July 13, 2018: Indictment of Russian Hackers Shows Multiple Links to Trump 2016 Campaign

7/13/18: Having thoroughly trashed NATO, Trump has plunked down in Great Britain to see what kind of mess he can make. He has already insulted the mayor of London. Now he faces massive protests. Speaking at a press conference, with British Prime Minister Theresa May by his side, the president is forced to deny he has just blasted her in an interview the day before. 

____________________ 

“There’s two people I think Putin pays. Rohrabacher and Trump.” 

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy

____________________ 

 

Next, he takes questions from reporters about the Russian investigation, which gets on his nerves. 

“I think that we’re being hurt very badly by the – I would call it the witch hunt,” he tells the British press. He brings up the hearing the day before, involving F.B.I. agent Peter Strzok and all the body-language-interpreting GOP lawmakers. “I would call it the rigged witch hunt, after watching some of the little clips.… I think that really hurts our country, and it really hurts our relationship with Russia [emphasis added, unless otherwise noted].” 

Very sad. Hurting our relationship with Russia…

 

* 

“Senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.” 

ON THE OTHER SIDE of the Atlantic, the Department of Justice and the Mueller team fire three shots across the bow of the idiots who have been insisting the Russian investigation is a witch hunt. That would include: 

Donald J. Trump, Idiot-in-Chief;

Rep. Paul Gosar, Body Language Dentist; 

Rep. Louis Gohmert, Smirk Buster.

 

An even dozen Russian military officers are indicted for interfering in the 2016 election. It wasn’t some 400-lb. fat guy sitting on his bed doing the hacking, as Candidate Trump once hinted. It wasn’t China or some other country. It wasn’t chipmunks or squirrels chewing through computer wires. It was Russian military – which means they had to have the go-ahead from Putin himself. 

The White House responds to the new set of indictments by noting that no Americans were named. Apparently, the White House is hoping we won’t notice the fine print in the 29-page court filing. 

If you do read the indictment, and reach page 15, you notice something odd. The Russians clearly had suspicious contacts with multiple Americans during the 2016 campaign. In Paragraph 43 we learn that a candidate for Congress requested dirt on his opponent from Guccifer 2.0, a hacking site set up by the Russian military. The Russians “sent the candidate stolen documents.” 

Also, on page 16, we learn that 2.5 gigabytes of stolen information were sent to a “then state-registered lobbyist and online source of political news.” That same day the hackers sent information related to Black Lives Matter to a reporter, so the reporter could attack that group.

 

In Paragraph 44, investigators note that the Russians communicated with “U.S. persons about the release of stolen documents” including at least one American “in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.” 

In Paragraph 57, we learn that the hackers are accused of money-laundering in furtherance of their scheme. 

In Paragraph 69, on page 25, we learn that the Russians are charged with conspiracy, 

…to hack into the computers of U.S. persons and entities responsible for the administration of the 2016 U.S. elections, such as state boards of election, secretaries of state, and U.S. companies that supplied software and other technology related to the administration of U.S. elections.

 

Of course, if you had been listening to President Trump for more than a year and listened again when he spoke in Helsinki (see: 7/16/18), you would have thought none of this illicit activity had transpired.

 

* 

The liars back-pedal furiously. 

AT THIS POINT all good Americans might be wise to remember a May 2017 report from the Washington Post. 

In a leaked recording of a meeting of top Republican lawmakers, in June 2016, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy can be heard joking, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: [Rep. Dana] Rohrabacher and Trump.” 

The Post explained: 

Some of the lawmakers laughed at McCarthy’s comment. Then McCarthy quickly added: “Swear to God.”

 

“This is an off the record,” [Speaker Paul] Ryan said.

 

Some lawmakers laughed at that.

 

“No leaks, all right?” Ryan said, adding: “This is how we know we’re a real family here.”

 

“That’s how you know that we’re tight,” [Rep. Steve] Scalise said.

 

“What’s said in the family stays in the family,” Ryan added.

