As Above Us, The Alarm Rings
With “less fanfare than a new menu item at Captain D’s”, the Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the 2016 election was slipped out to the public. And like the actual Mueller report, released weeks after Attorney General William Barr produced his whitewashed summary, Republicans are just hoping everyone will read their topline statements and ignore what the investigation really found.
It is the subject of a flurry of articles in journals on the left and right to spring this weekend. The overarching conclusions on all sides are stark and shocking.
The report runs to nearly 1,000 pages and goes further than last year’s investigation into Russian election interference by Robert Mueller. The Senate panel said it was hampered in its search for the truth by the fact, that Russian spy Konstantin Kilimni and Paul Manafort kept their communications secret. They used burner phones, encrypted chat services, and frequently changed email accounts. Not that they had anything to hide. Or anything.
Still, it lays out a stunning web of contacts between Trump, his top election aides and Russian government officials, in the months leading up to the 2016 election. It describes Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s willingness to pass on confidential material to alleged Moscow agents as a “grave counterintelligence threat”.
To put it succinctly, the Senate Intelligence Committee confirms nearly all charges about Trump’s connections to Russia, collusion with Russian spies, the existence of the disgusting sex tapes, the strip clubs, the Russian tampering in the election itself, breaking in to the DNC servers — everything.
It’s clear now that after Republicans have declared over and over that there was “no collusion,” they’ve been sitting on a report that shows that Donald Trump’s campaign manager was in constant contact with a Russian operative, that both WikiLeaks and Roger Stone knew they were part of a direct pipeline from Vladimir Putin, and that the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort was in fact a meeting with Russian spies designed to get information that could be used against Hillary Clinton. And that Ivanka Trump coordinated the daily drip of words from Moscow.
The GOP at all levels, from the President to all manner of Senators and Representatives have lied through their teeth to us, lied like no lying Republican has ever lied before, more than Republican Nixon which, for decades, was the Gold Standard for bad-faced lying. Democrat Bill Clinton broke ranks and took a run at the title with his “I did not have ‘sex’ with that woman” performance, but Trump. Oh, Trump. And the lying Senators. They have risen to the occasion and LIED to the Amewrican people.
Why? Well, first of all, because they are politicians. Second because it’s kinda human nature, one of our worst angels, to lie when you’re caught doing something really nasty or you’re hell-bent on preserving the image of legitimacy or morality of your tribe when someone at the top gets caught with their pants literally down.
People lie because its easier than standing up and saying, “Yup. It happened and we don’t deserve you respect or trust and we hope to come back in four years having managed to earn those back.”
Republican politicians lie, really, because they are therefore controlled by the Ruling Class of 400 wealthiest American families. The old-line, old money names and the new money, tech giants and Wall Street wizards that pull the levers of power from behind their curtains. No Republican pol, after years or decades of dancing to their tune, of all the envelopes, all the checks would DARE make such an admission. Nope, not gonna. Just lie. It is the Republican way. And too often, the Democrat way too, have no illusions.
But the preponderance and shame comes down on the GOP side, and exclusively so during this most critical scandal in all of American history — an American Republican president being blackmailed and at least semi-willingly controlled by the Russian president.
The Senate report proves everything that had been said since before the election — Trump’s campaign directly collaborated with Russia, on multiple occasions and in various ways, to alter the outcome of a U.S. election. It also shows that multiple members of Trump’s campaign lied to investigators about these connections, and that Republican senators have been aware of these facts even as they have scorned the Mueller investigation and defended Trump and his campaign. So what are Republican senators doing about it now? Lying, of course.
The Senate report shows that Manafort was directly involved in passing along information to a Russian intelligence agent and accepting information from that agent. That’s collusion by the head of Trump’s campaign. The investigation could have stopped right there and moved on to providing information to the House for impeachment.
It didn’t stop there. It went on to explore how Ivanka Trump coordinated the use of stolen documents provided by Russia to make Trump’s attacks on Clinton more effective. How Stone helped Moscow coordinate WikiLeaks information to run cover for Trump. And how Manafort’s close coordination with Kremlin sources “represented a grave counterintelligence threat.”
The report isn’t just damning, it’s damning to hell-ing. It could not be more conclusive and more authoritative in showing that there was genuine coordination between the Trump campaign and Putin’s plans. Trump took everything Putin would give him, and begged for more.
