I submit that we should not wait idly for the Gestapo to knock on our door. Attorney General William Barr and accomplices have been working diligently on the October surprise. There may be more than one “surprise” and it may or not happen in October. I will not waste time explaining why Barr is anathema to fairness and justice, a believer that only Republican Presidents are above the law, will go to any lengths to gain and keep Republican control of the Executive Branch and a shameless liar. To any knowledgeable audience that is now a given. But Barr is not alone. Key Republicans in congress, the Justice Department and Putin are members of the cabal. We must anticipate the banana republic style attack(s) from the Trump criminal syndicate and defend properly. I am sounding the alarm. Here’s some of what we know so far laid out in rough and relatively pithy fashion.
Attorneys Joe Digenova and wife Victoria Toensing, long time right-wing conspiratorial mischief makers, were sent to work for Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash sometime in 2019 to fight his extradition to the U.S. on bribery charges. Firtash paid the attorneys about $1 million. Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who have since been charged with violating campaign finance laws, aided both parties. Firtash sent his network of associates in Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden. They obtained a witness statement from the ex-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was pushed out of that position because of the widespread belief that he had failed to investigate potential corruption regarding numerous businesses. Shokin claimed that the Vice President tried to end an investigation into the natural gas company Burisma Holdings, in order to help his son Hunter, by forcing the prosecutor out. That claim has been refuted by numerous Ukrainian and American officials. Yuri Lutsenko, the prosecutor general who succeeded Shokin, at first parroted Shokin’s and Trump’s claim after numerous meetings with Giuliani around the world, but changed his story. “From the perspective of Ukrainian legislation, he did not violate anything”, Lutsenko said. “Hunter Biden cannot be responsible for violations of the management of Burisma that took place two years before his arrival”.
Barr personally began a crusade to hunt into the origins of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia involving the 2016 election and hand-picked U.S. Attorney John Durham to lead that mission. Barr has made clear his conclusions before he even began his investigation saying the FBI was attempting to sabotage the President and that their investigation was started without any basis.
Putin hacked Burisma. The hacking attempts began in November 2019 and were successful. the New York Times reported that additionally Russia used a network of spies in Ukraine to dig up information in the analog world that could be used to target the Bidens. This apparent coordination between the Trump agenda and the Russian effort in Ukraine parallels the similar sort of synergy that entangled during the 2016 election.
Trump strong-armed Ukraine and its new President Zelensky to investigate and/or announce an investigation into Joe Biden by withholding hundreds of millions in congressionally approved aid to pressure them to capitulate until the scheme was exposed. Trump was impeached for this shakedown.
Barr’s Justice Dept. has created an “intake process” to vet Giuliani’s information on the Bidens regarding Ukraine. This process was confirmed just three days after Trump was acquitted in the Senate. The information is being routed to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Pittsburgh. FBI Director David Bowdich said, “We’re taking information as we would in any case. We will evaluate it appropriately.” Former Justice Department counterintelligence official David Laufman tweeted, “There is nothing normal about the Attorney General creating a special ‘intake process in the field’ for info relating to claims advancing a White House political narrative- particularly for someone reportedly under political investigation.”
Senate Republicans launched an investigation into the origins of the FBI’s 2016 Russian investigation and also into Blue Star Strategies, a consulting firm that worked for Ukraine energy company Burisma when Biden’s son served on the board and anything else involving either Joe or Hunter Biden and Ukraine. The Senate plans to work on these matters through summer and fall.
Before 2020 Putin and Trump had at least 16 private conversations. And again after March 30th 2020 the two had a flurry of communications “unprecedented in the first three and a half years of Trump’s presidency” according to Radio Free Europe. According to NCRM only one of those calls was shared with the press and none were posted to the White House website, a serious deviation from prior practice. Trump has a history of hiding the details of these meetings with his own staff and has, in some instances, left no detailed record, even in classified files for many of the face to face meetings. Trump has infamously even been known to take hold of his interpreter’s notes. We know from Mueller’s report that most of the communication between team Trump and team Putin in 2016 were unrecoverable. After the 2016 election such practices continued. The obvious point is that Trump and friends had opportunity to coordinate with Putin any strategic release of stolen out of context or altered emails relating to Burisma and the Bidens.
