Hypothetical Trump / Russia Connection

Something I read on TPM...

If there's ever a real investigation of all this—and I'm not convinced that's necessarily going to happen—I think it boils down to money, and lots of it.

1. A financially-ailing Trump is kept afloat by Russian loans and investments after no western banks will loan to him.

2. Russian banksters/oligarchs allied with Putin get their quid pro quo—they ask Trump to make his real estate available for laundering the proceeds of their plundering of the Russian economy.

3. Obama sanctions on Russia scuttle Putin's plans for a massive oil drilling operation in the Arctic, which had promised to bring in billions if not trillions in oil sales.

4. Putin lets Trump know through his various back channels that he'll give Trump significant election help and a stake in Rosneft if Trump promises to lift the sanctions.

5. Carter Page gets a 19% stake in Rosneft, the Russian oil operation, and secures another 0.5% for Trump. The potential payout to both is gigantic. Anybody who thinks a portion of Page's 19% isn't also going to Trump is a fool.

6. Putin unleashes his internet trolls and bots, which, with the help of Robert Mercer's Cambridge Analytica, very effectively targets potential Trump supporters with anti-Clinton lies and horseshit on Facebook and Twitter.

7. Trump pulls off the improbable victory, and appoints Exxon's former CEO Tillerson to head State Dept., who very obviously will be primarily tasked with making sure that Putin's oil venture in the Arctic gets back on track.

Trump and the Republican Party have sold out the country's foreign policy interests specifically and only for cash.