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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / GOP Venality Open Thread: Yep, RUSSIAGATE IS REAL

GOP Venality Open Thread: Yep, RUSSIAGATE IS REAL

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I’m sure better-informed front pagers will be covering this, but… Looks to me like the Repub-dominated Intel Committee used the cover of the Democratic National Convention to dump their ‘fifth & final’ report on 2016’s GRU/Trump crime cartel fvckery when they hoped it wouldn’t get much notice.

Here’s a whole bunch of news sources agreeing, yep, looks like all those high crimes averred by the Democrats actually happened!



The Washington Examiner is quite a conservative / right-wing outlet, but even they aren’t trying to whitewash this:

A new, bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee confirms, unambiguously, that the Justice Department had good reason to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election. It also indicates that investigators were right to examine potential conspiracy with the Kremlin by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Again, this is a bipartisan report, not a partisan Democratic attack document. It is endorsed by Republican committee chairman (on leave), Richard Burr of North Carolina, by acting Chairman Marco Rubio of Florida, and by all other Republicans on the committee in addition to the committee Democrats.

The very first substantive words of the report say this: “The Committee found that the Russian government engaged in an aggressive, multi-faceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.”

The report “focuses on the counterintelligence threat, outlining a wide range of Russian efforts to influence the Trump Campaign and the 2016 election. In this volume the Committee lays out its findings in detail by looking at many aspects of the counterintelligence threat posed by the Russian influence operation,” with special attention on the multitudinous Russian connections of Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, who for more than a decade had conducted “influence operations” on behalf of a major Russian oligarch named Oleg Deripaska.

Also, “Manafort hired and worked increasingly closely with a Russian national, Konstantin Kilimnik. Kilimnik is a Russian intelligence officer.” And: “[C]ontinuing throughout his time in the Campaign, Manafort directly and indirectly communicated with Kilimnik, Deripaska, and the pro-Russian oligarchs in Ukraine. On numerous occasions, Manafort sought to secretly share internal Campaign information with Kilimnik.”

That’s just from the report’s initial summary. The report contains 952 pages of evidence and analysis showing that these Russian efforts were a serious intelligence threat. Moreover, several Trump officials were at least somewhat aware of, and quite open to, the Russian help, even if not criminally “conspiring” with the Russians…

Reader Interactions

101Comments

  2. 2.

    Betty Cracker

    Hate to be Debbie Downer, but as damning as the report is, it won’t matter. GOP senators who signed off on the report (Cotton, Rubio, etc.) are openly lying about the contents in public and hoping voters won’t bother to read it and that the media won’t give it the attention it deserves. Sadly, they appear to be correct on both counts.

    I hope to Christ Biden wins in a landslide and we retake the Senate, and then I hope we don’t do the “look forward” bullshit but go after these crooks and traitors hammers and tongs. If not, we’ll have established a new norm that says it’s okay for presidential candidates to collude with foreign autocrats to meddle in U.S. elections, and you just can’t run a democracy that way.

  3. 3.

    dopey-o

    We still don’t have the answeer to the most important question:

    What is Putin doing TODAY to promote his Preznit’s re-election? I don’t think he’s sitting 2020 out.

    Would be nice to see a few leaks from the famous “Deep State” that is so intent on undermining Trump. Before it’s too late.

  6. 6.

    Kay

    Reading parts of that I now really think the Greenwald- Left’s denial that any of it happened is 100% due to the fact that they got played by Wikileaks and it’s vitally important that no one figure that out.

    It’s embarrassing to them that they promoted Wikileaks as a noble transparency organization and what they really are is political operatives.

  8. 8.

    Kropacetic

    Russian interference is like climate change.  Under the right circumstances, you may get some Republicans to agree to the facts of the matter, but they won’t do anything about it.

  11. 11.

    Anya

    This week in politics:

    Trump endorsed 2 fringe candidates (even for the GOP), one of them is so racist she’s advocating for Muslims not to be allowed to run for public office

    A GOP led Senate Committee issued a report that concluded that Russia used former Trump campaign chair to interfere in our elections

    All of this happened two days into the week. No media freakout. No public freak out. We’re just used to the daily Trump campaign/admin malfeasance.

