“It’s almost like he’s not doing things for the reasons he says he’s doing them,” Maddow continued.

“So the Saudis paid $2 billion to Trump’s son-in-law, Jared, and now Jared is the U.S. government’s point person in the Middle East. The New York Times now reports that while Jared is serving as the U.S. government’s point person in the Middle East, Jared is simultaneously asking the Saudis for yet more billions of dollars for his private business. More than $2 billion they’ve already given him, now he wants more.

“You know what? Why would they say no? For the low, low price of what they’ve already given him, the Saudis have apparently discovered the price of renting out something called the armed forces of the United States of America to attack their rival nation, Iran.”

For much of the day, the talk has been about Joe Kent, now the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center, and included repeated readings of his resignation letter, in which he says, “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” 

Joe Kent paid a Proud Boys member to work as a consultant on an unsuccessful political campaign. He collaborated with the founder of Patriot Prayer, a Christian nationalist group. According to the AP, Kent has “echoed a conspiracy theory that federal agents had somehow instigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, as well as false claims that Trump won the 2020 election over President Joe Biden.”  He has connections to the Proud Boys and Nick Fuentes. “His reference to Israel and claims about Jewish Americans’ political influence,” the AP continued, “highlight Kent’s previous ties to antisemitism and right-wing extremism.”

Of course, Iran didn’t pose an imminent threat to the U.S., and I do not want to whitewash the actions of Israel. Bibi Netanyahu is a terrible man who is making policy decisions that are fanning the flames of antisemitism all over the world. But not to give more attention to the Saudis—and Trump’s family business connections and profiteering—is maddening. Unfortunately, Rachel Maddow is on only one day a week. It’s up to the rest of the news media to follow the trail.

I sent a draft of this piece to a friend and want to share his reply with you. He uses a lot fewer words to get to the point than I do:

What’s going on is not between countries.
It’s between rich, powerful individuals who have everything. 
So there is nothing else for them to get…
Except more.