 

The remarks remained secret for nearly a year….

 

Evan McMullin, who in his role as policy director to the House Republican Conference participated in the June 15 conversation, said: “It’s true that Majority Leader McCarthy said that he thought candidate Trump was on the Kremlin’s payroll. Speaker Ryan was concerned about that leaking.”

 

McMullin ran for president last year as an independent and has been a vocal critic of Trump.

 

When initially asked to comment on the exchange, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Ryan, said: “That never happened,” and Matt Sparks, a spokesman for McCarthy, said: “The idea that McCarthy would assert this is absurd and false.”

 

After being told that The Post would cite a recording of the exchange, Buck, speaking for the GOP House leadership, said: “This entire year-old exchange was clearly an attempt at humor. No one believed the majority leader was seriously asserting that Donald Trump or any of our members were being paid by the Russians. What’s more, the speaker and leadership team have repeatedly spoken out against Russia’s interference in our election, and the House continues to investigate that activity.”

 

“This was a failed attempt at humor,” Sparks said.

 

And there you have it. As has so often been true where Russians and investigations are concerned, first you get lies from Republicans. Then the free press confronts the liars with evidence. 

Then the liars back-pedal furiously. 

Rep. McCarthy trying to remember which lie he just told.

 

POSTSCRIPT: We now know that Rep. Rohrabacher traveled to Moscow during the 2016 campaign. We know he received documents from Yuri Y. Chaika, Russia’s prosecutor general, a post equivalent to the U.S. Attorney General.  

Rohrabacher denies using anything he received from Chaika to damage Hillary or the Democrats. (See: 7/18/18.)

July 18, 2018: Russians to the Right, Russians to the Left, Russians Dead Ahead, Sh*tloads of Russians!

 

7/18/18: Who’s sweating profusely today when it comes to the Russia investigation? If you’ve been busy shampooing the dog, several shoes dropped this week. On Friday Special Counsel Robert Mueller dropped combat boots on a dozen Russian military officers charged with influencing the election in 2016. 

____________________ 

“I don’t think you’d need the sanctions.” 

Candidate Trump

____________________ 

 

The White House immediately released a statement saying: Hey, no Americans were indicted for collusion with said Russians! But the White House knew plenty and Trump and his team were praying that Americans heading for the beach or the pool would be too busy slathering on sunscreen to take note. According to the indictment at least one unnamed Trump associate had a series of contacts with Guccifer 2.0, now conclusively shown to be a Russian front. Roger Stone has admitted that unnamed Trump associate is “probably” him. (See: 6/17/18.) 

Ms. Butina.

What other shoes dropped? On Sunday, the F.B.I. arrested Maria Butina, a young Russian. She was charged with working as an unregistered foreign agent, one step removed from an espionage charge. For at least three years Butina is alleged to have acted on U.S. soil in the interests of the Russian Federation. Purportedly a gun-rights activist back home, she wormed her way into the graces of the N.R.A. It may have helped that according to court records she was willing to trade sex in return for access. We know the N.R.A. paid her way to this country more than once so she could speak on gun rights. Her public stance was in favor of private ownership of guns by Russian citizens. 

Butina also went to the trouble to speak on at least one American campus and called Putin “a dictator and a tyrant.” 

That at least was true.

 

Strangely enough, her criticism never led to arrest whenever she returned home. We now know that she rubbed shoulders with a variety of top Republican movers and shakers. She also rubbed other body parts. In one photo, the attractive redhead from Siberia stands smiling next to Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin. In another, she looks fetching in pearls, with N.R.A. president Wayne LaPierre gaping by her side. 

In July 2015 she was in the audience at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas. By chance or design she was called on to ask then-candidate-Trump a question. What would his position toward Russia be, she asked, if he were elected? 

Would the sanctions be lifted? 

“I know Putin, and I’ll tell you what, we get along with Putin…I believe I would get along very nicely with Putin, OK?” Trump told her. “And I mean, where we have the strength. I don’t think you’d need the sanctions. I think we would get along very, very well.” 

