BEFORE MOVING ON, this hard-working blogger would like to focus on the key to the GOP defense of the president. That being the fundamental concept that he truly cared about corruption in Ukraine. In this view, his real goal in holding up military aid was an interest in protecting the American taxpayers’ money, if we were going to give Ukraine help.
In that cause, then, the cause of fighting
corruption, we were to believe that Donald J. Trump had assembled the greatest
corruption-crushing, corruption-curing, corruption-busting team in the history
of these United States.
__________
“...those men who were tempted by the hope of measuring gold with a bushel...”
Edward
Gibbon
__________
Let’s look at the team Trump put together, and by the quality of that team, decide how much credence to give his defense.
The gentleman above is Lev Parnas, a key member of Team Trump’s corruption-fighting crew. And that’s his mugshot.
Admittedly, it’s unusual to build a corruption-fighting team around individuals who are later indicted by the federal government. But Parnas is a former bosom pal/business partner of Trump bosom pal/personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Rudy and Lev used to be tight.
President Trump has now said that he does not know who Parnas is. Or even was. Vice President Jesus has said he wouldn’t know Parnas if Parnas passed the collection plate to him in church. Even Rudy is having difficulty remembering.
“Lev, who???”
So, let’s refresh our memories. Parnas, Igor Fruman (also a pal of Rudy’s) and two other lesser figures have been,
charged
in a four-count indictment alleging that each of the defendants conspired to
violate the ban on foreign donations and contributions [emphasis
added] in connection with federal and state elections.
In
addition, PARNAS and FRUMAN were charged with conspiring to make contributions
in connection with federal elections in the names of others, and with making
false statements to and falsifying records to obstruct the
administration of a matter within the jurisdiction of the Federal Election
Commission (“FEC”).
To put it bluntly, Parnas and his co-defendants were allegedly funneling foreign money into Trump and GOP campaign coffers. You might even say that they were putting foreign policy up for sale!
 |
Igor Fruman in his mugshot. |
No doubt, you are asking yourself, “How can this be???” We have been told repeatedly that President Trump cared only about cleaning up corruption in Ukraine. He wanted to clean it all up! He wanted to investigate corruption in every shape, shoe size and color, including mauve. His defenders in Congress told us he really cared about Ukraine. And the people of Ukraine. He couldn’t stop thinking about Ukraine, even when golfing. And he was golfing, a lot.
We know, for sure, that in his famous July 25 phone call to the president of Ukraine, President Trump specifically asked the Ukrainians to get involved in his efforts to clean up corruption in their country. They could clean it up by investigating one company. That company, by stunning coincidence, was Burisma, the company for which Hunter Biden had worked.
From the start, then, it was clear that Trump was going to chase down corruption like a pit bull chasing a one-legged mailman.
“That is news to us.”
True. We know that Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters that military aid to Ukraine was being withheld because the Department of Justice was participating in an investigation into Ukrainian corruption. Then DOJ was quick to offer assessment. “If the White House was withholding aid in regards to the cooperation of any investigation at the Department of Justice,” a spokesperson for Justice announced, “that is news to us.”
So, if DOJ wasn’t cooperating in an effort to bust up corruption in Ukraine? Who was fighting to drain the Ukrainian swamp?
This is where the crack corruption-crushing crew assembled by President Trump comes into view. Parnas was a key member. Fruman was too. Rudy was in charge. The president hired Rudy. Rudy hired Lev and Igor. Those three and a few other corruption busters went to work investigating all the companies and individuals, besides Burisma and Hunter Biden, listed below.
Look out, Ukrainian scumbags. Your days are numbered:
1) ….
2) ….
3) ….
4) ….
5) ….
6) ….
7) ….
8) ….
9) ….
10) …
That is quiet the list!!!!!! Rep. Jim Jordan could memorize it if we gave him a week and cue cards to consult.
Sen. Rand Paul could read it on the floor of the Senate and then go back to shouting out the whistleblower’s name.
