Yeah, that’s not exactly how Nixon phrased it, but even 1974’s comparatively innocent news readers understood what he meant. Those pious disavowals didn’t save him from leaving the Oval Office one step ahead of criminal prosecution.
There will be, no doubt, any amount of parsing and hair-splitting by tomorrow morning, crimesplaining that Dear Leader Trump never meant anything bad should happen to Ambassador Yovanovitch — it was just sarcasm, a thought experiment if you will, assuming he even understood what his less-evolved aides might’ve been suggesting. That didn’t work for Nixon, who was infinitely smarter and a whole lot more experienced than the figurehead in today’s Stupid Watergate. Even if Trump could be restrained from claiming full credit for every unsavory plot, I frankly doubt any of the current Oval Office Occupant’s minions and coatholders are anywhere near as loyal as Tricky Dick’s boys. The smartest ones left — low bar, that — are already talking to their lawyers. Or the feds.
The more I look over these texts, I am seriously worried they were planning to murder an American diplomat. https://t.co/vVBjCxY3LK
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) January 14, 2020
They took notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy. https://t.co/jalfJwTkzZ
— Malarksist Revolutionary (@agraybee) January 14, 2020
It's the mix of forces in the surveillance of Yovanovitch that is terrifying. Corrupt UKR prosecutors (mingling with a notorious mob-tied oligarch) who had plenty of reason to think the American President would back their play.
What did they think they could get away with?
— YYZedd (@Zeddary) January 15, 2020
As a former mafia prosecutor, this sure sounds like a mob hit was being planned on a public servant in a foreign country by associates of the POTUS. A POTUS who said she was “going to go through some things.” This takes Trump’s lawlessness & misogny to new level. https://t.co/Cx5S0u4vQP
— Mimi Rocah (@Mimirocah1) January 15, 2020
Someone does not dangle an innuendo of being able to orchestrate a hit before one has a reason to believe they actually could.
I’m with Malcolm Nance on this. https://t.co/AbfzOjqRhr
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) January 15, 2020
Many Ambassadors are used to hearing about threats and various malign actors surveilling us. It’s the fact that it was Americans plotting- associates of the President- that takes this just beyond.
— Dana Shell Smith (@AmbDana) January 15, 2020
I cannot even imagine the rage at the State Department that a Republican donor was coordinating surveillance on a US Ambassador, and that maybe the FSB was involved.
JFC. These Parnas texts are WHOA.https://t.co/XEfcoXZRsR pic.twitter.com/NFhaxXTzAp
— Mieke Eoyang (@MiekeEoyang) January 15, 2020
Scary. pic.twitter.com/6d55rjik4l
— Katie Phang (@KatiePhang) January 14, 2020
“Yovanovitch swore to tell the whole truth, but to tell the whole truth is to terrify everyone. To tell the whole truth is to say what officials gloss over but what citizens can see: This is a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government." https://t.co/OOhBLkKRRc
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) January 14, 2020
BREAKING: Ambassador Yovanovitch calls for an investigation into whether she was surveilled.
Her lawyer Lawrence Robbins tells @NBCNews the notion her movements were being monitored is "disturbing" pic.twitter.com/aZLISjtieB— Josh Lederman (@JoshNBCNews) January 15, 2020
Adam L Silverman
Oopsie!
And yes, that’s Victoria Toensing’s reflection in the mirror.
divF
Will no one rid me of this meddlesome
priestambassador?jl
@Adam L Silverman: They’ve been saying that they barely know each other, never talked, right? Surely, she just sat down a moment to finish her espresso and Giuliani had know idea who she was. She probably just asked if the seat was free.
jl
We’ll, be hearing BS tomorrow about ‘whack’ might mean hitting somebody with a stick. Just to get their attention, not bother them really. Yep, probably did mean that in this case. Sure enough. Then it won’t be ‘news’ anymore. I hope not but that might happen.
Emma from FL
With my training as both a historian and a librarian, I have always considered myself beyond being surprised by anything human beings do. But they got me. Not that they were doing it — but that they seem so casual and careless about it.
Adam L Silverman
What needs to be understood here is that the Russians, specifically the Russian security services, routinely harass American diplomatic personnel in Russia. Breaking in and tossing their apartments so it’s clear someone was there. Including taking a dump in the middle of the living room and leaving it there. Actually stalking them in an overt manner. One was actually stalked back to the embassy and then jumped and beaten up just outside US Embassy Moscow so that the US security at the embassy, including the Marine guards, could see it, but couldn’t do anything about it. Yovanovitch, despite being assigned to US Embassy Kyiv, would know this.