In August she was back home when Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, was visiting. The congressman says he can’t remember much about the young lady. Yes, Butina did arrange a breakfast with Alexander Torshin, but all he, your good old congressman, had was tea and toast. 

Because…you know…the waistline. 

No, seriously, Rohrabacher said the breakfast was of “no consequence,” which is probably a good way to cover your ass, if you broke bread with a Russian spy and her Russian spy master.

 

If you do a little digging, you understand why Rohrabacher might be feeling the heat. He is said to have met in early 2016 with Natalia Veselnitskaya. She’s the Russian lawyer who took part in the Trump Tower meeting that June, a meeting which is of key interest to Mueller’s team. (See: 7/13/18.) 

Well, now, what did Rep. Rohrabacher think about the indictment of Maria, this poor little girl! “It’s ridiculous. It’s stupid,” he fumed. “She’s the assistant of some guy who is the head of the bank and is a member of their Parliament. That’s what we call a spy? That shows you how bogus this whole thing [the Mueller investigation] is.” 

Actually, that “some guy who is the head of the bank” is a seriously shady character. Torshin is one of 24 individuals and 14 Russian companies sanctioned by the Treasury Department in May. 

They ended up on that list because they were individuals and entities that had benefitted “from [ties with] the Putin regime and play a key role in advancing Russia’s malign activities.” 

So, yes, Mr. Rohrabacher – we’re talking malign Russian activities. And you’re just slinging the bull.

 

Who exactly will be squashed by all the falling shoes we cannot yet know. Several Americans would be wise to scurry for cover. We know Torshin is an ally of Putin. This latest indictment (not directly tied to the Mueller investigation, but of obvious interest) makes clear that Torshin was giving Butina orders. Both became life members of the N.R.A., which even the head of the N.R.A. would admit is not a great look. 

Rohrabacher may be in trouble. Some say he’s the congressman in Paragraph 43 of the latest Mueller indictment. (See: 7/13/18.) 

Longtime Republican fixer, Paul Erickson, is likely to get whacked with a size-22 shoe. For some reason he formed a company with Butina in South Dakota in 2016. That company is the subject of a fraud investigation. Erickson is not named in the indictment but is thought to be the unnamed political operative with whom she was said to be coordinating activities. Erickson, almost twice her age, and Butina were shacking up and Erickson had been helping her do homework while she studied (under a student visa gained by lying on her application) at American University. 

 

“Everything has to be quiet and careful.” 

From the official indictment, we know Torshin was telling Butina to play the long game during the 2016 campaign. He advised her “not [to] burn out prematurely.” She admitted she was tired of living with Erickson. (She was also tired of offering to have sex with other men high up in conservative ranks in order to gain political access.) She responded via Twitter: “Only incognito!” That is, she was operating in secret. “Right now everything has to be quiet and careful.” 

“In the F.B.I. affidavit,” The New York Times reports, Ms. Butina assured some unnamed person, likely Erickson, “that the Kremlin had approved her efforts [emphasis added] to connect members of the Trump team with allies or associates of Vladimir Putin. ‘All that we needed was “yes” from Putin’s side.’” 

Later she wrote again to her American contact, “My dearest president [Putin, not Trump] has received ‘the message’ about your group initiatives.”

 

That exchange came in March 2016. So, you can understand why the F.B.I. might have been suspicious. We now know Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos met with what he thought were Russian agents offering dirt on Hillary Clinton that same month. Later he lied about it. 

Stone met his Russian in May. Eventually, he denied meeting with any Russians in testimony before Congress. 

Torshin tried to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin that month. 

In June 2016, Paul Manafort, Don Jr. and Jared Kushner took a secret meeting with individuals they knew were Russian agents. 