Because, clearly, outing a whistleblower is Step #1 when it comes to cleaning up crooks in Ukraine.
The crusade to clean up corruption then moves on to Step #2. Go after one company. One man. And one man’s dad.
By the way, there are no more steps after that.
*
TO BE FAIR, the crusade to clean up Ukraine even before Trump was elected. He began assembling his crack crusading crew in March 2016, when he hired Paul Manafort. By June, Manafort was heading the Trump campaign. He was leading the fight against crookery in all its forms, like General Custer charging the Sioux at the Little Big Horn and with about the same kind of results. Manafort had vast experience in the corruption-busting business. And that was why Trump put him in charge. As a young man, Manafort and Roger Stone set up a Washington law firm that specialized in sprucing up the reputations of world leaders. The two partners were good at their jobs, too. They prospered and became known for their fine work as part of “The Torturer’s Lobby.”
This is how you fight corruption!!! You create a lobbying firm that specializes in helping authoritarian regimes.
Eventually, Manafort and Stone parted ways. Manafort went to work crusading for good government – in – of all places, Ukraine. He was adept at fighting corruption. He made tens of millions fighting tooth and toenail. By the time he was done he had piles of cash in secret bank accounts in Cyprus. Not just one secret account, either, but fifteen. Manafort fought the good fight against crime by setting up shell companies to handle all the money he was making. Not just one shell company. Ten! He was a corruption-fighting conglomerate. Manafort’s reputation grew. He made millions working for leading Ukrainian politicians – only some of whom had to flee to Russia to avoid arrest after stealing hundreds of millions from their own people.
Sadly, the “Fake News” folks liked to undercut all of his work by quoting from Department of Justice and court documents, showing that Manafort had worked for known money-launders. And they cranked out “Fake News” stories, noting that Mr. Manafort had – after going to work for Mr. Trump – ended up being found guilty of a whole bunch of felonies – and admitted to a whole bunch more – including witness tampering. And they noted that his tampering occurred in 2018.
And then Konstantin Kilimnik, the tampered-with witness, fled to Russia.
So, as any fool could see, Team Trump has always
been huge when it comes to fighting corruption.
 |
Another mugshot: Paul Manafort! |
Next, we focus on all the fantastic corruption-busting efforts of Mr. Rudy Giuliani. Per President Trump’s instructions, he traveled to Ukraine on multiple occasions, always in an effort to ferret out the crooks who might be related to U.S. political opponents of his boss. While Rudy was visiting, he told everyone he met that he was functioning as Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer. He wasn’t there as a representative of the President of the United States. He wasn’t advancing U.S. foreign policy interests.
He had one client.
Trump.
Rudy needed help, so he hired two famous
corruption fighters, Parnas and Fruman. The trio set to work. Their first move
against corruption was to get the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine fired.
*
MEANWHILE, back in Washington, Manafort and Stone were showing up in court with alarming regularity, as part of the crusade to clean up government, here and abroad. Manafort was cleaning up by getting indicted and convicted by a jury on eight felony counts. The jury voted 11-1 to convict on ten other felonies. Manafort got off on those charges. Later he agreed to cooperate with investigators and started by admitting to those additional felonies.
Rick Gates, his corruption-fighting sidekick, who worked with him in Ukraine, and had his own secret bank accounts, also pled guilty to multiple felonies, and began to cooperate with authorities.
There were hiccups along the way. While battling corruption, Manafort violated his cooperation agreement. The feds slapped him with fresh charges. He went to court again. He lost again. He got more felonies added to his rap sheet. And he’s currently serving seven-and-half years in prison. That is definitely cramping his corruption-busting style.
But President Trump has not ruled out pardoning Manafort.
And why would he????
Stone happened to bump into a Russian in the spring of 2106. The Russian said he had dirt on Hillary Clinton. If Stone wanted to fight corruption, he would have to pay $2 million to get his mitts on the dirt. Stone told the Russian that his boss, Mr. Trump, was cheap. He would never pay that much. Later, Stone told a congressional committee that he had never met with any Russians during the campaign. Not even anyone who “sounded Russian.” His corruption-fighting career came to a halt when a jury convicted him on seven felony charges – and, yes – including witness tampering.
