#paul manafort

[ridenwithbiden]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Radley Balko at The UnPopulist:

Donald Trump and his allies constantly complain that they are regularly targeted, singled out for abuse, and deliberately humiliated by the criminal justice system. They claim that there are “two tiers of justice”—a strict, unrelenting one for MAGA, and a loose, deferential one for the migrants, rapists, and killers that George Soros-funded prosecutors refuse to punish. But even before the conservative justices in a party-line ruling handed Trump virtual immunity from fomenting an insurrection, he had been getting the criminal justice system’s “platinum door” treatment. His cases are unusual in that he’s a former president. But his status and political position have helped him far more than they have hurt him. I want to compare and contrast some of Trump and his supporters’ complaints with how the criminal legal system operates in the real world.

Treating Trump With Kid Gloves

Trump has complained that his criminal trials have been a huge inconvenience for him—keeping him from using that time to campaign for president, potentially keeping him from attending his son Barron’s high school graduation. Typically, people facing criminal charges have to show up when court begins and then sit for hours until their case is called. They’re required to take off work, or find someone to watch their kids. And those are merely the people lucky enough to be released before trial. In many courts, they aren’t allowed to have cell phones. Over the last few years, I’ve watched dozens of people wait in a courtroom, staring at the wall for half a day or more, only to learn that their case has been continued, so they'll have to do it all again in a month. I don’t know if any of them had to cancel a political rally, but many have certainly been fired, missed doctor’s appointments, or lost other opportunities. I suppose it’s possible that a judge at some point let a defendant charged with 34 felonies delay a trial to attend a graduation ceremony, but I imagine if you asked a public defender if that’s a regular occurrence, you’d need to set aside some time for the laughter to die down. Incidentally, Trump was permitted to attend his son’s graduation.

Trump and his supporters have also complained about the tactics the FBI agents used when serving the search warrant on Mar-a-Lago. Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene described the raid as “the rogue behavior of communist countries,” and Steve Bannon insisted that the GOP will move to incarcerate officials who approved it. Trump himself accused FBI agents of not taking off their shoes while walking through his bedroom. As someone who has written about aggressive police raids for over 20 years, it’s hard to image a more pathetic complaint than that. The FBI gave Trump’s Secret Service detail a heads-up that they were coming. They deliberately conducted the search when Trump would be out of town, to save him embarrassment. When National Security Agency intelligence officer, William Binney, a whistleblower, tried to point out problems at the agency by going through internal channels, FBI agents raided his home unannounced, entered without authorization, and pointed their guns at him after finding him in the shower.

Far-right media personalities like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham have also suggested that Robert Mueller’s office may have tipped off the media to maximize publicity around the raid. But of course tipping off the press about a pending arrest is a time-honored tradition among publicity-seeking prosecutors. The amusing thing about this complaint is that a carefully staged perp walk as a publicity stunt is a technique first popularized by … Trump’s personal attorney and bag man Rudy Giuliani, who used it to humiliate the International Monetary Fund’s chief. We now know that Mueller’s office did not tip off CNN. The network’s reporters had staked out Stone’s house after noticing unusual activity in court fillings from Mueller’s office. It was just good reporting.

MAGA world has also been critical of how search and arrest warrants were served on other Trump-adjacent personalities. FBI agents were accused of “manhandling” Paul Manafort and his wife during an early morning raid, which legal commentator Jonathan Turley called “excessive.” In response to the FBI’s raid on Roger Stone, Sheriff Joe Arpaio said: “I’ve been busting down doors for 50 years and I’ve never sent that many units to the baddest murderer.” (Arpaio once sent a small army of cops to raid a guy accused of cockfighting. That raid ended with actor Steven Seagal, cosplaying as a cop, driving an armored vehicle into the poor guy’s living room.) But of course the FBI and other federal agencies routinely conduct volatile, aggressive raids on people suspected of nonviolent or low-level crimes.

[...]

Jan. 6 Rioters More Equal than BLM Protesters

Then there’s January 6th! Increasingly over the past couple of years, Trump and his allies have complained that the Jan. 6 rioters have been singled out for abuse, especially when compared to those accused of rioting and looting during the George Floyd protests. The Jan. 6 rioters are frequently referred to as “political prisoners”—Trump himself calls them “hostages.” Let’s look at the facts.

