When a Fixer Breaks the China, and When China Steals the Jewels

“The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write about it.” – Benjamin Disraeli

“Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.” – Ibid.

When the President’s Fixer is Found to be Breaking Laws: Two knowledgeable sources have confirmed to the BBC that Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, received a secret payment last year of between $400,000 and $600,000 for access to Trump by Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko.Cohen, who denies the allegation, was not registered as a representative of a foreign government as required by US law. Poroshenko did have a meeting with Trump at the White House last June. One week after Poroshenko returned home, the investigation by his anti-corruption agency into Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, ground to a halt.

Cohen had been brought in because Ukraine’s registered lobbyists and embassy were unable to arrange anything more than a photo-op with Trump. Poroshenko wanted something more substantial, so a former aide used contacts in New York to eventually reach Cohen and set up a back channel to Trump. Cohen’s payment was arranged on Poroshenko’s behalf by intermediaries. The account was supported by US attorney Michael Avenatti (Stormy Daniels’ attorney), who has separately uncovered details of Cohen’s finances. No allegation was made that Trump knew about the payment to Cohen. But one source in Kiev said Poroshenko had given Trump “a gift,” meaning Ukraine would find no more evidence that could support special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.

Cohen also received payments from a US company, Columbus Nova, that helped secure hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for a Putin-linked Russian oligarch from a bank with ties to Russia’s intelligence services. The bank, VTB, was sanctioned by the US Treasury in 2014 in response to Putin’s annexation of Crimea. Columbus Nova is an investment firm based in New York and is the US affiliate of Renova Group, a Moscow-based corporation owned by the oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg. Columbus Nova confirmed it had paid Cohen $500,000 in consulting fees, and the firm’s chief executive, Vekselberg’s cousin, had donated $250,000 to Trump’s inauguration fund.  

– The populist parties that won Italy’s elections two months ago by railing against the political establishment, the EU, and illegal migrants were given the go-ahead by President Sergio Mattarella to form a government. Giuseppe Conte, a little-known lawyer with no civil service experience, will head up the new government as prime minister. Mattarella’s approval solidifies the worst fears of European leaders who see the wave of extreme nationalism as threatening the cohesion of the EU from newer member states on the periphery, such as Hungary and Poland. (NYT)

– A US consulate worker in Guangzhou, China has suffered a mild traumatic brain injury, similar to a string of mysterious medical problems among US diplomats in Cuba last year. The employee’s symptoms were described as “subtle and vague, but abnormal, sensations of sound and pressure” which lasted from late 2017 to April 2018. A health alert was issued to US citizens in China, but rumors were unconfirmed that it came from somebody in the State Department singing a Buffalo Springfield lyric: “Stop, hey, what’s that sound Everybody look what’s going down…” (The Guardian)

– China launched a rocket this week, headed for the unexplored far side of the moon, with hopes to land a spacecraft there by year’s end. President Xi’s ambitious space program is planning to deploy a rover to Mars by 2020, and a man to the moon by 2025. If that happens, we think it’s gonna be a long long time ’till touchdown brings him round again. (NYT)

– Oh, Great. Now a new scientific study has found that pumping extra carbon dioxide into the atmosphere isn’t just warming the planet, it’s also changing the chemical makeup and diluting the vitamins and minerals in some of our most important crops, rendering them less nutritious. (NYT)

More News Reads:

• North Korea calls US Vice-President Pence ‘stupid’ (BBC)
• Pentagon uninvites China from major U.S. military exercise (Reuters)
• The princes, the president and the fortune seekers (AP)
• ‘Wrath of Coastal Erosion’ Is Devouring a Senegal Fishing Hub (NYT)

China and the Crown Jewels of US Innovation: A six-month investigation by Politico has found that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is oblivious to new ways Chinese nationals are securing access to American technology. CFIUS is mandated to protect US technology from foreign governments, but it rarely checks on what’s happening, for example, in bankruptcy courts. So when a company called Avatar Integrated Systems attended a bankruptcy hearing in Delaware early last year, it was able to scarf up the debtor, California chip-designer ATop Tech, without a hitch. Never mind that Avatar’s board chairman and sole officer was a Chinese steel magnate whose Hong Kong-based company was a major shareholder.

