SOMETHING IS STILL ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF DENMARK

Two and a half years ago, I wrote a post called, Something is Rotten in the State of Denmark, about the "perfect phone call" between TFG and President Zelensky.  In that call, TFG threatened to withhold defensive armaments to Ukraine unless Zelensky “did him a favor,” namely, dig up dirt on Biden’s son.  I argued then-- and I believe to this day-- that the call was a clear violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act, an impeachable offense.  As we all remember, TFG siloed the call, a whistle blower reported it, and Bill Barr’s Department of Justice buried it.  No criminal investigation was opened.  In response, the House of Representatives launched its own investigation, which was immediately labeled a partisan witch hunt.

Testifying before the House impeachment proceeding were Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (above), a Ukraine specialist on the National Security Council, and Fiona Hill (below), a Russian specialist who also served on the National Security Council. 

Here is an excerpt from Vindman’s testimony about the perfect phone call (emphasis added in bold):

It is improper for the President of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen and political opponent. It was also clear that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma, it would be interpreted as a partisan play. This would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing bipartisan support, undermine U.S. national security, and advance Russia’s strategic objectives in the region.

As reported by NPR on Hill’s testimony at the time of the impeachment:

[Hill’s testimony] condemned the false narrative that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 election,…

As she watched Putin manipulate TFG, Hill observed that he increasingly resembled the authoritarian leaders he admired, including Putin.  As she put it to NPR (emphasis added in bold):

Trump himself was a massive counterintelligence risk, because of his vulnerabilities and the fragility of his ego.

In the end, the House voted to impeach.  Not a single Republican member voted in favor.  When the matter was sent over to the Senate for conviction, the only Senator to vote with Democrats was Mitt Romney (R-UT, below).  It wasn’t even close and TFG lived to corrupt another day. For good measure, and like any good autocrat, he fired both Vindman and Hill for putting country before loyalty to the king.   

Now that Russia has invaded Ukraine and is systematically flattening the country and terrifying its citizens, some in the GOP are trying to distance themselves from their history and Putin penchant.  Heather Cox Richardson commented on the Republican about-face in today’s Letters From an American:

Now, popular support has swung strongly against the Russian leader—even among Republicans, 61% of whom now strongly dislike the man. This is widening the split in the Republican Party between Trump supporters and those who would like to move the party away from the former president.

In a tweet today, Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) referred to the “Putin wing” of the Republican Party when she shared a video clip of Douglas Macgregor, whom Trump nominated for ambassador to Germany and then appointed as senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense, telling a Fox News Channel host that Russian forces have been “too gentle” and “I don’t see anything heroic” about Zelensky.

 More MAGA pro-Putin drivel was reported on March 1 in Politico Nightly:

The MAGA/America First position on Putin can vary from minimizing his bad behavior on the world stage (which Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson did ... until the last few days ) to praising the Russian leader in one fashion or another, to disavowing real engagement with geopolitics in the region. Or as former Trump adviser Steve Bannon put it to POLITICO last week, “no one in the Trump movement has any interest at all in the Russian-speaking provinces of eastern Ukraine. Zero.”

Over the weekend, [Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA), above with sidekick Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO)] appeared at the America First Political Action Conference alongside its white nationalist organizer, Nick Fuentes. Before Greene’s remarks, Fuentes asked the audience to give “a round of applause” for Russia during its brutal invasion of Ukraine, which prompted a chant of “Putin” from the crowd in support of Moscow’s leader.

As for Trump, the former president called Putin “smart” during his own CPAC speech this past weekend, days after describing the Russian leader as “savvy.” Trump also called the invasion of Ukraine “an outrage and an atrocity,” but his basic argument on stage in Florida on Saturday was his motto: “I alone can fix it.”

“I stand as the only president of the 21st century on whose watch Russia did not invade another country,” Trump said at CPAC.

Sorry, dude.  That dog don’t hunt.

Taking a closer look at numero uno Fox cash register and Trump whisperer Tucker Carlson’s views on the Ukraine crisis, the Washington Post commented:

But even with the Ukraine conflict and Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Fox News host described the tension in the region as merely “a border dispute” and wondered why Americans should despise the Russian president.

“It may be worth asking yourself, since it is getting pretty serious, what is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much?” he said on his Tuesday night show. “Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him?”

Carlson, who has been accused of being “one of the biggest cheerleaders for Russia” during the conflict, asked viewers on his top-rated Fox News show a series of questions about whether Putin had promoted “racial discrimination” in schools, made fentanyl, attempted “to snuff out Christianity” or eaten dogs.

“These are fair questions, and the answer to all of them is ‘no.’ Vladimir Putin didn’t do any of that,” he said. “So, why does permanent Washington hate him so much?”

I could go on, citing other examples of pro-Russian, anti-Ukraine policies championed by the GOP until they got caught with their political pants down last month.  But here’s one about the party’s 2016 platform on Ukraine that sears the mind. From the  LA Times, emphasis added in bold):

The platform written at the GOP convention in Cleveland this week eliminated references to arming Ukraine in its fight with Russia, which seized the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and has supported separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Many in the party’s foreign policy establishment are outraged.

They note that Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, had worked as a consultant for the now-ousted pro-Russian government in Ukraine.

Originally, the GOP platform was to call for providing Ukraine with weapons in addition to the substantial non-lethal aid the U.S. already provides, according to congressional reports.

After Trump surrogates reportedly intervened, the final passage supports “providing appropriate assistance” to Ukraine, but doesn’t mention providing arms to the government in Kiev.

Yes, that Paul Manafort (above), the same one who was paid millions illegally funneled to him through Putin’s fellow oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who owns a 40% stake in Rusal, the Russian aluminum conglomerate.  The same Paul Manafort who gave 2016 Democratic campaign polling information to Konstantin Kilimnick, a Russian intelligence agent on Putin's payroll.  That trip down Memory Lane is found here in the Washington Post.  Mr. Manafort was pardoned by TFG for tax and bank fraud.  Mr. Deripaska has been under US sanctions since 2018, but Rusal has so far avoided both US and EU Ukraine sanctions due to aluminum shortages. That could change.

There is something really rotten here.  Something that stinks of putrid personal glory gussied up in fake foreign policy finery in the service of insatiable egos.  As we watch Putin try to divide and destroy the West, and TFG try to divide and destroy the Republican Party, somebody needs to take out the garbage, fast. 

Keep it real!

Marilyn

P.S.  Sorry (not sorry) about the rude images.