  12. 12.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @dopey-o: What is Putin doing TODAY to promote his Preznit’s re-election?

    Heard this question asked and answered in an interview within the last week, though unfortunately I don’t remember who or where.

    They probed in 2016 but reportedly did not succeed in compromising state election systems, that would allow them to do things like unregister people if not mess with the counts. The cyber efforts are ongoing, full force. The social media campaign is also already up and running.

  14. 14.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

     Looks to me like the Repub-dominated Intel Committee used the cover of the Democratic National Convention to dump their ‘fifth & final’ report on 2016’s GRU/Trump crime cartel fvckery when they hoped it wouldn’t get much notice.

    This is right after these same GOP senators knee capped Trump’s covid relief deal and there is no reason they couldn’t have slow walked this report till after the election.  This is Republican on Republican violence.  I wonder what reminded the GOP they are Americans, Trump screwed them on their one true love, campaign financing?

  15. 15.

    Baud

    @Anya:

    We’re just used to the daily Trump campaign/admin malfeasance.

    Well, we are. It’s been going on for three and a half years non-stop. Freaking out works when it involves Trump’s current attempts to prevent us from voting him out, but it’s kind of useless for holding him to account for past misdeeds. The only solution is the November election, which requires focus and resolve, not freaking out.

  16. 16.

    topclimber

    @Kay: You mean leftists have the same problem admitting they were suckered as do the TrumpenVolk?

    It is tough to admit when you are clearly and publicly wrong. Or so I hear. Never had that problem. Ever.

  18. 18.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Taibbi is another one in that category, though I’m not sure his motivation is whitewashing Wikileaks. I don’t know what his motivation is. He seems to be on a chute headed toward right wing crankdom, sort of like David Horowitz.

    Someone wrote a story around the time the Mueller report came out that said if Taibbi just covered the Trump campaign as a white collar crime investigation, it would have been right in his wheelhouse.

  20. 20.

    Betty Cracker

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I don’t know why the GOP-controlled  committee didn’t just slow-walk the report some more, but I don’t think the theory that it’s wingnut-on-wingnut violence can be correct since the senators who signed off on the report are giving it the Bill Barr spin in public.

  21. 21.

    stinger

    “…’novel claims’ of executive privilege” — It’s as if the Intel Committee never heard of the Cheney/Bush administration. Overreach didn’t start with Trump and won’t end with Trump, as long as the Republican Party exists.

  23. 23.

    MattF

    Unfortunately, this is just another Trump rabbit-hole. They are all guilty, and we all knew it.

  24. 24.

    AxelFoley

    As we BEEN saying—this muthafucka is illegitimate. Period.

    EVERY executive order, EVERY nomination and seating, EVERY law signed by him needs to be overturned and this piece of shit stricken from the books.

  25. 25.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: They are just trying to have it both ways Betty. After Nov 3rd they will spin which ever version is most beneficial to their continued political careers.

  26. 26.

    Roger Moore

    @Kay:

    Reading parts of that I now really think the Greenwald- Left’s denial that any of it happened is 100% due to the fact that they got played by Wikileaks and it’s vitally important that no one figure that out.

    In the case of Greenwald specifically, I’m sure it goes far beyond mere embarrassment.  I’m sure that he’s been compromised by Russian intelligence, during his role in the Snowden business if not earlier.  He’s completely untrustworthy on the issue.  And I know he’s not the only one compromised.  I’m sure Matt Tabbi is, too; he’s admitted to doing all kinds of stuff while working in Russia that would have let Russian intelligence get their talons in him.

  27. 27.

    dopey-o

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Heard this question asked and answered in an interview within the last week, though unfortunately I don’t remember who or where.

    They probed in 2016 but reportedly did not succeed in compromising state election systems, that would allow them to do things like unregister people if not mess with the counts. The cyber efforts are ongoing, full force. The social media campaign is also already up and running.

    It would be good to know Putin’s plans to steal the 2020 election. Fore-warned, fore-armed, etc.

