You know who's talking about that big Russian pay-off to Trump? Nobody.

A couple of posts down, we discussed a couple of all-important passages from that dossier -- the one from Orbis, a document which is looking ever-more credible each day.

Speaking to a trusted compatriot in mid October 2015, a close associate of Rosneft President and PUTIN ally Igor SECHIN elaborated on the reported secret meeting between the latter and Carter PAGE, of US Republican presidential candidate's foreign policy team, in Moscow in July 2016.

As you will recall, we have tentatively identified (thanks to Christo Grozev's superb work) the "close associate" as Oleg Erovinkin of the FSB.

Funny thing about Oleg: He came down with a mysterious case of dead shortly after the dossier began to circulate. The document would have made it clear to the Powers-That-Be in the Kremlin that Oleg had provided information to former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, the co-founder of Orbis.

Officially, Oleg killed himself or died of a heart attack. Your choice. The timing of his death was, of course, coincidental. As I like to say: Oleg was punched in the face by the mailed fist of Pure Coincidence.

In terms of the substance of their discussion, SECHIN's associate said that the Rosneft President was so keen to lift personal and corporate western sanctions imposed on the company, that he offered PAGE/TRUMP's associates the brokerage of up to a 19 per cent (privatised) stake in Rosneft in return. PAGE had expressed interest and confirmed that were TRUMP elected US president, then sanctions on Russia would be lifted.

That 19 percent payoff is the revelation which -- if proven -- could destroy Trump. It cannot be spun away. We're talking about a direct and unassailable case of foreign bribery, a clear constitutional no-no. (It will be so amusing to hear the Republican rationalization brigade claim that Clinton's BJ was impeachment-worthy but Trump's pay-off is not.)

You know who's talking about that big Russian pay-off to Trump? Nobody.

That is to say: A Twitter user named Nobody -- about whom I know nothing -- has decided to investigate the strange case of that 19 percent of Rosneft, the Russian oil company. (The Russian government has a controlling interest in the company but does not own it 100%.) Since I'm not a big fan of Twitter, I would like to place all of his research "on the record" right here. Why? Because Blogs = good and Twitter = bad.

Everything below the asterisks in boldface was written by Nobody. If you don't agree with what follows, Nobody gets the blame.

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so remember when the Trump dossier said Putin's oligarch buddy had offered 19% of Rosneft if the sanctions were lifted?

well, it turns out that's pretty much how much of Rosneft was sold off in December for $11 billion.

but Russia actually only received $3 billion from Glencore and Qatar. the rest was in loans from an Italian bank and Russian banks

so the Italian bank putting up about a third of the cash for this sale was actually engaged by Russia as it's consultant on the sale

also the same bank that was fined for violating money laundering and banking secrecy laws. hmmm. wonder why the Russians chose it.

rest of cash is from Russian banks. where did they get the money? well, turns out a week earlier Rosneft sold $10bn in bonds. in 30 minutes.

and the smart money says it was the Russian central bank that bought them.

so Putin prints $10bn worth of Rubles to finance the sale of Rosneft shares (at a discount due to the sanctions).

actual cash price is even lower for the buyers. but who are those buyers again? well, Glencore and Qatar own it through a Singapore LLC

that's a nicely insulated shell company, that could easily see some or all of it's shares quietly transferred for cents on the dollar

or even if it was at their cost, $3bn is already a 70% discount off the current market price of Rosneft.

but the value would soar if sanctions were lifted.

if only we knew where Trump had investments, eh?

btw, i was in a rush last night and forgot to mention that the Russians happened to hire Giuliani's old law firm to handle the sale

i'm convinced all this executive order stuff is largely theatrics to distract from the looting. #followthemoney