Evidence in the report shows that Manafort’s chief contact, Konstantin Kilimnik, was connected not just with providing information to the campaign after the fact, but to the whole plot to break into DNC servers in the first place. The Trump campaign wasn’t the lucky beneficiary of a Russian plot that was already in effect. The whole thing — the break-in at the DNC, the distribution of emails through WikiLeaks, the false claims about Ukraine — was a joint Trump/Putin production from the start. They didn’t just collude, they were partners.
Why they were partners from the start is also underlined in the report, as the fifth volume contains information directly related to the leverage Putin had over Trump. That includes not just witnesses corroborating the existence of the “pee tape,” but a possible affair between Trump and a former Miss Moscow as well as a visit to a Moscow strip club. All of this, along with Manafort’s existing connections to Moscow, meant that Trump and other members of the campaign “presented attractive targets for foreign influence, creating notable counterintelligence vulnerabilities,” according to the report.
Almost as an aside, the report shows that Donald Trump and his then-personal attorney Michael Cohen negotiated repeatedly to cover up evidence in exchange for a pardon — and then everyone involved lied about it to Robert Mueller, though that part was already known.
So what are Republican senators going to do about a report — their own report — that lays bare Putin’s tawdry leverage over Trump, the openness of Trump’s campaign to foreign influence, and the lies that campaigns staffers told to investigators every step of the way?
As Lawfare points out, Republicans have a very simple solution: lying. Over and over, Republican senators have issued statements repeating the idea that the report shows “no collusion,” in direct contradiction of the actual contents.
Republicans in the Senate deserve credit for allowing the investigation to run its course rather than doing a Devin Nunes and popping out a Trump-praising nonsense piece while claiming that everything is good. But they deserve zero credit for running away from their own report or for making claims that the report doesn’t show what it clearly does.
And while Republicans are scanning Mike Pompeo’s stack of documents looking for possible avenues of attack against Joe Biden, Biden could do a lot worse than simply making advertisements out of segments of the report created by the Republican-led Senate. — — Mark Sumner. The Daily Kos, Wednesday August 19, 2020
Scott Horton, a lecturer at Columbia law school, said on Tuesday the Senate committee’s report “confirms nearly everything” about Trump’s ties to Moscow. He said it vindicated claims by the Democrats and others that the campaign had indeed colluded with the Russians — something Trump has vehemently deny-lied.
“The committee offers a much deeper view into the intelligence collected by US authorities than does the much sketchier Mueller report. It will support the view that Mueller, far from exonerating Trump, simply expected to pass the baton to Congress to conduct deeper inquiries.”
From The Sun: In 2007 Putin had just been named Time magazine’s person of the year (joining among others, Adolph Hitler, Ayatullah Khomeini, Deng Xiaoping, and Joseph Stalin), which prompted Trump to write him. He said: “Congratulations on being named Time magazine’s ‘Man of the Year’ — you definitely deserve it. As you probably heard, I am a big fan of yours!” Trump underlined that last bit when he signed the letter.
Trump is a “big fan” of the Killer Klown Kompromateur. Can’t you just hear Putin telling Trump, “Get me a glass of water and hurry up about it!” And, just what is it that Trump is a fan of? Not Putin’s suave demeanor or charm or statesmanship certainly. Not his humanitarian efforts. Trump admires Putin’s autocratic style, his My Way Or The Die Way. Trump likes a guy that will kill you if you get in his way. Trump wants to be that guy or at least hang out with that guy and show that guy that he, too, is a big ole thug.
The Daily Caller, a right-wing news and opinion website founded by Fox News host Tucker Carlson is, as usual, running interference for Trump, trying to make the case that, au contraire, the Senate Intelligence Committee report actually proves that there was NO collusion (what?) and the stories about Trump’s weird sex parties with underage girls and prostitutes just can’t be true because Trump wasn’t there long enough. Presumably if he HAD been there long enough, well… Yeah, here’s what they say:
“The report includes an itemization of Trump’s hotel room bill for his Moscow visit. It says that the Ritz Carlton charged Trump’s room $720 at the O2 Lounge, a rooftop bar at the hotel. Another $306 was charged to the room bill for shisha, a type of tobacco. Other charges included $146 for the in-room bar, and other room service items.”
