Dear Michael; Yesterday, while watching golf, I googled members of the Spogoli Institute and started with you. I was bowled over. To start with, I have been looking for you for years. I wanted to blog on the guy Putin wanted to interrogate – that Trump agreed to handover!. I sent an e-mail to Amy Zegart that is applicable to what I am asking you to do. I am kin to Ian Fleming nd began a James Bond novel that was inspired by Rena Easton of Bozeman Montana. She is the widow of Admiral Ian Easton of the British Defense Staff Washington. Do you know this organization?. I have been composing a new chapter that will take place at the Norte Dame de Namur campus that Stanford wants to purchase. I want you to represent me and my historic families’ interests in this matter. I have watched you on the Rachel Maddow show, and trust you. That you lived in Bozeman Montana is key to my novel. You have altered the direction it is taking. The claim by McCarthy and Pence that Biden has weaponized the Justice Department by indicting Trump on Espionage charges, is Karmic Justice – and more! Was Mike Pence all for handing you over to Putin – who might have hanged you?
Sincerely
John Presco
President: Belmont Soda Works
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/19/trump-putin-interrogate-us-ambassador-michael-mcfaul
The White House has declined to rule out accepting a Russian proposal to question on US soil American people – including the former ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul – sought by the Kremlin for “illegal activities”.
The proposal arose at Monday’s summit between the US president Donald Trump and the Russian president Vladimir Putin, and any decision by Washington to assist with an adversary’s prosecution of former government employees overseas would be a stunning shift in US policy, especially as it could violate the international legal principle of diplomatic immunity.
“The president is going to meet with his team and we’ll let you know when we have an announcement on that,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told a news briefing. Sanders added that Trump “said it was an interesting idea … He wants to work with his team and determine if there is any validity that would be helpful to the process”.
Sanders’s comments prompted outrage in the US, including from McFaul, a vocal Putin critic.
“When Trump says Russia is no longer targeting America, that’s not how this American feels,” McFaul wrote on Twitter.
“Putin is most certainly targeting and intimidating me. And I’m an American.”
Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
Russian request for an interrogation[edit]
On July 17, 2018, the Prosecutor General of Russia announced that it was seeking to question McFaul, amongst other Americans, in relation to its investigation of allegations made against Bill Browder.[26][27] This followed a request Vladimir Putin made to President Donald Trump during the summit in Helsinki. In a White House news conference two days later, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump described Putin’s suggestion as an “interesting idea” and Trump “wants to work with his team and determine if there is any validity that would be helpful to the process”.[28][29]
Dear Amy Zegart; Did you know Ursula von der Layen attended Stanford University and born her children while getting a degree? Stanford is looking at buying the Norte Dame de Namur in Belmont where I was snubbed and ridiculed by the Historic Society after I showed them proof I am descended from Carl Janke who brought six portable houses around the Cape in 1848. These are Prussians, who offered by purchase California for seven million dollars. My kin may have been agents for this purchase – that was nixed when gold was discovered. In 2021 I suggested a School of Espionage move in to Namur. Yesterday in search of historians at Stanford – I find you! You, Ms. Zegart – are up! If you are drinking coffee right now, put that cup down, and look around at the way your reality – used to be! You have passed between the Two Pine Trees of Belmont, and the bronze doors to the Janke-Stuttmeister crypt in Colma. Carl Janke and his wife were dug up from their graves in the middle of the night, and ended up in the Union graveyard in Redwood City. If Dr. Stuttmeister knew where they were, he would have interred them in our crypt, where he put Carl’s bloodline – after they were evicted from the Oddfellow’s cemetery! I am claiming Twn Pines Park, because in looking at you – and all of this intrigue – I saw The Light shining through. The Truth came in between the two trees, and falling upon my beloved ancestors.
In 2018, after discovering I am kin to Ian Fleming, via Liz Taylor, I began my own Bond novel ‘The Royal Janitor. I researched what spies do. They look at a lot of data, and analyze it. In your book, you attest to this, and then say spy novels, and fake spies, ruin the real work.. I had the stars of my Bond book become lovers, and then get married after seeing a video of Putin’s Cossacks whipping members of Pussy Riot. I knew I was throwing away an opportunity to have a pay day, but I am driven to do the right thing. I suspect you are too.
I suggest you approach the President of Sandford and ask for the funds to conduct a investigation – that will include us meeting in Belmont to look for evidence I am the rightful Heir of Twin Pines Park. I believe we are destined to author a book, or two. I see your husband is a screenwriter. I suggest you both take good notes. I was poised to send Vice President Kamala Harris the second part of my message – that will now include this e-mail. When I mentioned her to the Belmont Historic Society in March of 2021, there was a conspiracy to get rid of me – and take my infraction for another book. I have sent messages to the Mayor of Belmont and the City Council. I am feared!
