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You are here: Home / Archives for Politics / Trumpery / Trump-Russia

Trump-Russia

Bring On the New Messiah

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Trump didn’t like an actual-factual professional at acting DNI, because he told the truth:

A senior U.S. intelligence official told lawmakers last week that Russia wants to see President Trump reelected, viewing his administration as more favorable to the Kremlin’s interests, according to people who were briefed on the comments.

After learning of that analysis, which was provided to House lawmakers in a classified hearing, Trump grew angry at his acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, in the Oval Office, seeing Maguire and his staff as disloyal for speaking to Congress about Russia’s perceived preference. The intelligence official’s analysis and Trump’s furious response ­ruined Maguire’s chances of becoming the permanent intelligence chief, according to people familiar with the matter who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

So instead we get another clown, Richard Grennell, Ambassador to Germany and FoxNews asslicker for Trump. This guy is so qualified that he’s going to be acting DNI and keep his current job. I’m not surprised by that because incompetent managers like Trump like having one or two “go to” guys for everything, because figuring out who’s in charge of what is too difficult for them.

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Stone Sentencing! Plus, Debate Hot Takes Part Trois

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TPM is live-blogging the Roger Stone sentencing here. I hope Judge Berman Jackson throws the book at Ft. Lauderdale’s most enthusiastic Batman villain cosplayer, but she’s made some noises about sentencing guidelines that could be interpreted as not encouraging? Hard to tell. Anyhoo, I’ll pop back in with the final word when available unless someone beats me to it.

ETA: Sentence: 40 months, $20K fine.

Meanwhile, if you’re up for another debate hot take, mine is below the fold…

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Breaking rocks in the hot sun…

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It sucks that so many criminals associated with the 2016 election heist either evaded punishment altogether or got absurdly light sentences. That includes Trump, who remains in office despite the House Dems making an airtight case against him on two articles of impeachment.

We can and must work toward extracting a political toll on Trump and his Republican enablers in the upcoming election, and impeachment was an important part of that. But the lack of accountability under the law is disturbing regardless. Looks like Roger Stone may not be so lucky. Via TPM:

In a court filing Monday evening, prosecutors recommended to a federal judge that former Trump associate Roger Stone serves seven to nine years in prison for lying to Congress and witness tampering during the Russia probe.

“Roger Stone obstructed Congress’ investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, lied under oath, and tampered with a witness,” prosecutors wrote in the filing. “And when his crimes were revealed by the indictment in this case, he displayed contempt for this Court and the rule of law. For that, he should be punished in accord with the advisory Guidelines.”

Prosecutors argued in the filing that given how “Stone’s actions were not a one-off mistake” and that his false statements were not “made in the heat of the moment,” a prison sentence of  87 to 108 months — which is equivalent to around seven to nine years — is “appropriate.”

Not sure that’s enough time considering the gravity of the offense, but it’s not nothing either. Stone has tried the patience of Judge Amy Berman Jackson a thousand times with his bizarre antics during the trial. I hope it comes back to bite him on the ass later this month and that the perp walk is televised.

PS: I looked up Stone’s age to figure out if 7-9 years would amount to a life sentence in his case and was surprised to learn he’s 67. Since he looks like an indifferently drawn cartoon villain, it’s hard to guess his age from his appearance, but I figured he was pushing 80 because he’s been a boil on the butt of American democracy since I was a small child. Stone must have been a ratfuck prodigy.

ETA: I’ve been avoiding Trump’s Twitter feed for health reasons, but he weighed in on Stone’s sentence recommendation during the wee hours this morning:

This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!

Trump also retweeted some wingnut who said the proposed sentence would be “an unhinged miscarriage of justice.”

ETA2: Velveeta Voldemort gets mad, and Barr scurries to make it go away.

Out-fucking-rageous.

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No recollection…

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In the “Lumpy rug” thread below, valued commenter Sab pointed out that one reason GOP senators are so reluctant to hear from John Bolton and other witnesses in Trump’s impeachment trial is that they’ve got their own dirt to conceal. Right on cue, The Tampa Bay Times published a story about a conversation Trump had with Lev Parnas about Florida Senator Rick Scott.

The story is based on the 80-plus minute recording where Trump was heard making a thuggish-sounding order to “take out” a U.S. ambassador. At the same event, Trump also talked to Parnas about then-Governor Rick Scott, who was running against a long-time incumbent Democrat for the senate seat:

About halfway through the recording, Parnas mentioned he lived in Florida, prompting Trump to ask how Scott, then Florida’s governor, was faring in his U.S. Senate campaign.

