(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Russia Hoax Hoax [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-05-22 Eventually, Barr had to acknowledge Trump's malign character and behavior In 2019, Attorney General William Barr rejected a key conclusion of an investigation by his own agency’s Inspector General that the probe into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign was justified. Barr called the FBI’s investigation “intrusive” and said it was launched on the “thinnest of suspicions” that “were insufficient to justify the steps taken”. So, despite the conclusions by his Inspector General (and the bi-partisan Republican led Senate Intelligence report which came to the same conclusions), Barr tabbed John Durham to launch a hunt to find witches. The thinnest of suspicions? So, all the FBI had was a conversation between George Papadopoulos and an Australian diplomat -- and the without a doubt, completely made up Steele dossier, right? Were those the only reasons why anyone could possibly suspect collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia? Well, let’s look at the following facts. Both Trump and Putin had very powerful motivations to collude. On the one hand we have Putin, a murderous criminal, corrupt kleptocrat and de facto dictator who, ever since he came to power in 2000, has made it his mission to weaken, undermine and harm the United States. One of his favorite ways to do this has been to “cultivate assets” in the US. This means identifying susceptible individuals then seducing them into doing his bidding. The seduction included dangling money, business opportunities, women and/or using kompromat (blackmail). On the other hand we have Trump, a notoriously unscrupulous person — in his business life, his personal life and his political life. Susceptible to money (he needed loans). Susceptible to business opportunities (he wanted to build a Trump Tower in Moscow). Susceptible to women (he loved grabbing pussies). As well as associating with American mobsters for many years, he palled around for decades with shady Russian businessmen with ties to the Kremlin, made business deals with them and borrowed money from them when banks would no longer lend to him because of his bankruptcies and bad business habits. He was the perfect target for Putin. Journalist Craig Unger wrote a book titled “American Kompromat”. In it he describes how Trump first appeared on Moscow’s radar in 1977 when he married Ivana and her country’s communist intelligence service began spying on him in cooperation with the KGB. They spied on him!!! This book is filled with details chronicling the decade by decade seduction and manipulation of the former Reprobate-in-Chief. In 1987 he visited Moscow for the first time. The KGB had been collecting information on his personality and assessed that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, psychologically and he was prone to flattery.The KGB applied their charm offensive so well that that when Trump came back to the States he proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow. And that was during Reagan’s cold war hysteria. Fast forward to 2015 and we see even more peculiar behavior from a candidate running for the presidency of the United States — as a Republican! Peculiar, as in his obsequious fawning over and incessant flattery of Putin, which was very out of character for Trump. Who else, besides himself, has trump ever praised this much? Trump assembled a cast of characters -- all with peculiar connections to Russia and shady Russians -- to join his campaign. All of them looking for money opportunities . All of them perfect targets. Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Gen Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort. Carter Page was so shady, the FBI was surveilling him years before he joined the campaign. Papadopoulos was given information about Russia wanting to help Trump with dirt on Hillary. Gen Michael Flynn lost his security clearance even before he joined Trump because of his anti-US government views and belief in wild conspiracy theories. Before joining Trump’s campaign, Manafort worked as the public relations guy for Yanukovych, the pro-Russian presidential candidate who eventually became president. In a scenario that seemed like a dry run for Trump’s 2016 US presidential campaign, Manafort worked to reverse the image of Yanukovych (who had been described as very Trump-like) as a crude, ignorant and corrupt person, while Moscow engaged in the same type of dirty tricks/disinformation campaign that they employed in the 2016 US election. Manafort’s numerous, very shady, money related entanglements with very shady Russians and Ukrainians eventually came to light. But in a very odd move, Manafort, a guy who always looked to make money anyway he could, no matter how sleazy, corrupt or immoral, offered to work for the Trump Campaign, for free! This despite the fact that he owed money to a Russian thug who he had ripped off. I could go on and on, but for the sake of brevity, let me make my final points about Putin’s and Trump’s motivations. What did Putin want from Trump? He wanted relief from sanctions, the weakening of NATO and he wanted to weaken the US by inflaming it’s political and racial divisions. Trump tried hard very hard to accomplish Putin’s first two desires, but failed. However, he succeeded spectacularly on the third. What did Trump want from Putin? Well, he had been looking for money/business opportunities from Russia for decades. He was looking to build a Trump Tower in Moscow at the very time he was campaigning, which would have been the most lucrative deal of his career — and he outright lied about it. He said he had no business dealings with Russia. He also wanted Putin’s help in getting elected and didn’t care how dishonest that help would be (“Russia, if you’re listening”, the Trump Tower meeting in NYC, Wikileaks). Now let me ask you, Mr Hatchet Man Bill Barr, if you, or anyone, thinks the suspicions were of the “thinnest” sort, what FBI agent worth his salt wouldn’t be compelled to dig a little deeper and take a closer look at a miscreant like Trump? Trump’s campaign was having an estimated 140 secretive meetings/contacts with shady Russians at the very same time that Russia was engaged in a criminal dirty tricks campaign to help him get elected. Trump was not a normal presidential candidate. He was a menace. He incited violence at his rallies, he told monstrous lies about Mexicans, Muslims and Blacks. He told a crowd that “Second Amendment people” could take matters into their own hands if Hillary got elected. If there was a bias against Trump, it wasn’t political. Most of the people looking into him were Republicans. The “bias” was well founded and prudent. It was based on his very malign character and behavior. It would have been a dereliction of duty NOT to look further into this abomination of a human being. Interestingly, Trump’s troubling character and behavior is something Mr Barr had to acknowledge, belatedly. See his book One Damn Thing After Another. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/22/2170328/-The-Russia-Hoax-Hoax Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/