Something has bothered me since Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Let’s look at the letter appointing him special counsel:
- Robert S. Mueller III is appointed to serve as Special Counsel…
Not Special Prosecutor, as he is often titled. Special Counsel.
- any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump…
Based on these words, I expected a very different report from Mueller.
Mueller acted more as a prosecutor than an investigator. Perhaps I am getting this wrong; in internet parlance, IANAL, I am not a lawyer.
Mueller prosecuted cases against Paul Manafort and the the Internet Research Agency of St. Petersburg. His investigations supported Michael Cohen’s conviction and Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador. There are probably others, but that is not my point. His investigation seems to have been for the purpose of finding prosecutable crimes.
I expected that “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump” would have included a great deal more than what was in the report.
There were a great many contacts between Russians and the Trump campaign, or near misses like Maria Butina, who got cozy with the NRA, which supported Trump. The Russians used hacked files from the Democratic National Committee to help Republicans beyond Trump.
The Republican platform was changed to weaken support for Ukraine; the Mueller report mentions this, but notes that Trump seems to have been unaware of the change. The person who seems to have been responsible for it, J. D. Gordon, also is connected to Carter Page, who has his own Russian connections. And then there is George Papadopoulos, also with Russian connections.
Perhaps some of these Russian connections, like Butina, can be said not to have been connected with the Trump campaign. The hacked files used against other candidates, again not related to the Trump campaign. Although the platform change may not have involved Trump, his campaign certainly was involved with it, and with those other folks with hinky Russian connections. But these were investigated cursorily, if at all.
I don’t understand how Mueller interpreted the charge and why. I would like to know more about that.
It seems to be difficult to report on connections to Russia without being accused of paranoia. Additionally, some popular voices have greatly exaggerated connections to Russia on the basis of inadequate information.
I do not believe Putin is minutely directing a campaign to destroy the United States. He does not work like that. He remains a KGB colonel with access to the power of a state. He is a tactician rather than a strategist. He wants Russia to be recognized as a great power. Russia is in a strange position internationally. Its nuclear arsenal is equivalent to that of the United States, but its economy is about the size of Texas’s, based primarily on extractive industries. A nuclear great power, but not much else.
The way for Russia to be a great power is to lessen the influence of other great powers. Hence a campaign to divide Americans and Europeans, internally and from each other.
The campaign is loosely run – more a matter of “Who will rid me of these turbulent adversaries?” than of detailed planning and late nights in the Kremlin. Thus, multiple Russian actors, backed by multiple oligarchs, show up in the Mueller Report and in other ways.
Trump always has something bad to say about America’s allies, but never about Vladimir Putin and other autocrats. The connections across the Republican Party to Russia are many, as far as we know now, largely through donations. The Dallas Morning News has had major articles on this means of influence (August 2017, December 2017, two in May 2018) . Why haven’t other news outlets joined the investigation? Why isn’t this mentioned as common knowledge when Tucker Carlson sides with Russia over Ukraine?
There are so many stories that need more investigation.
Trump’s history with Russia. 1987 seems to be a turning point. And, of course, the noteless meetings with Vladimir Putin, particularly in Helsinki in July 2018.
Devin Nunes’s midnight run to the White House
Kevin McCarthy’s comment about Putin paying Trump and Dana Rohrabacher. McCarthy received a campaign contribution from Rudy Giuliani’s associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, which he is returning. He is not the only one to receive money from them.
Parnas and Fruman are currently a focus of media attention. Parnas would like to testify to Congress, but there is little reason to believe anything he says until we understand better his connections to Giuliani and Trump and to people like Dmytro Firtash.
Eight Republican members of Congress spent the Fourth of July, 2018, in Moscow. They met with senior Russian officials. They are Richard Shelby (AL), Ron Johnson (WI), John Neely Kennedy (LA), Jerry Moran (KS), Steve Daines (MT), John Hoeven (ND), John Thune (SD) and Rep. Kay Granger (TX). Johnson and Kennedy have been extremely vocal lately in spreading the Russian propaganda meme that Ukraine, not Russia, hacked the campaigns in 2016.
And, oh yes, the US Intelligence Community report of January 2017 said that the Republican campaign was hacked too. We haven’t seen any more about that.
That’s the list I come up with over a day or two of thought. I’ll bet there’s more.