About 70% of people arrested and charged with Jan. 6-related crimes were released on bond or under their own recognizance, including everyone charged with crimes that would qualify as “peaceful protest,” such as trespassing. Just 25% of federal criminal defendants are released pre-trial overall. If we factor in both state and federal courts, the number of people routinely detained while awaiting trial in this country is so large that there are actually more people behind bars who have yet to be convicted than people who have. But seven in 10 Jan. 6ers were released. It is true that the conditions in Washington, D.C. jails are terrible. They’re under-supervised, unsanitary, and hellish, and have astronomical rates of suicide. When Trump was booked at the jail in Fulton County, Georgia, he complained that the facility was “poor and disgraceful,” adding, “It’s worse than you could even imagine. It’s violent. The building is falling apart.” But Trump was quickly booked and released. He didn’t spend any time in an actual jail cell.

All of the Jan. 6 defendants who were not released prior to trial were charged with serious felonies. Federal public defenders have made clear that the federal courts have been far more likely to release Capitol rioters pre-trial than other defendants. And, in fact, the D.C. federal public defender’s office went all out to make sure that Jan. 6ers received a robust defense. They ramped up staffing and enlisted attorneys from other federal offices to help. We can contrast the extraordinary efforts to make sure the Jan. 6ers were well defended to the ongoing crisis in public defense I’ve been regularly documenting. There are parts of the country where people sit in jails for weeks or even months before ever seeing a lawyer. Some meet their attorney for the first time just minutes before they’re due in court. Many public defenders have no access to investigators. Most are severely overworked.

[...]

The System Has Gone Way Easy on Trump

Trump has been treated far better and received more preferential treatment than just about anyone ever ensnared in the criminal justice system. He’s the only person in U.S. history to have his criminal case appear before a judge he appointed—and one he could promote to a higher court should he retake the White House. He’s also the only person in U.S. history to have his criminal case appear before the U.S. Supreme Court after having appointed a third of that court’s justices. Consider how his classified documents case compares to similar cases against non-former presidents. The Justice Department became aware that Reality Winner had leaked a single classified document to a media outlet—a document she believed served an important public interest—in May 2017. She was arrested the following month. By August 2018, 16 months later, she had been sentenced to five years in prison. Trump was indicted for hoarding around 200 classified documents, lying about them, refusing to turn them over, and then obstructing the government’s attempts to recover them. Whatever his motivation was for all of this, it definitely wasn’t whistleblowing.

Trump illegally took the documents in January 2021. The first indication that the government became aware of them was in May of that year. The National Archives then gave Trump repeated warnings. Instead, he showed off and boasted about top secret documents to Mar-a-Lago visitors. The FBI didn’t open an investigation until March 2022. The search of Mar-a-Lago didn’t take place until the following August. Trump wasn’t indicted until June 2023. It has now been 37 months since the government became aware of Trump’s 200 documents, and it’s unlikely that his trial will happen any time soon.

[...]

Trump Monetizes Criminality When Others Lose Their Shirt

People with criminal convictions also typically struggle to pay court fines and fees, probation or parole fees, child support, and private debts accumulated while they were incarcerated. It can be difficult to find housing, and they’re far more likely to experience homelessness. Trump himself faces significant fines and fees. He owes $450 million to the state of New York for crimes committed by his company, and $90 million to E. Jean Carrol after a jury found him liable for defaming her after he sexually assaulted her. Trump also has a habit of not paying his creditors, though in his case it’s usually more a matter of not wanting to pay than the inability to do so. Still, unlike others with felony convictions, Trump will not end up homeless or destitute. It’s unlikely he’ll even need to alter his lavish lifestyle.

[...] Over the years, I’ve interviewed more people treated unfairly by the criminal justice system than I can count. They often say that the experience changed them. It made them more empathetic, less trustful of police and prosecutors, and more willing to entertain the notion that the system sometimes gets it wrong. Most understand that any system capable of the injustice inflicted on them has certainly done the same or worse to others. Powerful people who encounter the justice system can be particularly effective agents of change. But that isn’t going to happen here. That’s partly because Trump has experienced only the most glancing of consequences from his criminal convictions. But it’s also because MAGA revels in victimhood. Conceding that the system is fundamentally unfair would merely make Trump one victim among many. The false narrative that courts and prosecutors are hellbent on targeting him and his supporters—while showing outrageous leniency toward scary drug dealers, rapists, and killers—only amplifies the outrage and victimhood.

