Rudy Giuliani And Erik Prince Still Very Under Investigation, DOJ Leakers Here To Remind You!

Sounds like some folks at Justice are just letting us know about some stuff, in case Bill Barr tries to interfere with that stuff, ALLEGEDLY.

Yesterday, we wrote about news that Rudy Giuliani's lusty trusty pal Lev Parnas might be in for some more charges from the Southern District of New York (SDNY), related to the Fraud Guarantee company he set up to help companies "fight fraud," and for which Rudy Giuliani was to be paid many diamonds and baubles to be the spokesmodel. We noted how that's pretty weird that the case seems to be getting closer to Giuliani, who has reportedly been under criminal investigation himself, at the same time Giuliani has been allowed to set up a secret shoe phone back channel to Attorney General Bill Barr, so he could deliver the very real "information" he's been getting from shady Ukrainians about the Bidens. (His information is being sent to the US attorney in Pittsburgh, sure why not.) (How many US attorneys they got on this shit? How about Utah, Pittsburgh, Missouri, Connecticut?) 

But worry not, allegedly! Because there's also news out there that SDNY's investigation into Giuliani is still going strong.

The Washington Post   reported this weekend that SDNY investigators moved the ball forward as the impeachment trial was ending, which feels like 12 years ago in Trump time, but was actually like a week and a half ago. The impeachment trial might not have been getting witnesses and documents, but SDNY sure was! And on top of the continued investigations into Parnas and Igor Fruman, their shady money deals and Giuliani's possible involvement with that, they're also prying into Giuliani's scheme against fired ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, which was undertaken because she was in the way of the corrupt Biden investigations sought by Donald Trump.

And also:

In recent weeks, federal investigators have also continued to ask about Victor Shokin and Yuri Lutsenko, two former Ukrainian prosecutors who Giuliani has said provided him with information about Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

So that's a thing! In fact that is a lot of things! Point being, if this Washington Post article is right, SDNY is choo-choo-ing along on its Roodles Doodles investigation.

Also a thing: Do you remember Erik Prince? It's been a minute since we've heard about him, hasn't it! Prince, Betsy DeVos's younger Aryan sadist brother who used to run Blackwater, was up to his ass in the Russia scandal. He has defiantly lied about his involvement, including to Congress, particularly about an early 2017 meeting he had in the Seychelles with a Russian money man named Kirill Dmitriev, known as "Putin's interlocutor," to create a back channel of some sort, most likely related to lifting Russian sanctions. If you need a refresher on Erik Prince's crime spree, including the parts from the Mueller Report, just click here. 

Point is, Prince has been under investigation all this time apparently, but we just kind of assumed Bill Barr, Trump's broken truck stop condom machine version of Roy Cohn at Justice, had memoryholed the whole thing. But au contraire , says the Wall Street Journal , reporting last week:

The Justice Department is in the late stages of deciding whether to charge businessman and Trump ally Erik Prince in an investigation into whether he lied to Congress in its Russia probe and violated U.S. export laws in his business dealings overseas, according to people familiar with the matter.

The investigation gathered steam in recent months with the cooperation of several witnesses, the people said. Potential charges against Mr. Prince, the founder of the defense contractor formerly known as Blackwater, include making false statements to Congress and violating the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, the people said.

"The investigation gathered steam in recent months," you say? Say us more! Could we still somehow get the Erik Prince perp walk of our dreams?

Who knows, but point is that in some parts of the Justice Department, they are still doing these things, according to "sources."

Rachel Maddow brought up this news last evening in context of the DOJ alumni letter drafted in response to Barr's meddling in the Roger Stone sentencing, which has now been signed by over 2,000 former DOJ officials calling on Bill Barr to resign and don't let the door hit his big ass on the way out.

She specifically highlighted this part:

[W]e call on every DOJ employee to [...] be prepared to report future abuses to the Inspector General, the Office of Professional Responsibility, and Congress; to refuse to carry out directives that are inconsistent with their oaths of office; to withdraw from cases that involve such directives or other misconduct; and, if necessary, to resign and report publicly — in a manner consistent with professional ethics — to the American people the reasons for their resignation.

Maddow asked a question that's been on our minds, which echoed a question asked by Steve Benen on the MaddowBlog, which is, are folks at Justice involved with these investigations already sort of following the instructions in that passage, at least for the purposes of telling the press and the American people? Are they whisper-shouting "OH HEY, YEAH, RUDY GIULIANI INVESTIGATION? STILL A THING! ERIK PRINCE INVESTIGATION? ALSO STILL A THING!" as an insurance policy against Bill Barr sticking his loser dick in and fucking those investigations, as part of his dirty cover-up work for Trump?

We do not know, but if they are, fuckin' bring it, we want to know about all of it . Bill Barr and Donald Trump want us to forget about the Giuliani and Prince investigations and whatever other ones we already forgot.

REMIND US, DOJ LEAKERS! Please and thank you!

[ Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / DOJ alumni letter ]

Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter RIGHT HERE, DO IT RIGHT HERE! 

Wonkette is fully funded by readers like YOU. If you love Wonkette, SUPPORT WONKETTE FINANCIALLY.