Ambassador Fiona Hill, an expert on Russia and Vladimir Putin, told Devin Nunes to his face that his Ukraine conspiracy theory is ‘harmful’ to Ukraine and U.S. national security interests. She showed how Trump and Republicans function as Putin’s useful idiots.
As the Washington Post editorializes, Fiona Hill shreds the Republicans’ false narrative about Ukraine, and Jennifer Rubin adds Republicans’ nuttery exposed.
But The Party of Trump is the Party of Putin in America: “[T]he entire Republican Party and its conservative media propaganda machine are all-in on this Russian intelligence conspiracy theory as well. They are doing the Kremlin’s work for them.”
For Trump Republicans the enemy is the U.S. intelligence community and the FBI, the “deep state,” not Vladimir Putin and the Russian intelligence agencies who attacked the 2016 election and assisted the Trump campaign. The Party of Trump wants to prove that “Paul Manafort was framed by Ukrainians!” “It was Democrats and Ukrainians who hacked the DNC servers (that do not exist) and leaked emails to frame the Russians — and harm Hillary Clintons campaign!” This is the Russian “dezinformatsiya” and propaganda propagated by Vlaidimir Putin and his Russian intelligence agencies, and amplified by their ancillaries in the conservative media entertainment complex.
Republicans have not heeded the warnings from Ambassador Hill. In fact, they are about to double-down with Russian “dezinformatsiya” counter programming to the impeachment hearings.
Senator “Leningrad” Lindsey Graham is now ready to do Putin’s dirty work for him where useful idiot Rep. Devin Nunes left off in the impeachment hearings. Graham launches probe of Bidens, Burisma and Ukraine:
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday requesting documents related to former vice president Joe Biden and his communications with Ukrainian officials, a step seen as a GOP effort to counter the House impeachment investigation of President Trump.
The inquiry by Graham (R-S.C.) is focused on any calls Biden may have had with Petro Poroshenko, then the Ukrainian president, regarding the firing of the country’s top prosecutor, as well as any that referenced an investigation of Burisma, the Ukrainian natural-gas company that employed Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
Graham’s document request suggests he is seeking to legitimize Trump’s accusations that Biden, then vice president, put pressure on Ukraine to fire its lead prosecutor to protect his son, a claim without evidence that has been disputed by officials familiar with the investigation.
Graham, one of Trump’s fiercest defenders on Capitol Hill, told The Washington Post in late October that he was under intense pressure to launch an investigation into Biden by Trump and his allies.
But he said he would not “turn the Senate into a circus” and would instead focus his committee’s work on the investigation into the Justice Department’s launch of the Russia investigation.
Graham just pulled an Emily Lettia: “Never mind!” Raise the circus tents!
In Graham’s letter to Pompeo — seemingly timed [oh, it was] to coincide with the conclusion of the public impeachment inquiry hearings in the House — he asks for communications between Joe Biden and Poroshenko as well as any between Devon Archer, a business partner of Hunter Biden’s, and then-Secretary of State John F. Kerry on March 2, 2016, based on reporting that the two were scheduled to meet that day.
A former Kerry aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak about a private meeting, said that the meeting was “100 percent unrelated to Burisma” and included “no mention of business.” The aide characterized the meeting as a “courtesy hello to a 2004 alumni” of Kerry’s presidential campaign and said their exchange lasted no more than five minutes.
Graham does not provide a deadline for the State Department to produce these documents.
The unsubstantiated allegation that Joe Biden acted nefariously in pushing for the removal of Ukraine’s prosecutor is at the center of the impeachment inquiry into Trump. Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July 25 phone call to look into the Bidens — an attempt, Democrats charge, to use his power to strong-arm a foreign leader into investigating a potential political opponent.
When Biden pressured Ukraine to fire its prosecutor by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, he was leading a charge supported by the Obama administration, many Western leaders and several Republican senators.
Throughout the House hearings, Republicans have sought to shift the narrative to focus on the Bidens. They asked for Hunter Biden to testify, a request the Democrats rejected as irrelevant to the question of whether Trump abused his power.