MAGA’s beef with the system isn’t that justice has been weaponized, it’s that it has been weaponized against them. Their answer isn’t to insulate the system from politics, it’s to ratchet up the politicization, then aim it at their enemies.

Radley Balko wrote in The UnPopulist expertly debunking the MAGA lie that the so-called "weaponization" of the criminal justice system is being used to rightly prosecute Donald Trump and his allies for their crimes.

In fact, the criminal justice system has gone soft on Donald Trump and his allies.

Balko said it best here: "MAGA’s beef with the system isn’t that justice has been weaponized, it’s that it has been weaponized against them. Their answer isn’t to insulate the system from politics, it’s to ratchet up the politicization, then aim it at their enemies."

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Jack Ohman, Sacramento Bee

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 18, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 19, 2024

Paul Manafort walking onto the floor of the Republican National Convention yesterday illustrated that the Republican Party under Trump has become thoroughly corrupted into an authoritarian party aligned with foreign dictators. 

Manafort first advised and then managed Trump’s 2016 campaign. A long-time Republican political operative, he came to the job after the Ukrainian people threw his client,Viktor Yanukovych out of Ukraine’s presidency in 2014. Yanukovych was backed by Russian president Vladimir Putin, who was determined to prevent Ukraine from turning toward Europe and to install a puppet government that would extend his power over the neighboring country. Beginning in 2004, Manafort had worked to install and then keep Yanukovych and his party in power. His efforts won him a fortune thanks to his new friends, especially Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. Then in 2014, after months of popular protests, Ukrainians ousted Yanukovych from power in what is known as the Revolution of Dignity. 

Yanukovych fled to Russia, and Putin invaded Ukraine’s Crimea and annexed it, prompting the United States and the European Union to impose economic sanctions on Russia itself and also on specific Russian businesses and oligarchs, prohibiting them from doing business in United States territories. These sanctions crippled Russia and froze the assets of key Russian oligarchs.

Now without his main source of income, Manafort owed about $17 million to Deripaska. By 2016, his longtime friend and business partner Roger Stone was advising Trump’s floundering presidential campaign, and Manafort stepped in to remake it. He did not take a salary but reached out to Deripaska through one of his Ukrainian business partners, Russian operative Konstantin Kilimnik, immediately after landing the job, asking Kilimnik how “we” could use the appointment “to get whole,” and he made sure that the Russian oligarch to whom he owed the most money knew about his close connection with the Trump campaign.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election explained at least one answer: Manafort and Kilimnick “discussed a plan to resolve the ongoing political problems in Ukraine by creating an autonomous republic in its more industrialized eastern region of Donbas, and having Yanukovych…elected to head that republic.” The report continued: “That plan, Manafort later acknowledged, constituted a ‘backdoor’ means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine.”

This policy was the exact opposite of official U.S. policy for a free and united Ukraine. Russia worked to help Trump win the White House, and immediately after his election, according to the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee, Kilimnick wrote that "[a]ll that is required to start the process is a very minor ‘wink’ (or slight push) from D[onald] T[rump] saying ‘he wants peace in Ukraine and Donbass back in Ukraine’ and a decision to be a ‘special representative’ and manage this process. The email went on to say that once then–Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko understood this “message” from the United States, the process “will go very fast and DT could have peace in Ukraine basically within a few months after inauguration.”

The investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia slowed the consummation of this plan, and strong bipartisan support for Ukraine threw a monkey wrench into the works, prompting Trump’s cronies to try to smear Ukraine as the country that interfered in the 2016 U.S. election, a story that began to come out during Trump’s first impeachment hearing. Biden’s election meant an abrupt end to Russia’s quiet absorption of Ukraine’s eastern region, and in February 2022, Putin simply invaded the country and then claimed that the people there had voted to join Russia. 

Trump seemed to bring this back up at a CNN event in June in which, referring to Putin’s invasion of eastern Ukraine in February 2022, he said: “Putin saw that, he said, you know what, I think we’re going to go in and maybe take my—this was his dream. I talked to him about it, his dream.” Trump has said he has a plan for “peace” in Ukraine that will stop the war in a day. 