I believe you are Victoria Rosemond Bond, and I am Miriam Starfish Christling, Here they are having breakfast. Carl Janke founded a German Theme Park that may be the first in California. Walt Disney was inspired by Fairyland in Oakland. Putin and Patriarch Kirill invaded Ukraine to do harm to the LGBTQ folks. Consider Governor DeSantis – doing the same! Zelenskyy is in Japan at the G-7. as I type.
Your destiny awaits you. This e-mil will self-destruct. You made the cover of my newspaper for the arts. Oh. I forgot. My Muse, Rena Easton inspired me to write a Bond novel because in a letter she said she committed a million poems to memory. She had two children by Admiral Ian Easton, head of the British Defense Staff Washington. Have you heard of this agency? I am the Union of The Fake and The Real – Spy! Your study – is flawed! Don’t worry. We can fixt it! Here is your chance to work – in the field!
John Presco
President: Royal Rosamond Press
Montana Alpenglow
Posted on April 22, 2023 by Royal Rosamond Press
McFaul stepped down in February after two tough years as ambassador to return to his job as a top political science professor at Stanford University. He gave a public talk Thursday at Montana State University on the Ukraine-Russia conflict and what it means for the United States.
On July 19, shortly before the Senate was to vote on a resolution opposing the idea, Sanders stated that Trump “disagreed” with the Putin proposal.[30] The Senate approved the non-binding “sense of the Senate” resolution on a 98–0 vote; it stated that no current or former diplomat or other government employee should be made available to the Russians for interrogation.[31]
Michael Anthony McFaul (born October 1, 1963)[1] is an American academic and diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014. McFaul is currently the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor in International Studies in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University, where he is the Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also a Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.[2][3][4][5] He is also a contributing columnist at The Washington Post.[6] Prior to his nomination to the ambassadorial position, McFaul worked for the U.S. National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President and senior director of Russian and Eurasian affairs.[7] In that capacity, he was the architect of U.S. President Barack Obama‘s Russian reset policy.
Early life and education[edit]
Born in Glasgow, Montana, McFaul was raised in Butte and Bozeman, where his father worked as a musician and music teacher.[8] While attending Bozeman High School, McFaul participated in policy debate; his partner was current U.S. Senator Steve Daines (R) of Montana.
While an undergraduate at Stanford University he spent time in the Soviet Union, first in the summer of 1983 studying Russian at the Leningrad State University (now Saint Petersburg State University), and then a semester in 1985 at Pushkin Institute in Moscow.[8] He earned a B.A. in international relations and Slavic languages and an M.A. in Slavic and East European Studies from Stanford in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he earned a DPhil in international relations from St John’s College, Oxford, in 1991.[7] He wrote his dissertation on U.S. and Soviet intervention in revolutionary movements in southern Africa.[8]
McFaul received an honorary doctorate from Montana State University during the university’s fall commencement in 2015.[9][10]
Career[edit]
In 1994, McFaul and one-time close friend and colleague Sergey Markov helped found the Moscow Carnegie Center.[8]
McFaul’s past engagement with Russian political figures included a denunciation of him in 1994 by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party and a member of the State Duma (the Russian parliament),[11] and a subsequent shooting incident in which a shot was fired into McFaul’s office window in Moscow.[11] Two years later, Alexander Korzhakov, a confidante of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, invited McFaul to the Kremlin during the 1996 Russian presidential election, because of McFaul’s research on electoral politics.[11]
Professor of political science[edit]
President Barack Obama is briefed during a flight to Moscow, 2009
Barack Obama, Joe Biden and McFaul with former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev, March 20, 2009
In his capacity as a professor of political science at Stanford University, McFaul was the director of the university’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.[7] A Hoover Institution Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, McFaul is a Democrat who was the architect of U.S. President Barack Obama‘s policy on Russia.[12]
Russia advisor to Obama (2009-2011)[edit]
McFaul (end on right) at meeting between U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia in March 2011
In 2009, McFaul joined the Barack Obama administration as a senior adviser in Washington, D.C., where he was the architect of the so-called “Russian reset” policy.
