Russia

After days of speculation and strawmen, and following Mitt Romney's statement earlier, AP is reporting that President-elect Donald Trump has selected Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson to lead the State Department, according to two people close to Trump's transition team.

The decision caps a lengthy process that often played out In public and exposed rifts within Trump's transition team. But Tillerson's close ties to Russia could still complicate his Senate confirmation hearings.

 

“In my view, the Trump election has made a large Chinese devaluation more likely. Mainland Chinese investors are desperately trying to get out of the Yuan, and the People’s Bank of China is trying to defend the value of the Yuan. They are doing this by selling treasuries.”

       - Russell Clark, Horseman Global

Since election day, Democrats have engaged in a panicked attempt to leverage their last couple of weeks in control of the executive branch to delegitimize the Trump presidency.  Obama has even gone so far as to order a "full report" on Russian tampering in the 2016 election cycle to be completed before he leaves office (see "A "Soft Coup" Attempt: Furious Trump Slams "Secret" CIA Report Russia Helped Him Win").  Of course, we should simply ignore the fact that a true investigation of such allegations would take much longer than the one month that Obama has left in office because any delay c

Trump’s team have accused the CIA of conducting a “false flag operation” in falsely accusing Russia of influencing the U.S. election.  On Sunday, Donald Trumps deputy secretary of state appointee, John Bolton, described CIA reports that Russia meddled in the US election as a “false flag” designed to overturn the results and win Hillary the Presidency.

Former UK ambassador Craig Murray has called the CIA’s claim that Russia hacked the DNC in order to help Trump win the election as “bullsh*t”. Murray claims that he has met the hackers personally, and they’re most definitely not Russian. “I know who leaked them,” Murray told the UK’s Guardian newspaper. “I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider.” Zerohedge.com reports: I had a call from a Guardian journalist this afternoon.