Rick Perry

December 4, 2017- Rick Perry and Saudi Energy Minister Khaled al-Falih signed memo of understanding about carbon management between the US and Saudi Arabia in Riyadh

Rick Perry going to London to hold nuclear cooperation talks with Saudi officials Washington Post February 26, 2018 Steven Mufson “The kingdom has received delegations from five major nuclear reactor companies, including the bankrupt Westinghouse. The Canadian real estate and industrial conglomerate Brookfield has submitted a plan to buy Westinghouse.”

  • January 2020 Rick Perry joined the boards of LE GP, Energy Transfer‘s general partner
  • February 2020 Rick Perry re-joined the board of MCNA Dental as Chief Strategy Officer and Vice Chairman
  • Naftogaz-Ukraine gas company. Energy Sec. Rick Perry’s donors, Ukrainian-American Michael Bleyzer, awarded 50-year drilling no-bid contract within weeks of President Zelensky‘s inauguration 

Rick Perry knew about Biden connection to Ukraine investigation, indicted Giuliani associate says Dallas Morning News Perry, the former U.S. energy secretary, has repeatedly denied that he knew of ties to Biden By Tom Benning January 17, 2020

  • Inside the Secret Campaign to Export U.S. Nuclear Tech to Saudi Arabia Daily Beast July 29, 2019 Erin Banco Energy Secretary Rick Perry Leaked draft of Rick Perry grid study “Electric Power System, Markets and Reliability Study Interim Draft Report July 2017” debunks his attack on renewable energy on Scribd June 26, 2017“Perry was governor of Texas, a position that put him on the front lines of border security. In 2014, he deployed the Texas National Guard to the border to help with a surge of undocumented immigrants. Asked about the possibility of a job switch for Perry, Shaylyn Hynes, a Department of Energy spokesperson, said, “While Secretary Perry is honored to be mentioned, he is happy where he is and very focused on carrying out the mission the President gave him when he was chosen lead the Department of Energy.” CNN
    Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, talks with Rachel Maddow in an exclusive interview about how then-Energy Secretary Rick Perry was called upon to get Ukraine to announce an investigation into Joe Biden but ultimately only got an announcement about corruption. The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC January 16, 2020
  • Russiagate
  • Russian Republicans
  • Energy-The Atomic Energy Act-“123 Agreement” bans enriching uranium & reprocessing spent fuel
  • Trump Removed Inspectors General conducting investigations, providing oversight and lawful Congressional approval
    • US Special Rep. for Iran & Sr. Policy Advisor to Sec. of  State Pompeo Brian Hook (September 2018 to August 2020. He previously served as the Director of Policy Planning under Secretary of State Rex Tillerson) resigned from the State Dept. on August 6, 2020, replaced by Special Rep. for Venezuela Elliott Abrams, 2 days after Pence ally Acting Inspector General (IG) Stephen Akard resigned (Politico; Bush Neocons).
    • Akard replaced Obama 2103 appointed State Dept. IG Steve Linick on May 15, 2020
    • Message from Deputy Secretary Sullivan and Inspector General Linick on Whistleblowing ​On July 20, 2018, who sent this Department-wide email]; In the final stages of an investigation of legal actions in the Saudi arms sale and other deals, Trump ousts State Department watchdog Democrats blasted the Friday-night dismissal as an assault on the rule of law. Politico By MERIDITH MCGRAW and NAHAL TOOSI;    “Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, called Linick’s dismissal an “outrageous act of a president trying to protect one of his most loyal supporters, the secretary of State, from accountability.” Engel claimed: “I have learned that the Office of the Inspector General had opened an investigation into Secretary Pompeo. Mr. Linick’s firing amid such a probe strongly suggests that this is an unlawful act of retaliation.” A Democratic congressional aide said Linick had launched an investigation into Pompeo’s alleged misuse of a political appointee to perform personal tasks for him and Mrs. Pompeo. The State Department did not respond to an inquiry about the allegation. Linick played a minor role in the House of Representatives’ impeachment proceedings against Trump, ferrying a trove of documents to lawmakers that had been provided to the State Department by Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.”

    • August 10, 2020  Inspector General Review of the US Dept. of State’s Role in Arms Transfers to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates

      Pompeo’s Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia Were Legal—but Heightened Risks of Civilian Casualties in Yemen Foreign Policy ,  “Linick later told members of Congress in an interview that senior members of Pompeo’s team attempted to “bully” him into dropping the investigation, though it was requested by Congress. His acting replacement, Stephen Akard—a political appointee and associate of Vice President Mike Pence with no prior investigative experience—abruptly stepped down from his post this month after less than three months on the job. Akard recused himself from the arms sales investigation following pressure from Capitol Hill.”