With a sizable chunk of his corruption-fighting crew out of action, President Trump had to turn more directly to Rudy, and Lev and Igor.
 |
Another corruption fighter getting arrested: Roger Stone. |
__________
“Protecting the integrity of our elections – and protecting our elections from unlawful foreign influence – are core functions of our campaign finance laws.”
Notice of arrest, Southern District of New York
__________
At first, the trio did some excellent work. As already noted, they started corruption cleanup on Aisle 1, by getting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch canned. You can see how committed Lev and Igor were to cleaning up Ukraine when you read the notice of their arrest:
U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said: “As alleged in the
Indictment, the defendants broke the law to gain political influence while
avoiding disclosure of who was actually making the donations and where the
money was coming from. They sought political influence not only to advance
their own financial interests but to advance the political interests of at
least one foreign official – a Ukrainian government official who sought the
dismissal of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Protecting the integrity of
our elections – and protecting our elections from unlawful foreign influence –
are core functions of our campaign finance laws. And as this Office has
made clear, we will not hesitate to investigate and prosecute those who engage
in criminal conduct that draws into question the integrity of our political
process.”
FBI Assistant Director William F. Sweeney Jr. said: “Campaign finance laws exist for a reason. The American people expect and deserve an election process that hasn’t been corrupted by the influence of foreign interests, and the public has the right to know the true source of campaign contributions. These allegations aren’t about some technicality, a civil violation, or an error on a form. This investigation is about corrupt behavior and deliberate law breaking. The FBI takes the obligation to tackle corruption [ironic emphasis] seriously – there are no exceptions to this rule.”
In other words, the F.B.I. had joined the fight in Ukraine by arresting Rudy’s pals. Amnesia spread through the Trump administration, like a Chinese coronavirus. Attorney General William Barr said he wouldn’t know Parnas or Fruman if they jumped out of a tree and landed on him while he was walking his poodle. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo agreed. He had never laid eyes on either gentleman. He wasn’t sure he could even pick them out of a lineup.
The fact that all his friends seemed to be forgetting him made Parnas sad. He began posting videos and pictures to remind his pals of happier days, when they were in the fight to clean up Ukraine together. He posted pictures showing him with Rudy. He had another of him – with Rudy – and Igor. We saw Lev sitting down for breakfast with Donald Trump Jr. Igor was there, too, grinning over a stack of pancakes. We saw Lev in a video, taken at Mar-a-Lago. We could watch him as he introduced some Ukrainians to the president – doubtless the non-corrupt kind of Ukrainians. In another picture we had Lev and Igor and Rudy standing with President Trump and Vice President Pence.
All five men looked happy and pleased with themselves.
 |
Pence, Fruman, Parnas, Trump and Giuliani. |
*
WE NOW KNOW that Lev and Igor and Rudy and a number of dedicated corruption fighters did some of their best work in trying to get a Ukrainian oligarch named Dmitry Firtash out of a jam.
The crusaders set to work to save Mr. Firtash, who was being targeted (so unfairly!!) under U.S. law. These efforts made Firtash happy. He knew he had crime-busting friends in high places. After Parnas got arrested, Dmitry sent Lev $1 million. But he thought the safest way to send the money to his friend was to break it up into five installments and deposit it in Lev’s wife’s account.
This is a well-known corruption-fighting trick.
Unfortunately, Lev and his lovely wife forgot they had that money when listing assets at his bail hearing. After all, when you are dedicating your life to battling crooks – well – wouldn’t you forget a million dollars? You would be balancing your checkbook. You would see that you had a million more in your account than expected.
“Honey,” you would yell to your wife in the kitchen. “Do you know anything about these five installments of $200,000 that have showed up in our account?”
Then you would go back to fighting corruption in Ukraine. Because that is your life’s only mission!
