Rick Kinnaird

Day 1151 Part B Russia’s Long Game

Friday November 22, 2019

348 Days until the 2020 election and 433 days until the Inauguration

Let’s review a few basic strategic facts before we get into it.

Russia’s only direct access to oceans is through cold water ports or The Black Sea.

They have relations with Syria because they have a submarine base there. It’s on the Mediterranean close to Lebanon. They will do anything and everything to keep that base up and running. Otherwise they have to have their subs trudge up to the Black Sea through the narrow passageways of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. Or they have to go through the North Sea to a base there, or all the way around Scandinavia to a base above or near the Polar Circle.

To get to that base in Syria they can drop down through the countries between the Caspian and Black Sea: Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia; and then go west through southern Turkey, or northern Iraq, and northern Syria. No wonder Putin was smiling when we pulled out of northern Syria! He could now directly resupply his submarine base without our being in the way. Way to win Donald!

The second strategic point, which was made yesterday in the hearings, Russia with Ukraine annexed would be an empire, without it, it is not. Putin wants the glory days of Russian empire back.

Dr. Fiona Hill, ever the diplomat, made the point that by pushing the false narrative that Ukraine was the one that meddled in the 2016 election, only strengthens Russia’s goal to spread dissent and chaos here and throughout the world of western democracies. (Yet, this warning did not dissuade Nunes or Jordan from doing it and thus playing the part of “the useful idiots” for Russia. Way to go guys!)

Let me review several points I have made in regard to some of the points Jordan et al made that we may want to remind ourselves about.

“The Dems paid for the Steele Dossier.” While true they leave out the little fact that it was originally commissioned by Republican opponents of Trump when they were running for the Republican nomination. It was a conservative think tank called “The Washington Free Beacon” that commissioned the investigation. What they did was to ask a research firm that deals in publicly available documentation to find out what they could on Donald Trump. They weren’t asking for dirt on Trump. They were asking, “Who is this guy?” The firm was called Fusion GPS. Apparently, their research time ain’t cheap, because they are only asked from time to time, like every four years, to do some research on a political person. 

What did the co-founder Glenn Simpson testify he did? He bought all the books from Amazon on Donald Trump and read all of them. He got all the court documents on Donald Trump and read all of them. He got all the real estate records on Donald Trump and read all of them.

He testified that there was one question that he had at that point in time, “What was Donald Trump doing in Russia?” According to Trump, and from what Simpson could publicly find Trump had no business dealings in Russia. Other than the Miss Universe Pageant he held there he didn’t seem to have any other business in Russia. Yet, Trump spent a lot of time in Russia. “What?” he asked, “Was going on?”

Simpson says his expertise and his firm’s expertise is in “publicly available information.” There was nothing publicly available on Russia. He turned to the person he knew who knew Russia – Christopher Steele for help.

Here we get another Republican talking point. That the Dems used a foreigner to interfere in the Trump campaign. Let’s be clear. They did not. Fusion GPS after Trump got the nomination The Beacon was no longer interested in paying for the research and Simpson was still curious and peddled his information to the Dems. I doubt the Dems had any idea that Simpson had called upon one of the former British Intelligence Services top experts on Russia. (Maybe, Nunes having been Chair of the Intelligence Committee when the Republicans held the House doesn’t know that we have intelligence connections with our closest allies, like Britain, which is a damn sight different than the president’s personal lawyer calling on a known corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor set up by a Russian mobbed up thug that was paying him. then again maybe Nunes doesn’t know, because he’s been so busy with SLAPP suits against a meme calling itself “Devin Nunes’ Cow” that he hasn’t had time to do his homework. The cow reference is in some regard, I believe, to the fact that Nunes has tried to pass himself off as a dairy farmer from California, omitting the fact that the family sold the California dairy years ago and moved to Iowa. )

Why would Simpson call on Steele? Oh lemme see. Steele not only knows everyone of the folks in Putin’s inner circle; he knows what they like to eat, what their peculiarities are. Whom they like and dislike. What businesses they are in. Who they are mobbed up with.

Jordan and others say the Steele Dossier has been debunked, that it’s a bunch of fabrications on here-say evidence. I guess that’s why the day after it was published a Russian sitting in a meeting was accosted by some thugs who put a bag over his head and as he was dragged from the room was the last time he was seen alive until he showed up in his car having committed suicide? 

Nothing that I have heard has found anything factually wrong in the Steele Dossier, except minor points about dates and times and the like. The big facts remain.

Steele was not asked to get dirt on Trump. He was asked to find out what Trump was doing in Russia because Simpson could find no public material that suggested why he spent so much time there.

