Not gonna even try, eh?
look over here, dammit
The Trump family crusade against nepotism goes on....
Imagine posting an Eric Trump tweet about anything.
Oh?
What did he say?
Give the quotes!
Trump’s entire Ukraine ‘anti-corruption’ team was corrupt—
and funded by unnamed Russian source
was to extort an entire nation and grossly distort U.S. foreign policy merely for the purpose of smearing Joe Biden.
Here is the information available as of Thursday afternoon.
Four men were indicted on campaign finance violations, in particular for funneling money from foreign sources and soliciting a U.S. congressman for help in getting rid of U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. The congressman has been unofficially identified as former Republican Rep. Pete Sessions.
Two of the men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, have previously been identified by Rudy Giuliani as “clients.” Parnas and Fruman are now clients of another former Trump attorney, John Dowd, who represented them in legal filings on Thursday.
Parnas accompanied Giuliani to a meeting with U.S. Ambassador Kurt Volker in July. Volker mentioned this meeting in his appearance before Congress, describing it as “a long conversation about Ukraine.” That conversation included both the effort to get Ukraine to launch an investigation into Joe Biden and efforts to secure an investigation into supposed Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election.
Both Parnas and Fruman were involved in helping Giuliani “establish contacts” among current and former Ukrainian officials. That appears to include a former prosecutor who, temporarily, agreed to testify that Biden had done something wrong, before admitting that he was only trying to please Trump and Giuliani. According to the do ents provided by Dowd, the two men worked for Giuliani “in connection with his representation of President Trump.”
Funding for some of the contributions made came from “a foreign national Russian citizen and businessman,” according to the indictment. The four men indicted, along with “others known and unknown,” are reported to have conspired together to pass donations from this unknown Russian to candidates for both state and federal office.
Parnas and Fruman attempted to flee the country and were arrested at Dulles Airport after purchasing one-way tickets on an international flight. Another of those indicted, Andrew Kukushkin, was arrested in San Francisco.
Before running for the border, Parnas and Fruman had lunch with Rudy Giuliani. No details have yet emerged about discussions at that lunch, or whether Giuliani was aware of any pending legal action.
$325,000 from Parnas and Fruman went through an LLC set up to disguise the source of the contributions to America First Action PAC, a pro-Trump PAC where Donald Trump Jr. is part of the leadership, along with several former members of the Trump White House.
In an afternoon briefing, the FBI called the actions both “corruption” and “deliberate law-breaking.”
Though a set of grand jury indictments has been provided, the actual charging do ents have not been produced. That leaves open the possibility that others may be charged—including Giuliani.
Giuliani’s first response to the arrests was a statement that he didn’t believe the two men would “flip” on him, which is not exactly the first thought of someone uninvolved in crimes.
The biggest point out of the afternoon press conference involving the U.S. attorney for Manhattan and the New York office of the FBI was that this remains an “ongoing investigation,” again suggesting that the last handcuff is yet to be deployed.
working to get rid of Ambassador Yovanovitch and
making that request directly to Rep. Pete Sessions
after giving him substantial contributions.For Sale!
And they had lunch with Giuliani right before heading for the airport to try and flee the country.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...tail=emaildkre
Did Julie Annie tip off his accomplices to flee the USA?
How would JA have known?
Tipped by some of his old buddies NY LE and/or FBI?
Intel chairman tells Maddow to expect more resignations after Mike Pompeo lost top diplomat
“Michael McKinley, a career diplomat and senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, has resigned his position
amid rising dissatisfaction and plummeting morale inside the State Department
over what is seen as Pompeo’s failure to support personnel ensnared in the Ukraine controversy,”
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/intel-chairman-tells-maddow-to-expect-more-resignations-after-mike-pompeo-lost-top-diplomat/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1696
Nation Shocked That Giuliani Has Associates
WASHINGTON —After learning that two of Rudy Giuliani’s associates had been charged with federal campaign-finance crimes, millions of Americans expressed their stunned disbelief that Giuliani had associates.
“By ‘associates,’ do they mean people who actually associate with Giuliani?”
Carol Foyler, who lives in St. Louis, said.
“This whole story doesn’t add up.”
“I read that these quote-unquote associates of Giuliani’s were actually business associates,” Tracy Klugian, of Butte, Montana, said.
“If that means he was paying them a lot of money to associate with him, that could explain everything.”
“It said on the news that these associates were foreign-born,” Kevin Lockdale, of Portland, Maine, said.
“Maybe they don’t speak English too well and so
they don’t realize that everything Giuliani says is bat .
