Assuming it is all true, as Adam discussed earlier, the part of the interview that stood out to me was the fact that Toensing and DeGenova were willing to do all this for a million dollars and a hundeed grand a month in “expenses.”
It just strikes me as a such a paltry sum to sell out your country. I mean, don’t get me wrong, a million dollars is a lot of money. But they’re already old and rich and have enough money to spend the rest of their lives living comfortably.
Is this just the endgame for every right wing grift? A couple million? That’s what you work for? They’re like remora fish, just hanging around the sharks settling for orts.
Chetan Murthy
This is very perceptive. If you don’t have a mill, then a mill is life-changing. Maybe still true if you have 1-4mil. But if you’re up at 10mil (which is his net worth, from what I read), a mil doesn’t really change your life.
So yeah, John, I don’t get it. These penny-ante thugs.
CaseyL
They’ve been part of the GOP Dirty Tricks & Grifts squad since the Clinton Wars of the 1990s. It’s a way of life for them; they know no other.
MisterForkbeard
I think they’re just doing it to be powerful and influential. The money is nice, but they soon see any of it as a betrayal. It’s just being a powerful person, and this is what they so.
Or rather, this is what these idiots think.
Viva BrisVegas
The two motivators for sociopaths are money and status.
The money is nice, but the status points among the other gangsters is what’s special.
dww44
Every day in Trump World provides new proof of the adage that if you lie down with dogs, you, too, will get up with flees. So, that’s what has happened to the entire GOP universe. Not only in power and money hungry DC, but out here in the hinterlands as well. They will do anything to justify to themselves why Trump is a great and good President and person.
Adam L Silverman
The gaudier the crook, the cheaper the patter.
West of the Rockies
Hopefully, they will get the cold shoulder from and feel the disdain of whatever society they run in (a la Dershowitz).
piratedan
while hating and loathing the GOP media machine, you do have to admire the deftness in how its employed… it appears that the “lessons learned” from Nixon were not to “do no crimes” but rather, “control the narrative” and that’s what these folks are doing, very Orwellian and I hope like hell if we wrest control of the country away from them that we make these fuckers pay and by “these fuckers”, I mean everyone from Putin to Murdoch. They all perpetuated this fraud and theft on our nation and its processes and even the truth itself. I would be happy to see my tax dollars invested in their incarceration and shooting them off into the Sun.
PeakVT
Haven’t most paid traitors worked for relatively paltry sums?
Perhaps the same kind of person who would sell out their country also is the same kind of person who doesn’t really grasp how much that might be worth. Meaning they are people who are somehow lacking in perspective.
hervevillechaizelounge
I’ve always assumed folks like Toensing and DeGenova aren’t just working for the money—they’re working to ensure the supremacy of white conservative Christians in America. (“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”)
Off topic, but I need to add something about Robert Hyde: as someone who lived through the club scene, his breakdown at Marashithole was a classic case of cocaine paranoia. People who have a legitimate psychotic break aren’t fucking fine a couple of hours later, but cocaine psychosis wears off when the drugs do.
PJ
Aldrich Ames got over $4MM from the Russkies, and Robert Hansen got $1.4MM, while Jonathan Pollard apparently just worked for a couple thou a month for the Israelis. So I guess it depends on how much your betrayal of your country is motivated by ideology and how much by $$.
For people like Trump and Di Genova and Toensing and Rudy, betraying their country isn’t an issue, it’s whether how much they get paid is commensurate to their own self-importance.
@PeakVT:
GaryK
Did you wonder whether Lanny Davis would show up in this storyline? Well of course he did.
Warren Terra
I rather suspect the importance and the proximity to power were more important than the money, but they still needed to get “real” money out of it, a large-seeming round number, entirely for symbolic reasons, for the prestige. A million dollars plus a hundred thousand a month pretty much fulfills that goal perfectly.
Sebastian
Ten million net worth isn’t that much really. At 5% return that’s “only” $40k a month and most of that money is probably tied up in real estate (multiple houses/condos). Their actual income from their investments is probably quite low.
At the same time their lifestyle requires a lot of expenses. Clothes, cars, dining, travel, etc.
The $100k in monthly expenses and the million in cash are a dead giveaway that they are spending way above their income.
Chetan Murthy
@Sebastian: Man, I can’t even imagine how I could burn thru that kind of dosh. Seriously can’t even. But I believe you, I really do.
sukabi
@Chetan Murthy: maintaining their lifestyle to maintain access the power centers is expensive.
Ruckus
None of the guys in trump’s orbit are particularly good at much of anything. The penny ante grift is about it. Of course they sold their souls for chump change, they are chumps and their souls aren’t worth shit. The deal is of course that they were able to pull off getting him elected. That required help from a lot higher up the grifting ladder than trump, because he is of course one of the chumps.
Ruckus
@Sebastian:
Or that is their income……..
Ruckus
@PeakVT:
Difficult to have good perspective when your head is stuffed up where the sun doesn’t shine…….
opiejeanne
@hervevillechaizelounge: This is pretty much what I said to mr opiejeanne when I read about his little episode, that it was the cocaine talking.
Z
When what you’re buying is getting an ambassador fired and multiple meetings/appearances by the President of the United States, VP, and cabinet officials, it obviously costs more than that. The half mil or so to America First PAC plus a million here or there is just the beginning. Given how much Lewendowski loved his appearance in front of congress, it’s stunning he hasn’t been asked back to field questions about whether or not he knew what the top 10 donors to the PAC he worked for wanted. And it’s amazing Linda McMahon who chairs the PAC hasn’t been asked to testify as well. Maybe because House has it’s hands tied in the criminal investigation or doesn’t want to muddy the political quid pro quo story with the fact that lots of players including probably some named Trump were asking for money as well as Biden/Clinton noise
I’m sure if everyone in this is investigated as much as Manafort you’ll find they all have the same tastes in suspiciously expensive carpets, ostrich jackets, home theater installations, etc.
evodevo
@PeakVT: Robt Hanssen, who probably did more damage than any other US spy, only took in an average of $60k a yr for the 22 years he was a mole in the FBI feeding info to the Russians…
Chief Oshkosh
@Adam L Silverman:
The smoker you drink, the player you get…?
;)
Don
This. I’ve often ruminated on the question of “what is their prize” for all this truly astonishingly awful behavior, and I come up with nothing. Is it just the end of “we’re history’s actors now?” Or do these people really think they are making things better for the 300million Americans who are not already wealthy? Beats me.
Cheap Jim
“And for what? For a little bit of money. There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’t you know that? And here ya are, and it’s a beautiful day! Well, I just don’t understand it.”
Parfigliano
@Don: Its simple….they dont give a shit about anything other then theirselves