Republican vice presidential pick J.D. Vance is wildly inexperienced for such a position, but he has been staunchly in favor of ending U.S. assistance to Ukraine and was the pick of that party faction. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov cheered Vance’s nomination, saying: “He’s in favor of peace, he’s in favor of ending the assistance that’s being provided and we can only welcome that because that’s what we need—to stop pumping Ukraine full of weapons and then the war will end” Russia needs this sort of help, for just this week Ukraine forced it to remove its last remaining patrol ship from occupied Crimea (when the 2022 invasion began, it held most of its 74 Black Sea Fleet warships at ports there). 

Manafort was convicted of a slew of criminal charges for his work with Ukraine and obstruction of the investigation into the connections between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, and was serving a seven-year sentence when Trump pardoned him in December 2020. Now he is back at the center of Trump’s MAGA Party. 

Before 2016 the Republican Party stood staunchly against Russia, and getting Republican voters to forget that history required adopting the argument of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who is aligned with Putin and Trump, that democracy has ruined the United States. In this argument, the central principle of democracy—that all people must be equal before the law, and have a right to a say in their government—destroys a country by making women, people of color, immigrants, members of religious minorities, and LGBTQ+ individuals equal to heteronormative white men and permitting them to influence government. In place of democracy, they want to impose their version of Christianity on the nation, banning abortion, rejecting immigrants, and curtailing the rights of gender, religious, and ethnic minorities.

Josh Kovensky and John Light of Talking Points Memo picked up that in his speech at the Republican convention last night, Vance pushed back against President Joe Biden’s traditional idea that America is an idea, tying it instead to a place and a people. As Kovensky and Light note, this is “a somewhat-quiet, somewhat-obvious dog whistle, gesturing toward the idea there are, as some on the far-right contend, ‘heritage Americans,’” native-born Americans who have a deeper understanding than newcomers of what this country means. That view of nationhood is commonplace elsewhere, Kovensky and Light note, but its absence in the U.S. “has long made our country exceptional.” 

This nationalist concept is at the heart of MAGA attacks on immigrants, which were in full display at the convention yesterday. From the podium yesterday, Thomas Homan, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for Trump’s first two years in office, told undocumented immigrants: “You better start packing to go home.” Trump has promised to round up 11 million migrants (although he claims there are 18 million) currently living in the U.S., put them in camps, and deport them. There were actually preprinted signs at the convention for attendees to wave, which they did with apparent enthusiasm. The signs said: “MASS DEPORTATION NOW!” 

The convention has also emphasized its opposition to women’s rights. Trump, who has proudly claimed responsibility for the Supreme Court’s overturning of the 1973��Roe v. Wade decision recognizing abortion as a constitutional right, walked out last night to the song “It’s a Man’s World.” By focusing on the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to enforce it, as the protector of “Life,” the Republican platform covertly endorses a national abortion ban. 

Their rejection of democracy requires a strongman at the head of the government, and in Milwaukee that man is Trump, who will be the first convicted criminal nominated for president by a major party. He was convicted for trying to tip the 2016 election by hiding payments to an adult-film actress after they had sex, in order to keep the story from voters. 

Conference attendees are honoring Trump with large bandages on their right ear as a tribute to an injury he sustained in a shooting attempt on Saturday, although—and this is very weird—there has been no information about that injury aside from his own comments and those of his inner circle, a lack the press seems willing to ignore despite their deep interest in every piece of medical information from President Biden. As he did at his criminal trial in Manhattan, Trump keeps nodding off to sleep at the convention. 

The theme of the party has been unity, but that unity depends on everyone lauding Trump. Gone are the establishment Republicans that ran the party before 2016; even longer gone are the traditional Republicans who were chased out of the party in the 1990s as “Republicans in Name Only” because they believed government had a role to play in the economy and did not see tax cuts as the solution to everything. In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Will Bunch wrote: “Here in Milwaukee, the political pundits finally saw the thing they’ve been pleading for—unity—and what that really looks like. It looks a lot like Jonestown,” where a cult leader took the lives of his followers in 1978.

In 1959, veteran Robert Biggs wrote to Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had led the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, asking the president to make “direct statements” that would give people the confidence to “back him completely.” Americans needed “more of the attitude of a commanding officer who knows the goal and the mission and states, without evasion, the way it is to be done.” 

