Breaking: Sen. Grassley postpones hearing at which Bill Browder — former client of Magnitsky — was due to testify. pic.twitter.com/Z9okZvUhFz
— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) July 18, 2017
lmfao Grassley thought he could make the entire thing about poking holes in the Dossier but then Don Jr story broke https://t.co/jNXFSQbpdQ
— On Trial for ?????? (@ZeddRebel) July 18, 2017
And here we always assumed ol’ Chuck was too dumb stubborn to be successfully corrupted!:
… Grassley announced Tuesday he has sent a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly asking for additional visa records and immigration information on Akhmetshin, who became a U.S. citizen in 2009…
The Iowa Republican was set to chair a hearing Wednesday on enforcement of FARA, but the session was postponed. Glenn Simpson, co-founder of the firm Fusion GPS, which commissioned a British intelligence officer to compile a now-infamous dossier on President Donald Trump, was originally slated to testify. Grassley had also said he wanted Manafort to appear at Wednesday’s hearing…
Yeah, he’s probably not implicated in this particular scandal — just deeply committed to ensuring 100% Repub rule, laws and regulations be damned. The Hill, last week:
… Grassley’s main questions for Simpson involve who hired Fusion GPS to produce opposition research against Trump, and whether the firm shared the document with the FBI.
“When political opposition research becomes the basis for law enforcement or intelligence efforts, it raises substantial questions about the independence of law enforcement and intelligence from politics,” Grassley wrote in March…
“It’s only a crime when a Democrat does it, y’know.”
This was supposed to be a Fox-News-friendly kangaroo court where every aspiring Repub congresscritter could pose for the cameras while hammering on “Democrat venality” in regards to oppo research. Then Don’s idiot kids (by birth and marriage) had to get caught with their hand in the cookie jar and half a dozen Russian “patriots of the state” standing around with recording devices…
Looks like some not-technically-guilty-of-this-particular-crime might just end up involved to their misfortune, and I can’t think of a more deserving bunch of targets.
Among others, complaint named Natalia Veselnitskaya & Rinat Akhmetshin, both of whom met w/ Don Jr. in June 2016. https://t.co/CTGQsTGAKu
— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) July 18, 2017
Note: Browder had not asked for any postponement, told me he just got of the train in DC to testify tomorrow.
— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) July 18, 2017
MobiusKlein
Does every gawddamned hearing have a title that proclaims the desired finding?
“Oversight of the Justice Department’s (non) enforcement… Lessons from the Obama administration…”
Aleta
My main question is which actors are KGB.
NotMax
Yeah, Junior certainly upset the cabbage cart.
??? Martin
Browder is aching to testify. He wants to nail the Russians behind all of this.
Mnemosyne
@Aleta:
Technically, none of them — the KGB was re-organized into a new agency with a different name.
Me, I’m waiting to see Trump Jr. get interrogated by Kamala Harris (D-CA — you’re welcome, America!) That’s gonna be must-see TV.
Chris
@Aleta:
All of them, Katie?
The KGB has had some fucking impressive offshoots: besides the two agencies FSB and SVR that’re its official successors, you’ve got the ex-KGB guys who went into organized crime, the ex-KGB guys who went into big business, the ex-KGB guys who went into politics (one of whom is currently the president), and the ones who’ve hopped back and forth between several or all of the above! I imagine the alumni network is strong enough that it all adds up to the same thing for our purposes, i.e. that anything gathered by any of the above makes its way to the Kremlin one way or another. And also that the KGB alumni network is implanted in so many Russian institutions that plenty of people who were never actually associated with it are de facto working for it all the same.
??? Martin
@Aleta: I don’t think there’s much question that all of the Russians involved either work for Putin or one of the oligarchs.
??? Martin
@Mnemosyne: Yep. Probably count on one of the GOP men shutting her down for making Trump Jr nervous.
Aleta
How about Goldstone?
Aleta
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Tag team with Sen. Harris and Sen. Franken.
ETA: “Must See TV” with jokes.
