NBC News: Trump Chooses Rex Tillerson for Secretary of StateTillerson
has ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin that go back almost two decades. He was awarded the country’s Order of Friendship and as recently as 2015 visited with officials in Putin’s inner circle. That connection could make him a useful bridge between the Russian leader and Trump, who has repeatedly said he’d seek a more cooperative relationship with Moscow.
Sen. John McCain on Saturday that's concerning.
"You have to examine it. You want to give the president of the United States the benefit of the doubt because the people have spoken, but
Vladimir Putin is a thug, a bully and a murderer, and anybody who describes him as anything else is lying," McCain said.
"
We cannot have an accommodation with the Russians until they understand what Ronald Reagan taught them and that is peace through strength. Right now we have no peace and we have no strength. I don't know what Mr. Tillerson's relationship with Vladimir Putin was, but I'll tell you it is a matter of concern to me," McCain said.
Under Tillerson's leadership, Russia became Exxon’s single biggest exploration theater as the company amassed drilling rights across tens of millions of acres, dwarfing its holdings in its home country, formerly its largest drilling opportunity, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
When the Putin regime forced Royal Dutch Shell Plc and other foreign investors to cede control of a massive gas export project on Sakhalin Island in 2007, Exxon’s holdings in the same region remained intact and untouched by the government.
http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Tillerson-Secretary-State/2016/12/10/id/763271/
