Earlier today, we learned that, in addition to porn star Stormy Daniels, Donald Trump was also having an affair with Playboy “Playmate of the Year” Karen McDougal back in 2006, in the months just after our First Lady, Melania Trump, gave birth to their son Barron. Furthermore, we got confirmation that McDougal, like Daniels, had also ben paid for her silence by a Trump associate. And, as if that we’re enough for a single news cycle, we also learned that Daniels is now threatening to go public with a dress covered in the President’s semen. In simpler times, the existence of the cum-soaked dress alone would have dominated headlines for a month. Today, though, it barely registered. Between yesterday’s mass shooting in Florida, and today’s indictments in the Russia investigation, no one, it seems, has time to care about good, old fashioned sex scandals, even ones involving porn stars, Playmates and soiled dresses.
I’d told myself yesterday that I was going to try to stay focused on our American gun problem for a while, and now allow my attention to be diverted elsewhere… But then the Justice Department announced that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had handed down new indictments, and my plans went out the window. Instead of studying up on the role Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi played in making it easier for Sunshine State teens to purchase automatic weapons, I started reading up on the thirteen Russian citizens and the three Russian companies who now stand accused of running “interference operations targeting the United States” in the run up to the 2016 election… While you can read the indictments in their entirety online, here’s one of my favorite parts.
So, yeah, we know now for a certainty that “the Russia thing,” as Trump called it, wasn’t a “witch hunt” at all, but a serious, coordinated attack on our electoral system, which was conducted with the intention of sowing discord in America, and keeping Hillary Clinton from the White House. We now know how the system worked, and who was involved… from Putin’s friend, the oligarch Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, who funded Russia’s Internet Research Agency troll farm, to American citizen Richard Pinedo, who supplied the fake bank account numbers and online identities that allowed the Russians to avoid initial detection. [While he wasn’t mentioned in today’s indictments by name, news was released by the Justice Department today that Pinedo had pleaded guilty on February 12, and was facing up to 15 years in prison.] Here, from the New York Times, is a short clip explaining how the Prigozhin-funded system worked.
…Facebook, Twitter and Google have all identified the Internet Research Agency as a prime source of provocative posts on divisive American issues, including race, religion, gun laws and gay rights, particularly during the 2016 presidential election. Facebook found, for example, that the agency had posted 80,000 pieces of content that reached more than 126 million Americans…
[David Axelrod: “Jill Stein received 50,700 votes in MI. Trump won by less than 12,000. She outpolled Trump’s margin in WI, as well. If Russians sought to redirect alienated HRC voters to third parties, as indictment alleges, it was a shrewd ploy.]
And here’s another interesting little tidbit. According to the Anti-Corruption Foundation, Prigozhin, in the past five years alone, has received Russian government contracts worth $3.1 billion… Oh, and Prigozhin was one of the Russian oligarchs who was hit hard by the sanctions levied during the Obama administration, which, might explain why he apparently invested so heavily in getting Donald Trump, who promised to roll back those sanctions, into office. [The Department of Justice is saying that the Russians spent $1.2 million a month on this project, which they called “The Translator Project.”]
Well, today, as you might imagine, Donald Trump and his spokespeople are claiming that these indictments actually vindicate him, as they don’t prove collusion. In fact, the White House issued a statement with “NO COLLUSION” in all caps. The thing is, the indictment says nothing of the kind. In fact, you can see in the above scan that “co-conspirators” are mentioned. They just haven’t been named yet, with the exception of Californian Richard Pinedo, who is now said to be cooperating with Robert Mueller. But, no, Mueller did not come out today and demonstrate a connection to the Trump White House. What he did today, however, was take a significant step in that direction. He laid a solid foundation, and demonstrated how the whole thing worked, making it clear not only that the Russians did in fact meddle in our election, but that they did so to both weaken Clinton and advance the Trump campaign.
