Lindsey Graham Got A Russian Prank Call, But They Didn't Offer Any Nakey Trump Pics :(
Well, that happened.
Know how House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes (R-cows allegedly), every time he gets to speak in a hearing these days, says something weird and angry about how the Democrats really want naked pictures of Donald Trump? As if anybody, including Donald Trump's wife and the women he pays off during campaign season to hide his affairs, actually wants to see that gross shithole in the buff?
It comes from this one time Adam Schiff got a call from some Russian comedians/pranksters named Alexey Stolyarov and Vladimir Kuznetsov (AKA "Lexus and Vovan"), who may well have ties to Russian intelligence, claiming to be the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, and they told Schiff that the Russians have Blistering XXX Nakeds of Trump. It was fake, and they told Schiff a lot of other fake news about fake kompromat , and Schiff and his team didn't quite fall for it, and alerted the proper law enforcement entities. But whatever, Devin Nunes is willing to spread the Russian lie from the prank call, because what Russian lie is Devin Nunes not willing to share?
Well, the comedians/pranksters/disinfo guys have struck again, and this time it is Lindsey Graham. However, this time the news isn't about what they promised Graham, but about what Graham said on the phone calls with the Russians. The general thrust is that he agreed that the Kurds are a "threat" to Turkey, and also said Donald Trump really wants to be "helpful" with the case of the Turkish-Iranian gold trader international money launderer Reza Zarrab, the Rudy Giuliani client Trump tried to get former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to illegally lean on the Justice Department to stop investigating.
Why yes, it's mostly about news that's extremely this week . Funny how this comes out right now, don't you think? You know, considering that this news came from Russian pranksters/disinfo guys who may well have ties to Russian intelligence .
Yes, Lindsey Graham is an embarrassment, and yes, Lindsey Graham is bad, but no, Wonkette is not interested in doing Russia's bidding like a common Devin Nunes or Kevin McCarthy or Jim Jordan or any other House Republican who does Russia's bidding a lot. So let's just file this story under "Well, that happened."
The story was broken by Natasha Bertrand at Politico, apparently after she rejected it and it was shopped to Julia Ioffe at GQ , who doesn't appear to be pleased that Bertrand published the story.
So what happened on the calls? We're not listening to them, but Politico has the audio if you want to dive that deep. In short, old Linds got a couple of calls in August from a guy he thought was Turkey's minister of defense, his office admits it got rolled, and Linds said some DUMB SHIT.
"Thank you so much for calling me, Mr. Minister," Graham said. "I want to make this a win-win, if we can."
Oh, Lindsey.
"Your YPG Kurdish problem is a big problem," Graham told the pranksters. He was referring to the Kurdish People's Protection Units, a group that began fighting ISIS as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces in 2015—with support from the U.S.—but is considered a terrorist group by Turkey because of its push to establish an autonomous state for the Kurds on the Turkish-Syrian border.
"I told President Trump that Obama made a huge mistake in relying on the YPG Kurds," Graham continued. "Everything I worried about has come true, and now we have to make sure Turkey is protected from this threat in Syria. I'm sympathetic to the YPG problem, and so is the president, quite frankly."
Oh, so Lindsey Graham isn't quite the friend to our allies the Kurds he's been making himself out to be, eh? He's so fully up Trump's ass that he's decided that Turkey is awesome, but the people who fought ISIS alongside us, and whom Turkey wants to ethnic cleanse, are just a terrible threat. They didn't even storm the beaches at Normandy with us, AFTER ALL. (It turns out, AFTER ALL, they ... actually did!)
In the second call, Graham informed the "Turkish minister of defense" that he had talked to Big Treason in the Oval about their little talk, and this time, he discussed how much Trump would like to collude and conspire and cahoots to get the Justice Department to stop investigating the Turkish-Iranian gold trader who's in big trouble mister for running a HUGE billions-strong money laundering operation to evade US sanctions on Iran, a scheme the Turkish government bank was also involved in.
So they were discussing crime.
"And this case involving the Turkish bank, he's very sensitive to that," Graham said of Trump. "The president wants to be helpful, within the limits of his power. [...]
"I like President Erdogan," Graham told the pranksters. "I think President Trump likes President Erdogan. I think he's a strong man and we need to deal with strong people."
Trump just wants to help! Within the limits of his power, or, you know, maybe if he has to commit some crimes, that would be OK too! Also, Lindsey Graham thinks the dictator Erdogan is just great .
Anyway, that is what Lindsey Graham said, and since his office admits his side of the conversation is real, he should be called to account for it.
Also, this is the Russian propaganda machine in full flower.
Two things can be true at the same time.
The point of this post is that the Russian comedians didn't even offer Lindsey Graham any nakey XXX sex pics of Trump, and we think they should just do better research on their targets before they ringy-dingy American politicians on the telephone. The end.
[ Politico ]
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This is not 2016....so we don’t give a fuck about you DINOs at all. Now everyone get out the vote.
Same here...I voted for Bernie in the primaries...but when I got to see the real Hillary I was entranced (and angry at myself for believing the unending lies about the Clintons). I met someone at my gym whose father had a very high position in the Clinton WH. She said that a lot of people don’t know how deeply religious Hillary is and was then. She has a small private Bible which she carries with her at all times. She is a Yankee...and one of the Yankee virtues is private religious observance and belief. And believe in public education and belief in the arts.