Right, so the Donald Trump Jr. story just gets more damning by the day.
It is absolutely beyond me how anyone can read those e-mails and come to any conclusion other than that Jr. was excited about colluding with the Russians to essentially rig the election in favor of his father.
I mean let’s not forget that for all the patently absurd obfuscation by the Trump team and by the Kremlin and Moscow’s US-based online surrogates, the e-mails quite literally spell out the collusion (“I love it!”).
But just in case you needed a little extra evidence, we got this from NBC on Friday:
The Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. and others on the Trump team after a promise of compromising material on Hillary Clinton was accompanied by a Russian-American lobbyist – a former Soviet counterintelligence officer who is suspected by some U.S. officials of having ongoing ties to Russian intelligence, NBC News has learned.
Yeah, you read that correctly. Veselnitskaya literally brought along a goddamn Soviet spy.
Of course the spy in question swears that he is now just an innocent “lobbyist” with no “current ties to Russian spy agencies.”
The “lobbyist,” later identified by AP as one Rinat Akhmetshin, confirmed his participation in the meeting and here’s his excuse:
I never thought this would be such a big deal to be honest.
Again, this is so laughable that it boggles the mind.
On the off chance you’re inclined to be swayed by the bullshit Russian propaganda outlets who are now scrambling to explain this, consider the following rather succinct assessment from our homegirl and former FBI counterintelligence agent Asha Rangappa:
https://twitter.com/AshaRangappa_/status/885864929726799873
Any questions?
The Trump Jr., story has been told this way: The Russian lawyer, Veselnitskaya, brought a translator with her to the meeting.
Reverse it for a moment. The Russian in charge of the operation, who provided the Russian-English translation at the meeting with Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner, brought, Veselnitskaya, the lawyer Goldstone named in his email exchange with Trump, Jr., and Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian operative assigned to the operation. That sounds more like Vladimir Putin’s handiwork, who, while a KGB agent in counter-intelligence, he served in Dresden, East Germany, used a cover identity as a translator, from 1985 to 1990.
Having travelled independently and for work to many foreign countries I have learned that it is always their rules and perceptions of you that will guide your interaction with them. They are going to size you up and figure out how to get what they want. It is their turf and if you are too dumb to understand these things you shouldn’t be there.