David Corn: We Found the Corruption: Giuliani Pals Making Shady Donations to Pro-Trump GOPers...

[babylonsister]

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/10/we-found-the-corruption-giuliani-pals-making-illegal-donations-to-pro-trump-gopers-for-ukrainians/


We Found the Corruption: Giuliani Pals Making Shady Donations to Pro-Trump GOPers for Ukrainians
That’s the allegation in a new federal indictment.
David Corn


As Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump squawk that the president’s quid-pro-quo-ish call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was only prompted by Trump’s heartfelt desire to address “corruption” in that former Soviet bloc nation, a new scandal has emerged in the United States that illustrates how corruption works here. This caper has implicated associates of Giuliani, a former Republican member of Congress, and a pro-Trump political action committee run by Linda McMahon, the World Wrestling Entertainment honcho who was Trump’s first head of the Small Business Administration, and advised by Sean Spicer, the prevaricating Trump press secretary who now sweats it out on Dancing with the Stars. And it’s all about campaign contributions and foreign influence—and the ability of players to hide shady or illegal action.

On Thursday morning, four American citizens were indicted by the feds. The group included Lev Parnas, who was born in Ukraine, and Igor Fruman, who was born in Belarus. Parnas and Fruman have been the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of the Trump-Ukraine scandal. While pursuing a big energy deal in Ukraine, the pair worked with Giuliani, who has said he was their lawyer, to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden. Parnas and Fruman set up meetings for Giuliani with Ukrainian officials, and they pressed Ukrainian officials to launch investigations that could yield derogatory information on Biden and that could unearth proof that in 2016 the Ukrainian government colluded with the Hillary Clinton campaign by leaking information on Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who had been a consultant to the brazenly corrupt Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. This is the sort of dirt that Trump asked Zelensky for in the now-infamous, do-me-a-favor July 25 phone call.

And, oh yeah, Parnas and Fruman were big GOP donors. They were trying to buy influence within Republican circles to advance their political agenda in Ukraine and their own business interests in the United States and abroad. And their effort seemed to have partially paid off—at least until it led to their arrests. Another endeavor—allegedly using money from a Russian national to make illegal donations to GOP candidates in Nevada in order to get a foothold in the legal marijuana business in that state—did not come to fruition, according to the indictment.

The indictment filed by the US attorney in the Southern District of New York charges the pair—and two other men named David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin—with violating campaign finance law by hiding the source of contributions that Parnas and Fruman made to Republican campaigns. But the indictment also tells the story of what appears to be awfully damn close to outright political bribery.

snip//

So if you want to talk about corruption, here’s a great case: secret donations to Republicans made to advance the interest of a Ukrainian official by sketchy businessmen linked to an overseas dirt-gathering operation. And it sure seemed to work. Campaign cash was delivered; a letter was written. Rather than fretting about corruption in Kiev, Giuliani and Trump ought to focus on what goes on within their very own swamp.

[MontanaMama]

1. Can't wait to see who else got $.

Lindsey?

[dem4decades]

3. Can't wait to see who's money it was.

[MontanaMama]

5. I sure hope we find out.

The corruption is strong with this crowd and I worry the FBI is half dirty too.

[dem4decades]

4. And who was orchestrating it's delivery.

[bdamomma]

7. Lindsey

and McConnell perhaps, tRump is so desperate he calls McConnell 3 times a day, panic much don the con.

[Ahpook]

10. I'd be willing to bet there are

quite a few that want to join the program as well. It seems to be easy, and shortsighted to suck up to these criminals.

They are slitting their own throats!

[SilasSouleII]

12. Kevin McCarthy

27K CNN reporting.

[NightWatcher]

2. DeSantis in Fl got at least 50k (that's what they found today)

[volstork]

6. You can bet "my" crooked senator

ms. marsha blackburn got a healthy dose.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. Of course Republicons were not concerned where the huge amounts of money was really coming from. .nt

[B Stieg]

9. Follow the Money Redux!

Doesn't this idiot realize what happened to Nixon?
And tRump's worse!

[mgardener]

11. The Congressman

Was Pete Sessions. He did not win his race. But he has moved and is thought to be running again in Texas in 2020.
His dad was William Sessions. FBI director that was fired by Bill Clinton for some corruption.
For his money, Sessions wrote a letter question the Ukraine Ambassador loyalty to Trump.
A 3 million dollar question about loyalty.


The corruption and rot runs deep in the Republican party.

[58Sunliner]

13. Linda McMahon-that nasty is back on the radar.

Please tell me she is going to get an indictment.