G.O.P. Collusion with Trump Continues Despite the Mueller Revelations

[HAB911]

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, if you believe him, is not all that bestirred by the indictment of Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman. “I really don’t have anything to add, other than nothing is going to derail what we’re working on in Congress, because we’re working on solving people’s problems,” he told a Wisconsin radio host. What Ryan really wanted to talk about, he said, was tax reform. That suggests that Ryan doesn’t put possible foreign intervention in the election, or influence peddling, stealth lobbying, tax fraud, and money laundering—which are strands in the indictments of Manafort and his associate, Rick Gates, who both pleaded not guilty—in the category of “people’s problems.” News of the indictment was accompanied by the unsealing of a related plea deal that Robert Mueller, the special counsel, reached with George Papadopoulos, a former campaign adviser. These are questions that go to the heart of the integrity of our electoral and legislative systems. (Indeed, the Manafort indictment, because it concerned lobbying Congress on behalf of Ukraine, was in some ways as much in Ryan’s realm as in Trump’s.) Whose problem, one might ask, does Ryan think they are?

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/gop-collusion-with-trump-continues-despite-the-mueller-revelations/amp

[HAB911]

1. The cowardice of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell

Earlier this month, Speaker Paul Ryan told what was, in theory, a joke. "Every morning I wake up in my office and I scroll through Twitter to see which tweets I will have to pretend I didn't see later on,” he said at the Al Smith Charity Dinner, to appreciative chuckles.

Monday, however, was a reminder that Ryan wasn’t kidding. Appearing on WTAQ, a Wisconsin radio station, he was asked what he thought of the indictments Robert Mueller had issued. "I really don’t have anything to add other than nothing is going to derail what we’re doing in Congress,” he said, and he really didn’t. Come Monday night, there was nothing on Ryan’s web site addressing Mueller’s indictments. There was, however, a post summing up his busy month, which was cheekily titled “Not Another Tax Reform Post” and included photographs of Ryan signing bills, handing out medals, and meeting interns.


https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/31/16579016/paul-ryan-mitch-mcconnell-cowardice-trump

[Gothmog]

2. The GOP is relying on Russia to steal the 2018 election

[uponit7771]

3. Yep, at some point a good number of them are openly obstructing the Mueller investigation.