I mean, I know I’m grasping at straws, but I’m trying to make sense of this whole associates thing.”
Harland Dorrinson, a clinical psychologist who has done a ten-year study on the social isolation of despised people, said that
the existence of Giuliani’s two associates
should give “hope to the detestable” everywhere.
“Honestly, if Giuliani can have associates, anyone can,” he said.
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/nation-shocked-that-giuliani-has-associates
Rudy Giuliani is officially under criminal investigation
the FBI and federal prosecutors were looking into whether Rudy Giuliani’s finances were tied to the two Soviet-born business associates that were indicted.
By Friday, it became official that Giuliani was part of a criminal investigation,
Giuliani was also slated to follow with his own international flights, but the federal investigators stopped them all.
Attorney John Dowd has called the story “horsesh*t.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/rudy-giuliani-is-officially-under-criminal-investigation-report/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1702&re cip_id=298460&list_id=1
House Intel member reveals witnesses say the same thing: The Ukraine call is ‘just the tip of the iceberg’
“Essentially everybody is telling us the same thing,
which is that the phone call was just the tip of the iceberg on July 25th,” Raskin said.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/house-intel-member-reveals-witnesses-say-the-same-thing-the-ukraine-call-is-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/
‘Trump’s eyes and ears’: Matt Gaetz blocked from closed-door hearing with Russia aide
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was prevented from entering the closed-door hearing where former Russia adviser Fiona Hill was testifying.
Gaetz does not sit on any of those committees, and
the House parliamentarian agreed with House Intelligence committee chairman Schiff that
the Trump ally could not attend the hearing.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/tru..._campaign=1722
By the Way, Trump’s Favorite Ukrainian Prosecutor Helped a Key Witness Flee the Mueller Investigation
Trump asked Zelensky to reinstate his country’s former prosecutor general, Yuri Lutsenko.
In the impeachment part of our story, Trump wanted Lutsenko back in office because Lutsenko had been meeting with Rudy Giuliani to discuss a smear campaign against Joe Biden and to indulge Giuliani and Trump’s (ludicrous, non-evidence-based) belief that Ukrainian officials collaborated with the Democratic National Committee in 2016 to frame Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for the fraud charges for which he was later convicted by a U.S. jury.
Lutsenko had also played a crucial role in the Mueller investigation itself, in an episode that also involved Manafort.
Manafort provided Trump campaign polling information to Konstantin Kilimnik—
a former business partner who, Mueller’s lawyers wrote in court filings,
“has ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016.” The intelligence service in question was the GRU, which is the same service that hacked and distributed Democratic emails during the campaign.
Although Ukraine had agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation,
Lutsenko allowed Kilimnik to leave the country for Russia without answering questions.
Ultimately, Mueller concluded that his office
“could not reliably determine Manafort’s purpose in sharing internal polling data with Kilimnik during the campaign period,”
Lutsenko’s involvement in hiding Kilimnik is not a conspiracy theory:
It’s something that the New York Times reported on aspects of when it happened and that has reportedly been confirmed in internal State Department do ents.
Kilmnik, who had “ties” to the agency that led the attack against the Clinton campaign,
received proprietary information from Trump’s campaign chairman.
Lutsenko made sure he wouldn’t ever have to answer law enforcement questions about the situation.
Later, Trump called the president of Ukraine and told him Lutsenko was great and needed to be rehired.
Maybe someone should look into this?
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/trump-ukraine-scandal-manafort-mueller-collusion.html
Trump sycophant Rand Paul says ‘fair’ to investigate Hunter Biden — then immediately denounces investigating Ivanka and Jared
is calling for an investigation into Hunter Biden, despite there being no evidence or even legitimate suggestion he has committed any crimes.
But when asked about the very legitimate disturbing acts by the President’s daughter and son-in-law,
the Kentucky Republican lawmaker immediately offered an entirely different answer.
“Does that mean we should be looking deeper into how Jared Kushner’s family got foreign money for 666 Fifth Avenue,”
MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle asked Paul,
“How Ivanka Trump got 13 trademarks from the Chinese government,
how she was able to expand her brand since she took office? I mean, giddyap, let’s do it.”
“If, if, you want to go, if, if we want to go, yeah, if we want to go, if we want to go down the road of the politics of self destruction of everybody, criminalize all politicians on both sides of the aisle, go after their family, yes, we could do that,”
Senator Paul, literally
saying only Democrats who are private citizens, and
not Republicans who are literally working in the White House,
should be investigated.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/trump-sycophant-rand-paul-says-fair-to-investigate-hunter-biden-then-immediately-denounces-investigating-ivanka-and-jared/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1731&re cip_id=298460&list_id=1
KY jelly heads gives the USA MoscowMitch and wombat-hair Ayn Rand Paul, Thanks!