When Steele first reached out to his Russian contacts they were freely talking about Trump. It was an open secret that Trump had done various things. The most salacious was that he had stayed in the Ritz Carlton Moscow, a hotel known to be completely bugged, and that he had stayed in the same room as Obama and had hired girls to come in and piss on the bed. Has that been verified?  No. But if it happened, Putin has the tape.

I repeat, Steele was asking open questions, not digging for dirt. He assumed his 16 field reports would be kept in strictest confidence. What he discovered so alarmed him that he urged Simpson to go to the FBI. Simpson demurred. Steele was still so concerned that he asked Simpson would he mind if he went to the American authorities? Eventually, Simpson said okay. Steele meet with contacts he had in the American intelligence community in a meeting in Italy. I forget if they were CIA or FBI, but the reports made it to the FBI. They were also given to McCain, who gave them to the FBI.

The FBI had already been looking into the Trump Russia connections. This dossier merely corroborated and reinforced some of their already gathered evidence.

According to the Wikipedia article on the Steele Dossier many aspects of the dossier have been corroborated. Some of the more sensational ones have not, but neither have they been disproven. The Republicans on the Intelligence Committee made frequent reference that the Mueller Report found the Steel Dossier to be bogus. That’s not what the Wikipedia article says. It says the Mueller Report made passing reference to it. In one particular case, an allegation against Michael Cohen, they dismissed. that’s a far cry from saying the Mueller report showed it to be debunked.

Here’s what I have said before and I’ll repeat here to make sure we have the whole picture in one place.

Rudy Giuliani has a long running relationship with Lev Parnas. Lev Parnas and his buddy Igor Fruman are known to have connections to Russian organized crime. They have made huge illegal contributions to various Republican/Trump organizations and events. Where did they get the money for this? Answer – The Russian mafia and Vladimir Putin. Putin let a man named Dmytro Firtash be in the business of skimming huge amounts of money off the top of Russian gas sales to Ukraine. He didn’t seem to do anything except get paid. How much? At first millions, then billions. Firtash has admitted that he couldn’t have done it without the help of Semyon Mogilevich, Russia’s crime boss of bosses. Firtash has direct links to Putin. He has links to Paul Manafort. Is part owner of Cambridge Analytica through its parent company. Has been involved in a huge corruption case involving RosUrkEnergo and the stealing of gas from Ukraine, a case the U.S. Feds have been trying to extradite him to stand trail. Firtash has fought the extradition, hiring some of the most expensive lawyers in Washington and elsewhere to fight it.

He was arrested in Italy at one point in time and was let out on bail of $165,000,000.00 (I think that was the figure, in that neighborhood). He wrote a check and walked.

He now lives in Vienna, Austria. Parnas and Fruman had one way tickets to Vienna when they were arrested. Giuliani also had a ticket to Austria. 

Giuliani says he’s Trump’s personal attorney. What he forget to mention is he is paid by Parnas. In other words Giuliani works for Parnas.

Speaking of forgetting to mention, Nunes somehow never mentions that Parnas has paid to help Nunes with his investigations in the Ukraine. Old Devin hasn’t said exactly what those investigations were. Parnas also hooked Giuliani up with a crooked prosecutor in Ukraine and it seems he did similar favors for Nunes.

What does Parnas want? He wants what Firtash wants. What does Firtash want? He wants to continue the sweet deal that he had before the new leader of Ukraine took over. He wants to continue to skim millions and billions off the top in the transmission of Russian gas for Ukrainian use. Firtash ultimately reports to Putin. What does Putin want? He wants to keep shipping gas to the Ukraine, to continue to rake billions off the top and keep it in slush funds to corrupt not only Ukrainian officials but other leaders in other countries.

What’s standing in their way? Well the new head of the Ukrainian gas company who is a real straight shooter and is fighting corruption. They need to get rid of that guy. Who is standing in their way? Why Marie Yovanovitch. She is also fighting corruption in the Ukraine. Who else? Joe Biden, he called for the ouster of the former corrupt prosecutor in Ukraine under their corrupt former regime. 

What about his son Hunter? He was on the board of the gas company in question, Burisma. Turns out Hunter did nothing wrong. Turns out he’s a lawyer who advises international companies and governments. Burisma had been corrupt and was trying to clean up their act. Hunter was hired to help in that effort. Having high profile names on a board in such instances it a typical move. Some at the time of his accepting the board position thought the appearance would not be beneficial to the law firm Hunter represented. But there was nothing improper about the actual relationship, and he is a lawyer who does best practices work. Huh? Wait a minute they hired a lawyer to help them with best practices. Imagine that? Did they hope having the son of the Vice President would give them some caché? Yeah. Probably. 