    Registration databases can be encrypted and backed up. Emergency power generators at minority polling stations.

    Food trucks positioned with water and sandwiches when lines snake around the block. Photographers and response teams watching ballot dropboxes. Guarding dropboxes.

    Self exit polling via email to a common reporting site, so when 25,000 blue votes go missing in Wisconsin, we know by morning. We know we will be seeing rat-fvckery. It’s our duty to anticipate it and negate it.

  28. 28.

    Betty Cracker

    Yesterday, Lincoln Project guy/former McCain staffer Steve Schmidt eviscerated my two US senators on Twitter in a most enjoyable fashion. First he curb-stomped Rubio, then Scott was dumb enough to come to Rubio’s defense and got his ass handed to him.

  31. 31.

    Hoodie

     

     

    @OzarkHillbilly: This. They may be trying to sabotage Trump without leaving fingerprints.  They know he’s a disaster but they’re such cowards they won’t come out and openly disown him because the shitheels who vote for them will exact retribution for that and they’ll lose their jobs to Qanon wackaloons.  One potential upside is that this might help innoculate against Barr hijinks and the inevitable parade of nonsense about Hunter Biden.

  32. 32.

    Kay

    @Roger Moore:

    I don’t know, but I’m reluctant to just hand them that. I think the common thread that runs between Greenwald and Tabbi is that their public brand is “we know the real score”. Super savvy. Above politics because politics is for little people “red team and blue team”. They’re nobler than that.

    To admit they got completely played by Wikileaks and Wikileaks is a political actor with specific ideological outcomes and goals is impossible for them to admit- they must always be right because that’s the brand and that sells the books and the tv appearances.

  33. 33.

    Barbara

    @Roger Moore: Matt Taibbi has all but admitted to having sexual escapades that most likely involved factors that could have made them illegal.  I don’t remember the details, but he wrote an apologia about his time in Russia in conjunction with certain allegations about his misogynistic writings.  However, with Taibbi, his whole reputation is bad boy so I am not sure that having been a creep in his younger days makes him unemployable, or is even all that surprising.  I think it more likely that whatever tethered Taibbi to real insight broke, or maybe he just reached the limits of his own abilities.  There is no doubt in my mind that Greenwald is compromised.  The shift from straight shooter to contrarian, look the other way crank is just too obvious.

  34. 34.

    StringOnAStick

    @Chris Johnson: Yep.  I wonder what it will take to expose Qanon as the Russian op that it is.  It won’t change the opinions of its adherents but it will make it much easier to point at and expose them as the loonies they are; maybe that will slow it’s growth.

  35. 35.

    Kay

    @Roger Moore:

    The difference between my view and yours is this- I don’t see a coordinated conspiracy toward a longer term goal. I think what we have here are a bunch of self-interested actors whose interests aligned. Some of them have big goals, some of them have small goals, but they only worked together in the sense that what was in their various self interest made that convenient. There’s no joint long term outcome they’re all working toward. It’s smaller than that. I think it’s an error to think Putin’s goals are the same as Trump’s, or Wikileaks.

    I think we’re imposing that level of cohesion after the fact, based on their coordination.

  36. 36.

    Kay

    @Roger Moore:

    They’re not afraid people will discover the Grand Scheme. They’re afraid people will discover the petty, self interested scheme. Their motives don’t have to match the damage. I can set a fire in an abandoned building because I like the flames. If the fire spreads and 200 people burn to death that doesn’t change why I started it.

    The pettiness and smallness of the goals makes the damage they did MORE damning. It doesn’t even have a Big Idea veneer. It’s just shitty operatives jostling for a position that most benefits them personally.

  37. 37.

    Roger Moore

    @Barbara:

    My general feeling is that when someone has specific history in Russia that made them susceptible to Russian intelligence and then they turn into total apologists for everything Russia does, the most likely explanation is that they’ve been compromised by Russian intelligence. I’m sure their embarrassment about being so wrong about Russia and unwillingness to admit it makes it easy for them to go along, but they are behaving like Russian agents.

  39. 39.

