Take on the conflict of interest

It was announced today that Exxon would seek a waiver from the US government to work with Russia in exploration and extraction of oil and gas despite US sanctions put in place after Crimea. This, of course, comes as no surprise to this political observer even if the optics right now would make you think twice about asking for this so publicly

But our president doesn't quiet care about optics or the appearance of conflict, the entire Syrian 'outrage' last week was a badly choreographed high school musical to try to throw the dogs off the scent but the dogs aren't going anywhere.
The next bombshell will be the promise of easing sanctions in an audio tape delivered by Carter Page over the summer.

The reason we believe there was an audio tape is because Trump does not use email and would not have put this to paper. This gives him some kind of lame " plausible" out, as there won't ever be a direct paper trail back to him. He dictates all his correspondence and would always claim that his secretary misheard him.
But all of this wouldn't sit well with Putin who wanted some kind of assurance, something more substantive than Flynn winking and smiling at him. So it was likely Putin's demand, to hear it in Trump's own words which put Carter Page on that plane. Putin's no dummy and he knew very well that the intelligence community was listening in to every phone call coming into and out of the Kremlin.

But as we have stated before, even if released we expect the audio tape to be typical Trump, a lot of nothing hidden underneath a lot of bravado and buried in a sea of adjectives. Even if it is very obviously quid pro quo.

But we digress. This is now coming to a head with the the world's biggest oil company asking for those sanctions lifted. This will give them access to the vast oil reserves under Mother Russia and give Russia a driller and buyer.

Now if only Exxon had a guy inside who could help grease the wheels a bit, then we'd really have a story