There is a throughline to all this: Russian interference in American politics. It’s a big story, to be sure, but one that we need to hear. Most of it was not covered in the Mueller investigation. The House Intelligence Committee hearings have been on a very small part of it. News organizations are working on parts of it. We need more.
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner
Gin & Tonic
Brava, Cheryl. Excellent post.
gbbalto
Thanks, Cheryl. Mueller really should be asked to testify as to whether AG Barr shut his investigation down early. I don’t recall him being asked that.
Martin
‘Special prosecutor’ was retired from use with the Ethics in Government Act, replaced with ‘Special counsel’. Not sure that bill is still in effect, but it’s been institutionalized now.
Mike in Pasadena
You have articulated something that most jackals have been feeling for months. One could add the New York FBI field officers who leaked info to Rudy. Not a direct link to Russia, but where there’s Rudy and Trump, there is probably a Russia link. We’ve heard endless blather about the text messages between FBI agent and FBI lawyer (“the lovers”), so let’s see text messages and emails from and among Rudy’s buddies in that FBI field office.
Mnemosyne
I’m one of those “Russian connections are everywhere!” maximalists, so I feel like I should clarify where my opinion is right now.
I don’t think that Putin is controlling everything or pulling everyone’s strings. I do think that Republicans formed an alliance with the Russians and that’s what they’re desperate to keep under wraps.
It’s not that Putin is controlling everything without their knowledge. It’s that Republicans are KNOWINGLY working in concert with Putin, which is motherfucking treason, in my non-lawyer opinion.
patrick II
There was a picture of Mueller last year with him leaning into his hands and the caption was “Will you please stop committing crimes so I can end this investigation?” I think that is part of it. There is just so much. It’s just past noon here on the east coast and I would bet some parts of the Trump criminal association has already committed ten crimes or so. To actually deal with all of it legally, if, hope to god, a democrat is elected, we will have to hire a hundred lawyers, a couple hundred f.b.i. agents, and add a federal court or two, plus subsidies to states for all of the crimes that are being committed. It’s just overwhelming. Not to mention the political cost of actually doing this right.
But I think the Mueller investigation was broken into two parts, the criminal and a second classified investigation about the Russian intrusion into our election system. I don’t believe the second part has ever been released, even an unclassified manner. Correct me if I am wrong and just missed it — it’s easy to do with the hundred criminal news items a day coming from this White House.
We don’t know how big that second report would be. And also, there were members intelligence from CIA and FBI. Adam Schiff at one point complained he has never seen it. Has that changed and I missed it?
I think Mueller was, above all an honest, smart bureaucrat who colored within the lines, and some pretty narrow lines were drawn for him. He really did enough that this president should be impeached, and then the dams of criminal actions would burst open, but with FOX, and particularly Barr controlling the presentation of the report to their audience, Republicans, most of whom are in on it, aren’t going to budge.
So, yes, I think there is much more info out there, and we need an election victory in 2020 to make it all come out.
Sorry I am so wordy. Baud would have done this in one sentence.
Jeffro
I think it’s fair to say Putin was a tactician…one who has grown and made use of (what was that Russian general who wrote a book back in the early 2010s about how to use asymmetric power against the West?) , enormous financial resources, advances(?) in social media technology, semi-partnering with China, and making use of some very willing useful idiots in the UK and America.
He’s grown to see the possibilities, in other words. The bigger picture. Almost strategic, one could say.
Josie
We should not need a special counsel to do these investigations, since we have a department of justice and an FBI. For obvious reasons, however, those institutions will not do their jobs unless we win the next election ( and maybe a few more after that). Hopefully, we will work for a blue wave so huge that the voter suppression and dirty tricks won’t work this time.
Kent
This only happens with investigations of GOP presidents.
Investigations of Democratic presidents are by definition endless.
Funny how that works isn’t it?
patrick II
@patrick II:
I will just add that the Manafort holdout was key. He was at the heart of the conspiracy. If Manafort would have folded, the entire thing would look different. He didn’t, and he is still working with giuliani from jail. And he is probably counting on a pardon. I hope he spends the rest of his corrupted life in the bowels of a high security prison.
Jeffro
I think the commonality is Russian money and tech-spertise/hacking being deployed in the service of GOP elected officials & their campaigns.
