No Ordinary Time

"Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia." - Donald Trump Jr. (2008)

How ironic that 2008 is the year Barack Obama was elected President of these here United States. Honestly, I am amazed that after all we know, all that has been investigated by men and women of both parties, that I still have to explain this. It seems that if you get enough willing toadies to swear on a stack of whatever it is their religion uses as textual proof, that something so thoroughly examined is not what we thought, then we have to go through this farce yet again.

But such is the case with the whole Russian influence situation. There is so much that is definitively known about this that the idea of sliding all that down a memory hole and inventing a new conspiracy would seem to be a fool's errand, but here is the proof that we have enough fools in this country to get the job done.

Now, for starters. This isn't a real issue since it was ginned up as a distraction from the actual real issue, which is Donald Trump's relationship with perv extraordinaire, the late Jeffrey Epstein. My Outlaw Writer colleague, Jim Moore, goes into this with his customary thoroughness this week, including a startling video deposition from a woman whom Epstein trafficked at the age of 13, and who says one client was the now-POTUS.

The first release of a portion of the (redacted) FBI files on Epstein shows that Trump's name appears in Epstein's address book along with his first wife, Ivana, his daughter Ivanka, his younger brother Robert, and Robert’s former wife Blaine.

Epstein's flight log shows Trump flew on his plane 8 times in the mid-90s.

In furtherance of this distraction, Trump's former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, now in his Department of Justice, conducted interviews with convicted child sex procurer Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for her work for boyfriend Epstein. This is again, to keep you from wondering why the President's name is in the Epstein files 9 times.

Let me tell you how this will go. Maxwell will mention lots of folks, mostly democrats, but not Donald Trump. Trump will bellow that he is in the clear, she was a victim as well, and commute her sentence to time served. If I'm wrong, lunch is on me.

To go back a bit, by the late 1990s, Donald Trump had pissed away enough cash that he was generally considered uncreditworthy. In short, he was bankrupt. He owed $4 billion to more than 70 banks, and he had personally guaranteed about $800 million of it. You know the story: Trump Airlines, Trump University, Trump casinos, and even Trump steaks. After his formal bankruptcy in 2004, no American bank would touch him with a ski pole.

The only one that would was the scandal-ridden Deutsche Bank, which also, by the by, laundered about $10 billion for Russian clients. And, of course, Trump even stiffed them on the debt. This might help explain his nonchalance about piling trillions onto the US National Debt. Perhaps he thinks we just won't pay it back. It worked for him before. What could go wrong?

A Russian oligarch bought a house from the Donald for $55 million more than Trump had paid for it. The buyer was Dimitry Rybolovlev. He never lived in it or showed any interest in it. But he did start showing up at Trump events when the presidential campaign began.

Russians used Trump's name to build large apartment complexes, later proven to have been used for money laundering. Trump gave his name to them, and in return got millions up front and a share of the profits, all for no investment. Russian tax money went to build the Trump SoHo, and he got 18% of the profits. Buying and selling these properties became a virtual monetary carwash overseen by Russian-American Felix Sater, who was a senior advisor to the Trump Organization.

Trump announced his campaign in June of 2015, and by October, right before a Republican primary debate, he signed a letter of intent to put his name on a tower to be built in Moscow. On Twitter, Trump announced, "Putin loves Donald Trump."

And of course, by this time, he was known to most Americans as a successful billionaire businessman, a part he played on the NBC program, "The Apprentice." Suffice to say, he played the part well as it was one he had been playing for years. F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "The rich are different from you and me." Indeed, they are better at hiding when they aren't rich anymore.

Now much of what I've outlined here was gathered by Yale History Professor Timothy Snyder. He has chronicled the Trump-Russia relationship, even to the point that members of the Duma, the Russian Parliament, stood and applauded when the 2016 election returns were announced. I highly recommend his book, "The Road to Unfreedom."

OK, here is a synopsis of what happened in the 2016 election regarding Russia. It is long, I admit, but it chronicles how thoroughly this thing was examined, including by Robert Mueller, a Republican, former Marine, Bronze Star recipient and FBI Director for four presidents, two Republicans and two Democrats. Be patient, here we go...

The Russian government conducted foreign electoral interference in the 2016 United States elections with the goals of sabotaging the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to the U.S. intelligence community, the operation—code named Project Lakhta—was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The "hacking and disinformation campaign" to damage Clinton and help Trump became the "core of the scandal known as Russiagate". The 448-page Mueller Report, made public in April 2019, examined over 200 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring any criminal "conspiracy" or "coordination" charges against Trump or his associates.