“Rick Scott’s good,” said Parnas, who was indicted in October on charges that he and his business partner, Igor Fruman, steered hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions from foreign donors. Both are now key figures in Trump’s impeachment proceedings.

“Is he going to win?” Trump asks.

Parnas responded: “It’s going to be close, but I think we’re going to pull it out.”

He repeatedly referred to Scott’s election effort as “we,” suggesting an intimacy or involvement with the campaign. Parnas also told Trump: “We’re doing a fundraiser” for Scott in May and mentioned having lunch with former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, now one of Trump’s impeachment defense lawyers.

The article reviews the federal indictment of Parnas and fellow Giuliani-adjacent goon Fruman for illegally dropping hundreds of thousands of foreign-sourced dollars on Republican candidates. It recounts how the pair also contributed heavily as individuals and through their company to Scott and the current GOP governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis.

Coincidentally, DeSantis also had “no recollection” of meeting Parnas when the feds scooped Rudy’s pals up. DeSantis donated the funds he received from the pair to charity, as did Scott in the wake of the indictment. The article notes recent WSJ reporting that indicates Parnas turned over texts between himself and DeSantis to the House Democrats. I mean, who among us hasn’t carried on text conversations with complete strangers, right?

Meanwhile, Parnas’s attorney, Joseph Bondy, is tweeting out photos of his client with various GOP bigwigs and encouraging Republican senators to vote for witnesses and a fair trial. Here’s one from this morning:

Parnas, the Forrest Gump of Republican corruption, seems to have a lot of receipts. So yeah, good point, Sab. Any guesses on which Republican will get the next attack of amnesia?

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“If right doesn’t matter, we’re lost…”

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Here’s the end of Rep. Schiff’s brilliant closing remarks from last night’s impeachment trial:

At around the same time Schiff was reminding senators of their duty to protect this nation, Donald Trump pinned this bizarre, nonsensical picture to the top of his Twitter feed:

Our politics are cynical and debased and vicious and stupid. Otherwise, a crude, petty, demented crook like Trump would not be president. But as awful as things are, Americans like Adam Schiff are still rising to the occasion. As long as they do, there’s hope for better days.

Schiff’s entire 8-minute summary is here and well worth a listen if you missed it last night.

PS: Don’t forget to call your senators, especially if they’re Republicans: (202) 224-3121.

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Lobbest thou thy human hand grenade in the direction of thine foe…

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Here’s the stuff I’ve looked forward to the most: House Manager Schiff rubbing the assembled Republican senators’ noses in Trump and Giuliani’s Ukraine/DNC/Soros crackpottery:

I think Trump sincerely believes this bullshit since he’s dumb and aggrieved and he admires Putin. The Ukraine conspiracy theory is therefore irresistible since it suggests that Trump did TOO win fair and square without a boost from Putin and conveniently exculpates the latter so maybe they can hang out and swap tales of crushing underlings and bond over their shared impulse to aggressively bend scowling women to their iron will or whatever.

Giuliani may be a believer too, or perhaps he merely sensed the massive opportunities for graft in the Ukraine shakedown scheme. Regardless, most Senate Republicans know it’s all a load of bullshit. So the least they can do is sit there and squirm through every agonizing and embarrassing account of how Russia-driven propaganda informs U.S. foreign policy thanks to their party’s idiot president.

Open thread.

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Leaving it all on the field

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In a series of arcane rituals in a building that still has “cloak rooms,” Nancy Pelosi handed over the articles of impeachment to Mitch McConnell. She’s done her job by investigating and putting all the facts and testimony she was able to obtain in the face of unprecedented and unlawful obstruction on the table. Pelosi honored her obligation to the U.S. Constitution.

Now McConnell will do the opposite, ignoring his Constitutional obligations and doing everything in his power to bury and obfuscate the extraordinarily damning evidence against Trump and keep new evidence from being considered in the Senate trial, even as more material that exposes the scale of Trump’s criminality and corruption spills into public view in the media.

Since the deeply corrupt and cynical McConnell controls the process now, our best hope is to extract the highest possible political price from Republicans for shielding the administration’s criminal activities. Will we get witnesses? Not if McConnell can prevent it, but the strain is showing:

The House Managers will be reading the charges aloud in the Senate any minute now. Pelosi is under no illusions about what will happen next, so she’s leaving it all on the field and calling the whole corrupt bunch out:

Good for her. I’m represented by two corrupt Republican shit-stains in the U.S. Senate, but despite the futility of appealing to their nonexistent sense of duty, I plan to do so anyway. I also plan to convert my disgust for the sleazy, corrupt criminals who’ve captured our government into inspiration to kick them out at every level. That’s how regular people like us can leave it all on the field.