With a side helping of certain GOP pols having their person offshore accounts directly ‘enhanced’. (I’m looking at you, Rand Paul)
Putin doesn’t have to pay off every GOP official or hack every state database…just enough to tip the balance. And unfortunately in our system, he and the GOP only need to keep 1/2 of 1 branch of government in order to stymie most any kind of progress. (More than that, and they can really wreak havoc, as we’ve seen).
Eventually, we’ll be shocked at how little, annually, it was costing Putin to keep these guys in his pocket. Or maybe not shocked at all…
For an annual investment of probably less than $20M, Putin
Cheryl Rofer
@patrick II: I think that there are, indeed, too many crimes for any investigation to keep up with.
What I keep wondering about is connections – how did a Midwestern radio jock and Republican operative recommend a weirdo investment analyst who had been courted by Russian intelligence to be one of Trump’s foreign policy people?
Or why were those eight Republicans chosen for the Fourth of July trip?
It’s possible there are no connections – certainly fewer than some of the overenthusiastic commentators imagine – but we just don’t know.
Cheryl Rofer
@Jeffro: Most people who watch Putin carefully, like Mark Galeotti, say he’s stuck as a tactician. And that’s my take too.
Gin & Tonic
@Mike in Pasadena: I think my grandchildren will at some point see a movie about the NY FBI field office and the Russian mob that will be an echo of Black Mass – about the Boston field office and the Whitey Bulger mob.
Just Chuck
What really infuriated me was Mueller’s mealy-mouthed language of “If there weren’t crimes committed, we would have said so.” That he didn’t just fucking say “YES, THERE WERE CRIMES” meant the spin machine could operate non-stop. And it has.
But anyway, aren’t there a number of investigations that Mueller referred to the FBI that are still in progress?
Another Scott
Immediately after the public letter appointing Mueller, Rosenstein wrote a second letter that was much more specific about what he could and couldn’t investigate. Lots of it was blacked-out when it was released much later.
I think Mueller did a good job given all the constraints he was under. Barr should be the target of our ire about the whole investigation and its aftermath – not Muller.
Cheers,
Scott.
patrick II
@Cheryl Rofer:
I think we had an fine old-style investigator investigating a new type of crime. He is not up with all of the social media aspects of what has been going on. He interviewed, found contradictions and lies, indicted, and found some people guilty. The broad scale of this is past the old investigative techniques, and the use of so many and such broad lies with new tools is difficult to prosecute in a country with free speech. What we look at as a positive is being used against us. If I could, facebook, FOX, and others would not be able to tell or disseminate provably factual lies. I am not sure we can survive with half of the population believing in an alternate reality, both as a country, and when I think of climate change, as an entire civilization.
Patricia Kayden
I assume that when we finally get our hands on Trump’s tax returns, we’ll get an even clearer picture of his (financial) ties to Russia.
Cheryl Rofer
@Just Chuck: I think there is a counterintelligence investigation still in progress. That is more likely to meet my expectations of the Mueller investigation. But it is also likely to remain classified.
One of my pet peeves is that counterintelligence is particularly something the public needs to know about, and it is particularly likely to be classified. One of these days, I’ll write that post.
Jeffro
@Cheryl Rofer: Fair enough – I have only a layman’s understanding here. And I don’t watch him/his actions all that specifically, I just keep up with the news.
He sure is making a lot happen with a relatively small pile of chips, though.
Martin
@Cheryl Rofer: Being stuck doesn’t make it go away. Hitler died 75 years ago yet we have no shortage of Nazis today.
My guess is the GOP will institutionalize this and readily adopt Russian propaganda from now on. The resistance has broken. The hard part is done. The GOP will do Putins tough task from here out, extend it, and create their own propaganda that Putin would be proud of.
Cheryl Rofer
@Jeffro: He is leveraging
That gives him quite a reach.
japa21
Yes, Trump’s visit to Russia in 1987 is important, and not enough attention has been paid to that. It was right after that when he started to criticize the US’s involvement in NATO. I think that is when Russia decided he would be worth cultivating and it has paid off.
I do think that Barr stopped the investigation and Mueller went along with it. I don’t think he had much choice. It was apparent that Mueller saw Trump as a criminal but felt, rightly or wrongly, that his hands were tied.
Your summary is excellent, and most here are aware of, and have mentioned, from time to time, all of them. Always helps to have them put into one compilation.
