This is not a typical diary. But three pieces of news today that I find . . . titillating.
First, Trump was greeted with loud boos and chants of 'lock him up' at the New York Veterans Day Parade
I have no respect for pundits who argue that this is disrespectful. Trump opened this door when he solicited and encouraged chants of “lock her up” at his rallies. I didn’t hear the pundits making a big deal about how this was disrespectful. Besides, there’s a big difference. Trump actually committed crimes. Not only has he confessed ut there is a lot of corroborating evidence. Whereas Hillary’s only “crime” was that she was a political opponent to be slandered.
It is Donald Trump who does not respect the Presidency. He violates his Presidential duties and decorum regularly, and then lies to the public about it. Ergo, I see no duty whatsoever to respect him.
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Second, from the Associated Press: As we all know, Rick Perry went to Ukraine in May to represent the United States at President Zelenski’s inauguration. During a meeting with Zelenski, he handed the President a list of people he recommended as “energy advisers”.
“One of the four names [on the list] was his longtime political backer, Michael Bleyzer. A week later, Bleyzer and his partner Alex Cranberg submitted a bid to drill for oil and gas at a sprawling government-controlled site called Varvynska. They offered millions of dollars less to the Ukrainian government than their only competitor for the drilling rights, according to internal Ukrainian government documents obtained by The Associated Press. But their newly created joint venture, Ukrainian Energy, was awarded the 50-year contract because a government-appointed commission determined they had greater technical expertise and stronger financial backing.”
There have long been rumors of this energy component of the Ukraine “deals,” but this is the first concrete evidence that I know of.
“Perry made clear during trips to Kyiv that he was close to Bleyzer, a Ukrainian-American investor and longtime Perry supporter who lives in Houston, and Cranberg, a Republican mega-donor who provided Perry the use of a luxury corporate jet during the energy secretary’s failed 2012 presidential bid.”
Is this illegal? We all know that Zelenski was anxious for a White House meeting with Trump to show strength and support against Russia. And Perry was authorized to negotiate the desired meeting in return for favors to Trump (and his close associates?). But I think it only becomes illegal if one can prove that Perry used the potential Presidential meeting as leverage to obtain the contract for his cronies.
That could be hard to prove in court, even if it seems obvious in common sense. The problem is that, like much mob coercion, the leverage may have been implicit not explicit. However, the fact that they low-balled the bid by a sizable amount and still won the contract, if true, would be strong circumstantial evidence
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Third, it appears that Lev Parnas is ready to be a cooperating witness. His lawyer just “told The New York Times his client was tasked with offering Ukraine US military aid in exchange for a corruption investigation into 2020 candidate Joe Biden and his son.”
Of course, we have lots of witnesses to this already. But there are two things that strike me about this statement, if Parnas makes it under oath. One is that he most likely has direct knowledge that Giuliani was not a rogue actor, but instead doing exactly as Trump instructed him. And two is that he is not saying just “investigations” which the Republicans will keep saying were designed to make sure that Ukraine cleaned up its own internal corruption before receiving money from the U.S. At first blush, that makes a little bit of sense, which low information/intelligence voters might cling to. But if it is explicitly to investigate Biden, that has nothing to do with Ukraine’s ability to handle the military aid money appropriately.