Now, they claim this proves Trump couldn’t have done the pee party or sex party or whatever disgusting things he allegedly did. Except it does not.
The problem with Daily Caller’s “proof” is that Trump doesn’t drink or use tobacco! Who was that $300 (!) of tobacco and, apparently almost $900 (!!!) of alcohol for? Even if he was a drinker and as smoker, which he ain’t, can one or two people consume that much smoke and booze in the short amount of time they allege Trump was in the hotel? I think, even with the inflated prices you would expect in an international hotel, those charges look a lot like there’s a party going on and Trump is lubricating his attendees with booze not to mention those “and other room service items”. But, that’s just me guessing, right?
The Senate report goes on to say that a former executive with Marriott International, which controls the Ritz Carlton, claimed to have overheard two other Marriott executives discussing “what to do” with a video recording of Trump in an elevator with several women.
I’m sure it was just good clean fun and all. Trump, who has been accused of rape, sexual assault and groping by at least 25 women since the 1970s would never grab a woman by… hey, wait a minute!
The report also goes into detail about statements that Moscow-based American businessman David Geovanis, made to associates over the years regarding potentially embarrassing information about Trump. Geovanis has claimed that, during Trump’s travel to Russia, both in 1996 and 2013, Geovanis was aware of Trump engaging in personal relationships with Russian women. Geovanis has suggested that the Russian government was also “likely aware of this information,” the report says.
A Senate witness claimed that Geovanis toured Trump around Moscow in November 2013. “He did not get into specifics, but intimated that there was partying and that Mr. Trump should be nice to him in light of the information he had.” Little facts about… little… things?
Also from the Caller article, “Giorgi Rtskhiladze, a Georgian-American businessman, wrote toTrump’s lawyer MIchael Cohen on Oct. 30, 2016 that he “stopped flow of some tapes from Russia.”
Cohen responded, “Tapes of what?” Rtskhiladze replied that he was not sure of the details, but that that his friend Sergey Khoklov had informed him of people discussing rumored Trump tapes but that he never saw any of the materials.
So… Rtskhiladze stopped the Trump tapes from coming to the US but… the tapes were “rumored” and never saw the materials. Now, stay with me on this, he put in writing that he stopped the tapes. So, assuming the tapes existed, who made them? Certainly not the Ritz-Carlton. They do offer many services but filming in-room kinky sex is not on the list, folks. Could it be that the tapes were filmed by, oh, say… Vladimir Putin’s GRU/FSB? Wow, now there’s a thought.
Rtskhiladze’s saying the tapes were rumored and that he hadn’t seen them were him covering himself in case anyone ever came back on him. Plausible Deniability, ya know. But yet, he said he “stopped the tapes.” His duplicity acts to further assure the existence of the tapes.
No one has said any tapes were destroyed. Hell no. They are golden. He who holds those tapes holds the… of the most powerful man in the world. The holder of those tapes is the puppet master of the world’s most powerful nation.
The Senate report offers the most compelling account yet of what went on inside the hotel. It alleges that a suspected Russian intelligence officer is stationed permanently in the building and presides over a “network” of security cameras, some of them hidden inside guest rooms. The officer’s agency is redacted, but is likely to be the FSB, the spy agency Vladimir Putin headed, in charge of counter-intelligence.
The report says: “The committee found that the Ritz Carlton in Moscow is a high counterintelligence risk environment. Well now, duh. It’s in Moscow, folks. That’s like, where the Russian spies are headquartered, ya know. You go to stay in that hotel and you don’t think you’re being recorded the entire damn time? Really?
The US Senate Intelligence Committee Report confirms that “according to two former employees of the Ritz Carlton in Moscow” the hotel likely has a Russian intelligence officer on staff, cameras and mikes in the guests’ rooms, and a large number of prostitutes, with at least the tacit approval of Russian authorities. Hookers can be very useful against rich horn-dog Americans.
At this point, could you think it is even remotely possible then, that they DON’T have tapes of Trump doing whatever he did in the hotel that night?
By the way, there’s more in the Kompromat Drawer. Trump was swingin again in a 1996 party hosted by David Geovanis for a group of American investors at the Baltschug Kempinski hotel. I’ll skip pondering the existence of those tapes, of course. Or the tapes from the Leningrad hotel thing.