State Dept official testifying on Capitol Hill has warned for months about Giuliani’s ‘disinformation’ campaign
George P. Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state in charge of Ukraine policy who is testifying on Capitol Hill as part of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, has reportedly
been warning colleagues about Rudy Giuliani running a “disinformation” campaign since this past March.
Kent for several months has “raised concerns to colleagues early… about the pressure being directed at Ukraine by
Mr. Trump and his private lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to pursue investigations into Mr. Trump’s political rivals.”
Kent would point to
“Giuliani’s role in what he called a ‘disinformation’ campaign intended
to use a Ukrainian prosecutor to smear targets of the president,”
including former Vice President Joe Biden and former Ukrainian ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/state-dept-official-testifying-on-capitol-hill-has-warned-for-months-about-giulianis-disinformation-campaign-report/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1731
“SHE IS DEFINITELY THE HERO”:
DEFIANCE INSIDE THE STATE DEPARTMENT AFTER YOVANOVITCH STANDS UP TO TRUMP
For demoralized staffers, the former ambassador’s testimony felt like a turning point.
It also raises existential questions for a diplomatic corps that serves at the president’s pleasure—
including whether Mike Pompeo can salvage his credibility on the world stage after being exposed as another Trump stooge.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/10/defiance-inside-the-state-department-after-yovanovitch-stands-up-to-trump?mbid=nl_th_5da524543627570008a88391&CNDID=43 758549&utm_source=nl&utm_brand=vf&utm_mailing=VF_H ive_101519&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd6795524c17c104 8022fcc&cndid=43758549&hasha=992d608214b505003aa04 bf10a595031&hashb=542eb31d958e85ddd5a4c3ccf3faae18 526a77bd&hashc=54b3612ab970ce13a64a16665b1987080ca 5b72e2ee762b722fbba6ab378f2f5&esrc=bounceX&utm_cam paign=VF_Hive_101519&utm_term=VYF_Hive
Trump officials are worried the president is trying to find a ‘scapegoat’
“President Trump has for weeks sought to unmask the whistle-blower who shed light on his Ukraine dealings.
But instead aides have fixated on one another:rats attacking rats!
Advisers began a fact-finding review that
some fear is a hunt for a scapegoat
“They are seeking to understand White House officials’ actions
around Mr. Trump’s July 25 call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine,
which is central to the whistle-blower’s allegation that Mr. Trump abused his power.”
John Eisenberg is reportedly at the center of the investigation.
“The lawyers’ inquiry centers on why one of their colleagues, the deputy White House counsel John A. Eisenberg,
placed a rough transcript of the call in a computer system typically reserved for the country’s most closely guarded secrets,”
“Eisenberg reacted angrily to suggestions that he is under scrutiny, according to two people told of his response.”
The publication of the report in The New York Times destroyed one of Trump’s talking points.
“The existence of the review also threatens Mr. Trump’s narrative that his call with Mr. Zelensky was “perfect.”
Instead, the review underscores the evidence that
he bent foreign policy to his personal advantage
by pressing Mr. Zelensky to open investigations that could damage his political opponents,”
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/trump-officials-are-worried-the-president-is-trying-to-find-a-scapegoat-report/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaig n=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/u...w-ukraine.html
Trash ing ADMITTED he made the call and its contents.
Giuliani ‘undermined 28 years of US efforts to try to promote the rule of law in Ukraine’: Pompeo deputy
Rudy Giuliani, to conduct foreign policy on his behalf, but State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent said that
Giuliani made things worse.
According to Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Kent testified behind closed doors that
Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine “undermined 28 years of US efforts to try to promote the rule of law in Ukraine.”
three people would be responsible for Ukraine policy, Kent testified.
Former Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker,
Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and
Energy Secretary Rick Perry
were the only government point people for Ukraine issues.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/giuliani-undermined-28-years-of-us-efforts-to-try-to-promote-the-rule-of-law-in-ukraine-pompeo-deputy/
Trash will also scapegoat ing Catholic Mulvaney?
Mulvaney emerges as a key facilitator of the campaign to pressure Ukraine
In late May, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney organized a meeting that
stripped control of the country’s relationship with Ukraine
from those who had the most expertise at the National Security Council and the State Department.
Mulvaney put an unlikely trio in charge of managing the U.S.-Ukraine account amid worrisome signs of a new priority
a new priority...:
pressuring the fledgling government in Kiev to deliver material that would be politically valuable to President Trump.