It’s not like he was totally unqualified or did nothing. Nor is there any evidence that Joe Biden benefitted in any way from his son’s activities. Not like say three of the Trump children and one son-in-law who regularly travel on Air Force One at government expense. Or Trump’s two sons who run the Trump Organization that is owned by the Donald, doing deals around the globe from which the president directly benefits. Or the president’s daughter who for 18 months kept her crappy fashion line open in China making that gaudy junk. Or his son-in-law who traveled around the world trying to get a loan for the building in New York he paid way too much for. And, who by the way is buds with MBS and may have passed on U.S. intel to MBS who had Khashoggi killed at the very time Khashoggi was doing research on MBS. (It involved a secret Saudi project called “the Bees.” Saudi activists would be given foreign SIM cards to hide their involvement with the government.)

Then there’s Russia spreading of discord wherever it can. As Dr. Hill pointed out, it was the Russian intelligence services that came up with idea that it wasn’t Russia but Ukraine that hacked into the 2016 elections in the U.S.  And we come full circle.

348 Days until the 2020 election and 433 days until the Inauguration

PS Me and the little Sphinx

Day 1151 Ah, to be sliced and diced by Fiona Hill.

Friday November 22, 2019

348 Days until the 2020 election and 433 days until the Inauguration

In Dr. Fiona Hill’s testimony we saw a real diplomat in action. With dignity, grace, calm, and poise she destroyed the Republican false narratives, parts of Gordon Sondland’s testimony all the while holding out a way forward for us to all work together as Americans for the common good of the country. 

By the end of the day, two of the biggest blowhards were strangely silent toward her. They never asked her a question, and used their time to once again spout false narratives promoted by Russian intelligence. Of the three more minor and venial attack dogs whom Dr. Hill named and offered her sympathies to: two had left the hearing and the other sat there mute. 

It was masterful. It was art – diplomatic art.

But who would want to mess with her?

A woman who as a young girl had one of her pigtails lit on fire while she was taking a test, and calmly put out the fire and continued taking the test. I wonder how the kid who did it felt as he sat behind her watching the reaction. Talk about cool. Talk about grace under pressure.

There were two textbook examples of how a really skilled diplomat works that Dr. hill demonstrated in her testimony that I’d like to talk about. She has been described as coming to a knife fight and wielding a machete. I disagreed. It’s a stiletto, used with surgical skill..

Take for instance when she was questioned about Gordon Sondland’s testimony that he had coffee with her in her office on her last day on the job, how she seemed mad and upset, and that he offered a shoulder for her to cry on. That she hugged him.

When asked she pursed her lips briefly and suggested that perhaps Mr. Sondland had conflated two meetings. She said she would not have been able to offer him coffee in her office as she had no means to make coffee, nor was there any nearby. The best she could do would have been to offer him water. (As if to suggest, she wasn’t the best host perhaps?) 

But she did say a year earlier they had met for coffee and that was perhaps what he was thinking of (offering him cover and a way out.) On that day she was angry. Not at the situation or as some would describe a woman’s emotionality (she was more graceful than my description here.) She said she was mad at Sondland on that day because he was not forthcoming about what he was doing. Then she offered yet another olive branch and cover. She said now, after hearing his testimony of the previous day that he was absolutely correct. (Score one for Gordo!) That after seeing who he was communicating with and now understanding his mission that he was perfectly within his rights and given his mission to not communicate with her. She apologized for not understanding that at the time. (Score another point for Gordo!) That the president can choose whomever he wants to carry out missions and that is within his purview (Score one for the Donald!)

She realized that her mission and objective were different than the one Sondland had been given. As she put it the two missions had “diverged.”

She and her staff were involved in national security and Sondland was on a “political errand.” (Bang! What just happened? Did an “Aw Shit” just wipe out any points Gordo and Donnie had amassed?)

She at the time had said that she was afraid that his (Sondland’’s actions) were “going to blowup in his face” (Ouch, not done yet.) “And here we are.” (Point Game Set Match)

Of course that was late into the testimony. Her opening remarks were also of like precision and most of the Republicans questioning took time in their five minutes to categorically deny what she and everyone else knew they had been trying to push. 

In her opening remarks she said that the Russians had hacked our 2016 elections and any idea that Ukraine had done so was false and cooked up by Russian intelligence.

I lost count of how many of the minor players on the Republican bench took pains to say, “We never said that. We even signed onto a bipartisan report that said so.”

Hum, then why did Nunes and Jordan keep pushing the Ukraine narrative? And why did neither one ask Dr. Hill about it? Or anything else for that matter? 

(I know! I know!) They saw how she had filleted Gordon Sondland and wanted to not look like Swiss Cheese with their horse puckey leaking out of every surgically carved hole in their bodies that’s why. 

348 Days until the 2020 election and 433 days until the Inauguration

PS The kid with the pharaohs. Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, Cairo, Egypt.