Benedict Donald

From INDEPENDENT:

Veterans’ group VoteVets has released a new attack ad that criticises president Donald Trump over reports that he was briefed about Russia putting bounties on American military personnel in Afghanistan and failed to act.

The group, whose Twitter description states “blocked by Donald Trump”, has compared the president to Benedict Arnold, who infamously defected from the US Continental Army to the British side in the Revolutionary War.

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Ratched-ing Up the Worry

From POLITICO:

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — President Donald Trump on Friday night tried to cast the global outbreak of the coronavirus as a liberal conspiracy intended to undermine his first term, lumping it alongside impeachment and the Mueller investigation.

He blamed the press for acting hysterically about the virus, which has now spread to China, Japan, South Korea, Iran, Italy and the U.S, and he downplayed its dangers, saying against expert opinion it was on par with the flu.

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Just when you thought the Barr couldn’t get any lower

From Vox:

For anyone concerned that President Donald Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr are politicizing the criminal justice system, Friday afternoon has been a real roller coaster.

First, news broke that Justice Department prosecutors had closed one politically controversial case, a lengthy criminal investigation into former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, without bringing any charges. McCabe had been under scrutiny for potentially lying to internal investigators about his role in leaks concerning an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation — though many wondered whether the investigation was truly about pursuing someone President Trump had deemed an enemy.

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Steele’s Magnolia

From The Guardian:

The former MI6 officer Christopher Steele had a “personal” relationship with Ivanka Trump and gifted her a “family tartan from Scotland” as a present, the long-awaited report by US Department of Justice inspector general, Michael Horowitz, revealed on Monday.

Horowitz’s review of the FBI’s 2016 investigation into Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign and its links with Russia includes fresh details of Steele’s interactions with the FBI, and startling claims about his relationship with the Trumps dating back to the period before he wrote a controversial dossier on Trump.

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Can you hear me now, comrade?

From Vox:

President Donald Trump has spoken regularly on an unsecured personal cellphone with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani — and experts say it’s possible that Russia knows more about their efforts to compel Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden than congressional investigators do.

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Someone is trying to make Lindsey Graham jealous!

From James Downie at the Washington Post (opinion):

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) showcasing the “typical shell game” of Republicans on impeachment: Eliminate the importance of the “quid pro quo,” muddy the waters of the president’s motive and distort the impeachment process itself. Since then, the senator from Louisiana has taken his pro-Trump spin to a new level: repeating Russian disinformation without a care.

On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Kennedy began his interview with host Chuck Todd with a mea culpa for recently misstating that Ukraine, not Russia, hacked Democratic National Committee computers in 2016. One would think such embarrassment would lead one to be more cautious in his claims about Russia, Ukraine and the 2016 election. Not so with Kennedy.

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You can dress ’em up, but you can’t take ’em anywhere!

From RAWSTORY:

During today’s hearing in the House’s impeachment inquiry into President Trump, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) referenced a POLITICO article from last month which reported that a lawyer who worked for Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee when Devin Nunes (R-CA) was the committee’s chairman, fed information on Ukraine to President Trump.

[While questioning former National Security Council official Fiona Hill, Swalwell asked]  if she ever heard the name of the recently indicted Rudy Giuliani associate, Lev Parnas, “who was influencing President Trump and Rudy Giuliani about some of the debunked conspiracy theories you referenced earlier.”

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MAGAzine Guide for Impeachment Week 2

Hey kids, here’s a Raisin public service announcement. Here’s some info on Impeachment, Week 2.

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