New: Giuliani just confessed to the crime. He also revealed something bigger.

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/06/giuliani-just-confessed-crime-he-also-revealed-something-bigger/

By Greg Sargent - Opinion writer

Dec. 6, 2019 at 9:57 a.m. EST

Rudolph W. Giuliani just confessed to the crime in broad daylight — or, more precisely, in broad cyber-daylight. Yet he did so defiantly, with a middle finger unfurled in our faces, without the slightest concern that it would harm him or his “client,” as he describes President Trump.

How is this possible? Because of the power of disinformation, which has the capacity to convert the most flagrantly corrupt misconduct into virtue.

We don’t talk enough about how central disinformation is to the Ukraine scandal. The extortion of Ukraine was at bottom an effort to enlist a foreign power’s help in waging disinformation warfare in the 2020 election, to Trump’s benefit. Disinformation was central to the 2016 Russian attack on our political system, which Trump eagerly embraced. Now disinformation is being employed to escape accountability for all of it.

Two new developments attest to this point: a remarkable pair of revelatory tweets from Giuliani, and a tour de force of reporting in The Post, which reveals that Trump routinely communicated throughout the whole saga with Giuliani on unsecured devices, which may have been vulnerable to monitoring by Russia.

Giuliani’s tweets are revealing, and not in a good way
“The conversation about corruption in Ukraine was based on compelling evidence of criminal conduct by then VP Biden,” Giuliani tweeted, referring to Joe Biden, the intended target of “investigations” Trump and Giuliani pressured Ukraine to announce.

To empirically grounded observers, this will blow up a key Trump defense: that in conditioning official acts on getting Ukraine to announce the investigations he wanted, he was correctly concerned with cleaning up corruption there.

</snip>

[JoeOtterbein]

1. More from the article:

snip

All this meant Moscow could “exploit” this knowledge:

Insight into Giuliani’s discussions with Trump could enable Moscow to adapt or amplify its propaganda promoting the baseless claim that Ukraine, rather than Russia, hacked the Democratic National Committee in the 2016 U.S. election. That claim is now widely embraced by Trump’s Republican allies. Russia is already using its disinformation capabilities to target U.S. citizens, officials said, and could enlist its own operatives in Ukraine to feed false information to Giuliani.

In other words, Trump’s unsecured conversations left us further vulnerable to Russian disinformation.

snip

[Dennis Donovan]

3. Easily the most stunning and frightening component of the entire operation

...and nearly every fucking GOP member of Congress is either in on it or looking the other way.

[bluestarone]

4. THIS is our problem! The very ones that vote to remove tRUMP were

IN ON IT! We know how this is going to work out! LOOP HOLE in our constitution? Hope the SC judges see through this to save our country! Next step is tRUMPS taxes. That could be our savior. (just thinking out loud)

[KPN]

15. The SCOTUS doesn't have a role in impeachment other than the Chief Justice presiding over the

impeachment trial. No?

[bluestarone]

16. Well i feel tRUMPS TAXES will have a lot to do with this mess

Nothing to do with the senate impeachment, BUT they sure as hell do with the assholes taxes! THAT will be possibly the last nail in tRUMPS coffin!

[KPN]

17. Ah, gotcha. I saw he filed an "emergency application" with SCOTUS today to stay the appeals court

decision to affirm the ruling the tax documents must be released -- or something like that. "Emergency" -- WTF?

[bluestarone]

20. Yea! I'm actually happy they filed "emergency"

We need to find out where the SC is on this issue! In my mind i think tRUMP will resign BEFORE he releases them! Could be wrong here tho. LOL

[KPN]

31. Wouldn't that be sweet?!

[OneGrassRoot]

2. Also, Prof. Karlan...

raised a point I’ve felt from the start is significant in rebutting the bogus “we care about corruption in Ukraine” defense.

AN ACTUAL INVESTIGATION WAS IRRELEVANT (indeed probably unwanted). Trump merely wanted the ANNOUNCEMENT which would be enough to potentially influence our election process.

[tetedur]

5. What if Ukraine announced an investigation but didn't do one or

ultimately said there was nothing found in their investigation?

Trump world would say they were stopped/or paid off by the Democrats.

He indeed would have them in a box.

Trump has taken a massive dump on the 2020 election and all that is left to do is stir what he has made.

[OneGrassRoot]

8. Making facts irrelevant is very useful for him. n/t

[stillcool]

9. that's all he wanted...

get out their with lights, camera, action... and tell the world they were doing an investigation. Leave it to the Republicans to make hay out of it, any way they can. No proof needed, no facts involved.

[MartyTheGreek]

12. I think Trump had his own Dossier planned...

Just think, he could then call the real dossier fake then promote his version compatible with Putin's future plans for Ukraine I'm sure.
Trump could then put out a false narrative that Manafort was framed. This would justify a pardon, then absolve Putin then Trump would justify lifting the sanctions and bingo, Mission Accomplished Kompromat Alleviated! Now happy, happy, with visions of TT Moscow and the New Oligarchy Global World Order would be the new reality under Trumpism.