Open thread.

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The Parnas Document Dump

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I was distracted last night with the debate and cooking dinner and arguing with my husband about the thermostat and having a glass or five of red wine because I was COLD, so I first started trying to make sense of the Parnas document dump this morning. I confess I am still agog. This take by Charlie Pierce makes sense to me:

As it turns out, Marie Yovanovich was even braver than she looked in front of the House Intelligence Committee. And, as it turns out, Speaker Nancy Pelosi really knows what she’s doing. At the end of the day on Tuesday, just as the Democratic presidential candidates were taking the stage in Des Moines and the president* was taking the stage in Milwaukee, the House Democrats unleashed the hounds. They dumped a whole truckload of ugly from the files of Lev Parnas, Rudy Giuliani’s great and good “associate” and, apparently, one of the great sleazebags of the western world.

Also released were a bunch of texts from a Trumper in Connecticut named Robert Hyde. He was in touch with Parnas, and there were text messages between the two in which Hyde seemed to indicate that, at the very least, Yovanovich was being monitored—which, I will grant you, sounds a bit grandiose coming from a landscaper from Connecticut. Nevertheless, this stuff is positively ominous.

Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ! The ambassador’s account of being told to hop on the next plane for “security reasons” always seemed like a strange and unexplained facet of the hatchet job on Yovanovich’s reputation. This certainly puts an even more chilling spin on Trump’s “she’s gonna go through some things” comments on the “perfect call.”

Here’s another bizarre fact in this thoroughly crazypants scenario: the Connecticut landscaper/hit-man purveyor was Baker Acted (involuntarily taken into custody by authorities under Florida law for a psych eval) at Trump’s Florida golf club last year. David Corn at MoJo:

According to an “incident/investigation” report filed by the Doral, Florida, police department, on May 16, 2019, an officer was dispatched to the Trump National Doral Miami to deal with a “male in distress fearing for his life.” That man was Hyde. The report noted that Hyde explained to the police officer that “he was in fear for his life, was set up and that a hit man was out to get him. Mr. Hyde spoke about e-mails he sent that may have placed his life in jeopardy. Mr. Hyde explained several times that he was paranoid that someone was out to get him.”

The report stated that Hyde cited “a variety of different names, contacts and provided information in reference to why he felt his life was in danger.” After being taken into custody by the police, according to the report, “Mr. Hyde continued to act paranoid telling us not to stop next to certain vehicles…[H]e explained that he was scared due to several painting workers and landscape workers trying to do harm to him because they weren’t working. Additionally Mr. Hyde explained that his computer was being hacked by Secret Service. And then went on to further explain that the secret service [sic] was arrival [sic] on the premises watching him.”

What in the wide world of fuck? It’s tempting, if only for the sake of one’s own sanity, to surmise Hyde is just a random nutbag who wasn’t really commissioned by the president’s personal attorney to at least surveil — if not actually harm — a U.S. ambassador abroad. But, as in the case of Rudy Giuliani’s henchmen, including Parnas, there are tons of photos of Hyde with Trump, Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka, Giuliani, etc. Hyde has also donated tens of thousands of dollars to Trump and other Republicans. It seems to be a pattern, no?

Anyhoo, even aside from the increasingly alarming and accumulating evidence that Trump is running the federal government for his personal and political benefit via mafia-style shakedowns and intimidation tactics, the Parnas document dump blows multiple absurd impeachment defenses right out of the water. Here’s an excerpt of Neal Katyal and Joshua A. Geltzer summarizing that aspect in The Post:

Americans who have been wondering why President Trump has taken the extraordinary step of trying to block every document from being released to Congress in his impeachment inquiry need wonder no longer. The new documents released Tuesday evening by the House Intelligence Committee were devastating to Trump’s continuing — if shifting — defense of his Ukraine extortion scandal, just days before his impeachment trial is likely to begin in the Senate. These new documents demolish at least three key defenses to which Trump and his allies have been clinging: that he was really fighting corruption when he pressured Ukraine on matters related to the Biden family; that Hunter Biden should be called as a witness at the Senate impeachment trial; and that there’s no need for a real, honest-to-goodness trial in the Senate.

They’re right, although the evidence the House Democrats cobbled together in the face of unprecedented obstruction suggested that weeks ago, and Trump’s enablers have been unmoved. Still, WTF, fellow citizens? The wily Pelosi — who will go down in history as one of the most effective and consequential Speakers of the House ever — will transmit the articles to the Senate today.

As MisterMix noted, Pelosi has already boxed McConnell in (boxed turtle?) on summary dismissal and witnesses — either he allows a trial with witnesses, or he presides over such a flagrant cover-up that it may cost him his gavel, which is certainly more precious to him than that son of a bitch Trump.

