You might legitimately wonder what New York Attorney General Letitia James, Georgia’s Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger, and Capitol police officer Lt. Michael Byrd (who shot insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt as she stormed the Capital), could possibly have done to warrant the imposition of sanctions by Vladimir Putin, the corrupt and murderous dictator of the Russian Federation.
What sort of heinous act could they have committed to deserve such harsh treatment? Surely, there must be something they did, something they have in common to earn Putin’s everlasting ire … oh, wait!
As reported by Peter Baker, writing for the New York Times:
Russia has expanded its list of sanctioned Americans in a tit-for-tat retaliation for the latest curbs imposed by the United States. But what is particularly striking is how much President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is adopting perceived enemies of former President Donald J. Trump as his own.
Among the 500 people singled out for travel and financial restrictions on Friday were Americans seen as adversaries by Mr. Trump, including Letitia James, the state attorney general of New York who has investigated and sued him. Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state of Georgia who rebuffed Mr. Trump’s pressure to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election, also made the list. And Lt. Michael Byrd, the Capitol Police officer who shot the pro-Trump rioter Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6, 2021, was another notable name.
None of those three has anything to do with Russia policy and the only reason they would have come to Moscow’s attention is because Mr. Trump has publicly assailed them...[.]
For anyone who ever doubted the symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship between Donald Trump and Russia, well, those doubts should now be put to rest. Asked for an explanation, the Russian Foreign Ministry effectively gave away the game.
The Russian Foreign Ministry offered no specific explanation for why they would be included on the list but did say that among its targets were “those in government and law enforcement agencies who are directly involved in the persecution of dissidents in the wake of the so-called storming of the Capitol.”
Except neither James, Raffensperger, nor Lt. Byrd ever “persecuted” the Jan. 6 seditionists. James is prosecuting Trump’s crimes in New York, Raffensperger simply found himself in Trump’s crosshairs for declining to rig the 2020 election, and Mr. Byrd was simply doing his sworn duty defending the Capitol and the U.S. Congress when he shot Babbitt. The list also includes Delaware attorney general Kathy Jennings, who sharply criticized Trump’s and Republicans’ attempts to “sabotage” the 2020 elections, and Wisconsin attorney general Josh Kaul, who backed a federal probe into Republicans’ “phony electors” plot in that state.
The only thread of commonality here is that all of these people have drawn the ire of the American right-wing, the Republican party, and Donald Trump himself for thwarting the ambitions of … Donald Trump. In fact, as pointed out by emptywheel here, much of the entire list reads like an enemies list prepared by Donald Trump.
The same Donald Trump who very recently telegraphed that he’d pull the rug out from under Ukraine if he managed to get himself elected again. The same Donald Trump who was impeached for trying to extort invented political dirt from Ukraine in order to get himself elected again. The same Donald Trump who eagerly solicited and accepted assistance from Russia to get himself elected in the first place, back in 2016. And the same Donald Trump who incited the insurrection against the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Really, you couldn’t draw a clearer picture between Russia and Trump if you tried. Now, thanks to his pal Putin, you don’t have to. Can we please put this traitor behind bars now?