Day 762

Day 762 Thursday February 7, 2019

634 Days to the 2020 election and 712 Days to Inauguration Day

Oh boy. The president’s most memorable comment from his speech last night was a threat in the form of a bumper sticker “No Legislation if there’s an Investigation.”

I guess there will be no legislation. 

Because boy oh boy are we gearing up for a doozy of a year of investigations. There’s Mueller and the feds in New York. Now there’s Maria Butina’s alleged boyfriend. I say “alleged” because we know from intercepted communications she complained to her Russian handlers about having to be intimate or even around this guy. I don’t know why she would feel that way. Was it that she’s in her twenties and he’s in his fifties? Is it that she’s quite attractive and he looks like a complete doofus? Or is it that he’s been making money by scamming people for his adult life? Yeah, that just came out in the indictments against him. The scams all followed the same pattern: send a form letter, ask for money, promise a lot, cash the check, move on. Three scams were mentioned in the indictments: wheelchairs, old folk health care, Bakken oil field real estate. Said boyfriend has been mentioned as an operator in Republican circles in North Dakota. But local Republicans also call him a big phony. Yeah, but they still took his money.

Okay, that’s all the known and small stuff. Hey, one guy indicted on a bunch of stuff that’s a Republican. Not a bad day for the Grand Old Party. Oh wait, there’s more.

Adam Schiff is now in charge of the House Intelligence Committee. He’s a Democrat, a former prosecutor and he’s chairman of the aforesaid committee. For some reason he wasn’t happy about the way the Republicans handled their investigation into Russian meddling into the 2016 election. I guess closing your eyes and putting your head in the sand and then saying you saw nothing is not his style. 

His reconstituted investigation is more broadly defined than before and he has outlined five “threads” of investigation:

1. The scope and scale of the Russian government’s operations to influence the U.S. political process, and the U.S. government’s response, during and since the 2016 election.

2. The extent of any links and/or coordination between the Russian government, or related foreign actors, and individuals associated with Donald Trump’s campaign, transition, administration, or business interests, in furtherance of the Russian government’s interests.

3. Whether any foreign actor has sought to compromise or holds leverage, financial or otherwise,  over Donald Trump, his family, his business, or his associates.

4. Whether president Trump, his family, or his associates are or were at any time at heightened risk of, or vulnerable to, foreign exploitation, inducement, manipulation, pressure, or coercion, or have sought to influence U.S. government policy in service of foreign interests.

5. Whether any actors — foreign or domestic — sought or are seeking to impede, obstruct, and/or mislead authorized investigations into these matters, including those in the Congress.

Let me translate this to more simplified terms:

1. Did Russian interfere in our election?

2. Collusion

3. Bribery

4. Blackmail

5. Obstruction

To think the president is named as a target and also his friends, family, and associates, and members of Congress shows how deep this corruption may go. 

While the Democrats are tying themselves in knots over whether a person wore blackface thirty some odd years ago at least one is keeping his eye on the many balls of things that have, and can, really hurt our democracy.

(Note: I copied the five threads directly from The Rachel Maddow Show’s broadcast of last night. I wonder if Fox thought to report any of this?)

634 Days to the 2020 election and 712 Days to Inauguration Day

PS “In the jungle, the mighty jungle …”