I heard someone on Fox News this evening suggest that Trump never either claimed that the Russia investigation was a hoax or attempted to slow the investigation. Here, in case any of you are inclined to believe that, are just a few data points.
1. Trump warned that Mueller’s investigation has offended Putin, and that “people will die” if it continues.
2. Trump admitted to firing FBI Director James Comey because he was pursuing, “the Russia thing.” [Trump on national television: “And, in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said: ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.’”]
3. Not only did he fire Comey for pushing the Russia investigation, but Trump actually snuck a high-level Russian delegation into the White House that same day to tell them the good news.
4. Trump repeatedly called the Russia investigation a “witch hunt,” and did everything in his power to slow it down. For example, Trump ghostwrote a letter for his son, explaining the presence of a Russian delegation at Trump Tower during the campaign as having been about adoption policy, and not the fact that they’d offered “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.
5. Trump told us that he asked Putin if the Russians meddled in our election, and he believed him when the former KGB head responded that he did not. [“He said he didn’t meddle. He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew from Da Nang to Hanoi in Vietnam. Trump spoke to Putin three times on the sidelines of summit here, where the Russia meddling issue arose. “Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that,'” Trump said. “And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it.”]
6. Despite the evidence, and the fact that all but five members of Congress voted to pass sanctions against Russia for what they did during the 2016 election, Trump chose not to impose them, saying that the threat of acting on them was just as effective as actually enacting them.
7. And let’s not forget the time our president actually proposed, much to the horror of the intelligence community, that we give the Russians access to our security infrastructure, forming a “U.S.-Russia Joint Impenetrable Cybersecurity Unit.
So, no, you cannot now say that Trump has always taken this threat seriously. When our entire intelligence community told him that the Russians had meddled in our election, he called it a “with hunt.” After being told that the Dutch had actually observed the Russians as they hacked into the DNC server, he told the American people that the operation could have been conducted by a 400-pound guy somewhere. When Congress and the intelligence community demanded that the President take action to protect the integrity of our 2018 election, he did nothing. And, today, when these indictments came out, instead of pledging to hold Russia accountable, he took to Twitter and said, “It’s time we stop the outlandish partisan attacks, wild and false allegations, and far-fetched theories.” [Coming from the father of Birtherism, I found that last bit particularly funny.]
So, like I said, we now have the foundation. From this point on, it’s just a matter of understanding the coordination, and how the Russians knew where to focus their efforts… According to the indictment, we have evidence that the Russians talked quite a bit about sowing discord in “purple states.” What’s more, we know that a great deal of their ad buys were in states like Michigan, which the Democrats didn’t even consider to be in play, which would lead one to believe there was a certain level of sophistication. So, one suspects it’s possible that the next shoe to drop very well might be a link between one of these 13 Russians and someone at the conservative data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica… Speaking of which, here’s an interesting little exchange between the guys at Pod Save America and Senator Mark Warner.
Today's #Mueller indictments mention unwitting collusion. Is the next shoe to drop coordination between Cambridge Analytica and the Russians? I asked @MarkWarner back in May on @PodSaveAmerica pic.twitter.com/01yETrcu62
— Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) February 16, 2018
As of right now, it’s true, there’s no evidence that these Russian activities changed the result of the election. And it’s doubtful that could ever be proved. But, as some people are seeing it, that’s exactly what happened. Take, for instance, former CIA Director John Brennan.
DOJ statement and indictments reveal the extent and motivations of Russian interference in 2016 election. Claims of a “hoax” in tatters. My take: Implausible that Russian actions did not influence the views and votes of at least some Americans.
— John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) February 16, 2018
I’m hesitant to make predictions, as I know enormous cases like these can take years, but i can’t help but think that the final chapter has begun, and that things are about to speed up exponentially, as the backstabbing intensifies, and the bodies start stacking up… Have you seen the last ten minutes of The Godfather? Well, I think it’ll be pretty much like that.