Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

After roe, women are no longer free.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Come on, man.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

We still have time to mess this up!

In my day, never was longer.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Assassinating OUR OWN Ambassador: “It Would Be Wrong, That’s For Sure”

Assassinating OUR OWN Ambassador: “It Would Be Wrong, That’s For Sure”

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Yeah, that’s not exactly how Nixon phrased it, but even 1974’s comparatively innocent news readers understood what he meant. Those pious disavowals didn’t save him from leaving the Oval Office one step ahead of criminal prosecution.

There will be, no doubt, any amount of parsing and hair-splitting by tomorrow morning, crimesplaining that Dear Leader Trump never meant anything bad should happen to Ambassador Yovanovitch — it was just sarcasm, a thought experiment if you will, assuming he even understood what his less-evolved aides might’ve been suggesting. That didn’t work for Nixon, who was infinitely smarter and a whole lot more experienced than the figurehead in today’s Stupid Watergate. Even if Trump could be restrained from claiming full credit for every unsavory plot, I frankly doubt any of the current Oval Office Occupant’s minions and coatholders are anywhere near as loyal as Tricky Dick’s boys. The smartest ones left — low bar, that — are already talking to their lawyers. Or the feds.

Reader Interactions

76Comments

  3. 3.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: They’ve been saying that they barely know each other, never talked, right? Surely, she just sat down a moment to finish her espresso and Giuliani had know idea who she was. She probably just asked if the seat was free.

  4. 4.

    jl

    We’ll, be hearing BS tomorrow about ‘whack’ might mean hitting somebody with a stick. Just to get their attention, not bother them really. Yep, probably did mean that in this case. Sure enough. Then it won’t be ‘news’ anymore. I hope not but that might happen.

  5. 5.

    Emma from FL

    With my training as both a historian and a librarian, I have always considered myself beyond being surprised by anything human beings do. But they got me. Not that they were doing it — but that they seem so casual and careless about it.

  6. 6.

    Adam L Silverman

    What needs to be understood here is that the Russians, specifically the Russian security services, routinely harass American diplomatic personnel in Russia. Breaking in and tossing their apartments so it’s clear someone was there. Including taking a dump in the middle of the living room and leaving it there. Actually stalking them in an overt manner. One was actually stalked back to the embassy and then jumped and beaten up just outside US Embassy Moscow so that the US security at the embassy, including the Marine guards, could see it, but couldn’t do anything about it. Yovanovitch, despite being assigned to US Embassy Kyiv, would know this.

  7. 7.

    Jinchi

    Reading those texts, I simultaneously feel a mixture of horror and exasperation. Who is stupid enough to text this stuff? I know I should be thankful, but it’s embarassing that this country is being run by such a collection of incompetent morons.

  9. 9.

    dmsilev

    @Adam L Silverman:

    And yes, that’s Victoria Toensing’s reflection in the mirror.

    So, we can officially rule out “vampire” then? I guess that leaves ghoul as the next most likely option.

  10. 10.

    PsiFighter37

    Maybe Nancy should hold off a little longer on transmission so conspiracy charges can be added to the articles of impeachment.

  11. 11.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Adam L Silverman:  Luke Harding, Guardian reporter, asked the wrong questions of the wrong people

    here could be no doubt: someone had broken into my flat. Three months after arriving in Russia as the Guardian’s new Moscow bureau chief, I returned home late from a dinner party. Everything appeared normal. Children’s clothes lying in the corridor, books piled horizontally in the living room, the comforting debris of family life. And then I saw it. The window of my son’s bedroom was wide open…
    It wasn’t open when I left five hours earlier, taking my children, Ruskin, six, and Tilly, nine, with me. We lived on the 10th floor of one of Moscow’s post-communist-era apartment blocks, an ugly, orange-brick tower in the Moscow suburb of Voikovskaya. We kept our windows shut. The danger of a child falling out was too obvious.
    To open the window, you had to twist the white plastic handle downwards 90 degrees. This was possible only from the inside; it couldn’t have blown open. But the window was open, almost provocatively, defiantly so.

  12. 12.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    That’s outrageous and disgusting behavior on the part of Russia. All nations should expel their diplomats

    @PsiFighter37:

    Seconded. This is serious. An American president apparently was aware of, and may have directed, some extralegal operation to spy on a US ambassador to potentially murder her. If he could do it her, he could do it to anyone

  14. 14.

    West of the Rockies

    This feels different.  Stories come and go, and we say, “This is big!  Let’s see Trump explain this one!”  And the story eventually loses momentum.  (Multiple accusations of rape, Stormy Daniels, Charlottesville…)

    This story is crazy pants stuff.

  15. 15.

