Josh Marshall on gravity of Russia probe that 'will just tear a hapless goober like Nunes to pieces'
Josh Marshall @joshtpm 8h8 hours agomy latest >>> Thoughts on the Nunes debacle & What the FBI may not be able or willing to share http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-gravity-is-strong-part-2 … via @TPM
The Gravity Is Strong, Part #2
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____ Rather than searching for the single unifying piece of evidence, the smoking gun, as it were, it is better for us to start with the story we already know and simply keep pulling on the numerous dangling threads that story puts in front of us. In recent weeks, I've written a series of posts, which are in the majority of cases built on public records and weaving together the reporting of others. The picture they paint has a few critical elements. The first is that Trump built his 'second act', starting in the first years of this century, on a free flow of money from the former Soviet Union. Numerous Trump business ventures partnered with people tied to the Russian or post-Soviet criminal underworld. This pattern is so widespread and consistent that it is a hugely important story in itself, though it tends to get overshadowed by the hunt for ties to President Vladimir Putin. Many of these ventures bear key hallmarks of money laundering. The most straightforward explanation is that Trump needed capital but had ruined his access to legitimate lenders and scared off most sensible investors. He was a perfect match for overseas money, specifically post-Soviet money, which needed to get out of its countries of origin and into the safety of the US, particularly US real estate. This was money you couldn't ask a lot of questions about; and Trump was happy not to ask.
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Step back and consider this. The Director of the FBI has now confirmed publicly that there is an on-going counter-intelligence investigation probing whether close advisors and associates of the President colluded with a hostile foreign power to help elect the President. The jarring and disorienting effects of Trump's two months' presidency, makes it hard for us to process just what a stunning revelation that is. This is a matter of sufficient gravity that it is hardly sufficient to say that this will be examined deep in the national security apparatus out of the public eye for months or maybe years. We've been told something all but unbelievable is happening. But we can't know really anything about it. The deeply classified, secretive nature of these investigations is a sufficient explanation for all that. But perhaps there's more to it. Remember, it's not just what's been discussed in open session. Top members of Congress have also pressed the FBI's apparent reluctance to share all of what it knows in closed sessions.
The key point in my mind is that for the reasons I explained here, the FBI and likely the CIA knew quite a lot about Trump's ties to the post-Soviet criminal underworld and reliance on Russian, Ukrainian and Kazakhstani money of dubious origins years before he ran for President. What role did that knowledge play, what uses was it put to, once those multiple red flags triggered a formal counter-intelligence investigation late last July? Indeed, just what is known about these ties and business relationships? Most all of what we know comes from marginal details from public records and the occasional lawsuit where a lot of beans get spilled. I'd figure we know 5% or maybe 10% of the story. The rest remains hidden. Criminal prosecutions and counter-intelligence secrets are important. But nothing is more important than allowing the public to know who the President is, what he's done and what's driving his actions.
Whatever is there will take a firm hand to uncover. Like the violent gravitational forces around a black hole, the force of this story will just tear a hapless goober like Nunes to pieces.
read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-gravity-is-strong-part-2
related:
The Gravity Is Strong (pt 1)
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-gravity-is-strong
= new reply since forum marked as read
Gowdy, Chaffetz and their ilk. Unsophisticated intellectual lightweights promoted to positions of undeserved power because of their teabagger nuttiness, not qualifications.
Karma, baby--after they abused their positions to harass Secretary Clinton and buy cheap political cred with their moronic, deluded followers, they deserve every bit of unpleasantness coming their way.
would say now vs what they would have said the second before the jackass came down the escalator 2 years ago, most likely.
Side note.
My mom was a JFK democrat, hated Reagan with a passion and was involved loosely with some country democratic elected officials.
She worked out of home and got really into CNN when it got big. I would stop by and during the late 90s noticed she started switching to Faux. Didn't think much about it until the 2004 POTUS when I took her out to Wendy's for lunch.
We started talking politics and she got really angry and said how embarrassing Howard Dean was (after the "scream"
. My heart dropped because I knew they had gotten her. Dean was her kind of guy.
She died later in the 2000s, and was still liberal in a lot of ways, but Faux had increasingly gotten into her.
...you spelled 'judgment' wrong.
Other than that... 
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]
Access to easy money. Blood money. Dirty money in need of a laundry. Colluding with the Russians to change US policy to suit criminal Russian oligarchs to make even more dirty money came along later as a side effect of hiding his dirty money crimes. Playing ignorant to the treason of Flynn, Manafort, Stone, et al is bullshit. Trump selected these people PRECISELY because he wanted their connections to dirty money. And now all the US ReThuglican politicians who have jumped on the Trump bullet train to more easy dirty money have done so to protect their past and future pursuit of easy filthy money.
I want to say something else here. And it is that we, the American people, have brought this plague upon ourselves. I don't mean we DUers, who struggle to elect politicians of integrity. Rather, I mean all those Republican and Trump voters, who were duped by con man Trump, and the Republican lies and distractions about capitalism is the savior of the world, trickle down economics is good for us, gov is the problem, destroying the social safety net will give us freedom, raising minimum wage will destroy jobs. And on and on and on with all the other ReThuglican lies crafted to keeping us trapped in building giant pyramids for the 1%ers.
And what is at the heart of this ReThuglican evil? It is the LOVE of money. Not money itself, but the LOVE of money. Valueing the relentless greedy acquisition of money is NOT a higher value than human beings. You and I are more than just mere profit centers. We all do better, when we ALL do better. Please think about and meditate on that.