CFIUS was formed in the 1970s and hasn’t kept up with the times. Not only must it rely on outsiders or other government agencies to raise questions about the appropriateness of a proposed merger, acquisition or investment, but it doesn’t have the resources or expertise to deal with increasingly complex cases. The gap in oversight really became an urgent issue in 2015 when China unveiled its “Made in China 2025” strategy of leveraging private investors to buy up the latest American technology. In 2014, Chinese investments in US tech startups totaled $2.3 billion; in 2015, investments skyrocketed to $9.9 billion. In 2017, 165 Chinese-backed deals closed with American startups, only 12% less than the 2015 peak.

The failure to investigate some forms of Chinese investments in American technology has flown under the radar as President Trump talks about trade tariffs. National security specialists insist the stealth transfer of technology through China’s investment practices in the US is a far more serious problem than the tariff dispute. A recent Pentagon report bluntly stated: “The US does not have a comprehensive policy or the tools to address this massive technology transfer to China.” The report also warned that Beijing’s acquisition of top-notch American technology is enabling a “strategic competitor to access the crown jewels of US innovation.”  

President Trump has escalated attacks on his Justice Department and the special counsel as the evidentiary noose tightens. Determined to win in the court of public opinion, Trump sent out a blast of manic tweets Wednesday excoriating the FBI and claiming, without evidence, that the bureau had planted a spy in his campaign. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein acquiesced to Trump’s demands that the investigators be investigated, and that a group of Republicans be allowed to review classified information relating to the president’s claims. (The Guardian)

• Truth in a Post-Truth Era: Sandy Hook Families Sue Alex Jones, Conspiracy Theorist (NYT)
• Tesla boss Musk rants at press on Twitter (BBC)
• Black candidate makes history as women advance in U.S. midterms (Reuters)
• Trump barred from blocking Twitter users by judge (BBC)
• The Eviction Machine Churning Through New York City (NYT)

• “Despite obesity rates doubling over the past two decades, we’re becoming increasingly conscious of what we’re eating.” This fascinating piece examines how “we don’t need nearly as much protein as we consume.” A few tips: “Protein bars are really just candy bars with a bit of extra protein” and “protein is best consumed in food instead of supplements.” (BBC)
• Some of us might eat too much protein, but most of us are not eating dulse. But that might change: “For more than 1,000 years, a rare reddish-purple seaweed known as dulse has fed coastal communities in Northern Ireland. Now, it’s making waves as a trendy superfood.” (BBC)
• Whether we are eating dulse or too much protein, we should eat with others as “a study has found that regularly eating meals alone is the biggest single factor for unhappiness.” (The Guardian)
• As reported previously, Australian farmers are twice as likely to commit suicide than their urban countrymen. American farmers also have a suicide crisis: “Farmers take their lives at a rate higher than any other occupation, and at twice the rate of military veterans.” (NYT, The Guardian)

• When we read the title of this article and the first few lines we thought it was an April Fools joke: “Should you send Facebook all your nude photos?” But it’s true, Facebook has been suggesting its users to send them naked pictures in order to protect themselves from revenge porn. (The Guardian)
• Google has yet to ask for naked pictures of its users but given how powerful it is, it probably already has these photos. A deep dive into how Google became so big that many accuse it of being a monopoly: “Since going public in 2004, Google has acquired more than 200 companies, expanding its reach across the internet. It bought YouTube, the biggest video platform. It bought Android, the operating system that runs 80% of the world’s smartphones and it bought DoubleClick, which distributes much of the world’s digital advertising, all of this barely raising an eyebrow with regulators in Washington.” (CBS 60 Minutes)
• The New Yorker provides a thoughtful piece on how Facebook and Google became so powerful: “Once, Mad Men ruled advertising. They’ve now been eclipsed by Math Men—the engineers and data scientists whose province is machines, algorithms, pureed data, and artificial intelligence.” Here’s a fact that will give you a better appreciation of their heft: “Facebook alone generates more ad dollars than all of America’s newspapers, and Google has twice the ad revenues of Facebook.” (The New Yorker)

“The secret to success is constancy of purpose.” – Disraeli

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