“three amigos,” as they came to call themselves — diplomats Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker, plus Energy Secretary Rick Perry
Mulvaney’s connections to the administration’s troubled interactions with Ukraine are also beginning to surface.
Giuliani, who, as Trump’s personal lawyer, also served as the president’s emissary to Ukraine. “Mulvaney was not a big player in this.
I dealt with Volker and Sondland.”
Mulvaney contributed substantially to the unfolding political crisis,
both through his connection to key events related to the attempt to pressure Kiev and
through his general approach to the chief of staff job,
which was driven by a perceived reluctance to displease the president.
Mulvaney met frequently with Sondland and that details of their
discussions were kept from then-National Security Adviser John Bolton and other officials who were raising internal concerns about the hidden Ukraine agenda.
Mulvaney also tolerated meetings between Trump and Giuliani at a time when Giuliani was brazenly declaring in interviews his intent to enlist Kiev in efforts to substantiate conspiracy theories about the 2016 election
Perhaps most significantly,
Mulvaney — at the direction of the president — placed a hold on nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine
in the weeks before Trump used a July 25 phone call to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to pursue Giuliani’s agenda.
Sondland, Volker and Giuliani had laid the groundwork for that call over months of meetings with Ukrainian officials, texting one another the need
to secure a commitment to produce what Sondland described as Trump’s “deliverable.”
could not have proceeded, current and former administration officials said, without
Mulvaney facilitating meetings, halting the flow of aid and cir venting the national security bureaucracy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/mulvaney-emerges-as-a-key-facilitator-of-the-campaign-to-pressure-ukraine/2019/10/15/9d46b7ae-ef76-11e9-89eb-ec56cd414732_story.html?wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
As with Trash and his mafiya lying, forgetting, obstructing Mueller the Russian investigation IF they were innocent, why was Mulvaney, IF an innocent project, cutting out so many people from the Ukraine extortion?
Fiona Hill testified that there was a quid pro quo
In a White House meeting, Sondland tells Ukrainians they will get a Trump meeting if they open the investigations Trump wants.
Then, Sondland follows the Ukrainians out of the meeting to privately make clear he's talking about Hunter Biden.
we all know that Trump was holding up aid to Ukraine as leverage against its government —
not because Trump is suddenly concerned about “corruption.”
Mother Jones:https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/10/15/1892638/-Sen-Chris-Murphy-Fiona-Hill-testified-that-there-was-a-quid-pro-quo?detail=emaildkre
The Trump administration appears to have been holding two things over the head of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as it demanded investigations into both the Bidens and the origins of the FBI’s Russia investigation.
One was military aid, which Trump held up until late summer.
The other was a potential face-to-face meeting between Trump and Zelensky, something the new Ukrainian government seemed to want badly in order to showcase its close relationship with the United States.
Biden finally unloads on Trump for smearing his son:
‘Release your tax returns or shut up’
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/bid..._campaign=1739
How Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric Trump Have Profited Off Their Dad's Presidency
No one knows a “clear conflict of interest” when they see it better than the president's children.
“Why didn’t @JoeBiden recuse himself from dealing with Ukraine?” Don Jr. tweeted recently.
“His son was on the board of a Ukrainian energy company that had been investigated by the prosecutor who Joe pushed to be fired.”
This, Don Jr. argued, created the “appearance of impropriety,” and cons uted a “clear conflict of interest.”
Eric was similarly critical of this arrangement in an appearance on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show on October 2.
Hunter, Biden’s son, “didn’t know anything about the industry he was in,” Eric protested.
“He didn’t have any discernible duties, and he’s getting paid $50,000 a month?
And then he gets $1.5 billion from China? Laura, it’s insane.”
the Trumps have omitted or misstated key facts en route to their anti-nepotism outrage.
Setting aside the alternative facts underlying the Trump kids’ criticisms, however,
their decision to wade into this controversy is notable for a different reason:
During their father’s tenure as president,
Don Jr. and Eric have repeatedly managed to cash in on their newfound positions of political privilege in their business dealings.
So, too, have their sister Ivanka and brother-in-law Jared Kushner,
both of whom hold senior positions in the administration and
whose companies and investment portfolios netted them anywhere between $29 million and $135 million last year, per their financial disclosure forms.
Here are some of the highlights of when the family's business intertwining with government affairs
cons uted the “appearance of impropriety” and “conflict of interest.”
https://www.gq.com/story/trump-kids-...ot_Subscribers
Last edited by boutons_deux; 10-16-2019 at 03:44 PM.
Eric Trump complaining about nepotism lol
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