In an explosive interview on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show, Lev Parnas, the indicted Ukrainian-American at the very center of President Trump’s impeachment saga, appears to have dealt a death blow to Trump’s defense when he told host Maddow that all Trump wanted from President Zelensky of Ukraine was dirt on Biden and that he was never interested in rooting out corruption in the country.
Parnas told Maddow, “It[Ukrainegate]was all about Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and also Rudy [Giuliani]had a personal thing with the Manafort stuff, the black ledger. That was another thing that they were looking into. But it was never about corruption, it was strictly about Burisma which included Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.”
This is a very problematic revelation for the Trump team because their entire defense has been that as President, Trump had every right to deny aid to Ukraine if he felt that hard earned U.S. tax dollars would be misappropriated by corrupt Ukrainian officials.
Republican Senators, especially those from swing states who are up for reelection this year, have found it impossible to defend Trump against allegations that he sought help from a foreign country (Ukraine) to dig up dirt on his political opponent (Biden). These Senators have instead rested on the more palatable anti-corruption defense.
If Parnas’ allegation that this was all about Joe Biden pans out, and all indications are that they will, then the vulnerable Republican Senators who have relied on the anti-corruption defense will have no leg to stand on and may be forced to do the unthinkable–put the country’s interests over the GOP and vote to remove Trump from office .
Bottom line folks, we all know that Washington and indeed the rest of the country has become deeply polarized as a result of the Trump presidency. Under any other normal administration, the revelations brought forward by Ukrainegate would be enough to garner bipartisan support both in the House and Senate for a president’s impeachment and removal from office. It will be interesting to see whether partisanship in Washington has become so bad under Trump, that he is allowed to get away with his very troubling conduct re Ukrainegate–the quintessential “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
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You may reach the author via email at author@grassrootsdempolitics.com or author@emolumentsclause.com
President Trump, Rudy Giuliani with Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas
With today’s bombshell news report that two associates of Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, have been arrested on a multitude of charges including campaign finance violations, President Trump is yet again thrust right into the middle of the burgeoning Ukrainegate scandal. While there is nothing in the indictments so far that directly mentions President Trump, they serve as a clear reminder that Ukrainegate is definitely not the “hoax” President Trump has worked very hard hard to convince the public that it is. Reasonable people will agree that because the suspects in the scheme to dig up dirt on Joe Biden donated $325,000 to Trump’s Super PAC America First Action, Trump is necessarily implicated. Furthermore, one of the indicted men, Ukrainian-American Lev Parnas, is reportedly the guy who introduced Giuliani to Ukrainian officials to help him dig up dirt on Biden. Parnas has also spent thousands of dollars on Trump’s properties and donated to the main super PAC supporting his reelection. Simply put folks, Trump is implicated.
Trump’s super PAC was quick to respond to today’s indictments through its spokeswoman Kelly Sadler who issued a statement saying, “America First Action placed that contribution in a segregated bank account, it has not been for any purpose and the funds will remain in this segregated account until these matters are resolved…….We take our legal obligations seriously and scrupulously comply with the law and any suggestion otherwise is false.”Kelly Sadler you’ll remember is the former Trump White House staffer who joked about Senator John McCain’s death.
The growing problem for Senate Republicans whose decision it will be on whether to remove Trump from office is that with every new revelation, Ukrainegate just seems to be getting worse and their defenses nonsensical. We went from Ukrainegate is a “hoax”, to there was “no quid pro quo”, to “it was bad but not impeachable” to now where the 53 GOP Senators may have to be put in a position where they defend out and out criminal conduct by Giuliani (implicating Trump) and his associates. Even worse the suspects at the center of Ukrainegate can now be directly linked to Trump’s campaign given the $325K donation bombshell. There are probably more ties between these two suspects and Trump’s campaign that will be revealed during the course of the impeachment inquiry. Such revelations, if any, will only deepen fears among many Americans that the Trump campaign is enlisting foreign assistance in U.S. elections—TrumpRussia 2.0.
As Yours Truly has repeatedly stated even before these criminal indictments were announced, a vote by these 53 GOP Senators to keep Trump in office given the national security implications of Ukrainegate would be a vote to destroy America. These latest indictments only work to buttress that argument.
There is also an interesting tidbit from the indictments that says these two suspects enlisted former U.S. Congressman Pete Sessions in an effort to remove former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich. According to CNN, the two promised to raise $20,000 for Sessions’ 2018 campaign in return for Texas Congressman helping them in their effort to oust Ambassador Yovanovich. Rep Sessions for his part, penned a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2018 calling for the removal of Ambassador Yovanovich, arguing that Yovanovich was “disloyal” to Trump.
It has been widely reported that Ambassador Yovanovich was opposed to efforts by Giuliani and his associates to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden. It is not clear, even though it’s totally plausible that it’s Yovanovich’s opposition to this anti-Biden scheme that earned her the “disloyal” label. The indictments show clearly that former Congressman Sessions was part of the scheme to take out Ambassador Yovanovich thereby making way for Giuliani’s criminal scheme– conduct that should definitely lead to criminal charges against the former Texas Congressman. This also raises questions as to whether these two suspects, or indeed other foreigners, were involved in the campaigns of other Republicans during the 2018 election.
Bottom line folks, ever since 2016, Americans have been yearning for a time when we did not have to worry about foreigners meddling in our elections, and certainly not with the abetting of the U.S. government. It has now been proven beyond any reasonable doubt that as long as Trump is President we will not only have to worry constantly about whether our elections are free and fair, but that the President himself has no problems with that as long as he is the beneficiary of the foreign meddling. The 53 GOP Senators whose decision it will be whether or not to remove this President from office will be forced to decide whether we should continue having free and fair elections (voting to removing Trump) or having our future elections decided by foreign meddlers like Russia (keeping Trump in office). One only hopes the 53 GOP Senators will sober up and make the right decision–but don’t bet the house on it!!
For those of you very happy with @Emolclause’s activism don’t shy away from the “tip jar” below on your way out.
You may reach the author via email at author@grassrootsdempolitics.com or author@emolumentsclause.com