It is why you work for President Donald J. Trump. You are not in it for money. You would fight corruption for free and stand there smiling, in a picture, by the president’s side. But if someone wanted to give you a million dollars…well…it would be rude not to accept. So, you would keep fighting to help Firtash avoid extradition, just because he’s under federal indictment for bribery and money-laundering. Also, because he might have stolen a few pennies from the Ukrainian people.
Firtash? He too has always wanted to fight corruption, not be the corruption. For that reason he paid another $1 million to two American lawyers, Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing. Joe and Victoria are married, and one way they like to help drain the Ukrainian swamp is to show up on Fox News and talk about corruption in Ukraine, none of which involves Firtash.
You have probably guessed: Joe and Victoria wanted to clean up corruption by focusing on Hunter Biden.
And his dad!
And the couple had a plan. They would pay Parnas to be their interpreter, so they could fight corruption in more than one language. Parnas reportedly received $400,000 for his services (but this blogger can’t find the link to that story). We do know Parnas joked at one point, “I’m the best paid interpreter in the world.”
We also know that Rudy asked Yuri Lutshenko, the former prosecutor
general of Ukraine, if he would like to help the cause by handing over
$200,000, and asked a second Ukrainian entity to chip in $300,000, all so he
and Lev and Igor could battle all the crooks in Ukraine named Biden.
*
AT THIS POINT, the battle to drain the Ukrainian swamp takes a few new twists and turns. Lutshenko had long been a corruption fighter in his own right and it was a shame back in 2012 when he was found guilty of embezzlement and abuse of office and sentenced to spend some years in prison. Then it sucked when he got sentenced to spend more years behind bars on fresh charges. Then Victor Yanukovych, the President of Ukraine, pardoned him in 2013.
Then Yanukovych decided in 2014 that he might need to go after corruption by fleeing to Russia.
Then Reuters described Yanukovych as a “toppled ‘mafia’ president,” which was really mean, and probably “Fake News,” and reported that he fought corruption by absconding with billions of dollars.
Now, for just a moment, we must back up slightly. Can you guess who – according to a U.S. State Department cable in 2006 – helped give Yanukovych an “extreme makeover” when he ran for president? You will never guess. So, I will tell you.
Manafort!!!
Did we already mention Manafort’s lobbying firm and its fine reputation? Manafort was the perfect man for the cleanup job. As Time explained, Yanukovych was head of the Party of Regions, which the U.S. State Department described as, “a haven” for “mobsters and oligarchs.”
Making things harder for Manafort were the candidate’s rough manners and criminal past, which had dimmed his chances of winning elections. Oafish and inarticulate, Yanukovych had served jail time in his youth for theft and battery. He also had a hard time speaking Ukrainian – the national language – as he had grown up in the Russian-speaking province of Donetsk. Nevertheless, Manafort accepted the challenge of trying to make Yanukovych electable. The man paying the exorbitant bills for these efforts was an early backer of the Party of Regions, the coal and metals magnate Rinat Akhmetov, who soon began calling Manafort his friend.
And the man who really hoped Yanukovych would win? Time to guess again!
Putin!!!!!
Manafort and Akhmetov soon became pals. They started fighting corruption together, although their efforts were put on hold briefly when Akhmetov had to flee to Monaco to avoid arrest. Then he returned when Yanukovych took power. Rinat prospered. By 2014, his estimated wealth, according to one Ukrainian newspaper, was $11.2 billion. But when Yanukovych got ousted in the face of nationwide protests, Akhmetov decided he’d rather live in England.
(By the way, we haven’t forgotten Firtash.)
So, Akhmetov (sometimes spelled “Akhmedov”) settled in England. There, he and his wife began fighting – each other – not corruption. Divorce followed. The courts ordered Mr. Akhmetov to turn over the couple’s yacht, named Luna, to his ex-wife, as part of the divorce decree.
It’s a nice little pleasure craft, 308-feet long, nine-decks, crew of 50, two helipads, a 65-foot swimming pool, a mini-submarine and – dream of every yachting enthusiast – anti-missile defenses.