The Internet Research Agency (IRA), based in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and described as a troll farm, created thousands of social media accounts that purported to be Americans supporting radical political groups and planned or promoted events in support of Trump and against Clinton. They reached millions of social media users between 2013 and 2017. Fabricated articles and disinformation were spread from Russian government-controlled media, and promoted on social media. Additionally, computer hackers affiliated with the Russian military intelligence service (GRU) infiltrated information systems of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and Clinton campaign officials, notably chairman John Podesta, and publicly released stolen files and emails through DCLeaks, Guccifer 2.0, and WikiLeaks during the election campaign. Several individuals connected to Russia contacted various Trump campaign associates, offering business opportunities to the Trump Organization and proffering damaging information on Clinton.

Russian interference activities triggered strong statements from U.S. intelligence agencies, a direct warning by then-U.S. president Barack Obama to Russian president Vladimir Putin, renewed economic sanctions against Russia, and closures of Russian diplomatic facilities and expulsion of their staff. The Senate and House Intelligence Committees conducted their own investigations into the matter.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation of Russian interference in July 2016, including a special focus on links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies and suspected coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Russian attempts to interfere in the election were first disclosed publicly by members of the United States Congress in September 2016, confirmed by U.S. intelligence agencies in October 2016, and further detailed by the Director of National Intelligence office in January 2017. The dismissal of James Comey, the FBI director, by President Trump in May 2017, was partly because of Comey's investigation of the Russian interference.

The FBI's work was taken over in May 2017 by former FBI director Robert Mueller, who led a special counsel investigation until March 2019.^[9] Mueller concluded that Russian interference was "sweeping and systematic" and "violated U.S. criminal law", and he indicted twenty-six Russian citizens and three Russian organizations. The investigation also led to indictments and convictions of Trump campaign officials and associated Americans.

The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee investigation submitted the first in their five-volume 1,313-page report in July 2019. The committee concluded that the January 2017 intelligence community assessment (ICA) alleging Russian interference was "coherent and well-constructed". The first volume also concluded that the assessment was "proper", learning from analysts that there was "no politically motivated pressure to reach specific conclusions".

The Committee report found that the Russian government had engaged in an "extensive campaign" to sabotage the election in favor of Trump, which included assistance from some of Trump's own advisers.

By the way, Crossfire Hurricane is the only instance I could find that an FBI investigation was named for a Rolling Stones song lyric. And that committee report was signed by the acting Chairman, a senator and birthright citizen named Marco Rubio.

So, basically, three separate investigations, one of them the longest ever by a Senate committee, found that yes, the Russians did try to interfere with a US election, hacked into the Democratic Party's computer system, and, yes, did it to hurt Clinton and help Trump.

And again, during the summer and fall of 2016, Russian hackers intruded into voter databases and software systems in 39 different states, alarming Obama administration officials to the point that they took the unprecedented step of contacting Moscow directly via the Moscow-Washington hotline and warning that the attacks risked setting off a broader conflict.

By the way, I've lost track of how many times the word "unprecedented" has been used since January.

There is lots of intelligence on the full extent of the Trump campaign's knowledge of what was going on and how much dirt on Hillary Clinton had been dug up by Russian hackers. It is all out there and available to anyone who cares to go over it...again.

Or they could ask former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. He's out of prison now and might take their calls.

The website "Spytalk" commented...

Criminalizing a debate over an official investigation is unprecedented, not to mention ominous. In an exclusive July 16 SpyTalk interview, Susan Miller, who captained the intelligence community’s 2016 election analysis, says there was “no coercion” from anyone in the Obama administration to tilt their findings in a way that besmearched Trump. In a Foreign Affairs piece headlined “Trump is breaking U.S. intelligence,” former CIA Director Michael Hayden and intelligence historian David Gioe compared Trump and Gabbard’s actions to Vladimir Putin’s demands for loyalty over truth telling.

The idea that all of this simply doesn't exist or that all these professionals simply blew it is just another example of the convenient amnesia that afflicts normally semi-sane politicians like John Cornyn, for example. If he weren't locked into a tough race with a man whose personal dishonesty consistently manages to top itself with every passing week, he would be much more measured in his pronouncements.

Regarding that rival by the way, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, I'm reminded of the trial verdict scene in Mel Brooks' "The Producers" where Gene Wilder, Zero Mostel and Kenneth Mars are on trial for bilking theatre investors and then trying to blow up the theatre. The jury foreman pronounces their verdict... "We find the defendants incredibly guilty."

That same statement would describe Trump, Gabbard, the Rev. Mike Johnson, and the whole crew of supporters willing to suspend not just their disbelief but their common sense and reading ability, to support this particularly mindless distraction.

All this as the President, at taxpayer expense, flies across the Atlantic to play a round of golf at one of his clubs, and cut the ribbon at the opening of another one. It's all done with a straight face, and no complaints from MAGA.

If only there were two functioning parties and three functioning branches of government to at least discuss this.