title:  BUSTED: Trump’s Secretary Of State Pick Is A Director Of A Russian Oil Subsidiary
text: It turns out that Rex Tillerson s ties to Russia are even deeper than previously known.Last week, Donald Trump named the Exxon CEO as his choice for Secretary of State, demonstrating once again that he is beholden to Russia and Vladimir Putin.Trump has been under fire for weeks for being too friendly with Russia in the wake of a conclusion by our intelligence community that Russia meddled in our election.Trump was criticized throughout his campaign for having pro-Russia advisers and calling for lifting sanctions placed against Russia for invading Ukraine and seizing the Crimea. Trump has also mentioned withdrawing United States support of NATO.The choice of Tillerson has made all of those concerns even more heightened.Tillerson worked with the Russia government for years as Exxon CEO and is even good buddies with Putin, who awards Tillerson the Russia Order of Friendship just three years ago.It s pretty clear that Tillerson will be in Putin s pocket just like Trump and that is concerning to lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle.Now we are learning that Tillerson has even deeper ties to Russia, and it should automatically disqualify him from being Secretary of State.According to documents shared by the Center for Public Integrity, Tillerson is the director of an offshore Russian subsidiary oil company known as Exxon Neftegas, details that Trump and Tillerson conveniently failed to tell the public.Tillerson was appointed in 1998 as a director of Exxon Neftegas, an ExxonMobil subsidiary involved in oil and gas operations in Russia, according to leaked documents from the Bahamas corporate registry received by the German newspaper S ddeutsche Zeitung and shared with ICIJ.Tillerson was named president of Exxon Neftegas in the same year, but his position on the board of the Bahamas-based company has not been previously reported. The Bahamas  corporate tax rate is zero and it is known for financial secrecy, dubbed by The Economist this year as  the holdout  even among island havens for its reluctance to share tax data.So Tillerson has a major conflict of interest and it should concern every American. State Department policy can affect the stock value of oil companies, especially one as deeply tied to Russia as Exxon, of which Tillerson is a major holder.Donald trump may believe Tillerson is qualified to be Secretary of State, but his closeness to Putin and his various business deals with Russia and his direct involvement in the Russia oil industry make it clear that he should not be allowed to serve as America s top diplomat, especially at a time when Russia is looking to be more of a threat to our European allies. Our next Secretary of State needs to be working for us, not the Russians.Featured Image: Getty Images/Alexey Druzhinin