    Adam L Silverman

    @PsiFighter37: People, especially reporters, seem to be interpreting that she’s having a meeting with her caucus tomorrow about next steps as she’s going to be sending the impeachment charges over tomorrow. That may be a plausible interpretation, but it may not be the most probable one especially given the release of the Parnas documents this evening.

  16. 16.

    Jinchi

    When Trump was quoted on the call with the Zelensky saying Yovanovich was “bad news” and “was going to go through some things”, I assumed he was trying to give the Ukrainians the green light to assault her.

    I admit to being amazed that he apparently had his own people planning an attack.

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Given that I’ve forwarded three news reports of Russian or Russian news media affiliated individuals falling out of windows in Russia over the past several days, the threat here is really explicit.

  18. 18.

    patrick II

    I want the testimony of the person who called the Yovanovich  to warn her and how she knew Yovanovitch was in danger.

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    Ruh Roh

  23. 23.

    Sebastian

    You can bet your lunch money that Nancy knew about this and timed sending impeachment to the Senate right with this.

    Holy shit, she threw Turtle a cartoonish bomb with lit fuse. Hahhaha Damn, this woman is ice cold. I absolutely love it!

  24. 24.

    Amir Khalid

    Letting one’s administration plot to murder any government employee, be they postal clerk or ambssador, strikes me as grounds for removing POTUS from office and criminal prosecution immediately thereafter.

  25. 25.

    Anne Laurie

    @Emma from FL: Not that they were doing it — but that they seem so casual and careless about it.

    If fish had words, they wouldn’t have one for water.  Trump and all the two-bit global scam artists around him ‘think’ in a shared shorthand of crime-story tropes, some genuine, but mostly tales invented or retold for profit.  They seem to have genuinely confused the bidniz-speak marketeering slang of the semi-legit global ‘developers’ with the shiny Hollywood images of the Godfather or the Bourne Identity.   Hard guys, big swingin’ dicks, doing the stuff that needs to be done, y’know.

    To use a related analogy: Somebody left loaded guns where the middle-schoolers could find them.  Nobody was more surprised than the middle-schoolers when the smoke cleared and the EMTs arrived…

  27. 27.

    Wag

    @Sebastian:

    I agree 100%. This is the explanation for the delay in sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate that makes the most sense.  Nancy suspected she’d be handed a grenade with the pin pulled if she was patient enough. Her patience paid off, and will blow up McConnell when she blithely tosses it into his lap at a time of her choosing.

  28. 28.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    @NotMax:

    Looks like Robert HYDE, revealed as a texting partner of Lev Parnas during Yovanovitch smear campaign, was at the World Series game with Trump and MCCARTHY:

    It seems Trump isn’t the only one on Putin’s payroll, eh McCarthy?

    Didn’t know that Hyde was also running for Congress in Connecticut’s 5th district, in addition to being a Trump donor. It’s only a D+2 district, but Dems have controlled it for several years now.

  29. 29.

    patrick II

    When I read that Hyde had been arrested at a Trump resort claiming that there was a hit on him I thought it some sort of mental episode. But now it seems that he may have been willing to put a hit, or at least some physical harm to an U.S. ambassador, I think it was not so for from his normal experience. Maybe he thought his turn had come.

  30. 30.

    piratedan

    @Amir Khalid: well sure… if it was a Democrat…. But we only have testimony, sworn statements, texts, and notes and corroborating witnesses… hardly a slam dunk when you take into account that the GOP leadership are fellow conspirators on different crimes….

  31. 31.

    Kent

    @Sebastian: Yes.  And who the fuck thinks that we would have been better off with…[checks notes]  Martha Fudge or Tim Ryan as speaker over the past year.   Seriously.  Those were the challengers.

  33. 33.

    The Dangerman

    Seems to me a while back, when some really shitty news was about to come out about Trump, he droned the Iranian General.

    So, what’s he got in store when it comes out he was party to popping an Ambassador?

    I’m with Natasha Bertrand, Holy Shit. Just fucking arrest all of them and we’ll sort it out under President Pelosi.

  34. 34.

    Anne Laurie

    @Adam L Silverman: What needs to be understood here is that the Russians, specifically the Russian security services, routinely harass American diplomatic personnel in Russia.

    It feels  — correct me if I’m wrong — like Trump & his minions knew about this Russian standard, and thought they could ‘improve’ on sloppy Slavic intimidation tactics by actually having this ambassador who was giving them grief killed.   Or, more likely, Trump thought it would impress his Russian master if he suggested killng one of our own, just to demonstrate his baddassery.  (Not by threatening anyone Putin might have a use for, of course.)  It’s the sort of galaxy-brain move that the one teenager in the Risk game that none of the other players really like or trust would come up with — only plausible to an immature character with no understanding that other people have agency.

  35. 35.

