2/21/19: Yesterday the news exploded with interlocking developments, few of a promising nature for the president.
On Tuesday, Trump posted his most direct attack on the free press via Twitter, singling out The New York Times as “THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.”
Then the story broke that a white nationalist, Christopher Paul Hasson (a U.S. Coast Guard officer) had been arrested and charged with plotting murder on a mass scale. Since at least 2017, Hasson has been stockpiling arms and ammunition and compiling a list of targets. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made the list. So did news anchors at MSNBC and CNN, the very people Trump attacks constantly for spreading “Fake News.” Hasson had plans to poison thousands if he could manage, in hopes of sparking a race war, with a final muddled goal of creating a “white homeland.” (I think it’s safe to assume he was probably all in on the Great Wall of Trump.)
“Much
blood will have to be spilled to get whitey off the couch,” Hasson complained
in one email draft. Whites who wouldn’t join the fight would have to “die as
will the traitors who actively work toward our demise.”
Naturally, it turns out that the names on Hasson’s hit list match up almost perfectly with those the president constantly vilifies:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren: Trump has tweeted: “Goofy Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to as Pocahontas…a lowlife!”
Sen. Chuck Schumer: “Nancy Pelosi and her sidekick, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, want to protect illegal immigrants far more than the citizens of our country. The United States cannot stand for this.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal: “How does Da Nang Dick (Blumenthal) serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee when he defrauded the American people about his so called War Hero status in Vietnam…”
(Yes,
that was Trump complaining about somebody ducking service in Vietnam.)
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “The Democrat Agenda is a Socialist Nightmare.”
Beto O’Rourke: “He will never be allowed to turn Texas into Venezuela!”
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough: “Crazy Joe Scarborough.”
Rep.
Maxine Waters: “She has just called for harm to supporters, of
which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what
you wish for Max!”
Be careful, indeed. Where Waters had told supporters to make Trump supporters “uncomfortable” (a mistake, yes), Hasson had stockpiled 15 rifles, 1,000 rounds of ammo and assorted brands of poison.
When asked by reporters if he thought he needed to tone down
his rhetoric, Trump said he didn’t think there was a problem and Press
Secretary Pinocchio insisted that words of hate don’t matter.
*
Politically damaging, but not criminal conduct.
SPEAKING OF TRUMP LOYALISTS, there’s good news and bad for the president and his red, white, and blue fans. First the good: There are rumors that the Mueller probe is wrapping up its work. The Washington Post notes that only 12 of 17 prosecutors are still on the job. Several have contacted old bosses about future moves. Now, the bad: We don’t know what the final report will say but the Post explains, “An adviser to President Trump said there is palpable concern among the president’s inner circle that the report might contain information about Trump and his team that is politically damaging, but not criminal conduct.”
Unfortunately for Team Trump, we know that as lawyers leave the investigation, they may be assigned to prosecute cases against individuals who have been identified by the probe as having criminal liability. Two prosecutors who have left the Mueller office are pursuing the case against Roger Stone.
According to the Post,
Mueller has always viewed his job as that of an investigator not a prosecutor.
That means evidence he and his team gather may be handed to other federal
authorities for continuing action. Or, as Winston Churchill once said, “This is
not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning.”
We found out today that two more potential witnesses in the Russia/Trump saga, whether a story of felonious behavior or financial sleaze, have been identified (to the public). As CNN explains, Senate investigators have been seeking for months to question a Moscow-based American businessman whose ties to Trump go back to 1996. For some odd reason, that businessman, David Geovanis, is not anxious to return to the U.S.
The facts are straightforward, the bizarre possibilities many. Geovanis helped organize a 1996 trip to Moscow by Trump, when Trump was not yet tinted orange, but already dreamed of building a Trump Tower Moscow. Later Geovanis worked for the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. The oligarch’s ties to Trump’s 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort have riveted investigators.
What makes the story even more fun is that witnesses called to testify before the Senate Judicial Committee told CNN they were asked about a photograph from that period. In it, Geovanis is seen posing with three scantily clad women. “The portrait, once displayed in a Russian gallery under the title ‘The Capitalist,’ depicts the subjects in front of a picture of the former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. It’s not clear whether the portrait is a single photograph or a composite,” CNN notes.
A third witness “has alleged in written testimony, seen by
CNN, that Geovanis may be valuable in the mystery of whether Russia has
material on Trump that could be personally embarrassing to him.”
Geovanis was born in Brockton, Massachusetts. Like Trump he went to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He landed in Moscow and went to work for a Russian outfit called Brooke Group, which owned land earmarked for the site of a proposed Trump Tower. “When Trump came to town to promote the project, sources say, it was Geovanis’ job to show him around.”
You know, show him the World War II monuments, take him to the zoo – maybe line up some hookers?
A mysterious call that went to Howard Lorber.
That “hookers” part is just a liberal blogger’s joke. Still, it’s worth noting that the owners of Brooke Group were Bennett LeBow and Howard Lorber. Both were big donors to Trump’s 2016 campaign. Lorber became a person of interest in the investigation recently when it was revealed that a mysterious phone call had gone to his number. That call was one of three Don Jr. made before, during and after a secret meeting with Russians at Trump Tower in June 2016.
So, let’s just say: Wow!
Here’s the photo that Senate investigators wanted to know
about – and just for fun, I think you should imagine Donald J. Trump standing
there, himself, “The Capitalist” in every sense of the word.
Then imagine the sultry Russian women cavorting with a younger, less jowly version of our president under the sheets.
 |
Geovanis and the babe. |
BLOGGER’S NOTE (5/18/2022): Mr. Geovanis seems to have slipped from the news after this story broke. A U.S. Senate report released in August 2020, when Republicans controlled the investigating committees, did mention him. A couple of fresh tidbits of note: In 2007, Citizen Trump sent Vladimir Putin a love letter. “As you have probably heard, I am a big fan of yours,” Trump wrote, after Putin was chosen Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.”
He even underlined “big fan” in pen.
The Senate report also noted that Geovanis had said he believed Trump may have had a “brief romantic relationship” with a former Miss Russia, during his stay in Moscow; but this was never proven. The report goes on to say that Geovanis had known “ties to Kremlin-linked oligarchs” and contacts that are “associated with Russia’s intelligence and security services.” The Senate report adds, “Geovanis also has a reputation in Moscow for a pattern of conduct regarding women that could make him, and potentially those around him, vulnerable to kompromat operations.”
Not much else turns up when I do a quick internet search on Geovanis. Wikipedia says he became a Russian citizen in 2014. I don’t see any stories about him after the August 2020 report. We can report, however, that Mr. Geovanis never got within reach of Senate investigators. If he has ever traveled to this country again, it is unknown to us.
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