Here’s the “I don’t know him at all, don’t know what he’s about, don’t know where he comes from, know nothing about him” guy, w Lev Parnas & Roman Nasirov, former head of Ukrainian Fiscal Service, at Mar-a-Lago 12/16. @POTUS .@realDonaldTrump @Acosta #LevRemembers #LetLevSpeak pic.twitter.com/5B5QY2DJEg
— Joseph A. Bondy (@josephabondy) January 16, 2020
Per an unreliable narrator:
It is absolutely bonkers that this ex-Soviet dealer of stolen Oldsmobiles who knows a guy who can make your gas meter run backwards, hundred bucks, no problem, is MORE CREDIBLE THAN THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Which he totally is!— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) January 17, 2020
Parnas is from Odessa, the city with a very particular reputation. Basically, it's Ukraine's North Jersey, where every single resident is Tony Soprano dialed up to 11.
— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) January 17, 2020
I am kidding. My grandpa was a war hero and he eventually died of his wounds. He was a good citizen, as far as I know. But Odessa is totally the most notorious city in Europe.
— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) January 17, 2020
As to whether Lev is telling the truth, let me tell you something: Odessa men are much more believable and pleasant when they are lying. After 2 minutes with an Odessa swindler, you'll want to tell him your innermost secrets and ask to wash his mother's feet.
Lev looks miserable.— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) January 17, 2020
Never stop marveling at the incredible power of American racism. There is no other force on Earth that could make this schlub, whose God-given talents are salt fish speculation and conning Jewish grandmas out of their pension, a confidant of the US president.
Thanks, Michigan!— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) January 17, 2020
But look how happy he was, at Mar-A-Lago!:
— julie (@juliesCamp) January 16, 2020
#Immoralago is DONALD's spy central.
— OleHippieChick ? BetteWolf ?? (@BetteWo67187229) January 16, 2020
But how can we be sure Lev Parnas isn't lying? pic.twitter.com/EDiQwbAFAX
— Schooley (@Rschooley) January 17, 2020
How come no one asks Trump if he remembers when Parnas worked for her Fred? https://t.co/n0m4Ptbbs5
— Richter Scale (@Richter_Scale40) January 17, 2020
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
Colbert had a clip of Trump denying he knew Parnas 12 times in one QA session. Parnas said every time Cheetolini says he doesn’t know him, he’s going to release another photo of them together. So many pictures, so little time.
PS:. Insomnia sucks
jl
Who among us has not hobnobbed with someone at a ritzy club several times, met often and had dozens of photos taken together, and we don’t have the faintest idea of who they are.
It happens all the time.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Isn’t that what you say about Baud all the time?
Villago Delenda Est
Gosh, just because Parnas’ story has receipts and he comes across, unlike Donald and his flunkies, as telling the truth…
Well, let’s dismiss everything he has to say! Donald has done nothing wrong! Ever!
NotMax
@jl
Zelig?
:)
HalfAssedHomesteader
That picture of Lev and McCarthy will, I predict, be the most memeable picture of 2020. It’s priceless.
Martin
I grew up in NYC in the 70s. This is how every aspect of the city worked then. You greased palms, you knew a guy, you hustled. NYC moved out of that phase. These assholes moved to Florida, and kept doing it.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
I didn’t know Dump is from Odessa.
patrick II
I believe much of what Parnas says, except that he minimizes his own role. He told Maddow that he told Giuliani that Yovanovitch was spreading rumors not to worry about Trump because Trump was going to be impeached. He apologized and said only now does he realize it was agitprop.
Parnas speaks Russian, which no one else on that crew does, and was the link to Firtas. So the Russians tell Firtas who tells Parnas who tells Giuliani who tells Trump who becomes enraged and wants to fire Yovanovich, which was the Russians and Firtas’ goal. I don’t believe Parnas is as smart as he seems, as criminal as he is, and as naive as he pretends to be about the source, purpose, and effects of that false information.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
the corrupt media never asks the basic question when it comes to republicans.
They never looked into Flynn’s relationship with Dump. Of all the right wing ex-generals, how did the one directly connected to Putin end up in Dump’s campaign. If Hillary had hired Flynn, hundreds or “investigative journalists” would have been going through every trash can looking for the tie-in.
