Russia was against the candidacy for the post of US Secretary of State - report

As writes edition Newyorker, Russia was against Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney becoming President Trump's Secretary of State. This was reported by Christopher Steele, a British spy whose report became the basis for an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections.

Photo: Facebook / Mitt Romney

Reportedly, the report is based only on one source, a high-ranking Russian official who reported that an employee of the Russian Foreign Ministry said that the Kremlin had blocked Mitt Romney’s candidacy for the post of state secretary.

Steele's note says that Russia used “unspecified channels” to ask Trump to choose a secretary of state who would remove “sanctions related to Ukraine,” according to the report. The Kremlin also reportedly wanted the new US Secretary of State to settle disagreements with Russia over Syria, where the Russian government supported President Bashar Assad in a multi-year civil war.

Romney was reportedly being considered for the post of head of the State Department and met with Trump during the transition period.

Rex Tillerson, who led the joint business as CEO of Exxon Mobil, in his work as secretary showed the more traditional positions of Republicans, and was eventually appointed to the post of Secretary of State in early December.

It is unclear what factors played a major role in the final decision to choose Tillerson.

Romney, who last month announced he was running for election to the Senate from the state of Utah, took a tough stance against Russia during his presidential campaign of 2012. He famously argued with former President Obama during debates, during which Obama chided Romney for his views on Russian aggression.

Christopher Steele is a former British intelligence officer. He left MI6 in 2009 to found commercial intelligence firm Orbis. Shortly after its creation, Orbis began working with Fusion GPS, a Washington-based political and business investigations company that commissioned the 2016 Trump investigation.

From 2014 to 2016, he wrote over a hundred reports on Russia and Ukraine, which were ordered by private clients, but were widely distributed in the State Department and circulated between the administration of Secretary of State John Kerry and his assistant, Victoria Nuland.

Steele produced a total of 16 reports for Fusion from June to early November 2016, but his sources went silent in early July as Trump's ties to Russia came under scrutiny. The Guardian.

February 16 US Department of Justice published accusations against 13 of Russians who intervened in the presidential elections and in general the political process in the States.

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