The problem is, most Americans don’t have the slightest idea what these things are and probably don’t care. We are a country of people who have the attention span of a gnat, the patience of a mayfly and the common sense of a moth.
In 30 years, when the history of this period is written, people will go, “Why did everybody let him/them get away with this stuff?” Then they will forget it all 10 minutes later.
lee
My take is that the enough of the GOP hierarchy is compromised by the Russians that they can give each other cover. Mueller needed someone to completely flip (Manafort) and they didn’t.
If a blue wave happens in 2020 and we get a non mealy-mouth POTUS, we might see more investigations into this that get more results.
sdhays
@Cheryl Rofer: That 4th of July trip was just wild. What self-respecting American politician goes on a partisan trip to Russia on the 4th of July? Particularly with the party under such a cloud. It makes one wonder if the date was significant – specifically chosen to assert dominance over these people.
sdhays
@Patricia Kayden: Oh, no. Don Jr. has assured us that the Dump Organization has no business with Russia, so I’m sure it’s all on the up and up.
lee
@sdhays: I’m pretty sure that is exactly why that date was chosen and it shows just how compromised the GOP is.
germy
Imagine there’s no heaven.
PJ
@Cheryl Rofer:
@Jeffro: If strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal, I think one can say that using the potential weaknesses of democracy (love of money and power over love of country) against democracies to weaken their influence and increase Russian influence is a strategy, and not just a tactic.
Putin has held on to power for a couple of decades through the use of “managed democracy,” (see Vladislav Surkov), giving people the illusion of choice and power while making sure that, in reality, no matter how they vote or organize, there is only one party or person that will get elected. He can’t use violence or the threat of violence or the power of the Russian state in other countries (though he will eliminate Russian nationals he considers to be a threat in other countries), but with a relatively small amount of money, he can throw elections in those countries to parties and candidates whom he thinks will be good for himself and for Russia. This has paid off handsomely here, in the UK, and elsewhere in Europe, and he has gotten good results. Trump apparently hates Ukraine now, and has weakened US support for South Korea and NATO (and reportedly wants to withdraw from NATO entirely).
Soviet/Russian influence on Trump started more than 30 years ago, so this can’t all be put down to Putin, but Putin has successfully leveraged the GOP’s willingness to betray democracy for power, and Facebook’s love of money, and the love of money and power of who knows how many right wing groups like the NRA, to weaken the US and its alliances. I think that’s a pretty impressive accomplishment. Of course, Putin hasn’t gotten his main goal, which is lifting US sanctions, but if Trump gets reelected, I think that’s definitely in the cards.
VeniceRiley
@Cheryl Rofer: One of my pet peeves is that counterintelligence is particularly something the public needs to know about, and it is particularly likely to be classified. One of these days, I’ll write that post.
This is also one of my pet peeves. There just seems to be no way to bring these criminals to justice. And no way for us to know the full scope of this war on America, abetted by traitors among us, so we can punish them at the ballot box.
germy
He has questions.
The Moar You Know
Mueller has no integrity. He wrote a report designed to clear the GOP of the worst of its misdeeds and went out of his way to avoid anything that would “dig the hole deeper”. A good company man, Mueller.
Mike in Pasadena
@Kent: Wow, exactly, and Democratic Secretaries of State (Benghazi!).
James E Powell
@Patricia Kayden:
I have a couple of fairly serious bets that we – meaning the American people – are never going to see Trump’s tax returns or any other financials. Who’s with me?
Tehanu
Martin
@Martin: Evidence
It will become GOP orthodoxy that NATO is bad. Even after Trump is gone.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Moar You Know: You’ve read the classified parts of his report then?
Shalimar
Andrew Weissmann is an MSNBC contributor now. He could answer all of your questions, but it’s clear part of his agreement is that they don’t ask.
JPL
@James E Powell: I’m with you.
mad citizen
@germy: Dang! I enjoyed Sean in concert this past summer with Les Claypool, but Sean, you’re way way off the nut with this one.
Martin
@PJ: I don’t think Putin has a plan once these democracies are compromised, other than we become as weak as Russia. Similar with Trump – he’s a willing idiot, always has been. That doesn’t mean there’s a strategy behind compromising Trump, you compromise him because it’s easy to do, and what the hell, maybe he’ll be useful later. IOW, I think Putins objectives have been met. The cancer is planted.