    NotMax

    @Anne Laurie
    Flash from the past.

    March of 1972, Nixon advisor Charles Colson approached E. Howard Hunt. Feldstein describes what transpired:

    “Colson had apparently ‘just come from a meeting with President Nixon,’ whose hideaway office was next door, and seemed uncharacteristically ‘nervous’ and ‘agitated’ about the message he had to deliver. Colson told Hunt that Nixon ‘was incensed over Jack Anderson’s frequent publication of leaks,’ that the ‘son of a bitch’ columnist ‘had become a great thorn in the side of the President,’ and that it was imperative to ‘stop Anderson at all costs.’ Hunt stated that Colson proposed assassinating Anderson in a manner that would appear accidental, perhaps by using a special poison that could not be detected during an autopsy. Colson suggested various specific ways to get rid of Anderson, Hunt said, and ‘asked me if I could explore the matter with the CIA,’ where Hunt had previously worked as a spy. According to Hunt, Colson explained that neutralizing Anderson was ‘very important’ to the White House and Hunt was ‘authorized to do whatever was necessary’ to eliminate the investigative reporter.”

    The Nixon administration was plotting to kill a journalist.
    [snip]
    However, Anderson was spared. And the reason Hunt and Liddy didn’t follow through on their plan? Days later they were assigned another task: bugging the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate building. Source

  36. 36.

    CaseyL

    A couple of random thoughts:

    The GOP could get what they want – Stone Age judges and oligarchic economy – from Pence, without the Russian Mafia baggage.  Then why don’t they give Trump the heave ho? The only possible reasons are: 1) They’re ALL owned by the Russian mob, or; 2) They’re all under threat of having their loved ones maimed or murdered.  Maybe both, depending on the individual GOP-gangster.

    All this shit coming out because Parnas released the documents.  Why would he do that? Putin may decide Trump is no longer useful to him, and gave Parnas the go-ahead.

    One thing is very clear: the entire GOP needs to be destroyed and the ground beneath it salted.

  38. 38.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Anne Laurie: Rudy, Lev, Toensing, her husband, and Fruman were all tied into Dimitro Firtash, the Ukrainian oligarch and Russian mob member who runs Putin’s attempts to take over Ukraine’s petroleum and natural gas industry. Firtash works for Semion Megolovich, the head of the Russian mob. Megolovich works for Putin. As does Yevgeni Progozhin who works both for Megolovich in the Russian mob and for Putin as his caterer, as well as the guy paying for Putin’s troll farm the Information Research Agency. Progozhin also owns and runs the Wagner Group, which is Russia’s largest mercenary company and used by Putin when he needs to project power, but doesn’t have the military resources to do so and doesn’t want his fingerprints directly on whatever it is he’s doing. So the question being asked right now is whether the Wagner Group was involved here. Also, had they suborned someone working on the country team who could provide information on Yovanovitch’s movements and activities based on what Hyde was texting. Foggy Bottom is going to be on full boil by tomorrow morning.

  39. 39.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Wag: I’ve been wondering for a few days why all the Democrats kept saying “witnesses AND documents.”  Maybe these were the documents.

  40. 40.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @NotMax:

    I wonder why the Nixon Admin never had plans to off Hunter S Thompson? Wasn’t taken seriously by the greater public around the time?

    But that’s very shocking and something I never knew the Nixon admin was capable off. Is it known whether Nixon ever knew about this?

  41. 41.

    Sturgeonmouth

    Until moments ago, CNN had a Cillizza piece headlined:

    Analysis: Pelosi gambled and lost

    It was directly above multiple headlines about Parnov’s documents. It’s gone now. Glad I got a screenshot.

  42. 42.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Including taking a dump in the middle of the living room and leaving it there.

    When my sister was an FSO in Moscow, they left the dump in her freezer.

    And yes, the harassment of American government personnel, especially diplomats and embassy employees, is relentless. Folks posted there have pushed their superiors for many years to push back, and there’s never been a great explanation for why we just can’t.

  43. 43.

    piratedan

    This is what I would like to see…. I would like to see all of our Democratic Senators and Congresspeople and those members of the 4th Estate who are not in the pocket of our current Fascist Friendly administration and their enablers, approach their GOP brethren and simply ask, at what point is “the line” crossed?  Okay, extortion of a foreign government is apparently not a bridge too far for you, but plotting/authorizing/condoning an assassination/assault on our own diplomats?  Is that okay now too?

    If nothing else, perhaps it would clearly delineate who is in whose employ.

  46. 46.

    Adam L Silverman

  48. 48.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Also, had they suborned someone working on the country team who could provide information on Yovanovitch’s movements and activities based on what Hyde was texting.