Jinchi
Reading those texts, I simultaneously feel a mixture of horror and exasperation. Who is stupid enough to text this stuff? I know I should be thankful, but it’s embarassing that this country is being run by such a collection of incompetent morons.
NotMax
“We had to do it in order to prevent imminent diplomacy.”
//
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman:
So, we can officially rule out “vampire” then? I guess that leaves ghoul as the next most likely option.
PsiFighter37
Maybe Nancy should hold off a little longer on transmission so conspiracy charges can be added to the articles of impeachment.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: Luke Harding, Guardian reporter, asked the wrong questions of the wrong people
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s outrageous and disgusting behavior on the part of Russia. All nations should expel their diplomats
@PsiFighter37:
Seconded. This is serious. An American president apparently was aware of, and may have directed, some extralegal operation to spy on a US ambassador to potentially murder her. If he could do it her, he could do it to anyone
Cheryl Rofer
I go out for a few hours and come back to this.
More about Robert Hyde.
What’s amazing is the cast of thousands. (Besides the mobbish behavior and generally bad judgment.)
West of the Rockies
This feels different. Stories come and go, and we say, “This is big! Let’s see Trump explain this one!” And the story eventually loses momentum. (Multiple accusations of rape, Stormy Daniels, Charlottesville…)
This story is crazy pants stuff.
Adam L Silverman
@PsiFighter37: People, especially reporters, seem to be interpreting that she’s having a meeting with her caucus tomorrow about next steps as she’s going to be sending the impeachment charges over tomorrow. That may be a plausible interpretation, but it may not be the most probable one especially given the release of the Parnas documents this evening.
Jinchi
When Trump was quoted on the call with the Zelensky saying Yovanovich was “bad news” and “was going to go through some things”, I assumed he was trying to give the Ukrainians the green light to assault her.
I admit to being amazed that he apparently had his own people planning an attack.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Given that I’ve forwarded three news reports of Russian or Russian news media affiliated individuals falling out of windows in Russia over the past several days, the threat here is really explicit.
patrick II
I want the testimony of the person who called the Yovanovich to warn her and how she knew Yovanovitch was in danger.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: Former Marine. Attorney. Child support payment deadbeat.
Adam L Silverman
Ruh Roh
Cheryl Rofer
Well, I’m going to bed. I’m sure it will all be sorted out in the morning.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Defenestration. It’s not just for Bohemia anymore.
Sebastian
You can bet your lunch money that Nancy knew about this and timed sending impeachment to the Senate right with this.
Holy shit, she threw Turtle a cartoonish bomb with lit fuse. Hahhaha Damn, this woman is ice cold. I absolutely love it!
Amir Khalid
Letting one’s administration plot to murder any government employee, be they postal clerk or ambssador, strikes me as grounds for removing POTUS from office and criminal prosecution immediately thereafter.
Anne Laurie
If fish had words, they wouldn’t have one for water. Trump and all the two-bit global scam artists around him ‘think’ in a shared shorthand of crime-story tropes, some genuine, but mostly tales invented or retold for profit. They seem to have genuinely confused the bidniz-speak marketeering slang of the semi-legit global ‘developers’ with the shiny Hollywood images of the Godfather or the Bourne Identity. Hard guys, big swingin’ dicks, doing the stuff that needs to be done, y’know.
To use a related analogy: Somebody left loaded guns where the middle-schoolers could find them. Nobody was more surprised than the middle-schoolers when the smoke cleared and the EMTs arrived…
chris
Seems everyone knows Robert Hyde. Gonna be hard to distract from this one, brace for impact!
Wag
@Sebastian:
I agree 100%. This is the explanation for the delay in sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate that makes the most sense. Nancy suspected she’d be handed a grenade with the pin pulled if she was patient enough. Her patience paid off, and will blow up McConnell when she blithely tosses it into his lap at a time of her choosing.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
@NotMax:
It seems Trump isn’t the only one on Putin’s payroll, eh McCarthy?
Didn’t know that Hyde was also running for Congress in Connecticut’s 5th district, in addition to being a Trump donor. It’s only a D+2 district, but Dems have controlled it for several years now.
patrick II
When I read that Hyde had been arrested at a Trump resort claiming that there was a hit on him I thought it some sort of mental episode. But now it seems that he may have been willing to put a hit, or at least some physical harm to an U.S. ambassador, I think it was not so for from his normal experience. Maybe he thought his turn had come.
piratedan
@Amir Khalid: well sure… if it was a Democrat…. But we only have testimony, sworn statements, texts, and notes and corroborating witnesses… hardly a slam dunk when you take into account that the GOP leadership are fellow conspirators on different crimes….