We know Torshin scored a short meeting with Don Jr. at an N.R.A. convention in May 2016. We know Butina and Torshin attended President Trump’s inauguration. In February 2017, she and Torshin organized a delegation of a dozen Russians to attend the National Prayer Breakfast and hear the Putin Pal President speak. Torshin scored a meeting at the White House later that year. At the last minute, his meeting with Trump was canceled when a White House security aide noticed that Torshin was under investigation for money laundering in Spain.

 

* 

ON MONDAY, Mueller’s team swatted a big cockroach with a wingtip. Mueller asked a judge for immunity for up to five witnesses to testify in the coming trial of former Trump campaign manager Manafort. That means there are five people who may be compelled to give testimony as witnesses. They are to be granted “use immunity,” which means nothing they say can be used against them. 

They will not be able to plead the Fifth. 

Is it still possible that President Trump will be absolved of all crimes during his campaign? I taught history for decades. I go only with facts I think are proven. He could be innocent. He could be nothing more than a poor dupe. I can’t deny, however, that I think a Nike Mag 2016 basketball shoe (cost: $26,000) may be hovering over his orange, hair-spray-helmeted head.

 

*

____________________ 

“I do not believe special counsel Mueller is on a witch hunt. I think it’s a professional investigation conducted by a man that I’ve known to be a straight shooter.” 

F.B.I. Director Wray

____________________ 

 

F.B.I. DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER WRAY sits down in front of an audience at the Aspen Security Conference in Colorado. He’ll be taking questions from moderator Lester Holt of NBC. For the third time, over the course of more than a year, including this past May and in June 2017, Wray makes it clear he does not believe the Russia investigation is a witch hunt. 

In the wake of the president’s recent statements in Helsinki, that he believes Putin, then he doesn’t, then he kind of does, you sense exasperation and a real hint of doubt about the innocence of the president in Director Wray’s response. “I do not believe special counsel Mueller is on a witch hunt. I think it’s a professional investigation conducted by a man that I’ve known to be a straight shooter.” 

Remember now. Wray was Trump’s pick to head the F.B.I. He just backed up Mueller 100 percent. 

Holt wonders: “There have also been stories that you threatened to resign. Have you ever hit a point on that issue of sources and methods or anything else when you said, this is a line?” 

Wray replies, “I’m a low-key, understated guy, but that should not be mistaken for what my spine is made out of. I’ll just leave it at that.” 

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE (8/22/19): Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com, resigns from the company and admits having an on-and-off sexual relationship with Ms. Butina for three years. This was at the same time Ms. Butina was living with longtime Republican fixer Paul Erickson. 

Byrne says he only did it for the sake of the country. That was the only reason he had sex with the young redhead. He sacrificed patriotic semen for us all. 

Byrne told an interviewer on Fox Business News, where no story is too stupid to fly, that the F.B.I. encouraged him to boink the babe. 

It was part of a “soft coup” (no pun intended) to undermine Donald J. Trump! “There is a Deep State, like a submarine, lurking just beneath the waves at periscope depth, watching our shipping lanes,” he claimed. “And a nuclear icebreaker named the USS Bill Barr has snuck up on them and is about to ram them at midship.”

December 11, 2018: The President Says He Is Proud to Shut Down the Government.

 

12/11/18: God damn those Mexicans! I was sure they were going to pay for the Great Wall of Trump! 

____________________ 

“I am proud to shut down the government.” 

President Trump

____________________ 

 

Now, Trump is mad because Democrats won’t give him $5 billion to build his pet project and he’s too lame-assed to work out a compromise. 

He’ll just pout. 

In a televised confrontation with Democratic leaders, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer, Trump grumbles, “If we don’t get what we want one way or the other...I will shut down the government. I am proud to shut down the government for border security... I will take the mantle of shutting it down.” 

Considering who’s in charge of the federal government, it might not be a bad idea to close shop for a year. 

(You can watch the tape of the meeting between President Trump and Democratic leaders in the U.S. House and Senate, below. I think Nancy Pelosi mentions Article I around the four-minute mark - because she realizes the president has never read and never will read the U.S. Constitution. As for Vice President Pence, who sits at Trump’s left, he might as well be a dummy. He does not speak a syllable in over ten minutes, but practices looking concerned and serious.)

