Trump's dubious Saudi connections

This article from last year is a good reminder that Ukraine and Russia are not the only foreign powers with dubious ties to the Trump Administration: Paul Gottnger and Daniel Kelman, The Other Collusion Scandal The Progresive Apr/May 2019.

"[T]here is at least as much evidence that Trump has been purchased by the crown princes and de facto rulers of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia as there is to support the idea that he’s been bought by Vladimir Putin," they write.

But they also note:

The Emirati and Saudi influence campaigns are not totally separate from the one involving Russia. During the early days of the Trump Administration, representatives of both the Emirates and Saudi Arabia pushed Trump to curtail sanctions on Russia in exchange for Russia rolling back its relations with Iran.

Like Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have repressive autocratic governments with atrocious human rights records; however, unlike Russia, these two countries have enormous wealth and can operate under the cover of being U.S. allies.

The most gruesome consequence of this collusion so far is the US cooperation in Saudi Arabia war against Yemen. They quote Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch, “The Trump Administration’s cruel insistence that pro􀁾ts to the arms industry justify the unlawful killings, disease, and destruction in Yemen undoubtedly will come back to bite the American people.”

And, of course, there was the notorious assassination of US permanent resident and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

One key player in this entanglement is literally a convicted pedophile, George Nader. David D. Kirkpatrick and Mark Mazzetti reported on this sleazy character for the New York Times, How 2 Gulf Monarchies Sought to Influence the White House 03/21/2018. As did Creede Newton for Aljazeera, Mueller probe: Who is George Nader, convicted paedophile? 04/06/2018.