In some ways, I don’t think Putin wants a strategy here. Part of the GOP defense is, effectively, ‘there’s no evidence of a strategy’. That’s their ‘no collusion’ argument. So long as he doesn’t reveal a strategy, he’s got a decent chance of letting the GOP convince themselves they aren’t being played, which seems to have happened.
mad citizen
@James E Powell: Was thinking about this issue this morning. It’s amazing more attention is not paid to this from a simple “What is he hiding?” viewpoint. Yet, information wants to be free, as they say. I’m remaining optimistic they are public at some point. The Dems need to relentlessly hammer on it, though.
Zzyzx
@Just Chuck: those two are not synonymous though. Mueller said that there wasn’t enough evidence to exonerate but that’s not the same thing as knowing Trump committed crimes. High profile prosecutors are likely to be precise.
Shalimar
@Martin: Putin’s goal is to reconstitute the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. I am sure he has many plans towards getting there, only one of which is destabilizing the US so we can’t oppose him.
cckids
@japa21:
I heard an interview with Malcolm Nance (on Larry Wilmore’s podcast), he said that Ivanka’s father was an informer to the KGB, and that was key to Trump’s Russia visit & all that has flowed from that.
After typing that, I feel like adjusting my foil hat, but Nance really seems to have the receipts.
zhena gogolia
@Jeffro:
The idea that Putin doesn’t think strategically is ridiculous, in my view.
zhena gogolia
@PJ:
Right.
PJ
@Martin: I agree that Putin doesn’t seem to have a plan beyond weakening Western democracies (and extending Russia’s sphere of influence in the Near East). Beyond making himself more rich and powerful, I don’t know that he has a vision for anything.
While the lack of a Wansee conference with the GOP and Putin may be enough for enough Americans to believe there was no collusion, I wouldn’t go so far as to say they can convince themselves of the same. To defend Trump, they have to adopt Russian talking points. To defeat Democrats, they rely on documents hacked by Russians, and many of them seem to be getting campaign contributions from them. To counter Democratic policies, they rely on Russian disinformation spread through Facebook, Twitter, and Fox. While it may be that only some GOP politicians are literally bought and paid for, the rest of them refuse to acknowledge that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election to get Trump elected, and are working to do the same again in 2020. And, with a few exceptions (Amash and who else?), they are all okay with that.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
This seems right to me. I also think that part of this is that the deal was made at the top; it’s not a done deal that the mass of the party is cool with selling out to Russia. That means they’re desperate to keep things under wraps not just from the general public but even from the rest of the party, at least until they can sell friendship with Putin as an essential part of being a good Republican.
dnfree
This post exactly lays out my concerns with the investigations into Trump and Russia. There seems to be almost a purposeful ignoring of the depth and breadth of the connections.
John Revolta
JPL
@Roger Moore: We also know the the RNC computers were hacked and don’t know what info was used for black mail, etc.
Lindsay’s was hacked also, if memory serves me.
Yutsano
@cckids:
Do you mean Ivana’s father?
cckids
@Yutsano: Of course. Oy.
rikyrah
Great post.
Thanks
James E Powell
@mad citizen:
It’s amazing it wasn’t the #1 issue in the 2016 campaign. Of all the questions about the press/media in 2016, this one has never really been asked of the Dean Baquets, CNN, etc. Why did they decide to give Trump a pass on his tax returns? They would never have done that for a D.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: That too
Alan Barney
The Republican Party is awash in laundered Russian campaign money. The Republican Party has embraced the Oligarchy.
Cheryl Rofer
@cckids: Malcolm Nance is one of the people who spoil the discussion for the rest of us by being too credulous. Read this New Yorker interview with him. He’s a bullshitter.
rikyrah
@John Revolta:
absolutely on point
Kent
Well, a future Dem president could certainly release them. But will they? I fucking hope so. The only other possibility I think would be some sort of leak. What we need is a Snowden inside the IRS. Stranger things have happened.
But depending on the courts to do it for us in the next 11 months? Yeah…not going to happen.