In March 2011, McFaul attended, in his official White House capacity, the meeting between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, which Biden characterized in his memoir as “argumentative.”[13] The two met again in a 2021 summit.[14]
Ambassador to Russia (2011-2014)[edit]
Secretary of State John Kerry and McFaul tour Red Square in Moscow on May 7, 2013
In November 2011, Obama nominated McFaul to be the 7th post-Soviet United States Ambassador to the Russian Federation. On December 17, 2011, the United States Senate confirmed McFaul by unanimous consent.[15] McFaul became the first non-career diplomat to be the U.S. ambassador to Russia.[12] He arrived in Russia just as huge protests were erupting over Vladimir Putin‘s resumption of the presidency. As ambassador he was accused of “fomenting revolution” by the Russian state media, meeting with Russian pro-democracy activists and commenting frequently on Twitter in English and Russian.[16] In his Washington Post article though he argued that these meetings were in line with Obama’s policy.[17]
In a 2012 interview for the news portal Slon.ru, McFaul described himself as “specialist on democracy, anti-dictator movements, revolutions”.[18]
On January 17, 2012, soon after McFaul was appointed the new United States Ambassador to Russia and arrived in Moscow to assume his post, opposition politicians and civil activists visited the Embassy of the United States in Moscow. At the entrance to the embassy, they were encountered by pro-Kremlin activists. The visitors to McFaul included Yevgeniya Chirikova (environment activist), Boris Nemtsov (leader of the People’s Freedom Party at the time; assassinated in 2015), Lev Ponomarev (human rights activist), Sergey Mitrokhin (leader of Yabloko party), Oksana Dmitriyeva (deputy head of A Just Russia), Lilia Shibanova (head of the GOLOS Association elections monitor group). Leonid Kalashnikov from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation also attended.[19]
Reaction to the visit was mixed: then president Dmitry Medvedev, in his public comments at Moscow State University, largely exonerated McFaul by saying that meeting with opposition figures was a routine occurrence, although he warned the new U.S. ambassador that he was on Russian soil and should respect Russian political sensibilities.[20] The incident sparked a highly negative reaction in the state-controlled Russian media, which accused him of conspiring with the opposition, but was appreciated by activists and social media users.[16]
McFaul announced his resignation as ambassador to Russia on February 4, 2014, effective after the Sochi Olympics.[21] John F. Tefft was confirmed as the next ambassador to Russia.[22]
Return to academia (2014-present)[edit]
A House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on “U.S. Policy Toward Putin’s Russia,” on June 14, 2016. McFaul testified as Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, center left, sat behind him.
McFaul returned to Stanford as a professor of political science. He also became a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He continued to be involved in geopolitics.[23] In October 2014, he stated that he believed the Russians continued to bug his and his wife’s cell phones in the United States.[24] In 2014 he was placed on the Kremlin’s sanction list of people who are not allowed to enter Russia.[16][25]
Russian request for an interrogation[edit]
On July 17, 2018, the Prosecutor General of Russia announced that it was seeking to question McFaul, amongst other Americans, in relation to its investigation of allegations made against Bill Browder.[26][27] This followed a request Vladimir Putin made to President Donald Trump during the summit in Helsinki. In a White House news conference two days later, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump described Putin’s suggestion as an “interesting idea” and Trump “wants to work with his team and determine if there is any validity that would be helpful to the process”.[28][29]
On July 19, shortly before the Senate was to vote on a resolution opposing the idea, Sanders stated that Trump “disagreed” with the Putin proposal.[30] The Senate approved the non-binding “sense of the Senate” resolution on a 98–0 vote; it stated that no current or former diplomat or other government employee should be made available to the Russians for interrogation.[31]
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine[edit]
In 2022, following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, McFaul and Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andrii Yermak headed an expert group called the Yermak-McFaul Expert Group on Russian Sanctions, which developed an individual sanctions roadmap with plans to tighten sanctions against Russia.[32]
McFaul debated the Russian invasion with John Mearsheimer in May 2022. McFaul has taken a position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine identifying Putin as a culprit in conducting the invasion of Ukraine against the position of Mearsheimer that Putin is pursuing a realist geopolitical plan to secure Russian national interests in the presence of perceived threats from an expanding NATO.[33]
Books[edit]
McFaul was already in 2011 the author of more than 20 books,[12] amongst which are:
- Post-communist Politics: Democratic Prospects In Russia And Eastern Europe (1993)
- The Troubled Birth of Russian Democracy: Parties, Personalities, and Programs (1993)
- Understanding Russia’s 1993 Parliamentary Elections: Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy (1995)
- Russia’s 1996 Presidential Election: The End of Polarized Politics (1997)
- Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin (2001)
- Between Dictatorship and Democracy: Russian Post-Communist Political Reform (2010)
- Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin (2015)
- From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia (2018)
Political positions[edit]
In 2003 McFaul supported regime change in Iraq.[34]
After the 2016 presidential election, he became a regular commentator on MSNBC and social media, and was frequently critical of the policies and actions of President Donald Trump with regard to Russia.[16]
McFaul supported the Iran nuclear deal.[35]
In July 2019, McFaul wrote that Communist Party of China‘s officials “champion the advantages of their system — an ability to undertake massive infrastructure projects, the capacity to manage income inequalities and a commitment to harmony in government and society. In contrast, polarized U.S. politics in the Trump era seem to impede any major initiative, be it infrastructure development or addressing income inequality.”[36]
Recognition[edit]
Coit D. Blacker called McFaul “the leading scholar of his generation, maybe the leading scholar, on post-Communist Russia” and a Stanford news release said his knowledge of Russia “was an important resource to politicians. He advised President George W. Bush on his dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin“.[11][37]
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