Clearly, then, fighting corruption, had been good
for Mr. Akhmetov’s bank accounts.
 |
Fighting corruption from your yacht! The Luna. |
At this point, American and Ukrainian corruption fighters crossed paths with a devoted group of like-minded Russians. And if you delve into details, you discover that many of those Russians turned out to have connections to that paragon of clean government, Paul Manafort. If you look at a list of billionaires drawn up by the U.S. Treasury Department, who were placed (unfairly!!!!) under sanction in 2017, you notice names that popped up here and there in the Mueller investigation. The now-yachtless Mr. Akhmetov made an appearance. So did Aras Agalarov, the Russian who helped broker the famous Trump Tower meeting in June 2016.
Who was in that secret meeting?
Manafort.
Don Jr.
Jared Kushner.
And Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with solid connections to Vladimir Putin. She later took her corruption-fighting skill set to Russia, when she fled the U.S. one step ahead of indictment.
Also making an appearance on the aforementioned list of rich people under U.S. sanction: Sergei Gorkov, a banker who met secretly with Kushner in early 2017. Probably to discuss ways to battle international money laundering! Also, Dmitry Rybolovlev, who bought, at a highly-inflated price, a Palm Beach mansion from Don Sr. some years back. And you had Viktor Vekselberg, who met in secret with Michael Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer at the time. Nor should we forget Oleg Deripaska, who had worked on all kinds of projects in tandem with Manafort. True, the Russian oligarch’s reputation as a crime fighter took a minor hit when the Brits accused him of bribery, money laundering, extortion, and ordering the murder of a business rival.
But if you can’t stand the
heat, when it comes to battling corruption, you should get out of
the bank vault.
*
NOW, TO PROVE our main point, that President Donald J. Trump only cares about fighting corruption, root, branch, leaf, bud, and even the birds in the trees, we return to Mr. Firtash. In April 2018 we know a U.S. senator, Roger Wicker (a Republican), sent the Justice Department a letter. He was curious why Firtash had not yet been extradited, since he had been out on bail, living in luxury in Austria, and working to stay out of reach of U.S. law since 2014.
Finally, in October 2019, Wicker got tired of waiting and pointed out to reporters that his letter had gone unanswered. That seemed weak on the part of DOJ, since Wicker had pointed out that Firtash was piling up “hundreds of millions” in additional “illicit profits” while hanging out with the other corruption-clobbering crusaders. You know who we mean: Rudy and Lev and Igor. And the lawyers who always enjoyed showing up to talk to Lou Dobbs at Fox News, where they could bash Hunter and Joe Biden to their hearts’ content.
In any case, we should probably note that bail for Firtash had been set in 2014 at $174 million.
$174,000,000!
Plus, he has been forced to surrender his passports, which kind of cramped all the good work he might have done to clean up Ukraine, if, for example, he could have fled, I mean “traveled,” to Russia.
Speaking of Russia, it would be remiss to fail to mention the greatest-corruption fighter of them all. This would be the man who invaded Ukraine to stomp out corruption, and maybe stomp a few thousand Ukrainians to death in the process. We are talking about that not-such-a-bad killer, as President Trump described him. This is the very man who Trump cronies, I mean “corruption-fighting friends,” like Felix Sater, thought should be given a penthouse worth $50 million for free to seal the Trump Tower Moscow deal. Now you might be saying to yourself, “This sounds like a bribe.” And you might be thinking it would be a major conflict of interest if then-Candidate Trump was trying to land a lucrative deal – in Russia – while running for office.
Well forget that penthouse.
We are talking about Vladimir Putin, the man,
the myth, the foe of corruption on all seven continents, on land, on sea and in
the air, a man willing to toss reporters off fifth floor balconies even, if
they got in the way of his corruption-fighting efforts. We are talking about a
diligent public servant, who, on a humble salary, going back to when he worked
for the KGB, saved and saved. Lo, he came to be worth between $70 and $200 billion, so
carefully did he save his rubles.
 |
Corruption-fighting buds. |
IN CLOSING this tale of Trump and his ceaseless
efforts to clean up government, both here and overseas, we should mention
two young men who have also dedicated themselves to the fight. These are two
men, unlike that “lowlife” Hunter Biden, who would never trade upon the family
name, just to milk millions out of prospective business partners. Here we are talking
about Don Jr. and Eric Trump, two pillars of clean business and clean
government.