PJ
@rikyrah: @John Revolta: I’m confused. While Barr held up it’s release for weeks, we do have a Mueller Report (albeit redacted) that runs to 700 some odd pages in book form: https://www.amazon.com/Mueller-Report-Washington-Post/dp/1982129735
jonas
I’ll second those who have pointed out that we’ve never really seen Mueller’s report — what we have is a heavily redacted version provided by Barr’s unbelievably corrupt DOJ, and a laughably misleading executive summary provided by Trump’s svengali, Barr. All this leads back to Putin and Russia, but via Paul Manafort. Mueller sent Paul Manafort up the river on a tax evasion charge, but doesn’t seem to have wanted to further open up the can of worms on Manafort’s years-long work for the Russian-aligned Regions Party in Ukraine and Putin’s mini-me, Viktor Yanukovitch. How a guy who appears was likely an active Russian agent got onto a presidential campaign still remains a mystery.
James E Powell
@Kent:
If the NYT received Trump’s tax returns from a source, I have no doubt they’d call the FBI and refuse to publish anything about the tax returns. Whereas if it were anything negative about a Democrat, they would immediately publish it and let the chips fall where they may.
Roger Moore
@James E Powell:
Which is a sign that one shouldn’t send stuff to FTFNYT. A better approach would be to broadcast the thing instead of limiting it to a single media outlet. Let everyone see the thing if they want.
John Revolta
@PJ: What jonas said. About one-eighth of the report was held back.
marcel proust
Back in the 1980s I think it was, I recall the USSR being described as Upper Volta with ICBMs.
Plus ça change, plus c’est le même chose.
Gin & Tonic
@Cheryl Rofer: Bingo!
Cheryl Rofer
For those saying we don’t have the Mueller Report, PJ provides the link. It’s more than Barr’s summary, but yes, partly redacted.
Cheryl Rofer
@marcel proust: Upper Volta is now Burkina Faso. From a recent post by Paul Goble, who was in the US State Department and worked with the Baltic countries as the Soviet Union was falling apart:
Jay
KGB interview linked in the tweet,
“Jamali graduated from New York University (1999) with a degree in Political Science and Government. After 9/11, he reached out to the FBI to offer his services, as his parents were nearing retirement. He later became a double agent when a Russian GRU member named Oleg Kulikov attempted to recruit him.[1][2] The ruse lasted from 2005 to 2009, during which time Kulikov paid Jamali for what he thought were classified documents.[3] The operation ended with Jamali being “arrested” by the FBI in front of Kulikov, blowing Kulikov’s cover as a diplomat in the United States.[4]”
dopey-o
@Cheryl Rofer: most westerners dismiss alexander dugin as a crank. yet he is widely read in kremlin circles.
his book “the foundations of geopolitics” lays out the case for the destruction of the decadent west and russia’s dominance of eurasia, from vladivostok to lisbon. of course this requires fragmenting the european union and NATO. unfortunately AFAICT, dugin’s book has not been translated into english.
putin does not need to be a master strategist or tactician. all his generals are on the same page with him.
Jay
@dopey-o:
in English
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35887243-foundations-of-geopolitics
Cheryl Rofer
@dopey-o: Yes, Dugin has some influence, although it’s hard to be sure how much.
Basically, he wants a white, Russian Orthodox world, much like some American Christian conservatives. Some of them have joined with Russians who think like Dugin. They don’t recognize the nationalism in that Russian Orthodox part.
dopey-o
timothy snyder’s book “the road to unfreedom” explains russia’s negative-sum game against the west, and how ukraine is a key piece in their chess game.
Mnemosyne
@Cheryl Rofer:
They probably recognize the nationalism, but think it’s the same as their own white nationalism/white supremacy.
They would have a hell of a shock if it ever got to that point of Russian domination and they discovered that white Protestant Christian Americans were considered apostates and heretics.
AnonPhenom
Muller, Rosenstein, Barr, et al.
All looking to ‘land the plane‘ and cover the ass of everyone involved (including themselves)
AnonPhenom
This will either end with the collapse of the Republican Party into a political rump for fools and bigots, or the evaporation of the Democratic Party as it becomes apparent it is incapable of countering the corruption that it faces.
One or the other.
No way they both survive this.
J R in WV
@patrick II:
I think Manafort — if pardoned near the end of Trump the Terrible’s last term, would be indicted on evidence uncovered but not presented to the Grand Jury before.
So after inauguration, he would be back in pretrial detention.
I continue to be optimistic!!
J R in WV
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Zinsky
Great post, Cheryl! Also, really great links – I had not seen many of them. Thanks!