Oh, Now That Makes Sense......
Funny how things start to come into clarity over time. There's just so much of a whirlwind of....stuff. Too much information. Too many facts out there that make it difficult to keep up with what's going on. It's interesting when something happens that brings some focus to the big picture. Take yesterday's guilty plea and cooperation agreement with Alex Van Der Zwaan (which you can read for yourself here ), a lawyer with white shoe law firm Skadden Arps, who's new slogan appears to be "Scumbags Serving Scumbags, since 1948".
Back in September, there was a little item in the news relating to when the firm was hired (apparently at Paul Manafort's behest) to whitewash the dirty prosecution of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko:
Five years ago, Paul Manafort arranged for a prominent New York-based law firm to draft a report that was used by allies of his client, Viktor Yanukovych, the Russia-aligned president of Ukraine, to justify the jailing of a political rival. And now the report is coming back to haunt it.
The Justice Department, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation, recently asked the firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, for information and documents related to its work on behalf of Mr. Yanukovych’s government, which crumbled after he fled to Russia under pressure.
The request comes at a time when Mr. Manafort, his work for Mr. Yanukovych’s party and for Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs as well as the handling of payments for that work have become focal points in the investigation of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, and connections between Russia, Mr. Trump and his associates.
It’s unclear if the Justice Department’s request to Skadden, as the firm is known, is part of Mr. Mueller’s inquiry. But the interest from prosecutors in what Skadden did for the Ukrainian government is one indication of the wide-ranging nature of the inquiries related to Mr. Manafort. It also highlights the risks associated with advising authoritarian governments overseas, a lucrative sideline among Washington lawyers, lobbyists and public relations consultants.
Mr. Manafort played a central role in the effort to shield Mr. Yanukovych from international condemnation, according to consultants involved in the effort. He devised the strategy and recruited lobbyists, lawyers and public relations consultants from across the political spectrum, but left the day-to-day implementation of the campaign to others. Skadden’s report was one element of that strategy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/us/politics/law-firm-faces-questions-for-ukraine-work-with-manafort.html
This all didn't just pop on the scene yesterday. It's been brewing for some time. What threads is Mueller pulling right now? The factual basis for Van der Zwaan's plea would also support charges of obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence and maybe even being part of a larger conspiracy-with the email deletions and lying being the necessary overt acts to include him. He's going to be giving something big up. As tight a ship as Mueller runs, the rats are sensing impending doom. (They have instincts like that, you know). They keep getting more and more buggy by the day. What other clues are already out in the public domain like this Skadden Arps story?
This is where the press should be looking. Instead Russian bots feed to gullible masses in our country intellectual junk food-which they happily gobble up and share with their friends.
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I am wondering if there are charges that can come from AG Eric Schneiderman against this law firm and Mr. Van Der Zwaan....and other co-conspirators like Mr. Manafort?
The kind that can't be pardoned....