    Kay

    @Roger Moore:

    Donald Trump’s negligence and stupidity killed 170,000 people because….Donald Trump wanted another sleazy real estate deal OR because Donald Trump is committed to far Right authoritarianism.

    One is small and petty and the other is big. Same actions, same devastating outcome, different motive.

    We don’t disagree on the what- we disagree on the why.

  40. 40.

    germy

    We were watching broadcast TV news last night, and one of the network anchors (either NBC or CBS) said “Republicans were involved in this report, which gives it weight.”

    I guess we democrats are all gravity defying.

  42. 42.

    Subsole

    @Kay: Yep. For all their self-righteous hot air during the Iraq War they ended up being a bunch of squirmy little discount Karl Roves.

     

    “Ah but I’m older and wiser now,

    And that’s why I’m turning you in…”

  45. 45.

    Subsole

     

    @Betty Cracker: Worth bearing in mind most of these guys are Libertarian douchebros at heart.

    They got a LOT of utterly unearned Libcred because they were standing up to Bush 2 with an actual platform at a time when the professionals seemed profoundly and studiously disinterested in what an abject disaster it all was.

  46. 46.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Betty Cracker:  but I don’t think the theory that it’s wingnut-on-wingnut violence can be correct since the senators who signed off on the report are giving it the Bill Barr spin in public.

    That actually would fit a Republican Civil War, party unity in public while the back stabbings are done out sight of their idiot base. Remember last week Trump was blaming the Democrats for what the Republicans were doing on the COVID relief bill.  I think this more like the grifters verses the Trump crime cartel over the grifters on getting their share of the take.

  48. 48.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay:

    It’s just shitty operatives jostling for a position that most benefits them personally.

    Sounds about right to me, and perhaps it applies to Putin as well as to bit-part players like Greenwald.

  50. 50.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @dopey-o: What is Putin doing TODAY to promote his Preznit’s re-election? I don’t think he’s sitting 2020 out.

    Maybe Putin is sitting it out; the story I heard was Putin wanted Trump for the SALT II treaty renewal and Trump promptly hired Bolton as Security advisor and predictably Bolton sabotaged that. Putin could easily be thinking because of the mess Trump will leave a President Biden won’t have the time for a confrontation with Russia and want the treaty extended to keep defense spending down.

  51. 51.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Roger Moore:

    and then they turn into total apologists for everything Russia does

    I know nothing of Taibi, but Greenwald’s first principle at least since Obama has been ‘Democrats are the real enemy of civil liberties, which are defined as whatever young rich white men care about’.  I don’t think he needed Russia.  Not that he isn’t involved with them, but I suspect he was very easy to convince.

  52. 52.

    Betty Cracker

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Speaking of Bolton, there was a video of him on Twitter announcing that for the first time in his life, he’d be voting for someone other than the GOP nominee, but not Biden — that’s a bridge too far! Someone noted in response that Bolton STILL doesn’t have a coherent plan for regime change. :)

  53. 53.

    Sebastian

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    internal polling. They know a landslide is coming and this way they can claim they came clean.

    if not, the impeachment acquittal despite knowing about all this makes them straight out traitors.

    Same goes for FOX and Hannity. It is evident they colluded with an enemy of the United States. The only defense they have is “we didn’t believe the dirty libs and Obama” which only works if your frame of reference is that conservatives are the only true rulers, regardless of who is elected.

    Looking at the big picture, what’s to stop Biden and the Presidential Crimes Commission to do Qannon-esque mass-arrests including the entire GOP Senate (sans Romney)?

  54. 54.

    evodevo

    @Subsole: Yes, and I think a lot of them are over at Naked Capitalism, ’cause they sure love them some Greenwald and Taibbi, and are STILL discounting the Russia scandal as much ado about nothing…I go over there once a week and sample, but just don’t stay like I did pre-2009, when all the Obama-bashing started…

  55. 55.

    catclub

    @dopey-o: What is Putin doing TODAY to promote his Preznit’s re-election? I don’t think he’s sitting 2020 out.

     

    Sen Ron Wyden is complaining that the GOP Senate is  keeping that from the public.