 

* 

IN RUSSIAN-INVESTIGATION NEWS, Maria Butina, the hot young Russian redhead who infiltrated the N.R.A. and spent the 2016 campaign hanging with leading conservatives, has agreed to a plea deal and will cooperate with prosecutors. That includes testifying in front of a grand jury. 

Her crime: conspiring to act as a Russian agent without registering with the Justice Department. That’s a felony. 

Now we may find out how it happened she was called on during a campaign rally in 2015 to ask Trump what he thought about sanctions on Russia. He said he didn’t think we needed them, which would have been sweet Tchaikovsky music to Putin’s ears. 

Ms. Butina, looking fetching.

 

Butina may spill a whole new can of beans. 

We might learn a great deal. We might learn what Paul Erickson, a much older conservative leader who had spoken publicly in favor of warmer relations with Russia (and with whom Butina was sleeping), was up to behind the scenes, when not fostering warmer relations with Butina between the sheets. We might learn whether or not the N.R.A. accepted Russian money and funneled it to the Trump campaign, as at least one U.S. senator suspects. We might get to the bottom of odd connections between the N.R.A., Alexander Torshin, a Russian placed under sanctions earlier this year, and Ms. Butina, his protégé. We might learn how the hot redhead maneuvered in close for a picture with Don Jr. (and pictures with assorted lecherous old Republicans). We might also learn why an N.R.A. delegation traveled to Russia in 2015, and why Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), the leading suck-up to Russia in Congress, spent four hours chatting with Torshin and Butina at a prayer breakfast in Washington D.C. in 2017. 

This Russian investigation – actually, several investigations now – isn’t going to end anytime soon.

April 23, 2022: The First Time Kevin McCarthy Was Caught on Tape Telling the Truth

With Kevin McCarthy caught on tape telling the truth again, 

this is what I wrote on July 13, 2018:

 

AT THIS POINT all good Americans might be wise to remember a May 2017 report from the Washington Post.

 

____________________ 

“There’s two people I think Putin pays. Rohrabacher and Trump.” 

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy

____________________

 

 

In a leaked recording of a meeting of top Republican lawmakers, in June 2016, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy can be heard joking, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: [Rep. Dana] Rohrabacher and Trump.” 

The Post explained: 

Some of the lawmakers laughed at McCarthy’s comment. Then McCarthy quickly added: “Swear to God.”

 

“This is an off the record,” [Speaker Paul] Ryan said.

 

Some lawmakers laughed at that.

 

“No leaks, all right?” Ryan said, adding: “This is how we know we’re a real family here.”

 

“That’s how you know that we’re tight,” [Rep. Steve] Scalise said.

 

“What’s said in the family stays in the family,” Ryan added.

 

The remarks remained secret for nearly a year….

 

Evan McMullin, who in his role as policy director to the House Republican Conference participated in the June 15 conversation, said: “It’s true that Majority Leader McCarthy said that he thought candidate Trump was on the Kremlin’s payroll. Speaker Ryan was concerned about that leaking.”

 

McMullin ran for president last year as an independent and has been a vocal critic of Trump.

 

When initially asked to comment on the exchange, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Ryan, said: “That never happened,” and Matt Sparks, a spokesman for McCarthy, said: “The idea that McCarthy would assert this is absurd and false.”

 

After being told that The Post would cite a recording of the exchange, Buck, speaking for the GOP House leadership, said: “This entire year-old exchange was clearly an attempt at humor. No one believed the majority leader was seriously asserting that Donald Trump or any of our members were being paid by the Russians. What’s more, the speaker and leadership team have repeatedly spoken out against Russia’s interference in our election, and the House continues to investigate that activity.”

 

“This was a failed attempt at humor,” Sparks said.

