Page F4From§Eachthe early evening edition — 3 October 2026
THE ENVOYS' CUT
As it ran on the front
You will be looking for the law this breaks. Keep looking. No statute bars a president's own negotiators from being offered a stake in the thing they are negotiating, and that absence is not an oversight — not an oversight, you see, a specification.
What came to the table was a sale of Russian energy assets, raised by Putin himself, with Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff on the other side of it. Not a gift. A sale — and a sale wants consideration, which is to say something of value moving the other way to make the bargain hold. The report does not say what moves the other way. Do note what the two men carried into the room: the peace deal. Both of them. The president's son-in-law, and the special envoy who on the seventh of September reported "substantive progress."…
…(cont) On the fourteenth of September the president announced that "Ukraine has agreed not to hit Russian Energy targets," this after criticizing Zelensky for raising diesel prices with drone strikes on Russian oil refineries. Nineteen days later a sale of those assets ... is what is on the table.
Nothing here calls for a prosecutor. It calls for a bill of sale.
Paid in fruit, the man guards the orchard. The fruit is not picked yet.
“Run it in order: the president announces Ukraine agreed to stop hitting Russian energy targets, the refineries keep their value, and nineteen days later Putin is pitching a sale of Russian energy assets to the same two men brokering the peace. No statute says a president's negotiators cannot be offered a piece of what they are negotiating. That is not a loophole, that is the floor plan — and the guy filling his tank pays for the terms either way.”
“Jared and Steve are doing the country a favor here, and look, there is no statute, and where there is no statute there is no issue. Did I say no issue? I said no violation. Putin raises things in every meeting — raising is not taking, no one has signed anything, and meanwhile the energy-target standstill is holding, which you would think somebody at the Times might have led with.”
The receipts
Trump promised to settle the Ukraine war within 24 hours of taking office, on 53 separate occasions, CNN counted CNN fact check, 25 April 2025 (all 53 instances)
U.S.-Russia Talks on Ukraine Now Involve an Oil Deal Tied to Trump AlliesPresident Vladimir V. Putin brought up a sale of Russian energy assets with President Trump’s envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, pushing a deal that raises new questions about conflicts of interest.
· Trump says Ukraine and Russia have agreed to energy target ceasefire from the morgue, 14 Sep 2026
· Witkoff touts 'substantive progress' after peace talks with Ukraine, Russia from the morgue, 7 Sep 2026
· Trump envoys hail ‘encouraging’ talks in Kyiv to end Russia-Ukraine war from the morgue, 6 Sep 2026
· Witkoff, Kushner to visit Moscow and Kyiv in renewed push to end Russia-Ukraine war from the morgue, 4 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.