Kurt Volker, a former envoy to Ukraine who Republicans asked to testify publicly, said during his hearing Tuesday that “allegations against Vice President Biden are self-serving and not credible.”
A key player in this developing scandal is the Trump “Injustice” Department under Trump fixer Willam “Coverup” Barr.
The first shoe to drop, Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report analyzing the FBI’s Russia investigation, is scheduled to be released publicly Dec. 9. The Trump “Injustice” Department is already making selective leaks of the report available to the media so that FOX News aka Trump TV can run programming promotions for the “big reveal” in its “War on The Deep State.”
The Washington Post reports, Justice Dept. inspector general draft report finds FBI lawyer may have altered document:
The Justice Department inspector general has found evidence that an FBI employee may have altered a document connected to court-approved surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser, but has concluded that the conduct did not affect the overall validity of the surveillance application, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The person under scrutiny is a low-level FBI lawyer who has since been forced out of the agency, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss material that has not yet been made public. They declined to identify the lawyer.
The employee was forced out of the FBI after the incident was discovered, two U.S. officials said. Horowitz found that the employee erroneously indicated he had documentation to back up a claim he had made in discussions with the Justice Department about the factual basis for the application. He then altered an email to back up that erroneous claim, they said.
That conduct did not alter Horowitz’s finding that the surveillance application of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page had a proper legal and factual basis, the officials said.
Horowitz has been exploring various aspects of the Russia probe but was focused in particular on applications the FBI filed with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor Page’s electronic communications.
The alleged alteration of a document by an FBI employee was first reported by CNN.
Then there are the other shoes yet to drop from the Trump “Injustice” Department.
Separately, Attorney General William P. Barr tapped U.S. Attorney John Durham to explore the origins of the FBI probe and U.S. intelligence agency activities aimed at the Trump campaign, and Durham is expected to pursue the allegation surrounding the altered document to see whether it constitutes a crime, people familiar with the matter said.
Durham’s work is expected to continue well after publication of the inspector general’s report.
A spokeswoman for the inspector general declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for the FBI. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
There is also William “Coverup” Barr’s personal review of the Russian investigation. This is likely to be as wildly fabricated and corrupt as was his summary of the Mueller Report.
President Trump and fellow Republicans have been clamoring for the report’s release, particularly as House Democrats have held high-profile impeachment hearings this month.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the Senate Judiciary panel plans to hold a hearing with testimony from Horowitz on Dec. 11.
The inspector general has been investigating how the FBI pursued allegations of collusion and conspiracy between Trump associates and Russian agents during the 2016 election.
In recent weeks, key witnesses in the investigation have been called in to review and comment on sections of the report. The Washington Post reported last week that, unlike in previous inspector general reports, witnesses were told they could not submit written responses to the report, which remains a classified document. That raised alarms among some witnesses worried they would not be allowed to correct errors or misunderstandings in the report, according to people familiar with the matter.
After The Post’s report, the inspector general’s office clarified to witnesses that they would be allowed to submit written comments.
Democrats and Republicans have eagerly awaited release of the report, hopeful that the Justice Department’s internal watchdog will validate their views on the law enforcement investigation that dogged the first two years of Trump’s presidency.
Conservatives have alleged that a medley of wrongdoing occurred during the investigation, which was eventually taken over by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, and they are likely to seize on any criticism that Horowitz directs at those involved in the probe. Some Trump supporters have [recklessly and irresponsibly] referred to the investigation as an attempted “coup.”
Democrats, meanwhile, are hopeful Horowitz will disprove various conspiracy theories that have been offered about the case and refute Trump’s assertion that Mueller’s probe was a “witch hunt” tainted by political bias against the president.
The first rule of conspiracy theories is that they are never disproved. A new conspiracy theory will be invented to explain why the debunking of the first conspiracy theory is wrong. Conspiracy theories live forever.
FOX News’s annual war on Christmas is going to be preempted this year for its war on the U.S. intelligence community, i.e., the “deep state,” brought to you by Uncle Vlad and the Russian intelligence community, and their useful idiots in the Party of Trump and its ancillaries in the conservative media entertainment complex.
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