 

And there you have it. As has so often been true where Russians and investigations are concerned, first you get lies from Republicans. Then the free press confronts the liars with evidence. 

Then the liars back-pedal furiously. 

Rep. Rohrabacher.

Once dubbed, "Russia's favorite congressman."

 

POSTSCRIPT: We now know that Rep. Rohrabacher traveled to Moscow during the 2016 campaign. We know he received documents from Yuri Y. Chaika, Russia’s prosecutor general, a post equivalent to the U.S. Attorney General.  

Rohrabacher denies using anything he received from Chaika to damage Hillary or the Democrats. (See: 7/18/18.)

Kevin McCarthy Caught on Tape Telling the Truth Again

 

4/23/22: If you missed it, the free press, doing what the free press does best, kicked over a D.C. stone this week. All the little creatures scurried out, heading in various directions, seeking new dark places to hide.

 

 

____________________

 

Kevin McCarthy Caught on Tape Telling the Truth Again.

____________________

 

 

Thursday, The New York Times reported that in the wake of the January 6, 2021, attack on Capitol Hill, Rep. Kevin McCarthy told top Republican leaders, including Rep. Liz Cheney, that he was going to call then-President Trump and tell him he should resign. McCarthy, Cheney, and others, spoke by phone on January 10.

 

The ink had hardly dried on the printed page before McCarthy was out with a claim that the Times story was “totally false and wrong.” His spokesman chipped in with a bonus Ninth Commandment-breaker, insisting, “McCarthy never said he’d call Trump to say he should resign.” 

 

*

 

The “Fake News” people happened to have tape.

 

The problem for McCarthy – but not the problem for anyone who values truth – was that the “Fake News” people had tape. The New York Times countered McCarthy’s lie by making the tape available.

 

You don’t have to be a flaming liberal, as is this blogger, to quickly conclude that McCarthy was fabricating furiously (and as we shall see, this was not the first time he was caught telling the truth on tape). If you have eardrums that function, and a mind not clamped shut like a bear trap that missed catching facts, I urge you to listen to the tape. If you love this country, for God’s sake, listen.

 

Rachel Maddow was kind enough to play the tape on her Thursday night MSNBC show, providing graphics so viewers could read along.

 

At one point, Rep. Cheney (who doesn’t lie – and has therefore been drummed out of the Trumplican Party) asks if McCarthy thinks Trump might resign.

 

He responds:

"I've had a few discussions. My gut tells me no. I'm seriously
thinking of having that conversation with him tonight.
I haven't talked to him in a couple of days."

  

He continues:

 

"Um, from what I know of him, I mean you guys all know him too, do
you think he'd ever back away? But what I think I'm going to do, is I'm
going to call him."

 

 

McCarthy had already told his listeners that an impeachment resolution was coming – and might in fact be leveled against Trump, even after his time in office came to an end on January 20.

 

He explained:

"This, this is what I think, we know it'll pass the House. I think there's a 
chance it'll pass the Senate, even when he's gone. Um, and I think there's
a lot of different ramifications for that."

 

 

He assured everyone on the line that he hadn’t discussed the matter with the “Dem’s,” then added,

 

"Now, this is one personal fear I have. I do not want to get into any
conversation about Pence pardoning."

 

 

*

 

On that fateful day, it sounded like the nation might have hope.

 

Let me beg you, if you are a good American, if you truly care about free and fair elections: Listen closely to the tape. Play it again and again if you fail to catch the significance the first time. Four days after the riot on Capitol Hill, the Republican House Minority Leader wasn’t trying to blame some mysterious “Antifa” crew for the chaos. He wasn’t fuming about a stolen election. He was hoping that the man who fanned the flames of insurrection would resign. And he didn’t want to have to talk with Trump about getting a pardon from Vice President Mike Pence, if Mr. Pence were suddenly thrust into the presidential role.

 

Put yourself in McCarthy’s place – I mean before he starts lying. He believes the leader of his party, and the President of the United States, should resign. And he knows Trump may need a pardon.