  57. 57.

    Another Scott

    @Roger Moore: +1.

    I don’t think there’s some complicated explanation needed.

    I’m reminded of this, from 2016 – https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house-majority-leader-to-colleagues-in-2016-i-think-putin-pays-trump/2017/05/17/515f6f8a-3aff-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

    KIEV, Ukraine — A month before Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination, one of his closest allies in Congress — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy — made a politically explosive assertion in a private conversation on Capitol Hill with his fellow GOP leaders: that Trump could be the beneficiary of payments from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016, exchange, which was listened to and verified by The Washington Post. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is a Californian Republican known in Congress as a fervent defender of Putin and Russia.

    House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) immediately interjected, stopping the conversation from further exploring McCarthy’s assertion, and swore the Republicans present to secrecy.

    Before the conversation, McCarthy and Ryan had emerged from separate talks at the Capitol with Ukrainian Prime Minister Vladi­mir Groysman, who had described a Kremlin tactic of financing populist politicians to undercut Eastern European democratic institutions.

    News had just broken the day before in The Washington Post that Russian government hackers had penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee, prompting McCarthy to shift the conversation from Russian meddling in Europe to events closer to home.

    […]

    They’ve all known that Putin was doing crap like this for years. They’ve all known that Trump (and Rohrabacher, and probably others) are in his pocket.

    They . don’t . care.

    Basically, “Shut up. This is how we know we’re a family.” No outrage by the treason. Just shut up.

    All they care about is enforcing party unity and doing whatever it takes to maintain power.

    Yes, they let this report out, but they did so in the dog days of summer years after the fact while the country is more engaged on other things. They know the press will not cover it to the extent that it needs to be, and that it will be a dead story even before their convention next week.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  58. 58.

    Sebastian

    @Betty Cracker:

    Taibbi spent years in Moscow and ran an outrageous expat paper called eXile with Mark Ames.

    Ha fancied himself a kind of Hunter S Thompson but in reality it was just two privileged Western dudes running Amok in post-Yeltsin all-for-grabs Moscow. The KGB has entire cabinets on those two guys including details about statutory rape (which those two assholes WROTE about) and who knows what.

    it was a multiyear drug fueled vice binge. He is compromised like few others.

  62. 62.

    Sebastian

    @Barbara:

    He raped his 15 year old office intern and wrote about it. Her crying protests throughout the rape was depicted as funny and amusing.

    He later claimed that it was invented.

  63. 63.

    Another Scott

    @Frankensteinbeck: driftglass has had Greenwald’s number for years.

    As others have mentioned, Greenwald showed his colors with Snowden and Winner and Manning.  He’s not about truth and transparency and civil liberties, he’s about hurting the US Government (and the Democratic Party).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  65. 65.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Betty Cracker: Taibbi was always a too-cool-for-Democrats sort of leftist, but I think what really sent him around the bend was the increasing interest in abusive sexual misbehavior, because of his own past adventures with Mark Ames.

  68. 68.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Frankensteinbeck: I used to give Greenwald the benefit of the doubt and assume he was just anti-power– when Republicans got in he’d go back to opposing them. But he didn’t! An outright fascist got in and he kept on attacking the people attacking the fascist as being somehow hypocritical. That was the real breaking point for me. I admire and credit people who are willing to make legit human-rights attacks on a President who’s on my team. But when your purity crusade leads you to become anti-anti-Trump and you keep on appearing on Tucker Carlson, something is deeply wrong.

  69. 69.

    Ken

    @Baud: Bolton is voting for Kanye?

    Does he live in one of the few (and getting fewer) states where Kanye might be on the ballot?  I suppose he could vote write-in, but he seems more likely to write in himself.

  72. 72.

    Ruckus

    @TS (the original):

    And possibly a rather small minority as well. And even more repubs running next go round I believe, and 2 yrs isn’t all that long a time, even using the political clock, which has a special time called forget and move on.

  73. 73.

    p.a.