    • August 14, 2020: On the same day as the US seized the Venezuela-bound Iranian oil, Trump National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien published a biased editorial on the subject by referring to CoVid-19 as the “Wuhan virus,” reinforcing the Republican scare of the threat of Socialism/Marxism associated with drugs and the Democratic Party in the context of the 2020 campaign, and the “thug” verbiage which had been recently used in association with Black Lives Matter protests.  Nevertheless it contained information about military action. The US has cost Maduro $3 billion in four months per this article: How the US is shutting down Venezuela’s socialist-thug drug biz New York Post By Robert O’Brien August 14, 2020 “On April 1, [2020] President Trump launched a historic counternarcotics operation to target drug traffickers and disrupt the flow of illicit drugs to the United States. The narco-traffickers targeted include members of the illegitimate, thuggish regime of Nicolás Maduro and the Cartel de los Soles (“Cartel of the Suns”) in Venezuela. Adm. Craig Faller, head of US Southern Command, called the country a “paradise” for drug traffickers.” US Southern Command (SoCom) devoted 16 ships and 19 aircraft, increasing “surveillance aircraft and patrol ships by 60 percent and 78 percent, respectively.” Agencies Employed: Departments of Defense (DOD), Justice (DOJ) and Homeland Security (DHS), as well as the Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). JOINT EFFORT of 22 NATIONS: Notably, Operation ORION V with Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras and El Salvador; SEIZED: “more than 84 metric tons of cocaine and marijuana..50 metric tons of illicit drugs were seized and 72 labs in Colombia were destroyed” Honduras: “800 kilograms of cocaine loaded on a private jet from Venezuela. On July 26, in Guatemala, ICE and Homeland Security Investigations seized more than 2,100 kilograms of cocaine and a Gulfstream III jet from Venezuela.”; ARRESTED: more than 1,000 drug traffickers “several of them were pulled from cartel-built mini-submarines.”
  • Inspector Generals Fired & Replaced April 2020
  • Amb. Stephen Akard from a career State Dept. Foreign Service Officer and then-Gov. Pence‘s CoS for Indiana Economic Development Corp. to IG of the State Department.
    • Acting Inspector General for the Department of Defense Glenn A. Fine from the Obama administration that “was set to become the chairman of a new Pandemic Response Accountability Committee to police how the government carries out the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill. But Mr. Trump replaced Mr. Fine in his Pentagon job, disqualifying him from serving on the new oversight panel.” April 7, 2020 Trump Ousts Pandemic Spending Watchdog Known for Independence New York Times By Charlie Savage and Peter Baker The official had been leading the office of the inspector general for the Pentagon. In removing him from that role, the president stripped him of his pandemic relief oversight duties as well.
    • Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson fired for insisting on sharing the whistleblower’s complaint with Congress during the Impeachment hearings. Trump to Fire Intelligence Watchdog Who Had Key Role in Ukraine Complaint New York Times April 3, 2020
    • Replacing Atkinson, Peter M. Thomson of Louisiana’s Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann, LLC, to be Inspector General, Central Intelligence Agency, Fmr. DOJ prosecutor 23 years, NSA special assignment (CIA Dir. Gina Haspel)
    • Instead of Glenn Fine, New Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery, Department of the Treasury Brian Miller (April 3, 2020 Trump Announcement; Sec. Steve Mnuchin) served as the Senate-confirmed Inspector General for the General Services Administration
    • Katherine A. Crytzer of Tennessee, to be Inspector General, Tennessee Valley Authority from being the Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy and reporting to Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim who was confirmed on September 27, 2017 (Delrahim was Formerly Chief Counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee). Crytzer was an Assistant was United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, and before that, Crytzer was an Associate at Kirkland & Ellis, LLP, George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law. April 3, 2020 Trump Announcement (Coal)
    • Andrew A. De Mello of Massachusetts, to be Inspector General, Department of Education from being on “detail to the Inspector General’s Office at the Department of Homeland Security as a Senior Special Counsel since October 2019” a DOJ Tax Division Trial Attorney (Sec. Betsy DeVos; Trump Tax Return Lawsuits– Deutsche Bank & Mazars). April 3, 2020 Trump Announcement
    • Jason Abend of Virginia, to be Inspector General, Department of Defense from serving as Senior Policy Advisor, United States Customs and Border Protection, Special Agent for the IG of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Department of Housing and Urban Development (mortgage and reverse mortgage fraud, civil fraud, public housing assistance fraud, and internal agency personnel cases), Secret Service, and as an Intelligence Research Specialist at the FBI. April 3, 2020 Trump Announcement

Papadopoulos And Flynn Client Both Tied To Israeli Energy Consortium Buzzfeed November 3, 2017 by Borzou Daragahi “Last year, while serving as a Trump foreign policy adviser, Papadopoulos appeared on an Israeli energy conference panel that included Yigal Landau, CEO of Ratio Oil Exploration, one of several Israeli and US firms that are part of the consortium exploiting Leviathan. Documents obtained and reviewed by BuzzFeed News earlier this year showed Ratio had a business relationship with Kamil Ekim Alptekin. The Dutch-Turkish businessman has been subpoenaed by Mueller’s investigators in connection to his hiring of Flynn’s consulting firm.”

