by am_Unition

Posting for kleinbl00.

This article built up a crescendo, presenting a case that unifies major players in Trump's attempts to terminate and discredit the Mueller investigation with major players in Trump's "Ukraine" scandal, and then...

Given Firtash’s past involvement with the Kremlin—given that the Russian state supplied him with his fortune, given that he did its political bidding in the past, given that a Putin insider loaned him the money for his bail—it seems fair to ask: Did he keep the Russians in the loop about his involvement with Parnas and Giuliani? Did he ever seek to enlist their help? These are admittedly speculative questions, but the oligarch’s background demands their consideration.

I'm sorry, which part did you miss? The polonium poisoning in 2006? The novichok nervous system agent used on ex-GRU intelligence asset Sergei Skripal and his daughter, in 2018, in fucking Britain, with no arrests? That part in your own article, when you basically said "Putin gave Firtash $150 million for bail, just a few years ago"? Are you trying to ensure your own safety by pretending that Firtash even has the option of declining to do anything Putin tells him? For posterity: Putin's #1 geopolitical drive is to weaken the U.S., NATO, the EU, and pretty much any other "western" institution. Btw, I've consciously decided to not refer to Putin's actions as those of "Russia", oddly similar to how I would passionately prefer my own country's current policies to be perceived as "Trump's" actions.

Further: SDNY got Parnas and Fruman on Foreign Agents Registration Act noncompliance. One of the reasons FARA laws have any teeth is because Robert Mueller used FARA to take down Manafort. FARA enforcement had been virtually abandoned, and Mueller's use of it set a much stricter precedent than whatever interpretation existed before.

Firtash has been on my radar for a while. How much do you know about Manafort's black ledger? You might not cruise Fox News much (MAYbe), but here's an article that "we" over here on the "left" probably didn't catch, detailing how Devin Nunes accuses a DNC employee of interfering in the 2016 election (on... behalf of Ukraine...?), apparently just because she reported Paul Manafort's connections to Putin? Like, if you were in the Trump campaign, wouldn't you want to know that, and dispense with the guy? Oh, you wouldn't, because you might've already known that, and known that Trump was gonna benefit from Putin's interference in American elections? Last question: How many fucking times do we have to rehash this same theme??

The volume of outright false propaganda beneficial to Russia currently permeating American right-wing politics is one of the most sickening things I've ever seen. I'd claim that we need studies to begin measuring the influence, but if we had them, it wouldn't matter right now, when it counts the most.

OK, last, but maybe not least, on what is once again approaching a daily news roundup (by perceived necessity), the new Russia advisor escorted out of the White House by security personnel earlier today, Andrew Peek. Initially, I thought that it might have been Trump that got wind of something Peek did that greatly upset Trump, who immediately dismissed Peek, but now I think that's probably not what happened at all. After watching a CNN interview with Peek forcefully defending Trump and Trump's Iran policy, he was probably handpicked by Trump, directed by Trump to do something quite illegal, and then career national security personnel were like "Nope! Although POTUS might be immune to prosecution, you're not. :D!". He's young, not completely ugly, white, male, and he's likely already passed several Trump loyalty tests, so of course he's climbing the ranks faster than wildfire under Trump's direction. Well, 'til today. Maybe I'm wrong, but such is my prediction.

It's not that I'm calling Andrew Peek a bad person, merely a convenient vehicle for Trump. A vehicle that just had a bit of an accident.

(quack me back, 'bl00)