Like Dr. Frankenstein in his laboratory, Republicans bring scandals to life; they invent them. If they wither or die they bring them back from the dead. When the Whitewater investigation yielded nothing on the Clinton duo, Republicans simply replaced the moderate Republican special counsel Robert Fiske with the hyper partisan Ken Starr. Starr looked into anything and everything related to his targets for years. Republicans call the investigation into Russian interference and potential coordination with team Trump a “coup”. That was always a nonsensical term for a completely unavoidable investigation for a Democracy. For the Starr investigation however the term “witch hunt” applies, at the very least. The Republicans grossly inflated Clinton’s email practices as SOS into a gigantic scandal inflamed further by Comey’s unprofessional descriptive hyperbole and breaking protocol by announcing that the FBI was reopening the investigation ten days before the election. There were near limitless investigations into Benghazi that went on longer than any previous such inquiries in the history of the United Sates. They took a tragic terrorist attack which began at an outpost in Libya and took creative liberty to mold it into imagined malfeasance at every level. Their investigations yielded nothing of substance. There are many more such examples. These crafty hooligans have been building their Ukrainian monster in the lab, mostly in the shadows, but they most certainly will set it free in spectacular blasphemy against law, truth and reality itself.
When you look at the building blocks Republicans have molded for the Ukraine project it is immediately clear that it represents coordination, planning and skulduggery on a massive scale. One must step back to appreciate its scope. They have not been lazy. In a sane world one might think that the impeachment of Trump over this very caper would topple their construction, but in the real world we know better. Barr hand-picked the investigators, the information sources, the information vetting process, the U.S. Attorney’s office and the timing for project Ukraine. But is it possible such a vast array of players could endeavor to create a fake scandal? Of course. The larger the conspiracy, the more unwieldy. But Republicans have developed a deep bench of henchman and fanatics willing to follow orders without compunction, with the belief that they can do no wrong even when they do wrong. They didn’t build this war machine to sit idly in harbor. It is already cruising barely submerged loaded with the torpedoes they’ve pieced together with gumption and lies.
Blowback? Trump and the Republicans can do anything secure in the reality that their base will believe their tales. They’ve laid a groundwork warning of the “deep state”. The overwhelming case against Trump during impeachment made no impact on that audience. Like clockwork they lay all blame on the Democrats. Republicans can do anything and the media hydra often falls into place as shallow parrots. There is no action that is over the line with this cult. They will readily believe that up is down and day is night. Team Trump proclaimed to have had no contacts with Russians in the run up to the 2016 election. It turned out they had over 270 including many in person meetings. They lied about the Trump tower meeting. They lied about Trump Tower Moscow. They welcomed Russian interference in our election both openly and privately. Manafort had ongoing meetings with Russian agent Kilimnik discussing campaign strategies in the swing states and passed over internal polling data. Roger Stone worked with Wikileaks to coordinate stolen email releases and lied to protect himself and Trump. Team Trump should tuck its tail and slink away from public life, much less campaign for a second term, thanking their lucky stars they escaped a just fate. But despite all that, the Republican base triumphantly yells “hoax” regarding the collusion question. There is no cost to any sin when your base is a cult trapped in a false information loop.
Barr claimed that he doesn’t expect the Russian probe to lead to a criminal investigation of Obama or Biden. But those words are meaningless. We’ve already established that Barr is an epic liar. Do not underestimate their potentially bold malfeasance. Perhaps the Trump/Barr hijacking of the Justice Department will be undone by honest actors, but it’s safest not to bank on heroics or professionalism. Always prepare for the worst. When tangling with desperate sociopaths who have marked you for prey, not only do you not turn your back, but you keep your weapons in hand. Don’t assume the cavalry will save the day. We’re up against desperate little men on borrowed time, but they don’t intend on returning that time to its rightful successors. They plan to steal every remaining moment up until their dying breath.