Kent
@Sebastian: Yes. And who the fuck thinks that we would have been better off with…[checks notes] Martha Fudge or Tim Ryan as speaker over the past year. Seriously. Those were the challengers.
Adam L Silverman
@Adam L Silverman: And his Instagram account has been taken down. Imagine that?
The Dangerman
Seems to me a while back, when some really shitty news was about to come out about Trump, he droned the Iranian General.
So, what’s he got in store when it comes out he was party to popping an Ambassador?
I’m with Natasha Bertrand, Holy Shit. Just fucking arrest all of them and we’ll sort it out under President Pelosi.
Anne Laurie
It feels — correct me if I’m wrong — like Trump & his minions knew about this Russian standard, and thought they could ‘improve’ on sloppy Slavic intimidation tactics by actually having this ambassador who was giving them grief killed. Or, more likely, Trump thought it would impress his Russian master if he suggested killng one of our own, just to demonstrate his baddassery. (Not by threatening anyone Putin might have a use for, of course.) It’s the sort of galaxy-brain move that the one teenager in the Risk game that none of the other players really like or trust would come up with — only plausible to an immature character with no understanding that other people have agency.
NotMax
@Anne Laurie
Flash from the past.
CaseyL
A couple of random thoughts:
The GOP could get what they want – Stone Age judges and oligarchic economy – from Pence, without the Russian Mafia baggage. Then why don’t they give Trump the heave ho? The only possible reasons are: 1) They’re ALL owned by the Russian mob, or; 2) They’re all under threat of having their loved ones maimed or murdered. Maybe both, depending on the individual GOP-gangster.
All this shit coming out because Parnas released the documents. Why would he do that? Putin may decide Trump is no longer useful to him, and gave Parnas the go-ahead.
One thing is very clear: the entire GOP needs to be destroyed and the ground beneath it salted.
Sebastian
Fuck impeachment. At this point we have to demand immediate resignation.
Adam L Silverman
@Anne Laurie: Rudy, Lev, Toensing, her husband, and Fruman were all tied into Dimitro Firtash, the Ukrainian oligarch and Russian mob member who runs Putin’s attempts to take over Ukraine’s petroleum and natural gas industry. Firtash works for Semion Megolovich, the head of the Russian mob. Megolovich works for Putin. As does Yevgeni Progozhin who works both for Megolovich in the Russian mob and for Putin as his caterer, as well as the guy paying for Putin’s troll farm the Information Research Agency. Progozhin also owns and runs the Wagner Group, which is Russia’s largest mercenary company and used by Putin when he needs to project power, but doesn’t have the military resources to do so and doesn’t want his fingerprints directly on whatever it is he’s doing. So the question being asked right now is whether the Wagner Group was involved here. Also, had they suborned someone working on the country team who could provide information on Yovanovitch’s movements and activities based on what Hyde was texting. Foggy Bottom is going to be on full boil by tomorrow morning.
FlipYrWhig
@Wag: I’ve been wondering for a few days why all the Democrats kept saying “witnesses AND documents.” Maybe these were the documents.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
I wonder why the Nixon Admin never had plans to off Hunter S Thompson? Wasn’t taken seriously by the greater public around the time?
But that’s very shocking and something I never knew the Nixon admin was capable off. Is it known whether Nixon ever knew about this?
Sturgeonmouth
Until moments ago, CNN had a Cillizza piece headlined:
Analysis: Pelosi gambled and lost
It was directly above multiple headlines about Parnov’s documents. It’s gone now. Glad I got a screenshot.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Adam L Silverman:
When my sister was an FSO in Moscow, they left the dump in her freezer.
And yes, the harassment of American government personnel, especially diplomats and embassy employees, is relentless. Folks posted there have pushed their superiors for many years to push back, and there’s never been a great explanation for why we just can’t.
piratedan
This is what I would like to see…. I would like to see all of our Democratic Senators and Congresspeople and those members of the 4th Estate who are not in the pocket of our current Fascist Friendly administration and their enablers, approach their GOP brethren and simply ask, at what point is “the line” crossed? Okay, extortion of a foreign government is apparently not a bridge too far for you, but plotting/authorizing/condoning an assassination/assault on our own diplomats? Is that okay now too?
If nothing else, perhaps it would clearly delineate who is in whose employ.
Adam L Silverman
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Shitsicle. Not surprising.
Bill Arnold
@Sturgeonmouth:
CNN needs to sideline that one.
(And a few others.)
Adam L Silverman
NotMax
@oku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Know the specifics under consideration? Probably not.
Know exactly what plotting he had set in motion? Absolutely.
