The Trump-Russia Conspiracy Is Getting Weird, Y'all. A HOLY SHIT Investigation Into WHAT THE FUCK?

No Russia. No Russia. YOU'RE THE RUSSIA.

Did you read Wonkette's HILARIOUS BLOGTIMES POST about Donald Trump's crazy-ass lawyer Marc Kasowitz and his maybe-drunk mean girl emails to somebody who emailed asking him to resign after seeing him on "The Rachel Maddow Show"? Have you been reading this week's CRAZY NEWS about Donald Trump Jr. and his sexcellent conspiracy meeting with Russian lawyers, spies and hackers? Well, we've got a treat for you, because it turns out those two stories are connected!

As we've noted before, when Trump hired Kasowitz, it was reported he had BRAGGED to all his pals that he had "played a central role" in getting Donald Trump to fire New York U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. At the time, it was just kind of a "Meh, maybe he's just talkin' shit" sort of thing. But maybe it wasn't! In his career, Kasowitz, on top of being Donald Trump's thug lawyer, has represented big state-owned Russian banks. Bharara, meanwhile, was investigating this HUGE case of Russian money laundering when he was fired.

Indeed, in May, a couple months after Trump fired Bharara, the U.S. government settled the case he had been working on all of a sudden, in a move that stunned EVERYONE:  

The case aimed to expose how Russian mobsters allegedly stole $230 million and hid some of the cash in New York City real estate. Also sure to come up was the suspicious death of the Russian lawyer who exposed the alleged fraud, though US prosecutors weren't alleging that the defendants were behind it.

... [L]ate Friday night, federal prosecutors in New York announced they settled the case with Prevezon, the company accused of buying up "high-end commercial space and luxury apartments" with laundered money.[...]

"What most concerns me is: Has there been any political pressure applied in this?" asked Louise Shelley, an illicit finance expert who was set to testify in support of the US government on Tuesday.

The lawyer who died? Sergei Magnitsky, the guy after whom the Magnitsky Act was named. The law was entirely designed to punish the Russians who let Magnitsky die/murdered Magnitsky in prison. In response to the Magnitsky Act, Russia banned Americans from adopting bouncy Russian babies. Heard anything about bouncy Russian babies this week? Us neither. 

A whistle-blower in the case, Alexander Peripilichny, collapsed and died while out for a jog in 2012. He was 44. Another lawyer, Nikolai Gorokhov, who was representing the family of Sergei Magnitsky, "fell out a fourth floor window" in March of this year, THE VERY DAY BEFORE he was supposed to go to a Russian court and "present new evidence that he claims support Magnitsky's findings of a far-reaching conspiracy to defraud the Russian taxpayer." Back in 2015, Preet Bharara wrote a letter saying he was worried Russia would try to hurt Gorokhov.

Guess which Russian lawyer was fighting on THE OTHER SIDE of that case, representing Prevezon, the Russian company accused of all the money laundering? YOU'LL NEVER GUESS, so we'll just tell you it was Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer lady who brought her Russian spy hacker pal to meet with Donald Trump Jr. in Trump Tower in June of 2016, CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE IT? When the Prevezon case was settled, Veselnitskaya said it was "almost an apology from the [U.S.] government" for even bringing the case in the first place. What's weird, though, besides how ALL OF THIS IS WEIRD, is that, as Kevin Drum notes at Mother Jones , before the case was suddenly settled, it was "not going well for Prevezon."

Veselnitskaya is a crusader against the Magnitsky Act, and if you'll remember, Trump Junior's first explanation for his Russian meeting was that they talked about BOUNCY RUSSIAN BABIES, which Drum explains is basically code for talking about the Magnitsky Act.

When Marc Kasowitz was bragging about how he got Trump to fire Preet Bharara, he reportedly told Trump, "This guy is going to get you." Wonder what he meant by that! What did Marc Kasowitz know, and when did he know it? We know Trump's legal team knew about Junior's Russian meeting weeks ago, but has Kasowitz been in the know for even longer than that?

Next question! Are you starting to wonder if there's some sort of connection between Junior Trump Dumpster and his Russian meeting, the settlement of this case, and the firing of Preet Bharara? You are not alone! Kevin Drum of Mother Jones is wondering. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are wondering so much that they've sent Attorney General Jeff Sessions a letter demanding some fucking answers about all these weird coincidences .

Junior was promised anti-Hillary dirt in this meeting, and though he claims he didn't get any (PFFFFFFT), the AP reports that Natalia Veselnitskaya surely did bring a folder full of supposed dirt on the DNC. (Hilariously, that AP article says Baby Trump "lost interest" when Veselnitskaya said the Trump campaign "would need to research it more." Poor baby, nobody ever told him illegally conspiring with Russia would involve work !)

So! WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK IS ALL THIS? Was part of Junior's meeting another kind of conspiracy, where he, Paul Manafort (the campaign manager) and Jared Kushner (the son-in-law at the top of the Trump campaign's data operation) were promised anti-Hillary dirt in exchange for killing this little bitty money laundering case and getting rid of the rude prosecutor who just wouldn't drop it?

What kind of alphabet soup of lies and Russian conspiracies are we living in? It's enough to drive us to drink. Wonkette promises we won't send you mean emails from the Applebee's happy hour when we drink, though. We're not a common Marc Kasowitz (ALLEGEDLY!) after all.

ALLEGEDLY.

 This is part 2 of a two part blog post. The first part is here, and it is HILARIOUS. 

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[ ProPublica / Mother Jones / CNN ]