Eisenhower answered that “in a democracy debate is the breath of life. This is to me what Lincoln meant by government ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people.’” 

“[D]ictatorial systems make one contribution to their people which leads them to tend to support such systems—freedom from the necessity of informing themselves and making up their own minds concerning…tremendous complex and difficult questions,” Eisenhower wrote. “But while this responsibility is a taxing one to a free people it is their great strength as well—from millions of individual free minds come new ideas, new adjustments to emerging problems, and tremendous vigor, vitality and progress…. While complete success will always elude us, still it is a quest which is vital to self-government and to our way of life as free men.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[stuffromymind]

Public Service Notice For You Who Have a Trump Cultist In Your Life.

The next time your MAGAt friend or relative starts talking about, "The Biden Crime Family", or how, "Trump is the only honest one in Washington!", or, "Only Donald Trump can drain the swamp and SAVE 'MURIKA!" ?

Show them this LOVELY Fact-Slap from Robert Reich, and the list of Conald's fellow criminals below, and then,

Most Importantly:

M-a-k-e them explain their Fux Noise addict response to the reality of Conald Trump and his cabal.

If they won't answer?

"I guess you're as scared to testify about the facts like Conald was at his fraud case in New York, huh?

Bonus Fact Slaps:

Follow up with this list of criminals in Trump's administration and orbit and have them explain each of these, (Don't forget to point out that "Law & Order" Conald pardoned many of them who therefore, by definition, have admitted their guilt.)

Trump has MANY of "The Best" people including a pedophile.

[taiwantalk]

Ladies and gentlemen, if you are naive and enjoy poking holes in easy logical fallacy, then read also the comments. the comments after the article are good fun.

However, I wish to impress upon you that the act of making false exaggerated allegations is coming from trump instead of just some more dumb things said by majorie taylor greene.

this is all part of trump’s surrogate network and subversive tactics. And we actually all know this to be true because we are the “jurors” outside of the hush money trial court room.

We now know that trump loves mafia surrogacy. And the whole thing with trump’s hush money was surrogacy. the same thing happened with roger stone and paul manafort.

and also the Jan 6 mobs provoked by proud boys.

Trump is truly everything of Hitler and any dictator wannabe who gained power through fanatics willingly doing the dirty works and self destruction.

[sjerzgirl]

You need to listen and understand. The REPUBLICANS proved these things before trump took office.He's going to try to do this same stuff since it worked the first time without consequence.

[follow-up-news]

Paul Manafort has agreed to pay $3.15 million he owes to the US government over misrepresentations he made on his tax returns almost a decade ago, bringing to a close the former Trump campaign chairman’s financial tangles in court.

Manafort hadn’t disclosed to the Treasury Department nearly two dozen bank accounts in Cyprus, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the UK that he used for political consulting business he did in Ukraine in 2013 and 2014, according to court filings.

The offshore accounts had tens of thousands of dollars in them, making it necessary for him to report them to the IRS. But on his tax returns, Manafort said he had no foreign bank accounts.

Manafort later admitted to failing to disclose the accounts as part of his guilty plea on a host of financial and tax crimes in the Mueller investigation. He was pardoned by then-President Trump in late 2020, again skirting some of the payback requirements.

The Justice Department sued Manafort in April last year “to collect outstanding civil penalties … for his willful failure to timely report his financial interest in foreign bank accounts,” court filings said. The DOJ also sought interest and late payment fees from Manafort.

[gettothedancing]

“Upon receipt of unevaluated intelligence information from Australia, the FBI swiftly opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. In particular, at the direction of Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Peter Strzok opened Crossfire Hurricane immediately. Strzok, at a minimum, had pronounced hostile feelings toward Trump.”

“The matter was opened as a full investigation without ever having spoken to the persons who provided the information. Further, the FBI did so without (i) any significant review of its own intelligence databases, (ii) collection and examination of any relevant intelligence from other U.S. intelligence entities, (iii) interviews of witnesses essential to understand the raw information it had received or (iv) using any of the standard analytical tools typicallv employed by the FBI in evaluating raw intelligence,” the report concluded.

