8/31/18: At this point, if federal investigators caught President Trump with a conical hat on his head, a book of spells in his hands, and a bubbling brew of noxious ingredients in a cauldron in the Oval Office, his Helen Keller-like fans would still insist he has nothing to do with witchcraft.
Another witch is brought to justice.
Friday, prosecutors bring another witch to justice. This witch, like several others recently, pleads guilty and agrees to cooperate with authorities. This time the man in the pointed black hat is W. Samuel Patten, heretofore a little-known Republican lobbyist. What makes Patten interesting in the Russia story is that he has long had ties with Paul Manafort, the convicted felon.
Like Manafort, Patten worked secretly for a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party, backed by Vladimir Putin. In the process he earned a cool million dollars plus for his services. If the Russians killed a few thousand Ukrainians in attacks along their country’s border, Patten wasn’t bothered.
Hey, a million dollars plus!
Patten, left, heads to court with wife.
Patten also formed a company with Konstantin Kilimnik, a former Russian intelligence agent (naturally).
Kilimnik was indicted along with Manafort recently, in a separate federal investigation. Both are scheduled to stand trial starting September 24; but Kilimnik will decline to attend. He has fled to Russia.
Patten pled guilty to funneling a $50,000 donation from
foreign sources to the Trump Inaugural Committee, which is, for obvious
reasons, illegal. That crime may not seem like much to Trump’s base. Patten
copped to a single felony, while admitting to several more.
Is there anything else fishy, regarding the Trump Inaugural Committee? Vice chairmen of the Committee included, Elliott Broidy, a bigtime Republican financier, and Rick Gates (now a convicted felon). A year ago, the “Fake News Media” revealed that Broidy had agreed to a $1.6 million hush money payment to a Playboy Bunny who claims he impregnated her Bunny self. That Bunny went on to have an abortion (because, of course, Republicans want to overturn Roe v. Wade).
Who set up that lucrative deal? It was Michael Cohen,
Trump’s former personal lawyer (now a felon).
*
AT LEAST ONE REPUBLICAN, Michael London, a former member of the Trumbull, Connecticut Town Council announces he is quitting the party.
Why?
London is blunt. In an op-ed published by the Hartford Courant, London says his decision to quit the party and register as an unaffiliated voter was “something that I never thought I would do.”
I blame President Trump for
turning the Grand Old Party into a lame, extreme right-wing group of people
unwilling or unable to see the truth. But Trump is not alone in causing my
disillusionment.
I have had it with the state and
federal branches of the Republican Party that tolerated the president’s
behavior. None of our GOP candidates for governor denounced Trump. None of the
leaders of Connecticut’s GOP will speak out.
Trump, he added, with complete disgust, is “the worst
president our country has had — ever.”
BLOGGER’S NOTE (5/30/22): It would be comical,
were it not sad, but Elliott Broidy later gets indicted, convicted in a scheme
to funnel foreign money to Trump-affiliated groups, and then gets a last-minute
pardon, as Trump heads out the door.
Thomas Barrack, head of the Trump Inaugural
Committee is, as I type this note, under indictment for the same kind of
crimes.
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