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As Parnas Implicates Trump To Maddow, Ukraine Opens Investigation Into Donor’s Claims Of Yovanovitch Tail
Irony - delicious irony.
Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and Lev Parnas spent the better part of a year attempting to subordinate America's foreign policy in Ukraine to the president's reelection bid. Part and parcel of that effort was a despicable smear campaign aimed at ousting Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and, later, strong-arming Volodymyr Zelensky into launching an investigation into Joe Biden.
For their trouble, Trump got impeached, Giuliani found himself in the crosshairs of US prosecutors
“When Lev Parnas calls you a drunken weirdo, you know you’ve got problems.” You know Parnas has been a punching bag of comedians for months now, mostly due to some unfortunate photos of him that play into stereotypes of dumb and drunken East Europeans that have been around a long time in America. I laughed as much as anyone at those pictures, despite being East European myself.
But watching him in the interview with Maddow, I was struck by how low key and thoughtful he was. In his lightly accented American English he came across as not only very credible, but completely lacking in self-aggrandizing tendencies, which Trump and Giuliani display constantly. He also cut to the heart of the impeachment argument, asking sensibly why any of the higher ups in the Ukrainian government would ever have given him the time of day, if they did not completely believe that he did indeed represent the President and his attorney Giuliani.
Spot on.
It is already established that Trump tried to get the Ukraine to publicly investigate Hunter Biden. Trump’s base and the Republicans in the Senate are O.K. with that. Additional facts that corroborate the charges are just noise to those who feel that Trump’s screw-up is not worthy of removal from office. Trump could probably sign a confession “Yeah, sure, of course I put pressure on the Ukrainians to get dirt on the Bidens. Why else would they bother? So what?”, and the Senate trial would have the same outcome.
Parnas has every incentive to portray Hyde as a drunken fool. Whatever legal jeopardy Parnas has for participating in the scheme, it would be many times more serious if Parnas participated in a conspiracy that actually threatened the security of a US official. He would then be looking at serious time. Parnas and Hyde both have every incentive to portray these texts as drunken musings. Do they read that way? Parnas says Hyde was drunk at all times, even 6am. Hyde may be an alcoholic. But I bet there are people who know him who have probably seen him sober at 6am, and many other times. I was surprised the press seems to be taking Parnas at his word about the surveillance texts. He has good reason to lie. So does Hyde. Were the rest of the text messages from Hyde drunken musings and jokes? Or did Hyde just pick one topic for drunken musings? I’m not saying Trump knew about the surveillance. I’m just a skeptic about whether the messages should be ignored.
He may be trying to drop a wall between himself and Hyde.
Leaving Hyde with the rest of the “Wiener’s Circle”. And murder for hire.