A bombshell report from the U.S. National Intelligence Council makes clear that Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to once again help Donald Trump win reelection in 2020, and it also seems to suggest that the go-between for Russia was none other than Rudy Giuliani.
The New York Timesreports that while the intelligence report doesn’t specifically name any individual, the language used in the report clearly points in Guiliani’s direction:
“President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia authorized extensive efforts to interfere in the American presidential election to denigrate the candidacy of Joseph R. Biden Jr., including intelligence operations to influence people close to former President Donald J. Trump, according to a declassified intelligence report released Tuesday.
“The report did not name those people but seemed to be a reference to the work of Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, who relentlessly pushed allegations of corruption about Mr. Biden and his family involving Ukraine.
“’Russian state and proxy actors who all serve the Kremlin’s interests worked to affect U.S. public perceptions in a consistent manner,’ the report said.”
Think back several months to when it became clear that Joe Biden had all of the momentum and would be the Democratic nominee. Giuliani made multiple appearances on Fox News and other right-wing media outlets to suggest that he was on the verge of releasing information that would supposedly prove criminal actions on the part of Biden or his son, Hunter. Despite his promises that such information was forthcoming, the former New York City mayor never came up with anything other than rumors and accusations devoid of any substantiation.
At the center of the efforts to smear Biden was the nation of Ukraine, which Giuliani even visited, as The Hill noted back in December of 2019:
“Giuliani met with multiple Ukrainian officials as he continued his effort to counter House Democrats’ impeachment probe and paint an investigation into the Bidens as a matter critical to the relationship between the two countries.”
Additionally, the key figure in the effort to dig up negative information on the Biden family was also of Ukrainian origin:
“Moscow used Andriy Derkach, a pro-Russian member of Ukraine’s parliament, to undermine Mr. Biden, the report detailed. Mr. Derkach, according to the report, released leaked phone calls to undermine Mr. Biden and link him to Ukrainian corruption four times in 2020. The report said Mr. Putin ‘had purview’ over the actions of Mr. Derkach, who had ties to Russian intelligence.
“Moscow’s operatives also pushed a false narrative that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for interfering in American politics, according to the report. Last year, American intelligence officials told Congress that Russia was using allies to pushing negative stories about Mr. Biden’s son Hunter and his work in Ukraine.”
Giuliani’s efforts on Trump and Russia’s behalf could place him in severe legal jeopardy if the Department of Justice chooses to file charges against him. Rudy didn’t receive a pardon before Trump left office, and that could come back to be a very big deal.
No matter what happens, the intelligence report makes clear that both Russia and Giuliani were working fervently to get Trump reelected. Fortunately for the United States (and the world), they were unsucessful.
It’s been a little while since we last heard from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, and that’s certainly a good thing, because he almost never has anything productive to say.
But Huckabee is back, and he tried to float a moronic conspiracy theory about Donald Trump and the 2020 election which only served to leave him with egg on his face.
Huckabee sent out this tweet suggesting that Trump won the state of Georgia, even though three recounts suggested otherwise:
70% of Georgians said they would vote for Trump in 2024, and 55.5% disapprove of the job Biden is doing. Makes you wonder how Biden could have won Georgia, but you’d better not wonder that out loud.
70% of REPUBLICANS said they would vote for Trump in 2024 republican primary So a third of republicans want someone other than Trump, that is the headline
Gotta love it when Mike Huckabee uses obviously made-up poll numbers as the sole basis of his argument for why an election was somehow secretly rigged.
With all of the legal issues swirling around failed, one-term former President Donald Trump, it’s sometimes difficult to keep up with all of the jurisdictions currently investigating and possibly preparing to indict him.
One of the cases that hasn’t gotten nearly as much ink as the ongoing probes in New York is the election meddling investigation being conducted by Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis, who believes that the Donald meddled in the 2020 election in the Peach State by calling Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and urging him to “find” thousands of votes that would turn the tide and allow Trump to be declared the winner.
Willis’ case, according to former U.S. Attorney Michael J. Moore, is a strong one.
