US politicians, intelligence move to cut French neo-fascists’ ties to Russia

 

US politicians, intelligence move to cut French neo-fascists’ ties to Russia

By
Alex Lantier

7 January 2017

Amid bitter political infighting in Washington over the foreign policy of the incoming Trump administration, sections of the US intelligence community have moved aggressively to cut across French neo-fascist presidential candidate Marine Le Pen’s ties to Russia.

The American media and the intelligence apparatus are whipping up a hysterical campaign accusing Moscow of intervening in the US presidential elections to secure a Donald Trump victory. As these same forces intervene in an effort to cut off financing to Le Pen’s National Front (FN) party and denounce Le Pen’s ties to Russia, the explosive geo-strategic rivalries underlying the campaign against Russia in the United States and Europe are emerging into view.

On December 18, the satirical Canard Enchaîné weekly revealed that Ohio Republican Rep. Mike Turner of the House Intelligence Committee had written a November 28 letter to US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, warning of the FN’s ties to Russia.

Turner noted that the FN “publicly acknowledged that it had received a $9.8 million loan from a Russian bank with links to the Kremlin, allegedly brokered by a sanctioned Russian Duma deputy, according to French press reporting. … In February 2016, the FN asked Russia for a $30 million load to fund the FN leader Marine Le Pen’s 2017 campaign.” Turner also noted Marine Le Pen’s support for Russian control of Crimea—after which the Washington-backed regime in Ukraine declared Le Pen persona non grata, banned from travel to Ukraine.

Finally, Turner urged Clapper to find “more details” on “this vast campaign” of “information war against the United States and other…

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