The report says that Trump “may have begun a brief relationship with a Russian woman” he met at the Geovanis party. Brief, as in, Wham Bam, Thank You Komrade. That woman is said to have been a former Russian beauty pageant winner, Miss Moscow. Trump has expensive tastes and the money to satisfy his desires.
He also apparently (a.) lacks the brains to realize what a big, fat target he would be for blackmail in a foreign land, or (b.) he just gets so horny that he can’t control himself. With the many suits filed over the decades portraying him as a sexual predator, I’m going with (a.) and (b.).
If Vladdy has sex tapes of Trumpy, would that constitute Kompromat? You bet your sweet ass, it does. And it is the single best explanation for every embarrassing thing, every security threat, every anti-American, pro-Putin action that Donald Trump has focused on for the last four years.
Donald Trump is a Russian Operative and has been since the last century. Our primary opponent and competitor on the And, according to the GOP-controlled Senate, Putin did indeed, yessiree, tip the scales in the 2016 election to get Trump elected or, more accurately, to Install Trump as his boy in D.C. No wonder Putin has an eternal smirk on his face. What a trick!
Lest we shrug and walk away, shouldering our cynicism like a weighted blanket, consider for a moment the astonishing train of events we have witnessed over the last four years and continue do so EVERY DAY that Trump is in office. Then consider the consequences if we don’t all rise up and stand for America now.
Look, the Senate Committee found that the Russian government engaged in an “aggressive, multifaceted effort” to influence or attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election through a massive overt online propaganda campaign and covert means. That includes all the vitioloc posts we’ve all gotten riled up by on Facebook, Twitter and such. Liberals and Conservativersd BOTH have been assaulted by wave after wave of posts, presumably by just regular AMerican folks complaining or ranting about the (fill in the blank: Damn Republicans or Damn Democrats) and what they’re doing. This point is vitally important and we must now skim past it.
Putin is manipulating the hell out of America on Facebook and Twitter. He wants us at each other’s throats. He revels in, and supports, wild conspiratorial reporting by Breitbart, The Caller, Fox New, InfoWars and all the other Bunker Hunkerers with their Liberal-hating spew. He couldn’t be happier when he sees Anti-Trump memes and posts because he knows that is a sign that his long-running campaign to divide and polarize America IS WORKING.
As the Guardian said on August 18: “Donald Trump is busy running the largest misinformation campaign in history as he questions the legitimacy of voting by mail, a method that will be crucial to Americans casting their vote in a pandemic. Meanwhile, the president has also appointed a new head of the US Postal Service who has stripped it of resources, undermining its ability to fulfill a crucial role in processing votes.
This is one of a number of attempts to suppress the votes of Americans — something that has been a stain on US democracy for decades. The Voting Rights Act was passed 55 years ago to undo a web of restrictions designed to block Black Americans from the ballot box. Now, seven years after that law was gutted by the supreme court, the president is actively threatening a free and fair election.”
Putin and Trump can’t do it by themselves, folks. Putin needs your help. He needs you to stay home on November 2. He needs you to not trust the Democrats or the Post Office or your neighbors or half of all Americans. He really, really needs you to be complacent or at least so cynical you just say, “to hell with it all.” That is how he gets the golden ring, the title of ownership to the United States of America, a Russian affiliate.
Please, don’t think it can’t happen, it already is according to the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee.
We MUST all vote early. Do not assume you will be able to get in to a polling place on November 2 no matter how brave you are, even if you are white. We’ve had ice and snow storms shut down American cities as early as October.
If you have not voted by mail yet, go to your local election commission office and cast an absentee ballot right then and there, do it today. Tell them you plan to be on some mountain top on November 2. That’s all you have to say. And, if you’re smart, maybe you should be on a mountain top on November 2. At least there you won’t be subjected to the stench of the Trump-Putin campaign’s dirty business as they try to corrupt America’s election and prevent our votes from being counted.
And pray for the safety of Joe Biden. I believe he is under a very real and sophisticated threat by Vladimir Putin, the Killer Kompromateur, and any combination of deluded, misinformed, programmed haters, pistol wavers and self-styled militia types.
They’ve got too much to lose this time around, too much to gain, Trump’s not getting any younger, America’s not getting any weaker (hopefully) and the time is right for fighting in the streets, boy.
Watch for the assassination attempt. Pray for Joe Biden. They want him dead.”