“Had it done so … the FBI would have learned that their own experienced Russia analysts had no information about Trump being involved with Russian leadership officials, nor were others in sensitive positions at the CIA, the NSA, and the Department of State aware of such evidence concerning the subject. In addition, FBI records prepared by Strzok in February and March 2017 show that at the time of the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI had no information in its holdings indicating that at any time during the campaign anyone in the Trump campaign had been in contact with any Russian intelligence officials,” it said.

“In the eighteen months leading up to the 2016 election, the FBI was required to deal with a number of proposed investigations that had the potential of affecting the election. In each of those instances, the FBI moved with considerable caution. In one such matter… FBI Headquarters and Department officials required defensive briefings to be provided to Clinton and other officials or candidates who appeared to be the targets of foreign interference,” it said. “In another, the FBI elected to end an investigation after one of its longtime and valuable CHSs went beyond what was authorized and made an improper and possibly illegal financial contribution to the Clinton campaign on behalf of a foreign entity as a precursor to a much larger donation being contemplated.”

“And in a third, the Clinton Foundation matter, both senior FBI and Department officials placed restrictions on how those matters were to be handled such that essentially no investigative activities occurred for months leading up to the election. These examples are also markedly different from the FBI’s actions with respect to other highly significant intelligence it received from a trusted foreign source pointing to a Clinton campaign plan to vilify Trump by tying him to Vladimir Putin so as to divert attention from her own concerns relating to her use of a private email server,” it said.

“Within days after opening Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI opened full investigations on four members of the Trump campaign team: George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn. No defensive briefing was provided to Trump or anyone in the campaign concerning the information received from Australia that suggested there might be some type of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, either prior to or after these investigations were opened. Instead, the FBI began working on requests for the use of FISA authorities against Page and Papadopoulos.”

“Our investigation determined that the Crossfire Hurricane investigators did not and could not corroborate any of the substantive allegations contained in the Steele reporting. Nor was Steele able to produce corroboration for any of the reported allegations, even after being offered $1 million or more by the FBI for such corroboration.

“The FBI learned that Steele relied primarily on a U.S.-based Russian national, Igor Danchenko, to collect information that ultimately formed the core allegations found in the reports. Specifically, our investigation discovered that Danchenko himself had told another person that he (Danchenko) was responsible for 80% of the ‘intel’ and 50% of the analysis contained in the Steele Dossier.”

“In December 2016, the FBI identified Danchenko as Steele’s primary sub-source. Danchenko agreed to meet with the FBI and, under the protection of an immunity letter… the FBI conducted multiple interviews of Danchenko regarding, among other things, the information he provided to Steele,” it said. “Danchenko was unable to provide any corroborating evidence to support the Steele allegations, and further, described his interactions with his sub-sources as ‘rumor and speculation’ and conversations of a casual nature. Significant parts of what Danchenko told the FBI were inconsistent with what Steele told the FBI during his prior interviews in October 2016 and September 2017. At no time, however, was the FISC informed of these inconsistencies. Moreover, notwithstanding the repeated assertions in the Page FISA applications that Steele’s primary sub-source was based in Russia, Danchenko for many years had lived in the Washington, D.C. area.”

“The FBI knew in January 2017 that Danchenko had been the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation from 2009 to 2011. In late 2008, while Danchenko was employed by the Brookings Institution, he engaged two fellow employees about whether one of the employees might be willing or able in the future to provide classified information in exchange for money. According to one employee, Danchenko believed that he (the employee might be following a mentor into the incoming Obama administration and have access to classified information. During this exchange, Danchenko informed the employee that he had access to people who were willing to pay for classified information.”

“The FBI converted its investigation into a full investigation after learning that Danchenko (i) had been identified as an associate of two FBI counterintelligence subjects and (ii) had previous contact with the Russian Embassy and known Russian intelligence officers… at that earlier time, Agents had interviewed several former colleagues of Danchenko who raised concerns about Danchenko’s potential involvement with Russian intelligence. For example, one such colleague, who had interned at a U.S. intelligence agency, informed the Office that Danchenko frequently inquired about that person’s knowledge of a specific Russian military matter.”

You can read the report here.

[k-star-holic]

My Little Old Boy' Lee Dong-gun, Used GoodExchange Paul Manafort Temperature = 60.2 degrees ⁇ Daughter Roar Gift 'Storm Shopping'

[odinsblog]

What did Putin and Russia get from Trump?

