Deliverables

Some of the gaslighting Republicans try to do in relation to Unidicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio’s Russian Treason Plot is to deny that there is any Quid Pro Quo, This For That.

Like pushing “Collusion”, which is not a crime, as a substitute for “Conspiracy”, which is, they’ll claim that Russian aid during the 2016 Election and Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio’s pro-Russia Policies are entirely co-incidental. This is because trading things of value for political favors is EXPLICITLY A CRIME! Either Bribery or Extortion depending on who asks who for what and how.

For instance were I Mayor or something and you came into my office and said, “Hey, I want to put in a Development,” and I said “Sure, that’ll be $100,000,” that would be Extortion. If on the other hand you came to my office and said “I want to put in a Development, here’s $100,000 for you to expedite it,” that would be Bribery.

As I say Republicans will deny there’s any evidence of Quid Pro Quo when in fact there’s plenty already in the Moscow Tower Project and Unidicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio’s Real Estate Money Laundering Scheme.

To be more charitable than you should, you might contend this is just garden variety White Collar Crime, part of his standard business model (along with Fraud and Tax Evasion).

But it’s really much worse than that.

Yesterday Chuck Schumer and 11 defecting Republicans put the kibosh on Unidicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio’s plan to lift Treasury sanctions imposed after the annexation of Crimea on Russian Oligarch with ties to Putin and the GRU (Russian Military Intelligence, widely believed to have been the Government Spy Organization behind the Internet Research Agency’s theft of email from the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta) Oleg Deripaska.

Yes, the very same Oleg Deripaska that Paul Manafort owes over $20,000,000 and to whom the Internal Polling information from Unidicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio’s 2016 Campaign which really has no utility (besides as a curiosity) except to microtarget Disinformation to Facebook idiots (really, really don’t like Facebook) was given through an intermediary but with strict routing instructions.

In other developments in the Manafort case yesterday, Mueller filled his brief detailing at least four categories of lies Manafort told while he was supposedly co-operating. The document is about a 100 pages long (counting appendixes and exhibits) and is heavily redacted so I’ll wait for some more reporting before I’ll talk about it.

The Times today also tells us-

Trump Discussed Pulling U.S. From NATO, Aides Say Amid New Concerns Over Russia
By Julian E. Barnes and Helene Cooper, The New York Times
Jan. 14, 2019

There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years.

Last year, President Trump suggested a move tantamount to destroying NATO: the withdrawal of the United States.

Senior administration officials told The New York Times that several times over the course of 2018, Mr. Trump privately said he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Current and former officials who support the alliance said they feared Mr. Trump could return to his threat as allied military spending continued to lag behind the goals the president had set.

In the days around a tumultuous NATO summit meeting last summer, they said, Mr. Trump told his top national security officials that he did not see the point of the military alliance, which he presented as a drain on the United States.

At the time, Mr. Trump’s national security team, including Jim Mattis, then the defense secretary, and John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, scrambled to keep American strategy on track without mention of a withdrawal that would drastically reduce Washington’s influence in Europe and could embolden Russia for decades.

Now, the president’s repeatedly stated desire to withdraw from NATO is raising new worries among national security officials amid growing concern about Mr. Trump’s efforts to keep his meetings with Mr. Putin secret from even his own aides, and an F.B.I. investigation into the administration’s Russia ties.

A move to withdraw from the alliance, in place since 1949, “would be one of the most damaging things that any president could do to U.S. interests,” said Michèle A. Flournoy, an under secretary of defense under President Barack Obama.

“It would destroy 70-plus years of painstaking work across multiple administrations, Republican and Democratic, to create perhaps the most powerful and advantageous alliance in history,” Ms. Flournoy said in an interview. “And it would be the wildest success that Vladimir Putin could dream of.”
…
American national security officials believe that Russia has largely focused on undermining solidarity between the United States and Europe after it annexed Crimea in 2014. Its goal was to upend NATO, which Moscow views as a threat.

Russia’s meddling in American elections and its efforts to prevent former satellite states from joining the alliance have aimed to weaken what it views as an enemy next door, the American officials said. With a weakened NATO, they said, Mr. Putin would have more freedom to behave as he wishes, setting up Russia as a counterweight to Europe and the United States.

An American withdrawal from the alliance would accomplish all that Mr. Putin has been trying to put into motion, the officials said — essentially, doing the Russian leader’s hardest and most critical work for him.

Quid Pro Quo.

I mean, I can hardly blame Russia from their standpoint. Like a warm water port it’s something that’s been a goal for a long time.

Rachel Maddow

There are more verses but writing song lyrics is hard and I am lazy.