Rudy Giuliani And John Solomon Very Good At Law, Journalism, Human Beingness, Sanity
Just very very very good.
If you had Rudy Giuliani forging White House stationery on a packet of propaganda and disinformation about Joe Biden and former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch in your office pool, then congratulations, you are today's big winner! There had been reports that the State Department Inspector General (SDIG) was rushing to Congress in a panic over Secretary Mike Pompeo's threats against witnesses who cooperate in the impeachment probe; instead the IG forked over an amateurish collection of drivel sent by Rudy Giuliani and his coconspirators to the State Department to prove ... who knows. Hillary invaded Crimea, probably.
In a statement on the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) website, the three committee chairs leading the impeachment inquiry derided Rudy's disinformation that was making its way around the State Department at Pompeo's behest.
The documents provided by the Inspector General included a package of disinformation, debunked conspiracy theories, and baseless allegations in an envelope marked 'White House' and containing folders labeled 'Trump Hotel.' These documents also reinforce concern that the President and his allies sought to use the machinery of the State Department to further the President's personal political interests.
Giuliani quickly claimed responsibility for the bulk of the Ukrainium One packet, telling CNN that he'd given much of it to the White House in March; they passed it down to State, of whom Giuliani said, "They told me they were going to investigate it." The HFAC statement says that Pompeo's aide Ulrich Brechbuhl "told [the inspector general that] the packet 'came over,' and that Brechbuhl presumed it was from the White House." Which makes sense after Giuliani apparently dummied up the envelope so it would look OH-FISH-ILL!
Calligraphy? REALLY?
But we did learn a few things from this boondoggle. First, we got to see once again what a mendacious hack The Hill's John Solomon is. As The Daily Beast points out, the packet contained a copy of March 28, 2019, story interviewing corrupt Ukrainian prosecutors and making the case that anti-corruption activists and then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch are the real villains here because ... SOROS. And it appears to have worked, since Yovanovitch was abruptly recalled in May and Donald Trump referred to her as "bad new" in his Ukraine shakedown call, saying menacingly that "she's going to go through some things." One of those things being testimony before the House impeachment committees in a week, in fact.
Here’s the page from the packet that @ErinBanco shared yesterday (with emails blacked out by me)… https: //t.co/dGA7XK06b2
— Natasha Bertrand (@Natasha Bertrand) 1570111063.0
Except Solomon didn't email a link to the article -- he emailed the exact text and supporting documents to Rudy's chucklefuck Ukrainian co-conspirator Lev Parnas , and to Donald Trump's secret Ukraine lawyers Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing. And he did it seven hours before the story went online. (Do you think someone at State tipped Fox to the impending SDIG shitstorm and that's why the network outed diGenova and Toensing as Trump's "off the books" lawyers last weekend? WE DO.)
But John Solomon can explain, see. He was just being his regular, fastidious, factchecking self.
While I know there is always a risk that someone will forward my summary of my reporting, the benefits of extensive… https: //t.co/oa829opwG4
— John Solomon (@John Solomon) 1570061275.0
Then he mumbled something about the email being doctored to make him look bad. Because John Solomon is a very serious investigative journalist, not just a hack who is colluding with Donald Trump's secret lawyers on a project to frame his political opponents on the theory that the US should have sided with Viktor Shokin, a famously corrupt prosecutor whose main job appeared to be opening investigations into oligarchs and taking bribes to close them.
The email released to the public appears to omit the opening line of my originally sent email. Here is the passage… https: //t.co/bwknqHnPuc
— John Solomon (@John Solomon) 1570061397.0
UH HUH.
But we already knew Solomon was filth. The really important part here is that the State Department seemed to be working closely with Rudy on his Ukraine smear of Joe Biden. And since the White House and State were passing around this nonsense, they've got no leg to stand on when they try to make Giuliani out to be some lone wolf, or even just the president's personal lawyer acting independently of the administration. Not that he was ever going to let them get away with that anyway.
Keep talking, Rudes. You're helping your client so much! TOTALLY.
[ HFAC Statement / CNN / Daily Beast ]
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A lifetime of grift and crime for Trump. Decades of Dominionist planning for Pompeo.
All brought down by Rudy fucking Giuliani, America's crazy drunk uncle. WTF even is this timeline?
But then Trump sees all of this and thinks it's all multidimensional chess moves and Trump will spring his awesome closing gambit any second now.