LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP!
The now all-too-familiar chant used to jin up hatred of Hillary Clinton by Trump and his horde of haters. Every time I heard it during the 2016 Presidential Election Campaign, it made me sick. I could not imagine such a campaign winning any election, much less the Presidency.
Flash forward to October 30, 2017. I begin my morning by reading the Manafort-Gates Indictment. I am stunned by the how-to of money laundering I am reading, the charts cascading in their listings of expenditures of laundered money for clothes in Beverly Hills, home decor in the Hamptons, luxury properties, and so on. Money funneled into the US through entities in Cypress, the Grenadines, the UK…and Unknown.
In a section appropriately called “The Scheme,” Special Counsel Robert Mueller sifts through the $75,000,000 that flowed through offshore accounts and into the pockets of Paul Manafort and Richard Gates, the evidence of their lavish lifestyles extending across pages.
Treason sure pays.
And then, I saw it. Starting in Paragraph 20 on page 15 and culminating on page 16 of the Indictment, in Paragraph 22, there it was. The origins of LOCK HER UP…all the way from the Ukraine:
Among other things, they lobbied multiple Members of Congress and their staffs about Ukraine sanctions, the validity of Ukraine elections, and the propriety of Yanukovych’s imprisoning his presidential rival, Yulia Tymoshenko.
Yulia Tymoshenko and her husband, Oleksandr, have an interesting history in business and in politics, some of which contains shades of Hillary and Bill Clinton. Tymoshenko’s wikipedia page describes her as rich and powerful, and certainly not without detractors and controversy, including time spent in prison for charges that were later found groundless and lifted...until Viktor Yanukovych came into power and decided to reopen the case against her.
In my mind, there are some real congruences here. If Yulia Tymoshenko is Ukraine’s Hillary, and Trump is our Viktor Yanukovych, it appears we’re in for quite the ride — and we join the ranks of countries with presidents who lock up their opponents — or at least wish like hell they could — on a political whim.
One needs only to watch videos of Trump supporters chanting LOCK HER UP to know we’re right on the cusp of that same tin pot dictator mentality. Many would say we’re past it already, because look who the hell is in the White House, for fuck’s sake. And the indictments of Manafort and Gates show us two individuals who are clear and present dangers to democracy, much like their boss, and who used something right out of their despotic political playbook in our own front yard.
I called my Senators and House Rep today and asked them to support the bills protecting Mueller’s investigation. These are two bills in the Senate (S 1741 and S 1735) and one in the House (HR 3771) to protect the investigation and to ensure that there is a robust and ongoing congressional investigation. Please call the Capitol switchboard, (202) 224-3121, and insist on their support in getting to the absolute bottom of all of this and exposing everyone involved. Our country’s stability and future depends on it.