It appears the next four years will be anything but boring as Donald Trump’s new American oligarchy takes shape.
First, from The Guardian:
President-elect Donald Trump has asked Goldman Sachs executive Gary Cohn to head his White House national economic council, a group that coordinates economic policy across agencies, NBC News reported on Friday.
If elected, Cohn would be the third Goldman alumni picked to serve in the Trump administration: Steven Mnuchin, nominated to head the treasury department, and Steve Bannon, picked to be White House chief strategist, are both ex-Goldman Sachs executives.
Cohn, 56, is president and chief operating officer at the Wall Street firm and had until recently been widely considered the heir apparent to chief executive Lloyd Blankfein. But according to the Wall Street Journal, Cohn, who met with Trump on Tuesday, has been considering a move in recent months.
Wall Street is the prime driver behind the hollowing out of the US middle classes that got Trump elected yet here it is taking over economic management of the country.
Second, via The Hill:
President-elect Donald Trump has selected Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as his nominee for secretary of State, NBC News reported Saturday.
Tillerson had reportedly jumped to the front of the pack of candidates in recent days, despite not being mentioned on shortlists as recently as last week.
Trump transition spokesman Jason Miller said in a tweet Saturday afternoon that there would not be an announcement about the State position until at least next week, though he did not refute the report.
Critics have already called into question Tillerson’s ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Tillerson negotiated an energy partnership with Putin in 2011 that the Russian president said could be worth $500 billion.
The following year, Tillerson received the Russian Order of Friendship, one of the highest awards the country bestows upon foreign nationals.
Reuters reported earlier this year that the Exxon Mobil deal with Russia had been put on hold due to sanctions levied against the Kremlin for its annexation of Crimea in 2014. The company has said it intends to resume the deal after sanctions are lifted — a process that Tillerson could help expedite as secretary of State.
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell said that two sources informed her that Tillerson’s selection is planned to be announced sometime next week. She also reported that former Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, a neoconservative firebrand, would be tapped to be Tillerson’s deputy at State.
Third, from WaPo:
The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.
Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.
“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”
You can make your own assessment about whether or not you think Donald Trump is in league with Vladimir Putin. But anyone who still thinks he has the best interests of the American people at heart needs to sober up.