Anne Laurie
Seems like we’re already running into a mid-stage Watergate info problem: “smart & sophisticated enough to be a leader among this mob” and “smart & sophisticated enough to have a general idea of what they were doing” turned out to be two extremely separate metrics. The trick for the rest of us turned out to be separating how much was spin, and how much was — to quote Deep Throat — ‘not very bright guys, [so] things got out of hand.’
patrick II
@Anne Laurie:
You are right that I was speaking smart in the content of Trump and Giuliana. When I think of how utterly stupid these two are my heat breaks for America. But as to Parnas not being sharp enough to understand the purpose and effect of what he was telling Giuliani, I’ll just say that, like much of his story, it seems to help his own defense.
Betty Cracker
I highly recommend Marcy Wheeler’s analysis of Parnas’s activities and motives. She notes that before this whole thing blew up, he generated content that the right wing bubble wanted to hear, and now he’s telling us what we want to hear. He’s got his own angle in this thing.
Still, I’m glad Parnas is talking. I believe his account of his activities insofar as they corroborate the sworn testimony of the state department officials who participated in the House investigation. And Trump’s panicky denials bolster Parnas’s credibility on the extent of Trump’s involvement.
But as Wheeler observes, Parnas’s greatest contribution to a nightmare scenario for Trump & Co. may be the wacky Comic Sans note White House attorney John Dowd sent on his behalf to the House Intelligence Committee:
That ties it up in a nice loopy bow. :)
rikyrah
Him working for Fred Trump….
Because, of course ??
J R in WV
So surely there are real estate records of Les Parnas involved with Fred Trump way back in the day! My experience with buying property is that anyone who ever showed you how a window worked is listed on the sales records.
Everyone needs a government license, so there’s probably old records with Fred’s signature AND Parnas’s signature right beside it.
Donny is so stupid, he has no idea of the need to partition off the illegal side from the legal side, and stay himself on the legal side, as though there was no illigal side. So now one of the primary members of the illegal money laundering side of the Condo business in FLA is all over Trump Org today, when that is the last thing Trump needs to have come crawling out of his woodwork!
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I have no idea who jl is.
Central Planning
When my radio alarm work me up this morning, the 4 minutes of NPR news included news about the impeachment with a clip of Ted Cruz basically saying Dolt 45 will be found not guilty and there is no new evidence that would change that.
I think I’m going to have to find a different station, or maybe set the alarm 4 minutes later to avoid that level of stupidity when I wake up.
Bobby Thomson
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Who’s Fred, anyway?
ETA: Herr Fred. I get it.
OzarkHillbilly
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Baud who?
OzarkHillbilly
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: When has he ever been believable?
Bobby Thomson
@?BillinGlendaleCA: thrice ‘ere the cock crows.
trnc
The one with or without Pence?
Butch
Hundred bucks for the gas meter? My buddy will do it for $25 and a six pack. Call me.
Another Scott
@Bobby Thomson: Took me until this thread to get it too.
It burns me up that the press keeps referring to Parnas as a “Giuliani associate”. A BBC (I think) report a couple of days ago introduced the segment that way, and then the reporter said “Parnas started out selling condos in NY for Trump when he was 16…”
He’s a Donnie associate. Of course Donnie knows him, and has for decades.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Martin:
It’s like they know nothing else……
Used to call it bullshit and bluster. Some people, not anyone in trump’s orbit, like to tell the truth simply because it’s easier. Guys like these morons rarely tell the truth, they simply spin a new line whenever and if they repeat things you should automatically assume it’s a lie because 3 reasons. They rarely know the truth, that doesn’t gain them anything. If they know the truth, it isn’t good for them. Everything is a scam, or in the modern colloquial everything is bullshit.
Their lives are based upon getting something for nothing, which is always a scam, all life, and everything in life costs something.
Ruckus
Folks.
Fred Trump was a slumlord. He was a slumlord’s slumlord. Take advantage of everyone – before they take advantage of you. He was good enough at it to make a small fortune and he taught donnie as well as donnie could be taught, which is not well at all. donnie’s entire life has been a scam and the presidency was his biggest scam by far. It should be his downfall, simply because he’s in so far over his orange dyed, glued ferret hair, slathered clown makeup head and it’s blindingly obvious. I doubt that all the republicans are in on the scam but they have the last 50 yrs of republican boot licking, lock step lying, racism and scams as their only guiding light that this is a come to jesus moment for them. And many of them will fail simply because they don’t know it’s a scam. donnie’s current mental facilities being what they are, I doubt he actually knows this is a scam. His narcissism is his overwhelming mental self governing process so I’d bet that while he might know on some level, on a day to day basis he has no clue.
These are the mob guys who aren’t smart enough to be in the mob, the hangers on, hopefully the last remnants of a life that needs be gone. But we are human so that part is very doubtful.