Trump had the US military abandon their bases in Syria and Russia promptly captured them.

Russia was caught paying bounties in Afghanistan for killing American soldiers. Trump did nothing.

After putin seized Crimea, Obama put sanctions on Russia. Trump promptly got rid of those sanctions for his buddy, then declared that Crimea belonged to Russia, recognizing the legitimacy of their invasion.

Russia keeps creeping advancing the border with Georgia. They just literally move fences and markers at night and take land a few hundred meters at a time:

https://blogs.Ise.ac.uk/humanrights/2019/02/05/russias-new-strategy-in-georgia-creeping-occupation/

This happened during Trump's administration. Trump did nothing.

Belarus, which is a puppet for Putin, as he wants Ukraine to be, is run by his puppet dictator Lukashenko.

Lukashenko won a clearly rigged election in 2020, leading to mass protests. A similar situation happened in Ukraine during Obama's administration, and we backed the protests and they ousted Yanukovych, and Ukraine was able to elect a free government that wasn't Putin’s puppet. So when a similar situation arises while Trump was president, guess what we did?

The Trump Administration Has Gone AWOL on Belarus

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/03/belarus-election

Guess who ran Putin's puppet, Yanukovych's campaign in Ukraine... Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. Then they become Trump's campaign manager and deputy campaign manager.

Putin invades Ukraine, Trump calls him a genius.

He's a Putin puppet. Putin had a puppet president of the US. It's fucking insane that this happened. But it did.

Wake the fuck up.

[liberalsarecool]

Facebook, Google, and Elon have given your data to everyone you don't want to have all your data.

Trump, Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner gave all your voting data to Russia in 2016. Cambridge Analytica mined all your social media data in 2016.

[wilwheaton]

Reasons Trump is Unfit for Office, with Sources.

From this comment on Reddit:

Top reasons why Trump should not be president.

⁠⁠⁠⁠ Lost the election and lied about it.Source

⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sent an armed angry mob to Congress and told them they need to fight like hell. Source

⁠⁠⁠⁠ Approved of the mob saying “hang Mike Pence”. Source

⁠⁠⁠⁠ Was found liable for sexual assault.Source

⁠⁠⁠⁠ Was found guilty of defrauding his university students. Source

⁠⁠⁠⁠ Was found guilty of inflating his assets to get favorable loans.Source

⁠⁠⁠⁠ Admitted to walking in on pageant contestants’ dressing rooms.Source

⁠⁠⁠⁠ Allegedly Raped and beat Ivana Trump. Source

⁠⁠ Stole from a kids’ cancer charity. Source

Received $413 million inheritance despite claims that he’s a self made man. Source

Blocked his chronically ill infant nephew from getting any of that inheritance. Source

Is the first president to receive votes against him from his own party during impeachment. Source

Led us into being one of the worst hit during Covid despite our head start and resources, leading to high inflation. Source

Said the Democrats do better with the economy.Source

Was ranked as the worst president in history by bipartisan presidential historians.Source

Pushed a plot to have fake votes created and then used to make him President despite losing the election.Source

Ordered republicans to block a bipartisan immigration billso Biden would not get a win before the election.Source

Is a convicted felon guilty of falsifying records to influence an election.Source

Told the Department of Justice to “just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”Source

His VP, Mike Pence said Trump should never be president again, and that Trump asked him to put himself “above the Constitution”. Source

Got Fox News successfully sued for repeating/pushing his administrations election lies. A $787M settlement. Source

Said he’d be a dictator for one day Source

Trump lied to, or misled the public 30,573 times in the four years he held office. Source

Also, just regarding some of the Trump administration that have been convicted of crimes:

Donald Trump was charged, convicted, and is awaiting sentencing.

Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.

Trump’s former campaign vice chairman, Rick Gates, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.

Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.

Trump’s former adviser and former campaign aide, Roger Stone, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.

Trump’s former adviser and former White House aide Peter Navarro, was charged, convicted, and is currently in prison.

Trump’s former campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.

The Trump Organization’s former CFO, Allen Weisselberg, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.

Trump’s former White House national security advisor, Michael Flynn, was charged and convicted.

Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was charged with wire fraud and money laundering, in addition to a conviction in a contempt case similar to Navarro’s. He’s currently awaiting sentencing.