U.S. Ambassador Says Israel’s Agreement With UAE Holds ‘Enormous Upside’ NPR August 14, 2020

Israel: Convicted PM Netanyahu reversed promises and agreed to Suspend West Bank annexation, where 450,000 Jewish settlers and 3 million Palestinians live. “The U.N. Security Council has said settlements are illegal…UAE would join Egypt and Jordan as only the third Arab nation in the region with normalized ties. The UAE and Israel have held informal ties for years. Speaking from the White House, President Trump took credit for the accord, which followed a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed [MBZ] of the UAE” Full Story: UAE, Israel Move To Normalize Relations As Israel Halts Planned West Bank Annexations Aug. 13, 2020

Israel-UAE deal could open up U.S. weapons sales to Gulf kingdom, experts say Reuters August 14, 2020 “David Makovsky, director of the Project on Arab-Israel Relations at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, told Reuters the deal is “a win for the Emirates, which will undoubtedly be eligible for military sales that it could not obtain due to ‘qualitative military edge’ restrictions due to fear certain technologies could be used against Israel.” In May, the U.S. State Department approved a possible sale of up to 4,569 used Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles to the UAE for $556 million. U.S. lawmakers have tried to rein in Trump administration plans for arms sales, particularly to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to pressure them to improve their human rights record and do more to avoid civilian casualties in an air campaign against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the war in Yemen. A U.S. government watchdog report released on Tuesday said the State Department did not fully evaluate the risk of civilian casualties in Yemen when it pushed through a huge 2019 sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE…David Makovsky, director of the Project on Arab-Israel Relations at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, told Reuters the deal is “a win for the Emirates, which will undoubtedly be eligible for military sales that it could not obtain due to ‘qualitative military edge’ restrictions due to fear certain technologies could be used against Israel.”

    • Drug Trafficking  —   Drug Trafficking Busts
    • China August 14, 2020-While the US seized 1.116 million barrels of Venezuelan oil and $3 billion worth of drugs, denting future income because of the 1,000+ arrests as well), the US Navy’s USS Ronald Reagan nuclear-powered aircraft carrier conducted exercises around Hong Kong, an area that China has been colonizing as it has built islands in the Sea to claim it as Chinese territory to control shipping. U.S. Navy carrier conducted exercises in South China Sea on Aug. 14 Reuters

United Arab Emirates (UAE) under “MBZ”  signed the 123 Agreement of the AEA under Pres. George W. Bush

      • S. Korean “consortium is currently building four reactors in the UAE. But Saudi Arabia has insisted that it be allowed to enrich its own supplies of uranium as a matter of national sovereignty.” Washington Post February 26, 2018

Kushner Middle East Peace Plan

Trump cites Iran to bypass Congress on Saudi arms sales AP By MATTHEW LEE and SUSANNAH GEORGE May 24, 2019 “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo notified Congress of the decision to use an emergency loophole in the Arms Export Control Act to move ahead with sales of $7 billion in precision guided munitions, other bombs and ammunition and aircraft maintenance support to Saudi Arabia, along with the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, without lawmakers’ approval. In his notification, Pompeo said he had made the determination “that an emergency exists which requires the immediate sale” of the weapons “in order to deter further the malign influence of the government of Iran throughout the Middle East region.” He said the transfers “must occur as quickly as possible in order to deter further Iranian adventurism in the Gulf and throughout the Middle East…Khashoggi’s slaying, coupled with increasing concerns about civilian casualties resulting from a Saudi-led coalition’s military operation against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, prompted lawmakers to block about $2 billion in arms sales to the kingdom for more than a year. Last month [April 2019], Trump vetoed legislation that would have ended U.S. military assistance for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. “President Trump is only using this loophole because he knows Congress would disapprove of this sale,” [Sen. Chris Murphy, D-CT] Murphy said. “There is no new ‘emergency’ reason to sell bombs to the Saudis. There is precedent for using the emergency exemption for arms sales to Saudi Arabia. President Ronald Reagan invoked it in the 1980s and both Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush used it for sales before the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 Iraq war.”