Aleta
Asking price is 2 million less than he paid, and under contract:
Emin’s place has been for sale for two years.
-Mother Jones
mai naem mobile
@Aleta: isnt Anita Hill a professor at the Univ of Oklahoma? I would like to see her involved on this just to needle Pruitt .
Keith P.
@MobiusKlein: They read like Regnery book titles.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Random thought:
If there truly are an infinite number of parallel dimensions, there must be one where he ran at the top of a certain third party ticket.
Franken/Stein.
ThresherK
@Keith P.: I’m just tired enough to scan that as “They read like Regency (era romance) titles”.
“Regnery romances: Like Ayn Rand’s sex scenes, but with even more ludicrous dialogue and cardboard characters.”
Lurking Canadian
At this point, the Trump team’s best defense is probably incompetence.
As anybody who has ever read a spy novel knows, this is not how this shit is supposed to work. Spies and agents are supposed to use dead drops, cutouts, innocuous sounding code phrases and so on. The initial suborning of the agent is a delicate dance where both parties are careful not to say or do anything incriminating.
You know how it’s NOT supposed to happen? The KGB operative doesn’t send the prospective traitor an email saying, “Hey, I’ve got some good information here about your opponent! You in the mood for some treason?” The traitor doesn’t sit down for a tete-a-tete with the head of the KGB at a fucking dinner party in full view of a half-dozen allied heads of state. This is like the Keystone Kops version.
Barbara
@Lurking Canadian: I think this is the phishing version, or that is one possible interpretation.
Grassley is a nincompoop, no question, but he is worse than Putin’s useful idiot in appearing to think that he can brush off treason with a bit of political theater.
Matt McIrvin
@Lurking Canadian: Unless the point isn’t really to turn the US President into a Russian agent, but to sow chaos, establish dominance and destroy the confidence of the American people in their own government. “This man got publicly turned right in front of your noses and you still elected him President. We own you already and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Jay C
Sadly, I’m not sure the Trump Jr./Veselnitskaya flap is going to be more than a speedbump to Republicans efforts to derail the Russiagate scandal(s). It sounds like Sen. Grassley is taking point on the pushback (on the Congressional level, anyway), which seems to focused mainly on deflecting, blame-shifting and false-equivalency: the usual GOP playbook. IOW, find some minor transgression by the other side (Hillary’s staff stocked the bar at a campaign party with Stolichnaya vodka!), trumpet poutrage about it in a public venue, and rely on their toadies in the RW media to start shrieking WHATTABOUT??!!?? WHATTABOUT??!!?? and BOTH SIDES!! BOTH SIDES!! Even if the “MSM” doesn’t run with it, there are an unfortunately large numbers of reality-avoiding voters out there who will; and the (intended) result is that any serious investigation into the Trump family/Administration’s Russian ties is going to be muddied by the appearance of partisan interest (by the losers).
I’m not 100% it’s going to work on this case, though: but I doubt whether that will keep them from trying.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
I’ve been saying this from the start. This whole circus we’re seeing right now is, in and of itself, a huge victory for Putin. He doesn’t need to actually have any of the ties to Trump that we’re suspecting. The mere fact that the president is being investigated for possible ties to a foreign power, the spectacle of him trying to subvert his own intelligence agencies and Justice Department in order to prevent those investigations, and the spectacle of the entire Republican Party insisting that there’s nothing to see here, is a huge flashing neon sign for the entire rest of the world saying “of course the U.S. government has been compromised. And you shouldn’t trust it anymore.” That’s exactly what Putin wants.
No Drought No More
God works in mysterious ways, and you can quote me.
The same sickness of soul that long ago devoured and perverted Donald Trump also got him elected (with a little help from his friends). The very same sickness still drives him to tweet, and has effectively laid waste to his presidency after a mere 7 months. God willing, it will also serve to destroy the republican party as a national power. The GOP is running out of oxygen, as this anemic best shot by Grassley in defending the indefensible so amply attests..