9/27/2023 0 Comments Josh marshall twitter ukraine![]() This can't be just another fall-guy scenario.The proliferation of such symposiums raises questions about whether countries are competing or coordinating over a coherent plan to rebuild Ukraine, and, crucially, whether systems will be in place for when the billions in expected western aid is in Ukraine (ranked by Transparency International in 2021 as the second most corrupt country in Europe, behind only Russia) to stop members of the elite siphoning it off. That might be just desserts for a small man who was always graded on a curve, but Trump must be held accountable for his role here as well. Giuliani is now lying and spouting off conspiracy theories to try to stay out of the fire, but you've got to believe Trump will shove him the rest of the way in if necessary. What would the full transcript say? What does the whistleblower's report say? There is no reason to believe this is the end of it, either, just as there is zero reason to believe Giuliani was actually on a Double-Secret State Department Mission in Ukraine because he held up his iPhone on television. The president did exactly what he said he did, and what Giuliani denied he did on Fox News: he brought up the potential investigation and pressured the Ukrainian president over it. ![]() The transcript is not actually a full, verbatim transcript of the call-it features ellipses at key points-but it still turned out to be more damning than anyone expected. ![]() Why did Giuliani get a look at The Transcript before Congress and the general public? He is not, as Rupar points out, a government official of any kind. First, he joined the program hosted by Laura Ingraham, who lives in fear of The Children who want a habitable planet. Vox's Aaron Rupar traced Giuliani's merry dance across cable news and, we can only assume, his dark internal journey into the cavernous depths of delusion required to survive working on the president's behalf. (Remember when the President of the Untied States used mob lingo to describe his campaign manager's Very Loyal activities?) Either way, there's ample reason to believe the president has been directly implicated in this from the beginning.īut the whole WaPo report centers on Giuliani's role, and based on his appearances across Fox News' many fine offerings last night and this morning, he's aware of his new status as a protagonist in the story of an impeachable offense. ![]() That would be commensurate reward for Manafort's refusal to "break" and properly cooperate with federal prosecutors. Maybe he wanted something that would muddy the waters around his former campaign manager's activities in Ukraine, perhaps just enough to justify pardoning him. What does Giuliani care about Manafort? It's Trump who cares about Manafort. The former New York mayor appears to have seen Zelensky, a political neophyte elected president of Ukraine in April and sworn in in May, as a potential ally on two political fronts: punishing those Giuliani suspected of playing a role in exposing the Ukraine-related corruption of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and delivering political ammunition against Biden.Īs Josh Marshall pointed out, the Manafort detail points to this being more than just Giuliani's work. Drew Angerer // Getty Images Several officials traced their initial concerns about the path of U.S.-Ukrainian relations to news reports and interviews granted by Giuliani in which he began to espouse views and concerns that did not appear connected to U.S. Giuliani will soon learn that you either leave Trumpland diminished or with a knife in your back. And based on Giuliani's conduct over the last 24 hours or so- the climax of months of shady, unscrupulous shit hitting the fan-he may well believe the double-decker bus has swung around the corner and someone just shoved him into the street. Everyone who wanders into this president's airspace enters an escalating state of ethical and professional decay. In Trumpland, after all, you either leave diminished or stay long enough to go to jail. But as of this fine Wednesday morning, it looks like The Artist Formerly Known as America's Mayor might take more than a beating for the president. And his personal "lawyer," Rudy Giuliani, is actually more of a rodeo clown who runs in to get kicked in the face every time the bull starts bucking too hard under the president. His Secretary of Education is another Republican big spender who knows zero about public education. His current ambassador to the United Nations, for instance, is a Republican fundraiser with negligible diplomatic experience who once said there are many fine scientists on both sides when it comes to climate change. At some point, it had to come back to bite Donald Trump, American president, that he struggles to attract anyone to work for him unless they lack ethics or competence or both.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |