This story is really getting complicated. These are the same two guys we read about Monday when they refused to testify or be deposed in the impeachment investigation. Shortly thereafter, they were fleeing the country.
Pictured in the photo: the two suspected criminals.
Also pictured: the two Ukrainian guys.
Allegedly, these are two unrelated cases. Congress wanted them to testify about the Ukrainian Bidengate scandal, while the feds arrested them for laundering money to make illegal campaign contributions. (Illegal because they were channeling money from foreign donors into American elections to support Trump and others.) I have a feeling things may tie together when all the curtains are pulled back. At the moment it is not clear whether they were fleeing the country to avoid the expected Congressional subpoenas, or because they knew the feds were closing in on the criminal charges.
But here’s a kicker. Get this. The two had one-way tickets to Vienna. Rudy Giuliani was also scheduled to travel to Vienna the following day. Rudy claims those two trips were unrelated, that he was going to Vienna for a completely different reason, and that he was not scheduled to meet with them until they returned to Washington – a pretty difficult trick considering they had one-way tickets!
I wonder if Rudy will still go ahead with his Vienna trip, just to pretend that he was telling the truth about that completely different reason. Probably not. One thing about Rudy – he doesn’t spend a lot of time trying to construct plausible lies. He just wings it.
Much like his main client.
Here’s another kicker, hot off the presses: Giuliani was not only using these two guys in his crusade to dig up dirt in Ukraine, but he also accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from them for consulting and legal services!
These guys are tight!
at least there’s no video pic.twitter.com/JVaUyJpm4V
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) October 10, 2019
The name of the company that made the contributions… Fraud Guarantee
At least they don’t false advertise
The Trump Administration is making the Harding Administration look like choirboys.
But with an important difference. Trump is the ringleader of the corruption, and has dragged down some people who used to have good reputations. Harding just kind of looked the other way, playing golf and poker while his cronies plundered the treasury. He was just feckless. In his own words,
And based on that quote, there was another important difference between the two men. At least Harding had a realistic self-perception.
We need a more feckful president. There’s probably a campaign slogan in there somewhere