    Hyde is asserting that they’ve suborned someone inside the embassy. So either a local employed there or someone on the country team. Right now the entire Regional Security Officer corps at the State Department is pulling their hair out!

    Assassinating OUR OWN Ambassador: <em>"It Would Be Wrong, That's For Sure"</em>

  49. 49.

    prostratedragon

    @chris:
    A very literary scandal (that word seems far too small): first Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, now Zelig, subbustrated by either R and/or G.

  51. 51.

    Martin

    @CaseyL: Then why don’t they give Trump the heave ho? The only possible reasons are: 1) They’re ALL owned by the Russian mob, or; 2) They’re all under threat of having their loved ones maimed or murdered.  Maybe both, depending on the individual GOP-gangster.

    3) GOP voters want Trump and not Pence and will primary every last one of them.

  53. 53.

    MobiusKlein

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Makes me wonder if DNA should be saved from those deposits, collected, and analyzed.

    And next time various sewer systems leaving the Russian Embassy have a match, just start expelling people until you get a match

  54. 54.

    Anya

    @Adam L Silverman: I’ve heard this before and I always wondered why are we in Russia then if they are assulting our ambassadors. I mean, I get it that they are a geopolitical power broker and we can’t just cut our ties with them but how is this an acceptable way to treat diplomats?

  55. 55.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Anya: You don’t let third rate powers push you around. The problem is that every administration for the past 20 years or so seems to have been happy letting Putin do this to our diplomatic corps in Russia. Every time it happens there should be a pushback.

  56. 56.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @CaseyL: and @Martin:

    The only possible reasons are:

    4) “Fuck you, libtards.”  Do not make the mistake of thinking that elected Republicans are any less driven by spite and white supremacy than their voters.  Especially Mitch McConnell.  Impeaching Trump would be giving Democrats a major victory, and they would rather hurt themselves than do that.

    EDIT – I do want to back up Martin specifically that even to the evangelicals, Pence is not nearly as acceptable.  He doesn’t deliver the rage fix.  They want Trump’s pure, unrestrained, toxic narcissist Nazi assholery.

  58. 58.

    eddie blake

    @Adam L Silverman:

    why can’t she just like, continue to send articles of impeachment to the senate on a weekly basis for the rest of the year as more information comes to light?

  59. 59.

    James E Powell

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I wonder why the Nixon Admin never had plans to off Hunter S Thompson? Wasn’t taken seriously by the greater public around the time?

    At the time, Thompson was the early 70s equivalent of a Top 10,000 blogger. He had a following, but it was in Rolling Stone, which was in no way a mainstream publication.

  61. 61.

    PJ

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

     

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Also, Thompson, while a fine, and sometimes brilliant, writer in his heyday, was not an investigative journalist and was not privy to inside information from the Nixon Administration – Deep Throat would never have approached him with info.  Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail is mostly long form profiles of candidates and events that any campaign journalist of the time could have covered, just delivered from Thompson’s perspective.  He had insight into character, but he was no danger to any politician.

  62. 62.

    Martin

    @Frankensteinbeck: I would also point out that there are worse things than losing your legislative seat – yet the GOP seems to keep shrinking that list with astonishing speed. Even the guys that are giving it up voluntarily can’t bring themselves to speak out.

    The depth of the cowardice is just amazing.

  63. 63.

    opiejeanne

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): IIRC, Eisenhower didn’t like Nixon at all. I think he was forced on him as a running mate, back when there were no primaries or caucuses as we know them now, just smoke-filled rooms full of serious men choosing the candidates.

  64. 64.

    Chris T.

    @Sturgeonmouth: I read that piece; his conclusion did not seem warranted even before this new stuff came out. Apparently he and/or his masters at CNN have realized this now.

  65. 65.

    Sloane Ranger

    “Nothing to see here. POTUS has the right to terminate Ambassadors.”

    Republican pundits/MAGA’ts?

  66. 66.

    JPL

    What the crap is happening?   I step away from the TV and computer for awhile, only to discover that the president wanted to whack an ambassador.

    This is not normal.

  68. 68.

    PaulWartenberg

    We have recorded conversations of guys plotting to assault/attack/kidnap/maybe KILL a then-active US ambassador. This is what I’m understanding right now.

    Why the hell aren’t all of them in handcuffs sitting in suicide watch jails awaiting trial dates?

  69. 69.

    zhena gogolia

    Okay, the most consequential story of the past week (decade?) and it’s relegated to a middle-of-the-night post? I was sleeping!

  74. 74.

    Sturgeonmouth

    When Hyde texts, “wake up Yankees man”, is he referring to Parnas, or telling Parnas to wake up Giuliani?

  75. 75.

    Just Chuck

    Assassinating an ambassador is an act of war.  What’s that crime that consists of levying war against the United States?

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