Remember the Yellow Cake letter? Republicans have a history of altering reality. I think Trump was going to create that alternate reality. That's where he came from! Reality TV. His peeps think WWF is real. Like someone wrote today, magat's have the Bamboozle Disease. They've been bamboozled and they can't snap out of it.

[wnylib]

18. Is he that clever? Or is someone else behind

this?

Trump might be capable of such strategizing. There is a difference between cleverness and intelligence. An intelligent person can be clever but a clever person is not necessarily intelligent.

But your description would require detailed planning. Trump is not much of a planner. He prefers to "wing it" based on gut feelings in the moment.

[MartyTheGreek]

21. Firing the Ambassador was planning, Comey, e.t.,al...

He learned reality TV from the best! Roger Ailes of FOX.

Trump's problem is he's a gambler. And, appears that he's about to lose his biggest bet yet!

[wnylib]

22. Short range planning, yes. Long range,

I don't think he has that kind of vision to see a comprehensive picture. So he knew he needed a dedicated and scrupulous ambassader out of the way to make room for unscrupulous people to do his bidding without interruption or complaint. So he used old, practiced methods of discrediting her and getting rid of her. No long range forsight needed for that, just his usual tactics.

[MartyTheGreek]

28. Trump has been working TT Moscow for over 30 years!

Trump plays dumb on the long game. He a con-artist, look over here not there. My taxes? Oh, now it's getting audited. I have no business or dealings... Meanwhile TT Moscow LOI signed Spring 2016.

He conned his way using the long game. He wore out government lawyers and banks using the long game. Don't bet against it.

[wnylib]

30. Agree that he does a good con and is a

skilled schemer. You may be right about playing the long game. My take on him has been that when he got bailed out financially, his rescuers took on his long range planning for him because they recognized his con skills as useful.

[dewsgirl]

6. I think Giuliani will take his sweet time coming back, he has

to be worried..that could be why he left.

[Initech]

7. When this whole administration finally goes down, they're taking a whole lot of people with them.

Couldn't happen to a nicer group of assholes!

[FiveGoodMen]

10. Would have thought that after Reagan, Bush, Dubya...

[Initech]

11. I really want to see Hannity go down with the ship.

Guiliani is steering the SS Trumptanic straight into the iceberg though!

[wnylib]

23. Hannity and Limbaugh will survive

unfortunately. The only way they will go down is if it can be proven that they committed some really bad crime. Just being associated with the Trump gang won't do it. In fact, if the Trump gang goes down, those guys will stay on the air telling people it was a Dem coup and stirring people up for the.next.round of RW politicians.

The hate-mongering radio hosts need to be targeted directly with investigations.

[Initech]

25. Or at the very least, advertising boycotts.

They proved very effective in making a serious dent in Ingraham and Limbaugh and was successful in taking down Glenn Beck. Maybe if we get enough on board, we can hit 'em where it really hurts!

[wnylib]

26. I sure hope so. I've been saying for years

that we need to do something about their disinformation campaigns. Either provide factual alternative programs or boycott them off the air.

When Glen Beck went down, he had already offended some people enough to motivate a boycott. Plus, Jon Stewart ridiculed him in skits a few times.

A boycott of Limbaugh would be difficult without something to motivate people. Colbert or Trevor Noah could do to him what Stewart did to Beck. Maybe Bill Maher.

[Initech]

27. Lewis Black totally eviscreated Glenn Beck back in the day.

We need a few rants like that in order to really make a few dents in their massive, smug egos.

[wnylib]

29. Yup. Maybe comedians are reluctant

to take on Limbaugh or Hannity because they have connections that could make the consequences ugly.

But some biting ridicule about people in general who spread disinformation and use convoluted "thinking" would help discredit the fools.

[duforsure]

13. He's really scared ...

I think he knows he will soon be indicted , and he'll be going to prison eventually. He'll flip on trump and others, just watch, he likes to talk a lot. He should also realized others might try to do something about his talking.

[ancianita]

14. Maybe we need to realize that that's the intent -- for RG, 45 to relay with Putin's strategists

there, and the 5th column tools here. While RG provides the "shocking" he said/wow news here.

It's my theory and opinion that two channels of activity are going on with Giuliani, Trump and Putin right now.

However the Russian communications flow through Giuliani to Trump and vice versa to Putin, Ukraine gambit, gives cover to this relay, under cover of a plausible documentary, -- you know, like the fake movie "Argo" -- and which will either later be shown in some Russian-style revisionist history to exonerate 45 and his 5th column, or will actually change history and be the documentary of that.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

24. there's a bug in our government

We have a corrupt President about to be impeached, and his corrupt party controls the Senate, while his corrupt AG rides herd on the DoJ. How do we deal with such corruption? What agency can investigate?