Anti-Russian war-mongering dominates Senate hearing on Trump nominee for secretary of state

 

Anti-Russian war-mongering dominates Senate hearing on Trump nominee for secretary of state

By
Andre Damon

12 January 2017

Wednesday’s Senate confirmation hearing for Rex Tillerson, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, took the form of an anti-Russian witch-hunt, with senators from both parties demanding that the nominee, the former CEO of Exxon Mobil, declare Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal and murderer.

Tillerson, while distancing himself from the more hysterical statements of some senators, took an aggressive line against Russia, declaring it a “danger” to the United States and criticizing President Barack Obama for not doing enough to retaliate against Russia following the secession of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

The appointment of Tillerson, the multi-millionaire former CEO of the world’s largest energy corporation, embodies the oligarchic character of Trump’s cabinet, which is packed with multi-millionaire and billionaire business executives committed to expanding the wealth of the US financial elite at the expense of the working classes of the United States and the world.

This, however, was not of concern to the Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Their opposition was focused entirely on the reluctance of Tillerson and Trump to endorse the campaign against Russia that has been underway since the eve of the Democratic National Convention last July.

At that time, the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign sought to divert attention from damaging revelations contained in leaked Democratic emails by accusing Russia of hacking their computers and arranging for WikiLeaks to publish the internal communications. On this basis, the Democrats sought to outflank the billionaire right-winger…

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