Though he was later acquitted at trial, Trump’s former inaugural committee chair, Tom Barrack, was charged with illegally lobbying Trump on behalf of a foreign government. (Elliot Broidy was the vice chair of Trump’s inaugural committee, and he found himself at the center of multiple controversies, and also pled guilty to federal charges related to illegal lobbying.)

Two lawyers associated with Trump’s post-defeat efforts, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, have pleaded guilty to election-related crimes.

Source

And if your vote is based strictly on economic achievements, here is a TikTok video comparing Trumps economy by the numbers. Tiktok link

[porterdavis]

The number of people in the Republican’s [Trump] orbit who’ve been convicted of crimes in recent years is so great, The Washington Post once described it as the “remarkable universe of criminality“ surrounding the former president.

That was five years ago. It’s even more remarkable now:

Donald Trump was charged, convicted, and is awaiting sentencing.

Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.

Trump’s former campaign vice chairman, Rick Gates, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.

Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.

Trump’s former adviser and former campaign aide, Roger Stone, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.

Trump’s former adviser and former White House aide Peter Navarro, was charged, convicted, and is currently in prison.

Trump’s former campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.

The Trump Organization’s former CFO, Allen Weisselberg, was charged, convicted, and sentenced to prison.

Trump’s former White House national security advisor, Michael Flynn, was charged and convicted.

Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was charged with wire fraud and money laundering, in addition to a conviction in a contempt case similar to Navarro’s. He’s currently awaiting sentencing.

Though he was later acquitted at trial, Trump’s former inaugural committee chair, Tom Barrack, was charged with illegally lobbying Trump on behalf of a foreign government. (Elliot Broidy was the vice chair of Trump’s inaugural committee, and he found himself at the center of multiple controversies, and also pled guilty to federal charges related to illegal lobbying.)

Two lawyers associated with Trump’s post-defeat efforts, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, have pleaded guilty to election-related crimes.

And did I mention that former president’s business was itself found guilty of tax fraud? Because it was.

This does not include the fact that a jury held Trump liable for sexual abuse in a civil case.

By Steve Benen

[mylionheart2]

And the hits keep coming. (Updated 6/7/24)

Meet Donald Trump's Criminal Enterprise.

Donald Trump: Former so-called President & Convicted Felon: Found Guilty On All 34 counts Of Business Document Fraud. Found Liable For Se*ual Assault of E. Jean Carroll 

Rep. Chris Collins: Trump's Former Mouthpiece in Congress - Convicted

Rick Gates: Trump's Former Deputy Campaign Manager - Convicted

Paul Manafort: Trump’s Former Campaign Chair - Convicted

George Papadopoulos: Trump's Former Foreign Policy Advisory - Convicted

Mike Flynn: Trump’s Former National Security Adviser - Convicted

Michael Cohen: Trump's Former Attorney and Fixer - Convicted

Roger Stone: Former Political Consultant for the Trump Campaign - Convicted

Steve Bannon: Former Trump White House Chief Strategists and Senior Counselor To Trump - Convicted

Allen Weisselberg:  Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization - Convicted

Jenna Ellis: Former Trump Lawyer – Convicted

Sidney Powell: Former Trump Attorney – Convicted

Peter Navarro: Former Trump Advisor – Convicted

Mark Meadows: Former White House Chief Of Staff - Indicted

Rudy Giuliani: Trump's Former Attorney -  Indicted

John Eastman: Former Trump Attorney – Indicted

Christina Bobb - Former Trump Attorney – Indicted

Boris Epshteyn: Former Trump Attorney – Indicted

Walt Nauta: Trump Aide - Indicted

Kenneth Cheseboro: Right-wing Attorney – Indicted

Michael Roman: Former Trump Campaign Official – Indicted

Jeffrey Clark: Former Trump Administration Official - Indicted

The Trump To Prison Pipeline:

18 People Indicted In Fulton County, GA

18 People Indicted For Election Interference In AZ

15 People Indicted For Election Forgery In MI

3 People Indicted For Fake Electors Scheme In WI

2 People Indicted For Obstruction Of Justice And Mishandling Of Classified Documents In Florida

1,400 people Arrested For January 6th, 2021 Insurrection At the U.S. Capitol