I do not know the exact method of attack from this traitorous fleet. Perhaps they will arrest and charge Hunter Biden. Perhaps they will arrest and charge Joe Biden. Don’t think that it’s unthinkable. Perhaps they will charge key figures in the investigation of Russian interference of the 2016 election. Perhaps they will simply create scandalous narratives against either Biden using selected snippets of information or misinformation on display in the Senate and let the obedient media do the rest. Perhaps they plan to manipulate the vote itself. Maybe it will be something else entirely or all of the above. But if your sixth sense hasn’t electrified your survival instincts that something is coming from Trump’s criminal gang, then you have no sense at all. I’ve laid out the painstaking construction of their political armada, that which is known, created with the sole intent to destroy Biden and reelect trump with the logical inference that they will activate their contraption. Republicans don’t put this much effort into building an election trap to suddenly be held back by ethics, fair play or the proper rule of law. Unless, of course, they are undone from within or without beforehand. That could indeed happen. Their most brazen plans may die before activation ruined by honest wrenches in the gears and I may look back on this diary wondering if I oversold the danger. I hope I end up feeling silly. But I believe I have read the room accurately. These are, after all, rather clumsy demons who’ve revealed their cards on many a hand already, with large saucer eyes longing to take the final pot. As mentioned, even an impeachment revealing blatant extortion and exposing many of the devious players and machinations team Trump put to work on project Ukraine, has not altered their end game. They cheat. They play the big lie and the long con.
So then, how to defend? Suggestions please from all you legal and political sharpies in our ranks. But here are some ideas. The general, William Barr, must be destroyed. So far so good. His reputation has been tarnished, but more can be done. Barr must be branded for the criminal he is in every news cycle. He needs to be target number two, only after Trump himself. Giuliani is target number three. The American public famously has the attention span of a gnat. Let it be known that as awful as has been his past partisan crimes, we expect Barr’s most dangerous and radical legal abuses to apply to future misdeeds.
Barr and company will cloak themselves as spectators after their plan unfolds. Barr will claim that the levers of justice operate independently of himself. It is the Senate or the FBI or his U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh calling the shots. Don’t let him get away with that deflection. Barr and Giuliani declared a “scandal” out of a void, initiated an investigation, chose the players and set up the filtration process of information. When the Republicans in the Senate launch their crafted narrative and circus show to bring down Biden, the good guys and gals must tie all the players together by laying out their conspiracy as I have done above. Republicans have built their machine not in search of truth or justice, but to destroy both with predetermined answers they pretend to seek.
Have a team of attorneys and campaign strategists with ready responses for every outrageous scenario. There can be no daylight between the attack and the defense.
Use jujitsu to boomerang the attack against the aggressor. Trump and Barr have corrupted the Justice Department and will continue to use it as a political cudgel. This is why their endless talk of the “deep state” is so effective. They accuse their opponents of that of which they themselves are guilty. Point this out every time. Such an obscene abuse of power must backfire completely on Trump. But only if the response is sufficient, prepared and echoes with justifiable rage. Each outrage need to be squared off, illuminated, exposed and framed to hang forever in the figurative gallows of American infamy.
Trump and Barr are criminals in every true sense of the word. Their actions know no limits other than what civilized society and its institutions will constrain with legal and political rebuke. They will not honor decorum or fair play. They’ve managed to obtain two of the most powerful positions in the world and will use all their power to retain power. For such a scheme as theirs to succeed would so damage our Democratic Republic that it could undo its essence. This is a must win scenario. To defend and war with villains the Allies need to hit them with everything early and with a magnifying inculcation of explanation. The traitors must be so thoroughly punished legally, politically and rhetorically that there is no misty confusion of a nook for them to hide. Do not underestimate these opponents. They revel in the abuse of their positions, and have summoned a rogues gallery to steamroll society with their perverse illogic, dirty tricks, kangaroo court and un-American sabotage. Let’s show them what our country is made of. Let them know that they’ve picked their last fight, because the bullies are going down this time.