Adam L Silverman
@Adam L Silverman:
Hyde is asserting that they’ve suborned someone inside the embassy. So either a local employed there or someone on the country team. Right now the entire Regional Security Officer corps at the State Department is pulling their hair out!
prostratedragon
@chris:
A very literary scandal (that word seems far too small): first Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, now Zelig, subbustrated by either R and/or G.
prostratedragon
@Kent: Some day we can all faint with delayed relief at having dodged that bullet.
Martin
3) GOP voters want Trump and not Pence and will primary every last one of them.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
Why did Eisenhower pick this dick to be his VP, again?
MobiusKlein
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Makes me wonder if DNA should be saved from those deposits, collected, and analyzed.
And next time various sewer systems leaving the Russian Embassy have a match, just start expelling people until you get a match
Anya
@Adam L Silverman: I’ve heard this before and I always wondered why are we in Russia then if they are assulting our ambassadors. I mean, I get it that they are a geopolitical power broker and we can’t just cut our ties with them but how is this an acceptable way to treat diplomats?
Adam L Silverman
@Anya: You don’t let third rate powers push you around. The problem is that every administration for the past 20 years or so seems to have been happy letting Putin do this to our diplomatic corps in Russia. Every time it happens there should be a pushback.
Frankensteinbeck
@CaseyL: and @Martin:
4) “Fuck you, libtards.” Do not make the mistake of thinking that elected Republicans are any less driven by spite and white supremacy than their voters. Especially Mitch McConnell. Impeaching Trump would be giving Democrats a major victory, and they would rather hurt themselves than do that.
EDIT – I do want to back up Martin specifically that even to the evangelicals, Pence is not nearly as acceptable. He doesn’t deliver the rage fix. They want Trump’s pure, unrestrained, toxic narcissist Nazi assholery.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
When you say 20 years, does this include the Clinton admin?
eddie blake
@Adam L Silverman:
why can’t she just like, continue to send articles of impeachment to the senate on a weekly basis for the rest of the year as more information comes to light?
James E Powell
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
At the time, Thompson was the early 70s equivalent of a Top 10,000 blogger. He had a following, but it was in Rolling Stone, which was in no way a mainstream publication.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Ike needed to shore up his right flank and Dick Nixon was the guy to do that and keep Bob Taft at bay.
PJ
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Also, Thompson, while a fine, and sometimes brilliant, writer in his heyday, was not an investigative journalist and was not privy to inside information from the Nixon Administration – Deep Throat would never have approached him with info. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail is mostly long form profiles of candidates and events that any campaign journalist of the time could have covered, just delivered from Thompson’s perspective. He had insight into character, but he was no danger to any politician.
Martin
@Frankensteinbeck: I would also point out that there are worse things than losing your legislative seat – yet the GOP seems to keep shrinking that list with astonishing speed. Even the guys that are giving it up voluntarily can’t bring themselves to speak out.
The depth of the cowardice is just amazing.
opiejeanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): IIRC, Eisenhower didn’t like Nixon at all. I think he was forced on him as a running mate, back when there were no primaries or caucuses as we know them now, just smoke-filled rooms full of serious men choosing the candidates.
Chris T.
@Sturgeonmouth: I read that piece; his conclusion did not seem warranted even before this new stuff came out. Apparently he and/or his masters at CNN have realized this now.
Sloane Ranger
“Nothing to see here. POTUS has the right to terminate Ambassadors.”
Republican pundits/MAGA’ts?
JPL
What the crap is happening? I step away from the TV and computer for awhile, only to discover that the president wanted to whack an ambassador.
This is not normal.
Just One More Canuck
@divFthese guy as a are more like Scooby Doo villains, not Shakespeare villains
PaulWartenberg
We have recorded conversations of guys plotting to assault/attack/kidnap/maybe KILL a then-active US ambassador. This is what I’m understanding right now.
Why the hell aren’t all of them in handcuffs sitting in suicide watch jails awaiting trial dates?
zhena gogolia
Okay, the most consequential story of the past week (decade?) and it’s relegated to a middle-of-the-night post? I was sleeping!
zhena gogolia
@PaulWartenberg:
Because Pompeo and Barr are also mob goons.
zhena gogolia
@patrick II:
THIS IS MY POINT! Everybody wants to speculate about Lindsay Graham’s sexuality. He’s afraid of being whacked!
rp
Shouldn’t the title of this post be “Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?”
apocalipstick
@Anya: Perhaps because there’s a buck to be made in Mother Russia.
Sturgeonmouth
When Hyde texts, “wake up Yankees man”, is he referring to Parnas, or telling Parnas to wake up Giuliani?
Just Chuck
Assassinating an ambassador is an act of war. What’s that crime that consists of levying war against the United States?
opiejeanne
@Just Chuck: Could it be…. TREASON?