US moves to strengthen forces in Middle East to counter Iran AP SUSANNAH GEORGE and LOLITA C. BALDOR May 24, 2019 “President Donald Trump told reporters Friday that the 1,500 troops would have a “mostly protective” role as part of a build-up that began this month in response to what the U.S said was a threat from Iran. And for the first time, Pentagon officials on Friday publicly blamed Iran and its proxies for recent tanker bombings near United Arab Emirates and a rocket attack in Iraq…Vice Admiral Michael Gilday told Pentagon reporters that the U.S. has “very high confidence” that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was responsible for the explosions on four tankers, and that Iranian proxies in Iraq fired rockets into Baghdad. He said Iran also tried to deploy modified small boats that were capable of launching cruise missiles. The deployments announced Friday include a squadron of 12 fighter jets, manned and unmanned surveillance aircraft, and a number of military engineers to beef up protection for forces. In addition a battalion of four Patriot missile batteries that was scheduled to leave the Middle East has been ordered to stay. The total number of troops involved is about 1,500, with roughly 600 included in the Patriot battalion. None of those troops will go to either Iraq or Syria.”

Indicted Giuliani Ally Has Money-Tied Republicans Seeking Cover Courthouse News ADAM KLASFELD and MEGAN MINEIRO Lev Parnas  gave $50,000 to Rudy Giuliani in Trump’s search for dirt on Biden. Parnas & Fruman funneled $325,000 in foreign cash (illegal) into Trump’s super-PACAmerica First Action using the shell company Global Energy Producers totally $620,000. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-House Minority Ldr.) turned his $2700 from Parnas and $2173 from Fruman to McCarthy’s Majority Committee PAC over to charity; TX Rep. Pete Sessions
 Trump Impeachment

  • The “Three Amigos” Rick Perry, Gordon Sondland, and Kurt Volker, Coined by counselor of political affairs at the US Embassy in Ukraine David Holmes October 1, 2019 Rep. Robert Menendez, D-NJ letter to Sec. Perry about communications with Ukraine
    • May 21, 2019 Rick Perry Delegation to President Zelensky’s inauguration
    • June 4, 2019 Rick Perry and Pres. Zelensky US Mission to the European Union USEU Dinner
    • Democrats turn eye to Rick Perry in Ukrainian probe Politico October 1, 2019 By ANTHONY ADRAGNA and BEN LEFEBVRE “Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a Democrat on the Judiciary and Oversightcommittees, told POLITICO he thought it likely Perry would eventually be called to testify, though he is not aware of any committees ready to seek his testimony yet. “His Ukraine-related activities have drawn the interest of members and he almost certainly has relevant testimony to offer,” Raskin said. “He seems to have appeared and reappeared multiple times in the Ukrainian context, so he’s likely to have evidence that Congress would consider material.”
    • Lev Parnas October 9, 2019 Parnas & Igor Fruman arrested & Barr met with Manhattan prosecutors,
      • Harry Sergeant III (Boca Raton, FL, oil $), Belarusian-American Igor Fruman and Ukrainian-American Parnas donated $620,000 to Republicans and $325,000 to the Trump Super PAC America First Action.
    • Igor Fruman, , Belarus-born
    • Rudy Giuliani– September 30, 2019 Subpoena from Rep. Adam Schiff, Rep. Eliot Engel, Rep. Elijah Cummings
      • September 19, 2019– CNN Chris Cuomo, “So, you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?” “Of course I did.”
      • Pressed Ukraine to prosecute “Ukrainians who provided evidence against Mr. Trump’s convicted campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.”
      • Pressing Ukraine and others for dirt on opposing presidential candidate VP Biden and his son, Hunter
    • Ukraine  President Zelensky, President Petro Poroshenko, Fmr. President Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych
    • Working with Poroshenko initially, he lost re-election to Zelensky April 30, 2019 AP
    • July 2019: No-Bid 50-Year drilling contract awarded from the Ukraine government’s Varvynska in joint venture with Ukrainian-American-Texan Michael Bleyzer’s firm SigmaBleyzer and Alex Cranberg’s Aspect Energy “Ukrainian Energy,” within weeks of Perry attending Zelensky’s May 27, 2019, inauguration in VP Pence‘s place.

Scoop: Trump pins Ukraine call on Energy Secretary Rick Perry Axios Alayna Treene, Jonathan Swan October 5, 2019

    • Naftogaz-Energy Sec. encouraged replacing Obama-administration board member Amos Hochstein and other board members of the Ukrainian gas company with specialists or friendlier management, depending on whose account (Perry denies). Profit, not politics: Trump allies sought Ukraine gas deal AP By DESMOND BUTLER, MICHAEL BIESECKER and RICHARD LARDNER October 8, 2019
      • Burisma-Ukrainian gas co., Hunter Biden on the board for 5 years.