Richard Burr Quit-Fired As Intel Chair For Only Purest, Non-Russia-Related Reasons, We Are Sure

You know how Trump's GOP hates even the appearance of insider trading or fraud, it just AGONIZES them.

Two things can be true at the same time:

1) It's possible, and seems likely, that GOP Senator Richard Burr did some skeevy insider trading shit after he got that briefing in February on how bad coronavirus would really be.

2) The way authoritarian regimes work is that, if you are in their crosshairs, they like to find something legit if possible, to allow them to let YOU hang YOURSELF. There is no fucking way this would be happening to Burr, in the anti-American Trump administration, if the powers that be viewed him as a good little soldier for their cause.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced today that Burr would be stepping down as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, pending the results of the FBI investigation into his very weird stock trades. McConnell made no similar announcements about Georgia GOP Senator Kelly Loeffler, who so far seems to be skating on very similar behavior, huh, isn't that weird, gosh, we are just befuddled by all this.

HUH.

Liz did a basic refresher this morning on what Burr allegedly did, after the FBI stole all his Obamaphones and Kindles and FitBits. And she also brought up the thing we've been bringing up about this since the beginning, which is that Donald Trump and the GOP have had ample reason to hate Richard Burr these past few years, because he, as the chair of the Senate Intel Committee, keeps signing all those   reports that say "YEP! RUSSIA DID IT! TO HELP TRUMP! RUSSIA ATTACKED THE 2016 ELECTION! ACHTUNG !" With very few exceptions, they have all been completely solid reports.

That's not how you do cover-ups for Donald Trump, who by all appearances is at the very least an unwitting dumbass Russian asset of some sort, and who was just impeached for trying to cheat his way into another "win" in 2020. Trump wants the Senate to run interference for him, to investigate the investigators who investigated Trump and Russia (like Lindsey Graham is doing ) and to make up bullshit investigations about Hunter Biden in Ukraine (like Ron Johnson is doing ). Trump most certainly does not want Republican senators to be honest about what happened, because honesty undermines Trump's historic 2016 election victory!

It should be noted that the Senate Intelligence Committee is set to release its full 1,000-page report on the Russian attack very, very soon. Who will be chairing the committee then? That's unclear at this point. Tom Cotton or another similarly situated Trump ass-licker, maybe? We are just pointing out the timing, is all.

As we mentioned, GOP Senator Kelly Loeffler has some REAL CURIOUS shit going on with what she did with her stocks after that coronavirus briefing. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein also had some interesting transactions, though hers appear the least sketchy. Feinstein's office confirms she has talked to the FBI, and Loeffler is staying mum. A key difference between them and Burr is that Burr is the only one who did his stock trades himself .

Again, we're not suggesting that Burr did not do something extremely sketchy here. We are also not suggesting that Bill Barr's Justice Department would not ABSOLUTELY look the other way — and probably currently is! — if a Republican they liked was going on crime sprees. Seriously, do you really think Bill Barr would be putting the screws to Lindsey Graham or Ron Johnson or Tom Cotton? Fuckin' please, fuck off, fuck .

Richard Burr is part of the Gang of Eight, the group of senators and congressmen who are are allowed to see all our nation's secrets. (Or at least he is until his chairmanship "temporarily" ends tomorrow afternoon.) Going after Burr is a big deal , and if we find out Kelly Loeffler is even half as culpable as Burr is, and yet skates on it, this is a five-alarm fire. Even if the FBI does eventually visit Loeffler — like maybe after she's had time to stomp her phones or something, not that she'd do such a thing, perish the thought — then that might just be the FBI giving itself plausible deniability to say, "Oh sure, you bet, the FBI talked to everybody, because nobody is above the law! We just decided Richard Burr was the only one we were going to kick in the face, because reasons."

Keep an eye on this one, y'all.

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