__________
“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
Donald
Trump Jr.
__________
According to James Dodson, a golf writer, Eric told him in 2014, that the Trump Organization was having no trouble financing new golf courses. They agreed to play a round, as Dodson recalls:
So when I got in the cart
with Eric…as we were setting off, I said, “Eric, who’s funding? I know no banks
– because of the recession, the Great Recession – have touched a golf course.
You know, no one’s funding any kind of golf construction. It’s dead in the
water the last four or five years.” And this is what he said. He said, “Well,
we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of
Russia.” I said, “Really?” And he said, “Oh, yeah. We’ve got some guys that
really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just
go there all the time.” Now that was three years ago, so it was pretty
interesting.
By the way, it might be worth mentioning here that one fine way to launder money is to sneak it out of, say, Russia, and buy assets like real estate in, say, the United States of America. But that could not be the case here, because everyone knows the entire Trump clan hates corruption.
That also includes Jared Kushner, who quite clearly did not profit off his wife’s name when the Qataris bailed him out of a billion-dollar hole on his investment at 666 Fifth Avenue, in New York City.
Eric, of course, responded as all Trumps do, calling Dodson’s story “completely fabricated and just another example of why there is such a deep distrust of the media in this country.” Then some other “Fake News” scumbag dredged up a quote from his older brother. In 2008, Don Jr. told an audience at a real estate conference in New York City, that the “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
Five years later, while running the Miss Universe pageant, which was held in Moscow in 2013, Don Sr. first got interested in battling corruption after attending a party with all kinds of Russian corruption fighters. “Almost all of the oligarchs were in the room,” he told Real Estate Weekly.
In fact, a review of financial records by Reuters in 2017, found that 63 Russian oligarchs had invested a total of $100 million in Trump Florida properties. So, the moral of that story is: 63 more corruption fighters, investing in foreign real estate. A story by McClatchy, in June 2018 revealed the names of additional corruption-fighting Russians and Ukrainians, who had seen the wisdom of buying up Trump properties in the U.S. There was, for instance, Aleksandr Burman, a Ukrainian-born businessman, who engaged in a scheme to defraud Medicare of $26 million (or maybe $30 million). Burman is currently serving a ten-year prison sentence. In sunnier days, however, he paid $725,000 in cash for a condo at a Trump Tower in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. Another typical buyer – McClatchy said there were 86 – was Leonid Zeldovich, who had “reportedly done extensive business in the Russian-annexed area of Crimea. Records show that he gobbled up four Trump condos at a cost of $4.35 million, three in New York City, between 2007 and 2010.
He too paid cash.
In fact, it is said that Donald J. Trump got interested in cleaning up corruption way, way back in 1984. At that time, he allowed purchasers of multi-million-dollar condos to pay in cash, by going through shell companies, which was thoughtful. A gentleman named David Bogaton, said to have been a Russian gangster, was one of his first customers. Bogaton handed over $6 million (roughly equal to $15 million today) and snagged five condos in Trump Tower New York City.
Last, but not least, Citizen Trump started battling corruption by using banks that would give him risky loans when most banks wouldn’t. And just because his casinos went bankrupt! That meant Trump had to work hand in glove with Deutsche Bank, which fought corruption on all fronts, by laundering Russian money. And also, money for drug cartels. Investigators round the world failed to appreciate the fine efforts the bank was making, because Deutsche had to pay a 15 million euro fine for the Russian business. Then there was the $630 million fine for more money laundering, involving more Russians. And the fine for laundering drug cartel dollars.
So, yes. The only way to clean up corruption in Ukraine?
Go after Hunter Biden.
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