I’m speculating here, and maybe I’m totally wrong, but won’t people want to get to the bottom of this shit, even at least some Republican voters in red states? Perhaps not, but maybe?

In any case, can this latest Parnas business be raised in the trial? It’s material to Trump’s claims, as Katyal and Geltzer argue, so I don’t see why not. Also, I don’t know which shoes will drop off the centipede next, but is it possible the House Democrats have even more stuff under wraps? I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all, and it’s way too early for wine.

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Every accusation is a confession.

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Have we done this one yet? It’s all over Twitter, and it is amazeballs:

Here’s a transcript for those who wish to avoid the horror of watching Trump’s slimy meat-slab lips opening and closing like a beached blowfish as he frantically waves his stubby hands and the light gleams on the brassy cotton-candy comb-over:

Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He’s weak, and he’s ineffective. We have a real problem in the White House. So, I believe that he will attack Iran sometime prior to the election because he thinks that’s the only way he can get elected. Isn’t it pathetic.

Yes, it is pathetic because this nine-year-old video is all the explanation we need for the assassination of the Iranian general earlier this week. It’s all projection — every fucking word of it. It always is:

  • During the Obama years, Trump used to complain about how lazy President Obama was. In office, Trump sits around on his lard ass live-tweeting Fox & Friends.
  • Trump lambasted Obama for squandering taxpayer money by occasionally golfing. Since taking office, Trump has spent more than the combined salaries of every president from George Washington to the present on golf trips to self-branded resorts — while praising himself annually for “donating” his salary.
  • Trump whines about Democrats spying on his campaign in 2016. His own campaign eagerly worked with a hostile foreign power to coordinate the distribution of stolen emails to smear Democrats.
  • Trump screams “witch hunt” about an exhaustively documented investigation led by a lifelong Republican who was appointed by a Trump appointee. Then he orders the DOJ to fan out worldwide and investigate alleged malfeasance that previous Trump-appointed officials have fruitlessly investigated multiple times, finding nothing.
  • Trump claims the DNC/Ukraine/Soros worked together to sandbag his campaign and calls critical op-eds from Ukrainians “election meddling.” Meanwhile, Trump’s goons place hit pieces against Biden in U.S. media outlets, and Trump used the power of his office to shake down a vulnerable ally for reelection assistance in the form of a phony investigation of Biden.

I could go on — Trump certainly does, daily demonstrating more capacity for projection than every cinema chain on the planet combined and multiplied by infinity. At this point, would it surprise anyone to learn that TRUMP was actually born in Kenya?

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Why Do The Investigations Seem To End Too Early?

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Something has bothered me since Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Let’s look at the letter appointing him special counsel:

  • Robert S. Mueller III is appointed to serve as Special Counsel…

Not Special Prosecutor, as he is often titled. Special Counsel.

  • any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump…

Based on these words, I expected a very different report from Mueller.

Mueller acted more as a prosecutor than an investigator. Perhaps I am getting this wrong; in internet parlance, IANAL, I am not a lawyer.

Mueller prosecuted cases against Paul Manafort and the the Internet Research Agency of St. Petersburg. His investigations supported Michael Cohen’s conviction and Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador. There are probably others, but that is not my point. His investigation seems to have been for the purpose of finding prosecutable crimes.

I expected that “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump” would have included a great deal more than what was in the report.

There were a great many contacts between Russians and the Trump campaign, or near misses like Maria Butina, who got cozy with the NRA, which supported Trump. The Russians used hacked files from the Democratic National Committee to help Republicans beyond Trump.

The Republican platform was changed to weaken support for Ukraine; the Mueller report mentions this, but notes that Trump seems to have been unaware of the change. The person who seems to have been responsible for it, J. D. Gordon, also is connected to Carter Page, who has his own Russian connections. And then there is George Papadopoulos, also with Russian connections.

Perhaps some of these Russian connections, like Butina, can be said not to have been connected with the Trump campaign. The hacked files used against other candidates, again not related to the Trump campaign. Although the platform change may not have involved Trump, his campaign certainly was involved with it, and with those other folks with hinky Russian connections. But these were investigated cursorily, if at all.

I don’t understand how Mueller interpreted the charge and why. I would like to know more about that.

It seems to be difficult to report on connections to Russia without being accused of paranoia. Additionally, some popular voices have greatly exaggerated connections to Russia on the basis of inadequate information.

