As complete proof that Donald Trump hasn’t been soliciting smears from Ukraine to ratf#ck the 2020 election, Rudy Giuliani has been over in Ukraine … soliciting smears to ratf#ck the 2020 election. And while Trump isn’t apparently happy with the instant whitewashing that Mitch McConnell is offering up in the Senate, there is something that has him very, very excited. So excited that he couldn’t wait even minutes to get the latest installment.
As The Wall Street Journal reports, Trump called up Giuliani as soon as his plane hit the ground. As soon as it hit the ground. As in, while it was still taxing down the runway. Trump was literally watching the clock, waiting for that first moment when he could call up his personal attorney and get the latest progress on smearing political opponents with the help of foreign officials. Because this is where we are now.
Giuliani had to make this trip without the assistance of his pals and former guides Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, because they happen to be under indictment in the United States for funneling foreign funds into Republican accounts—including a big, big chunk for Trump. Frequent campaign “bundler” and White House guest Parnas appears to be actually on his way back to jail after hiding a $1 million payment that the Russians slid his way through the ultra-sophisticated method of inserting it into his wife’s bank account.
But lacking his former connections didn’t seem to slow down Giuliani’s efforts. He already had enough connections between ousted pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine, and lawmakers who want to see new President Volodymyr Zelensky fail, that he had no trouble coming up with a line of people willing to testify that Joe Biden is evil incarnate. All of which really, really pleases Trump.
Giuliani was equally excited to tell the Journal about his runway conversation with Trump. According to his personal attorney, Trump’s first words were “‘What did you get?’” And Giuliani assured him that he has “More than you can imagine.” Which is a big claim, because Trump’s belief in the “CrowdStrike conspiracy” shows that he can believe a helluva lot.
As he has been gleefully trotting around Kyiv visiting with politicians who lost their offices after being blatantly corrupt, and collecting fairy tales from people who are eager to be on Team Trump, this later day Brother Grimm had originally claimed he was going to make “a documentary.” That may still be in the works, but the immediate product of Giuliani’s jaunt is apparently going to be a 20-page report in which he will “confirm” every bad thing ever said about Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Hillary Clinton, and a cast of thousands.
This open sneering at Congress, the law, honesty, propriety, mom, apple pie, and hot dogs is hard to believe, but both Trump and Giuliani are treating this like the greatest holiday—sorry, Christmas—gift ever. And there seems to be no doubt that, at least when it comes to the battle to make the entire Republican Party a co-conspirator in his scheme to destroy election integrity, Trump is winning bigly. Not that there was ever much of a fight.
Republicans spent most of the hearings in the Judiciary not in an attempt to defend Trump, but repeating the false claims about Biden. That includes repeatedly outright lying about Biden’s actions in Ukraine and the status of investigations into the company where his son worked.
Viktor Shokin, the Ukrainian prosecutor who Biden asked to be removed, was not conducting an investigation of Burisma. Was not. Had not. Was not about to. No matter how many times Republicans say that he was, it is still a lie. It’s a lie that’s been confirmed by the Ukrainian government, by the Ukrainian media, by Shokin’s successor, and by Shokin himself.
Republicans have demonstrated that rather than helping to stand up to Trump’s lies, they will fully involve themselves in spreading those lies. Which means that it’s not just Trump who is anxious to see what Giuliani puts in a new report. After all, that’s their new script.