Does Rudy Need A Lawyer? That's A TOUGH ONE!
Oh, Lord, we are sick of Rudy Giuliani and those Chucklefuck assholes Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. One day, the Dunning Kruger Gang will stop criming so that we can write about something else. Sadly, that day is not today. Because yesterday the Chucklefucks got arraigned, and Rudy seems to have finally realized that he might be in a wee spot of trouble. So, let's do this, kids!
Executive Privilege? WTF Are You Talking About?
Yesterday the Chucklefucks stood up in a New York federal court and said they were NOT GUILTY of committing approximately one million campaign finance crimes, give or take. They never nohow accepted a million dollars from "Foreign National-1" to grease the skids for their marijuana business with campaign contributions, despite the "table of political donations and contributions" describing a "multi state license strategy" for their business. They definitely did not claim that their natural gas business with zero income made a $325,000 contribution to a pro-Trump PAC. And Fruman absolutely didn't exceed the campaign finance limit by fronting his buddy Parnas cash to donate to then-congressman Pete Sessions, nor did Parnas fraudulently claim that he was donating out of his own personal funds.
Now, to the untrained eye, it might sound like Johnny Law has 'em by the short and curlies, particularly since the feds had a dozen warrants covering multiple cell phones and social media accounts, in addition to 50 bank accounts. If they've got the bribe table, they've got everything. BUT! What if none of that is admissible because of "privilege"? Not just attorney-client privilege to cover ... whatever it is they were doing with Rudy Giuliani. But executive privilege, too, because sure why not!
Normally executive privilege covers conversations between the president and his advisors, which would not include these idiots. But they're in cahoots with Rudy, and Rudy's the president's personal lawyer, so maybe if you squint real hard and click your heels together three times ... YEAH, NO. STILL NO. But the DOJ was prepared for them to try it, and already had a "taint team" in place to screen for potentially privileged communications. And as we saw with Michael Cohen, it's a lot harder to defend a privilege claim in court than it is to make a blanket assertion of privilege when you're stonewalling congressional oversight.
More Crimes? Oh, No, I Couldn't Possibly Eat Another Bite!
CNN has the lowdown on all the chucklefuckery, including a reported attempt to extract a "six-figure payment" in exchange for arranging a visit with Mike Pence and Rick Perry for incoming Ukrainian President Zelenskiy and his team. Central casting couldn't find you better small time crooks, and yet a "high-ranking Republican operative" told CNN, "They seemed like hustlers -- but not in a bad way. In a good way."
Like in a jaunty rap tune!
But let's leave that aside for the moment and focus on this more shocking business from CNN:
Two weeks ago when they were arrested, Parnas and Fruman were preparing to fly to Vienna, Austria, to meet Giuliani and another key figure in the impeachment investigation, Ukraine's former prosecutor general Viktor Shokin, according to four sources familiar with their trip. Shokin is the same Ukrainian official who former Vice President Joe Biden -- along with other Western leaders -- had pushed to have removed over concerns he wasn't prosecuting corruption.
While questions in Washington swirl around Shokin's role in this controversy, Giuliani, Parnas, Fruman had specific plans for the former Ukrainian official up until the day of their arrest. According to those four sources, they told others they were headed to Vienna to help with a planned interview the next day: Shokin, they said, was scheduled to do an interview from the Austrian capital with Sean Hannity.
Wait, what? Since the day those two assholes got picked up, Rudy's been swearing his business in Vienna had nothing to do with them, and it was a just a wild coincidence that they were all headed to Vienna at the same time. Turns out, he was lyin' his saggy ass off!
And since this story tends to make everyone's eyes swim, let's just spell this out as clearly as we can.
- Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash was desperate to avoid extradition to the United States to face bribery charges;
- Firtash paid for a dossier of clearly fake documents claiming wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and then tried to trade it to the Justice Department for leniency in his own case;
- Giuliani's claims against Biden rely on Firtash's fake evidence, particularly a false affidavit by corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin claiming he was fired to stop him from investigating Joe and Hunter Biden;
- Parnas worked for Firtash's disheveled Fox News lawyers, Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova, ginning up evidence against Biden;
- Parnas and Fruman claim not to have worked for Firtash directly, so it was just a coincidence that they advocated for his business interests, including payment of a $200 million debt Firtash claims from the Ukrainian state-owned natural gas company;
- After the whistleblower complaint broke, the spotlight was on Rudy and his Ukraine schemes, and instead of laying low, he and the dipshits decided to kick it into high gear by getting Shokin to repeat his claims where Trump was guaranteed to see them;
- Hence the field trip to Vienna -- where Dmitry Firtash is holed up, go figure -- for a live television airing of Shokin's slanders on the president's favorite cartoon;
- And then everyone involved lied about it, including Hannity's people, who huffed that, "we never reveal our sources, potential sources, or persons they may or may not request to interview. Sean Hannity takes the first amendment seriously."
Rudy Finally Hears It, Too!
It has finally dawned on Rudy Giuliani that he's in deep shit. He's smack in the middle of a congressional impeachment inquiry and has declared he intends to blow off their subpoena; there are serious questions as to whether he violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act; he's involved in a Justice Department counterintelligence probe; his clients cum employees just got arrested and charged with massive campaign finance violations; and whatever he said to them is undoubtedly in the hands of the FBI right now.
So Rudy's finally decided it might be time to get himself a lawyer, according to CNN, which describes him as "approaching defense attorneys for possible representation." Too bad that genius just fired his IRL competent white collar attorney last week! But surely there must be hundreds of lawyers willing to represent a client with serious legal problems, no cash, and absolutely no filter.
Did he just ... confess to everything? And say he was defending his "client" against false charges? Because Donald Trump, whom we note is not paying him, isn't charged with anything. Who's charged with something? Dmitry Firtash is.
So, God Bless and good luck finding a lawyer. We're pullin' for ya, Roods!
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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore with her wonderful husband and a houseful of teenagers. When she isn't being mad about a thing on the internet, she's hiding in plain sight in the carpool line. She's the one wearing yoga pants glaring at her phone.