I do not believe Putin is minutely directing a campaign to destroy the United States. He does not work like that. He remains a KGB colonel with access to the power of a state. He is a tactician rather than a strategist. He wants Russia to be recognized as a great power. Russia is in a strange position internationally. Its nuclear arsenal is equivalent to that of the United States, but its economy is about the size of Texas’s, based primarily on extractive industries. A nuclear great power, but not much else.

The way for Russia to be a great power is to lessen the influence of other great powers. Hence a campaign to divide Americans and Europeans, internally and from each other.

The campaign is loosely run – more a matter of “Who will rid me of these turbulent adversaries?” than of detailed planning and late nights in the Kremlin. Thus, multiple Russian actors, backed by multiple oligarchs, show up in the Mueller Report and in other ways.

Trump always has something bad to say about America’s allies, but never about Vladimir Putin and other autocrats. The connections across the Republican Party to Russia are many, as far as we know now, largely through donations. The Dallas Morning News has had major articles on this means of influence (August 2017, December 2017, two in May 2018) . Why haven’t other news outlets joined the investigation? Why isn’t this mentioned as common knowledge when Tucker Carlson sides with Russia over Ukraine?

There are so many stories that need more investigation.

Trump’s history with Russia. 1987 seems to be a turning point. And, of course, the noteless meetings with Vladimir Putin, particularly in Helsinki in July 2018.

Devin Nunes’s midnight run to the White House

Kevin McCarthy’s comment about Putin paying Trump and Dana Rohrabacher. McCarthy received a campaign contribution from Rudy Giuliani’s associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, which he is returning. He is not the only one to receive money from them.

Parnas and Fruman are currently a focus of media attention. Parnas would like to testify to Congress, but there is little reason to believe anything he says until we understand better his connections to Giuliani and Trump and to people like Dmytro Firtash.

Eight Republican members of Congress spent the Fourth of July, 2018, in Moscow. They met with senior Russian officials. They are Richard Shelby (AL), Ron Johnson (WI), John Neely Kennedy (LA), Jerry Moran (KS), Steve Daines (MT), John Hoeven (ND), John Thune (SD) and Rep. Kay Granger (TX). Johnson and Kennedy have been extremely vocal lately in spreading the Russian propaganda meme that Ukraine, not Russia, hacked the campaigns in 2016.

And, oh yes, the US Intelligence Community report of January 2017 said that the Republican campaign was hacked too. We haven’t seen any more about that.

That’s the list I come up with over a day or two of thought. I’ll bet there’s more.

There is a throughline to all this: Russian interference in American politics. It’s a big story, to be sure, but one that we need to hear. Most of it was not covered in the Mueller investigation. The House Intelligence Committee hearings have been on a very small part of it. News organizations are working on parts of it. We need more.

Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner

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The other obstruction and witness intimidation case tied to Russia and Ukraine

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Roger Stone was convicted on all counts of obstruction, false statements and witness intimidation.

Open Thread

UPDATE 1

At least this Friday has the courtesy of news-dumping during normal business hours.

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The Big Reveal

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Last night when I was cooking and waiting for the baseball game to start, I got a news alert from CNN on my phone about some Giuliani fuckery. Since that’s always amusing and I had a few minutes while waiting for the cheese on my eggplant parm to reach the ideal golden brown state, I read the article, all the way to the end, where CNN buried the lede:

Josh Marshall noticed that buried lede too.

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Late Night Open Thread: HELP I AM BEING HELD HOSTAGE…

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a professional actor / comedian as recently as May, which gives him an advantage over the snuffling amateur showing him off as a trophy:

Elsewhere, someone falls back on her childhood memories of Atlantic City gangster molls…

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Wednesday Open Thread

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There are several Mueller thread(s) below this post. I haven’t been watching, so I have no idea if the testimony is ongoing, but the latest thread is getting way long, so here’s a new one.

From what I gather from occasional glances at Twitter, the hearing aired facts established by the written report, including that: 1) the report didn’t exonerate Trump, 2) Russia fucked with our election for the purpose of helping to elect Trump, 3) the Trump campaign eagerly welcomed that help, 4) Trump obstructed the investigation.

However, the emerging media consensus seems to be that the hearings were a huge victory for Trump and the Republicans because 1) Mueller is old, and 2) pundits and reporters are bored with the proceedings. Does that about sum it up?

Open thread.

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Russian State TV Implies the President Is a Woman Subservient to Putin

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Karavai (the Russian spelling and pronunciation) is a traditional bread made by women and presented on a towel at weddings and other festivities by women in Ukraine (koravai), Belarus, Poland (korawaj), Bulgaria (kravai), and Russia. Russian state TV decided to memorialize the President’s meeting with Putin at the G20 summit this way:

Insult to injury.

Open thread.

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