    If the rethugs were willing to release THIS (despite attempting to misrepresent it) imagine how much worse the reality was/is…

  74. 74.

    terry chay

    @Frankensteinbeck: you must not have been following Greenwood during the Iraq War. His change. In anything other than his sanctimonious personality that will never admit to being wrong, had been stark and occurred right after Snowden. Turning in the NSA agent is just further proof that he had been completely compromised by the Russians. I suspect the same of Asange, what lies they tell themselves in order to look in the mirror notwithstanding.

  76. 76.

    Miss Bianca

    @Sebastian: To be fair, Hunter S. Thompson was himself something of a privileged douche whose work suffered as a result when he started buying his own hype. Hmm…maybe Taibbi and Thompson have more in common than you’d think!

  77. 77.

    Sebastian

    @terry chay:

    You have to understand how compromising a source works:

    It starts with a small thing, let’s say he had a drug fueled party with some male hookers. In order to keep this secret he had to do some small thing. Problem is, now he did that and it becomes another thing he is caught in. That will be used to make him do something else and now there is no more going back, he is caught in the net.

    This is exactly the reason why security clearance checks look at debt/gambling, sexual relationships, etc

  81. 81.

    Sebastian

    @Subsole:

    I used to read the eXile back in the day, mostly The War Nerd during Desert Storm. Looks like access to the archives is $99/month and I am sure they deleted the juicy bits although the book published in 2000 might have a lot.

  82. 82.

    Roger Moore

    @Sebastian:

    What you’re describing is one part of it.  But compromise is not just about threatening people with what they’ve done.  People don’t react well to being blackmailed, and turning up the pressure is risky.  If you threaten to expose someone, they may decide it’s safer to confess and turn double agent on you.

    That’s why it’s important for intelligence services to keep feeding their agents whatever it was that compromised them in the first place.  If they’re after money, you pay them handsomely.  If they love drug-fueled parties with male hookers, you need to keep providing those parties.  If they love feeling smarter than everyone else, you feed them the information that lets them feel smart.  Yes, all those things provide further fuel for blackmail, but they make the subject do what you want out of positive motivations rather than fear.

  83. 83.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @catclub: yeah, so much that they voted unanimously to impeach him… oh, wait.

    The Republicans in the Senate have only been this openly hostile to Trump In the last few months. Supposedly in private they make fun of Turmp, but this the first time it’s been out in the open.

    @Sebastian: Landslide doesn’t effect a senator from a Red state and treason is really difficult to prove in a court of law.  Remember we’re talking about the party who’s guiding principle is “I got mine, fuck everyone else”,  This has to be about money.

  85. 85.

    Subsole

     

    @Subsole: And it looks like he got a fifteen year old pregnant, convinced her to get an abortion, then mocked her for it in the paper he writes. He was told she was fifteen, said his “pervometer hit the red. I had to have her, even if she was homely.”

    Yeah.

    That dude belongs in Putin’s Russia. He’s practically furniture, I expect…

  87. 87.

    Just Chuck

    @Roger Moore: Not to mention that the continued largesse also continues to add to the blackmail pile.

     

    Edit: Oh duh.  As you did mention.  Too much blood in my caffeine stream this morning.

  88. 88.

    lee

    Timing the release of problematic reports has lost a bit of its impact because of social media. Now when someone brings this up people will respond with links to this report.

    Look at the last Benghazi report. It cleared Hillary and actually put some of the blame on the military. Now when someone brings up Benghazi this information gets posted. I’ve noticed a dramatic reduction in people bringing up Benghazi in my FB feed. When it does popup I’ve actually seen Republicans bring up this report.

  90. 90.

    Another Scott

    @Sebastian: Made me look.  I didn’t quickly find it at Archive.org, but I did find this VF piece.

    https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/02/exile-201002

    Much of the rest of the Exile staff arrived like religious pilgrims. “They represented everything that I wanted to be. They were like me. They escaped from America to escape a graveyard existence,” Yasha Levine says.

    “My mother said, ‘Nobody will take you for a job after that,’” Zalina Abdusalamova says. “It was the best time of my life.”

