Rex Tillerson, a veteran oil executive who quaffed
champagne with Vladimir Putin after the Russian president awarded him a medal,
is set to be named by Donald Trump as his secretary of state, according to
sources close to the American president-elect.
US media reported last
night that Tillerson, 64, chief executive of Exxon Mobil, was about to be given
the job, with the announcement expected this week. He and Trump spent more than
two hours talking at Trump Tower yesterday.
Tillerson’s appointment,
if confirmed, will fuel concerns about the extent of the incoming Trump
administration’s links with the Kremlin. In 2011, Exxon Mobil signed a deal
with Rosneft, Russia’s largest state-owned oil company, for joint oil
exploration and production.
Since then, the two
companies have formed 10 joint ventures for projects in Russia. In 2013, Putin,
whom Tillerson has known for more than two decades, bestowed on him his
country’s Order of Friendship.
Asked about the expected
appointment, Sir Michael Fallon, the British defence secretary, refused to
endorse Tillerson, insisting Russia must be treated as a “strategic opponent”
of the West.
Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show this morning, Sir
Michael allied himself instead with Donald Trump’s pick for defence secretary,
James Mattis, a tougher critic of Russia. He said he would not comment on
Tillerson as the appointment hadn’t been confirmed.
Asked whether he would
work with anyone who, like Tillerson, had received the Russian Order of
Friendship, Sir Michael said: “I’m ready to work with the new secretary of
defence, Jim Mattis, whose appointment has been welcomed by the US military, by
all our allies in Nato.”
Sources close to Trump
said that Tillerson had been picked for the job after an exhaustive interview
process. Other candidates considered included Mitt Romney, the defeated 2012
Republican presidential nominee, whom Trump met twice, and Rudolph Giuliani,
the former mayor of New York.
John Bolton, the
uncompromising hawk who served as President George W Bush’s ambassador to the
UN, is expected to be Tillerson’s deputy.
Congressman Dana
Rohrabacher of California, who once arm-wrestled Putin in a Washington bar when
he was mayor of St Petersburg, is under consideration to be ambassador to
Moscow, US officials told The Sunday Times.
Rohrabacher is
considered the most pro-Russian member of the 435-strong House of
Representatives.
The report of
Tillerson’s expected advancement came as the president-elect angrily denounced
a CIA assessment that Russia hacking had been aimed at helping him defeat
Hillary Clinton in last month’s presidential election.
Trump’s aides launched
an extraordinary attack on the intelligence organisation after it briefed
Congress that the election was marred by Kremlin hacking.
In a move that risks
tainting the relationship between the incoming administration and American
spies, Trump’s campaign pointed to the CIA’s failure in the run-up to the Iraq
War.
“These are the same
people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” his
transition team said in a terse statement. “The election ended a long time ago
in one of the biggest electoral college victories in history. It’s now time to
move on and ‘make America great again’.
US newspapers reported
yesterday that the CIA had concluded in a secret assessment that Russia
subverted the election to help Trump win the presidency.
Individuals with
connections to Putin’s government had been identified as the source of
thousands of hacked Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails released by
WikiLeaks, according to the briefing by US officials. The site’s founder,
Julian Assange, was a fierce critic of Clinton.
Embarrassing emails from
Clinton advisers, including John Podesta, the campaign chairman, generated
weeks of negative headlines.
The officials described
the individuals as being known to the US intelligence community and part of a
wider Russian operation to bolster Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances. Republican
computers were also hacked but the material was never leaked.
“It is the assessment of
the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favour one candidate
over the other, to help Trump get elected,” a senior official told The
Washington Post. “That’s the consensus view.”
US intelligence had previously thought Moscow’s aim
was simply to undermine confidence in the American election system, not sponsor
a candidate.
Trump has repeatedly
poured scorn on allegations — including those from US intelligence agencies —
that Russia was behind hacking attacks on the election.
“I don’t believe they interfered [in the election],” he told Time magazine last
week. The hacking, he said, “could be Russia, and it could be China, and it
could be some guy in his home in New Jersey”.
Trump’s refusal to
accept that Russia engaged in hacking activities and his pointed barb about
Iraq intelligence failures could pitch him into open war with the CIA, even as
it briefs him weekly about covert operations.
President Barack Obama’s
administration spent months debating how to respond to allegations of Russian
intrusions but White House officials were concerned that action without
evidence would fuel tensions with Moscow. The White House also feared
publicising the attacks would trigger accusations that it was trying to boost
Clinton’s campaign, which could have helped Trump.
The CIA shared its new
assessment with senior senators in a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill last
week. Obama ordered a fuller investigation into Russia’s alleged hacking of the
election, the findings of which will be presented to him before he leaves office
on January 20.
The reluctance of the
Obama White House to respond to the alleged Russian intrusions before election
day has angered Congressional Democrats and the Clinton campaign. Still reeling
from Clinton’s stunning election loss, her aides blame her defeat on James
Comey, the FBI director, for reopening his investigation into her secret email
practices — and then closing it again — as well as on Russian hacking.
In the closing weeks of
the election, Podesta’s emails were released by WikiLeaks in a drip-drip
sequence. While there was no “smoking gun” email that revealed corruption or
dirty tricks, the cumulative effect contributed to growing cynicism about
Clinton’s long career in national politics.
The combination of
criticism from her opponents and the internal fallout within her campaign
leadership took its toll.
“People talk about
headwinds, of voters wanting change,” said one Clinton official. “But we were
also having to contend with the FBI and the Kremlin actively seeking to defeat
Hillary.
“Did it make a
difference? Of course it did. A few tens of thousands of votes the other way in
the Rust Belt and Hillary Clinton would now be the president-elect.”
No comments:
Post a Comment