“Michael, how difficult is it to build a case around fraud in particular?”
Moore responded:
“You can build it. You just have to be specific in your claims and allegations,. You want to show somebody had an intent to do something wrong, and that they tried to influence somebody else to participate in it or to turn things in a way that made it more favorable to the defendant. So fraud is a tough case on its own. But again, in these cases, you either trace the money, you trace the phone call, you trace the emails.”
He added that the phone call Trump made is compelling evidence:
“What you find is these fraudsters and folks out there get caught by their own tongue. They just are unable to keep their mouths shut. That’s why we’ve got an hour-long, essentially, confession about the president in Georgia on the case. He is soliciting somebody, that being the secretary of state, to commit election fraud. When you have a confession, the case against is a lot simpler.”
The tape of the phone call Trump made to Raffensperger makes clear that the former president did indeed try to meddle with the election results in Georgia. The grand jury Willis has impaneled will indict Trump and the case will go to trial. And there’s a very real possibility that Trump will be found guilty.
Fani Willis has Donald Trump nailed on the charge of election meddling. His phone call is all the evidence she needs to prove the serial sexual assaulter did indeed attempt to overturn the will of voters in Georgia.
Seven months ago, extremist demonstrators were only too happy to display their undying loyalty to Donald Trump by marching on the U.S. Capitol and storming the building, which led to the deaths of five people, including a police officer.
Now, however, some of those same once-loyal Trump worshipers are calling the president a “coward” and insisting that he either needs to be arrested or executed, according to a report from Jesselyn Cook of HuffPost:
“In online havens for MAGA extremists, including Gab, CloutHub, MeWe, Telegram and far-right message boards such as 8kun, the tone toward Trump is shifting. HuffPost reviewed thousands of messages across these platforms and found that a growing minority of the president’s once-devout backers are now denouncing him and rejecting his recent pleas for peace. Some have called for his arrest or execution, labelling him a ‘traitor’ and a ‘coward.’ Alarmingly, many of those who are irate about Biden’s supposed electoral theft are still plotting to forcibly prevent him from taking office – with or without Trump’s help.”
What led to the shift in opinion among the extremists who have supported Trump since he first labeled Mexican immigrants as “rapists”? Apparently it was the video the president made in which he called for a peaceful transfer of power and an end to the violence that had taken place at the Capitol.
“’So he basically just sold out the patriots who got rounded up for him,’ one person wrote in a 15,000-member pro-Trump Telegram group. ‘Just wow.’
“’We don’t follow you,’ another Telegram user wrote, addressing Trump, after the president put out his video urging calm and order. ‘Be quiet and get out of our way.'”
There have also been messages such as this one:
On other forums, there are calls to “burn down” the Capitol and “pop some libtards”:
“WHATEVER IT TAKES!!” Some posts are more specific:“Civil War is here. Group up locally. Take out the News stations,” one person declared. “LET’S HANG THEM ALL,” another implored. “LET’S FINISH THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.”
The Boogaloo Boys, a far-right extremist group that openly advocates for civil war, have also issued a call to arms:
“Theres a war coming, and cowering in your home [while] real patriots march with rifles … will make you a traitor,” commented a member of an encrypted Boogaloo chat.
Other postings are aimed directly at Trump, and suggest that he too may be a part of the problem that the extremists call for neutralizing:
Among the recent messages excoriating Trump in dedicated pro-Trump networks: “tbh I hope they hang Trump at this point”; “He deserves what’s coming to him”; “he is literally done he will die in jail”; “Seriously hoping they’ll lock him up or lynch [him]”; “Guy is the biggest cuck ever at this point” “Can’t wait til the left locks up his bitch ass. Rot in prison.” Several people have proclaimed that at this point, Trump can only redeem himself by declaring martial law to maintain power by force.
Clearly, and that could well wind up being a direct threat to him and anyone associated with his administration. But the only person to blame for what’s become of some of his former acolytes is the man-child Trump sees whenever he looks in the mirror.