    And not just hers. Ames and Taibbi had soon landed an agent at William Morris and a book deal at Grove Press. The Exile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia came out in 2000. Taibbi told The New York Observer he’d written much of it while addicted to heroin. The movie rights were sold to the film-production company Good Machine, now part of Focus Features, before the manuscript was finished.

    Hmm…  Didn’t Jared own the NY Observer?  Yeah, he bought it in 2006.  It looks like the Taibbi interview was from October 2010.  Hmm…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  94. 94.

    Miss Bianca

    @Just Chuck: No, but some of the stuff he described in Hell’s Angels (most recent Thompson read for me) that he stood around and witnessed – if not actually took part in – is sketchy as hell. Like the nauseatingly detailed description he gives of a gang-rape victim, apparently drugged out of her mind at an Angels party – hell, he repeats verbatim the fucking *notes* he took. No apparent attempt to find out if the victim is okay, whether this “gang bang” is consensual – or not – just a description of how coated with semen and other fluids she is and how out of it she seems to be as she lies on the floor.

    Did he do the dirty himself? Apparently not. Was he content to just stand aside and let it happen on his watch? Apparently so.

    Man wrote like a “slumming angel” himself, but any respect I may have had for him vanished a long, long time ago. Indicted by his words.

  96. 96.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Let’s see.

    The committee made criminal referrals over likely misleading testimony, which would prevent them from learning the truth about what Trump was actually involved in; and those referrals were sent in June, 2019.

    Help me out here. Did anything interesting happen later on in 2019, that involved possible election tampering with a foreign power? Something that members of the committee learned about? Did those people swear to see impartial justice done, and nevertheless participate in a mock trial – no, call it a “mockery of a trial”, that’s more fitting – where they refused to demand witnesses or documentation?

    Stay with me, because this is important: impartiality means they won’t automatically assume Trump is guilty, just because they know his team is (almost certainly) dirty. That would be literal guilt by association. But with the transcript being all-but a signed confession, of behavior that’s very similar to what we feared happened in 2016, impartiality would demand that you get the truth – not cover it up.

    So, not only did they take a solemn oath, one that many of them would profess was sacred, they did it knowing full well that they were going to cover up the truth.

    But, hey, 175,000 people are dead, millions are suffering from a modern plague, why would that be any reason for a *REPUBLICAN* to show remorse or regret?

  97. 97.

    Kathleen

    @Kay:  The purpose of their denials is to obfuscate their complicity in all of this. The Snowald script was the first very public shot fired in Russuia’s war against us. This is all related.

  100. 100.

    Bill Arnold

    Another footnote. (Cohen is, from context, Michael Cohen).

    1823 (U) Cohen Tr. II, pp. 109-110 (“It’s a club that puts on shows, and you never really know what the show is going to be. In this specific case they brought out a young man who was in a leotard body suit, who, to me, I would diagnose him as a thalidomide baby. And he was blind as well, but he sang like Pavarotti. And while he was singing-I forget the song, it was like a ‘God Bless America’ -type song-there was a woman who was in a thong bikini, who was large, performing sex acts on him while he was singing. Interesting, because I was with Mr. Trump at the time. It was not really a place I expected to be with him at. He looked over to me when he was finished, and I’ll never forget this, he looked me right in the face. He goes, ‘That’s a tough way to make a living.”‘); Cohen told the Committee he did not remember the name of the club. Based on testimony from other witnesses, the club was The Act. Shugart Tr., pp. 62. Goldstone Tr., pp. 63-66; Tim O’Reiley, “Curtain comes down on nearly half of edgy skits at The Act nightclub,” ‘Las Vegas Review-Journal, September 13, 2013.

    This report is very much a “always read the footnotes” document. Too bad so many footnotes are redacted.

  101. 101.

    Bill Arnold

    @StringOnAStick:

    I wonder what it will take to expose Qanon as the Russian op that it is.

    It could also be an Israeli op, at least initially. My impression is that now it is being fed/prodded by a few different actors. The Israelis, UAE, KSA, have all been involved in info-ops in the US. We’re a soft, tempting target. Hardening up a bit though; they (and others) might get burnt.

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