The dirt Lev speaks of may go back before Trump even, when they were buying off California Republicans (Wyoming, Utah, how many western state R’s were in on it only future prosecutors might tell), the Russian oligarchs crafted out some temporary stocks for those R’s to invest in, then crashed the fake companies from within after giving those Republicans a heads-up so they could jump out with big profits.
Not exactly legal bribery, but about the hardest payoff to prove as bribery.
If ANY Department of Justice was ever tasked with looking into those nefarious investment/ bribes, a lot of those pre-Trump pro-Russian R’s would be exposed, they probably all invested in the same fake company.
These guys are cunning, not smart.
If there’s a common trait among Trump’s self-appointed geniuses, there it is.
The fact is, these Republicans are being shaken-down by Putin, and some of them may have been under his thumb in one way or another longer than the Trump era.
Somewhere in this ether, their past investments and involvements with Putin’s goons add up to more than simple intrigue, they broke so many laws they are perpetually aware that cloud hangs over them.
That may play a bigger role in this than just their fear of electoral losses.
Barr is like Torquemada for the toddler who would be king. I believe Parnas, but its not like that will change anything…and unfortunately Parnas is not exactly the best messenger having been indicted himself.
There really is so little oversight of AG Barr as he carries out tRump’s orders and refuses to stand up to tRump in fighting for existing laws that protect all Americans. That is what’s so frightening these days.
Barr routinely ignores precedent. He offers up himself as an inappropriate conduit to smooth out every rough spot tRump gets himself into. He presents himself as just another one of tRump’s personal attorneys and fixers. That alone is a miscarriage of justice. That is not his job.
Former prosecutors I’ve seen interviewed about Barr always say they’re concerned with how the DoJ has been taken over by him in ways they’ve never seen before from an AG. Barr is arrogant and dangerous. He’s shown that he’s unfazed as he interferes in cases he has no business taking on or involving himself with. Any legal matters that touch on tRump or Barr himself, he refuses to distance himself from or recuse himself.
Let’s face it, Barr has his fingers in every pot, which means every case that can even remotely touch on tRump’s corruption is being regularly interfered with to protect tRump from criminal liability. Barr doesn’t even believe a president can be held criminally liable…for anything! When the administration of justice has been so corrupted, as Barr has done under his authority, Parnas has a really good point that there is much to fear…not just for other Rethugs that go against tRump or for Parnas, but for all of us.
This is truly a banana republic form of justice.
Wait, there’s some oversight of Barr, even just a little? News to me.
“I believe Parnas,”
Me too.
But Trump knows stuff about Hyde that Parnas is unaware of.
Ponder that for a moment. When he made that thinly veiled threat, it was referencing Hyde’s players in Ukraine, not Parnas’. Parnas wasn’t in that tight a circle with Trump, maybe Hyde was?
Explains Parnas’ sincerity on the issue, His circle of creeps wasn’t the only one Trump had working the game.
I was wondering how much connection just lurking in the bar there gets you. Is it as much as it seems like?
In the 80s my Dad would lurk in front of Trump Tower in hopes of getting invited up to deal with the Big Man. Once he got sounded out by the doorman, he thought he was making progress. Never did pay off though.
The Article 5 amendment powers prohibit abolishing the Senate, not to mention that the rules about the Senate are so specifically drawn they are hard to dispute. The UK, which has a “living constitution” downgraded the role of its upper House of Lords to largely ceremonial. We should do the same, but very unlikely. Theoretically, you could offer an amendment abolishing or downsizing the Senate’s powers, but how do you think Kavanaugh would react to its constitutionality?
For those that refer to Parnas as dodgy, corrupt, grifter or any other negative adjectives, I ask, how does this differ from tRump. And, just to refresh, there are a lot more photos than one with tRump and Parnas together. Can’t find the one where Parnas is handing off an envelope to tRump, but…
Orange Republic?
Can you point it out? No? Oh, okay.
Here’s the thing, though. Everyone who hates Trump knows all this, but the best that most can offer as a solution is to hope and demand that Trump, Barr & Co. do the right thing. Seriously, that’s what I hear out of the mouths of most of the talking heads on TV and read online. Dems and their allies are still calling on the better angels of lifelong devils to prevail. That’s not a solution. That’s an admission of defeat and show of cluelessness and cowardice. What do they propose be done about this that actually has a chance of working? Spare me the calls to utopianism. Give us real-world solutions, or just STFU.