 

When President Richard M. Nixon resigned in disgrace on August 8, 1974, he knew he had lost the support of his own party members in Congress, not just Democrats who had worked hard to uncover the truth. He knew he was going to be impeached – and removed from office. So he quit. One month later, he was pardoned by newly-installed President Gerald Ford, putting a merciful end to a black chapter in U.S. history, and ending Nixon’s career once and for all.

 

In the Watergate era, when confronted with overwhelming evidence, Republicans of good conscience faced up to a bitter truth. Their champion had repeatedly broken the law, and Nixon had to go.

 

On January 10, 2021, McCarthy faced a similar situation. He knew Trump had no business holding high office. He knew he should go. Only this was not the Watergate Era. Nor was this the Grand Old Party of the past, a party that stood proudly for conservative principles and values.

 

The Trumplicans are a party of cowards – McCarthy – McConnell – Rep. Jim Jordan, Senator Lindsey Graham, and so many others. For a brief moment, that day, McCarthy felt the tug of conscience and honor. A light of truth flickered in his mind – but in days ahead he snuffed it out.

 

On tape, on that fateful day, it sounded like the nation might have hope. McCarthy continued:

 

"Again, the only discussion I would have with him is that I think this will pass,
and it would be my recommendation you should resign. Um, I mean
that would be my take, but I don't think he would take it. But I don't know."

 

 

That’s what he said, speaking the truth, four days after the riot. The Times says they have more tape. “What he did is unacceptable,” McCarthy added, but not on this tape, referring to the president who had stoked the fire.

 

“Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it.”

 

Sen. McConnell’s cowardice is equally glaring. Reporters quote him, shortly after the attack, telling Republican allies, with a hint of relief, that, “The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us.” He told supporters that he expected members of the party to help pass articles of impeachment, noting, “If this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is.”

 

Unfortunately, the GOP failed in the end. Mitch and most Republican senators lost their nerve. McCarthy went to Mar-a-Lago to grovel and grin. In February 2021, with many police officers battered by the mob still hospitalized, McConnell was asked in a Fox News interview if, should Trump run again in 2024, he would support him.

 

“Absolutely,” the coward said.

 

*

 

“I think there’s two people Putin pays.”

 

NOR SHOULD WE FORGET, this was not the first time Rep. McCarthy was caught on tape, speaking a critical truth.

 

In June 2016, when it looked unlikely that Trump would win the presidency, McCarthy offered the kind of honest assessment this liberal blogger might have made. “I think there’s two people Putin pays,” McCarthy told a gathering of fellow Republican lawmakers, “Rohrabacher and Trump.”

 

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher was sometimes mocked in the press with the identifier, (R-Moscow), and labeled “Russia’s favorite congressman.”

 

In any case, the Washington Post soon had the story and printed it. McCarthy was just as quick six years ago to deny the truth.

 

But the free press – doing its job, which is to hold the powerful to account – said, we’ve got tapes.

 

McCarthy replied, in essence: “Okay, I said it. But I was joking.”

 

It was a joke – and the joke was on all of us, and on this great nation, and some of us, more ill-informed, elected Donald J. Trump.

 

The problem was that on tape, McCarthy was telling the truth. Democracy is not likely to survive if he becomes Speaker of the House in 2022, if McConnell is returned to Senate Majority Leader, and Trump wins a second term in 2024. McCarthy believed Trump was in Putin’s pocket in 2016. He and McConnell knew the election wasn’t stolen, and the attack on Capitol Hill was fomented by the president. They knew Trump deserved to be ousted from office. What they lacked  was the courage to put their careers at risk to protect fari elections, the rule of law, and the U.S. Constitution.

 

It’s right there on tape.

 

You just have to listen.

BLOGGER’S NOTE: For a slightly more detailed description of what happened, see my original post on McCarthy’s comments about who Putin paid, and scroll down till you find the entry for 7/13/18, or click the link where I separated it out just for today.