No mas! No mas! Hear that wail from the Fox folks’ whiners’ chorus?
No more what, you may ask.
No more investigating President Donald Trump and his amorphous administration for multiple crimes, including conspiracy to collude with Russia in meddling in our 2016 presidential election. Investigated by? Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his crack legal team, don’t you know.
Leading the pleading is Vice President Michael Pence, known as Puritanism’s last best hope. Pence told NBC News’s Andrea Mitchell last week that he thinks “it’s time to wrap it up. And I would very respectfully encourage the special counsel and his team to bring their work to completion.” So gently put by the fawning toad in the oaf’s shadow, who nevertheless is widely reported to be secretly assembling a politically friendly group to help him succeed Trump, come what may.
America’s former mayor Rudy Giuliani, recently hired to replace the disgraced Michael Cohen as the president’s personal lawyer, “respectfully” echoed Pence’s sentiment to Politico: “I think he’s [Mueller] sensitive to the fact that he’s gone on a little bit too long....He’s certainly getting a certain degree of questioning about that.” So daintily and diplomatically put.
But that’s where the soft talk ends. Sean Hannity, Devin Nunes and the masses of Fox-trained “deplorables” are out in force to oust Mueller ASAP. Pry no more into the dodgy doings of Dear Leader they rant and roar. When we ask why, we are told that the Special Counsel has been snooping for a year now and found nothing in his “witch hunt.”
Nothing? Really? Then how do we account for Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russians: Anna Bovacheva, Maria Bovda, Robert Bovda, Mikhail Burchik, Irena Kaverzina, Alexandra Krylova, Dzheykhun Ogly, Vadim Podkopaev, Sergey Polozov Yevgeny Prigozhin, Gleb Vasilchenko and Vladimir Venkov; repeat those names rapidly to cleanse your palate. Also indicted was the Internet Research Agency, a Russian company that infiltrated our social media and surreptitiously pimped for Trump during the 2016 presidential election, plus two financial shell companies, Concord Management and Concord Catering, that facilitated it.
Yeah, but we’re never going to try them, the Fox knaves say. Wrong answer. The right one? Your admission that the Special Prosecutor is not on a witch hunt or a goose chase. As for bringing the Russian culprits to justice, that may never come to be in an American courtroom, but they will not be visiting the Big Apple or Miami’s beaches any time soon. And before booking a European vacation, they had better check for extradition treaties in force. (“Drat! Looks like another boring Black Sea summer.”)
But let’s go domestic and look for evil-doers nabbed here at home. Start by explaining Trump aide George Papadopoulous’s guilty plea to making false statements to the FBI regarding contacts with Russians. (He’s talking to Mueller, by the way...flipped, as they say.)
Or address the conviction of London attorney Alex Van der Zwaan, son-in-law of a Russian oligarch, for making false statements to the FBI regarding contacts with Russians—first to receive a jail sentence in the probe.
Add the guilty plea of Richard Pinedo to identity fraud charges for selling bank account numbers with stolen identities to the Russians.
On to bigger fish now, starting with General Michael Flynn, Trump’s short-term National Security Advisor who has confessed to lying to the FBI about phone conversations with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak; Flynn’s the first of Trump’s men to plead guilty in the Russian investigation. He has flipped big time.
Moving on to even bigger fish, Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager for five months, hasn’t pleaded guilty to anything yet, but faces charges of money laundering, acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign power, and making false and misleading statements...all to be adjudicated in a Washington, D.C. courtroom. Separately, he’s charged in the state of Virginia with 18 counts, including nine concerning bank fraud and five for filing false tax returns. Manafort may yet break...or he may prove his loyalty to Trump and do enough prison time to welcome in the 22nd century from his own private cell.
Finally, there’s Rick Gates, former business associate of Paul Manafort and a Trump campaign insider. He has turned on his former partner, owning up to a charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States, and is supposed to have told Mueller enough to make Devin Nunes sweat.
Golly! This sure seems like more than a witch hunt. Sounds like a traitor hunt to me, what with every day more damaging admissions and revelations getting dragged into the public consciousness by a pesky press against the Fox folks’ wishes.
But... I am running out of time and space to respond to the Trumpsters’ second concern: why it is taking Mueller so long to “wrap up” his investigation? I will research that and get back to you all soon with an answer.
P.S. Observe how many times the words Russia and Russians show up in the blog above. I count 12. How about you, Mike? Rudy?
#