I have to think Parnas is still serving somebody here. We should not trust what he says. It’s too close to what I already want to believe and that makes me very skeptical. What is his motive here?
gotta wonder, where’s Parna’s OTHER hand in all those pics?
Huh?
Beware the Polonium…
Wait a minute - I think Robert Ludlum may have written that book…
Space Force? NOW it makes sense…
According to a guest on Chris Hayes’ show last night you can get your picture taken with all kinds of Republican folks strolling through the lobby on their way to the private area of the Trump DC Hotel. This guest and Chris talked about how getting your picture taken with all sorts of pols gets you access and introductions to more pols.
Back in the day there were letters of introduction, now replaced with photos taken with and stored on one’s phone.
Seems like there’s a lot less info in a lobby photo grab than in a letter but if that’s what works…
Posted from another thread:
Watched the 2nd Maddow-Parnas interview and there’s a lot of substance to it as well as insight. Some key takeaways overall that matter the most:
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Parnas confirms what I observed yesterday that his purpose or target in coming forward is to deal with the threat posed by AG Barr. He knows he’s expendable and the group of Trump, Sekulow, Barr, Rudy, Cipollone are powerful. He can easily be thrown under the bus and his only card to play is exposing the knowledge of the entire criminal conspiracy. Dowd basically wanted to leave him in jail. Toensing and DiGenova and Rudy didn’t help him.
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Parnas has tremendous first hand knowledge of how this scheme to remove Yovanovitch and to influence the Zelensky administration transpired. He is an excellent first hand witness for the time period beginning in March 2019-May 2019. He has the texts and WhatsApp messages to back it up (and Rachel went over a few of these with him on the show). They fill in some gaps but align to the story. Lutsenko and Shokin wanted Yovanovitch out. Rudy wanted dirt on Biden. That was the quid pro quo that drove it. Then, after Zelensky was elected, Lev was the messenger to deliver Rudy’s demands and terms to the new administration and demonstrated his power by getting Trump to cancel Pence’s trip.
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Parnas implicated Rick Perry as someone who was directed by Giuliani to tell Zelensky to announce an investigation into the Bidens (starting in May 2019). That puts the timeline of Trump Administration direct involvement a lot earlier. Perry should really testify. His actions were not necessarily criminal (he conveyed a message and allowed himself to be used by Rudy) but the cover up by denying testimony to Congress is.
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Parnas has the evidence to show, when combined with other evidence from parallel testimony, that VP Pence undoubtedly knew of Trump’s demand for an investigation into Biden and went along with what Trump wanted when the trip to the Zelensky inauguration was abruptly cancelled. We know it was canceled from the Congressional hearings. We had suspicions as to why. Parnas provides the ‘why’. Adam Schiff has also leveraged Parnas’ allegations against Pence regarding the Sept 1, 2019 visit to Poland where he met Zelensky to reapply pressure on him to release a memo from Jennifer Williams (DoD aide to Pence) which appears (by suggestion or implication) to indicate that Pence did have coaxing Zelensky to announce an investigation into Biden as a precondition to releasing military aid. This came at a critical time b/c as prior testimony indicates, the time to actually get that aid out the door had grown very limited given that the fiscal year end was approaching. Again, Parnas doesn’t have evidence regarding Pence’s agenda on his trip to Poland but he’s also not wrong to make the connection.
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Parnas also provides a lot of background into the workings of the Trump legal team, their method of using sham attorney client privilege and joint defense arrangements, and also what a cesspool the Trump hotel in DC is. It’s amazing to me that more reporters haven’t just hung out there, followed the players, documented what they do and reported on this vat of corruption.
The other thing I notice is the utter fear, shock and silence of the WH. They try to dismiss Parnas as a criminal, but Trump’s the guy that hired him and he keeps putting videos and photos up showing his extensive contacts with the Trump and GOP inner circle. Even Kevin McCarthy had to spend 2 minutes of a presser fighting off questions about his false statements about knowing Parnas.
I suspect Igor Fruman has not flipped yet because he’s probably the guy that helped Rudy put together the goon squad of UKR security officials who did a moonlighting gig to do surveillance on Marie Yovanovitch.
Who has time to read a letter? And we know that Trump doesn’t read.