DNC Lawyer Acquitted In Durham Investigation, Wingers Declare FLAWLESS VICTORY!
Eye. Roll.
BREAKING: JOHN DURHAM.
Well, perhaps the Special Counsel remains unbroken. But his dreams of building a giant conspiracy case against Hillary Clinton and half the Democratic establishment were dashed today as a jury acquitted attorney Michael Sussmann of lying to the FBI.
Hey, remember back in February when the wingers got all tingly in their bits at the prospect that Counselor Mustache was about to do LOCK HER UPS to everyone who investigated the Trump campaign's fuckery?
\u201cFinally the walls are closing in on the Clinton campaign. Get the popcorn ready.\u201d— Laura Ingraham (@Laura Ingraham) 1644763816
Russia, if you're listening ... that shit never happened.
To recap briefly: After the DNC server got hacked in 2016, a bunch of tech types, including cybersecurity legend Rodney Joffe, started sleuthing around to see if Russia was infiltrating anything else. In the course of that work, which was legitimately undertaken, they discovered that weird server in Trump Tower which was pinging back and forth with Russia's Alfa Bank. So Michael Sussmann, then a lawyer at Perkins Coie who represented the DNC, the Clinton campaign, and Joffe, brought a memo about the pings to FBI head lawyer James Baker.
Only two people know what happened in that meeting, and both of them have told varying versions of what went down. In testimony before Congress, Baker claimed not to realize that Sussmann represented half the Democratic establishment in DC — a claim Reps. Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows derided as laughable, since everyone in DC knows Perkins Coie is connected to the Democratic Party. At various points, he's said that he didn't remember if Sussmann claimed to be there on behalf of a client, although during this trial he claimed to remember it clearly.
For his part, Sussmann appears to have exploited the ambiguity about whether he was representing the DNC, the Clinton campaign, or Joffe when he brought the Alfa Bank story to the feds. But even if he did deliberately obscure his clients, it was probably immaterial, since Baker handed the inquiry off to his deputy Bill Priestap, who wrote in his notes, "Represents DNC, Clinton Foundation, etc," strongly indicating that, whomever he claimed to be representing, it had zero effect on the FBI's handling of the case. And since materiality is an element of a false statement charge — i.e. you can't be indicted for lying to the feds about what you had for breakfast, because who cares — it was never clear what the hell Durham was hanging his hat on here.
And it was a big hat! The wingers worked themselves into an orgiastic lather, predicting that the Clintons would finally go down for using the FBI to set up poor Donald Trump on those TERRIBLY UNTRUE charges that he invited Russia to interfere in the election on his behalf. In their telling, Sussman's indictment would be the first of many, proving a vast "Democrat" plot to undermine Trump's presidency. This requires them to disregard such bourgeois consistencies as linear time, since the Russia investigation was already underway (thanks to coffee boy George Papadopoulos's big mouth) when Sussmann walked in the door. Nevertheless, Trump gamely filed that idiotic LOLsuit against Hillary Clinton and half of DC alleging exactly the same conspiracy theory.
"They didn’t just spy on Donald Trump’s campaign. They spied on Donald Trump as sitting President of the United States. It was all even worse than we thought," tweeted Mark Meadows.
“You can see what the plan was,” Assistant Special Counsel Andrew DeFilippis argued last week, according to the Post. “It was to create an October surprise by giving information both to the media and to the FBI to get the media to write that there was an FBI investigation.”
Wow! MEH IF TRUE!
“Opposition research is not illegal,” pointed out Sussmann's lawyer Sean Berkowitz. He did not point out the clanging irony of the wingnutosphere pretending that this was the crime of the century, while it was very cool, very legal for Trump to withhold congressionally allocated defense funds from a foreign ally until its leader agreed to go on CNN and announce an investigation into his political rival.
Also, when Michael Flynn lies to the FBI, it is a "process crime." When Michael Sussmann is accused of it, it is LOCK HER UP FOREVER.
Knowing that this case was flimsy AF, Trump's allies have been working overtime to discredit the eventual acquittal. Matthew Meatball McPeener Toilet Whitaker took to Fox to explain that a "DC jury of, you know which, uh..." would obviously let Sussmann go. Golly, what could he possibly have meant by that? And the Federalist's Margot Cleveland had a post all ready to go saying that the real Durham victory was the friends we made along the way and the insane fantasy we got to spin for them in public about "Hillary Clinton hold[ing] full responsibility for the Russia collusion hoax."
Again, the FBI's Russia investigation preceded the Alfa Bank referral — these two things are totally unrelated.
Ah, well, don't cry because it's over. Cry because John Durham is still at the Justice Department, wreaking havoc on private citizens who have to kick up millions of dollars in legal fees off of this "investigate the investigators" bullshit.
Can we be done with 2016 now, please?
[WaPo]
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Cheers, Putin! Here's Joe Biden Talking With Swedish And Finnish Leaders About Getting Their NATO On
Live on WonkTV!
That's right, President Joe Biden of the United States (trivia fact!) is in the Rose Garden this morning with Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson of Sweden and President Sauli Niinistö of Finland, who are in town to talk about their applications to join NATO.
This would probably have never happened (trivia fact!) if Vladimir Putin hadn't decided he was feeling like a loser and needed to go commit genocide and war crimes in Ukraine to make himself feel better, in a vain attempt to recreate some kind of wax museum version of the former glory of the Russian empire.
Cheers, Putin! None of this could have been done without you.
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Baby Trump Junior Can Be Putin-Loving Sycophant Garbage Moron Just Like Daddy?
Will THIS make Daddy love him? (No.)
Donald Trump Jr. scrunched his face together like you see in the picture above, and it was a terrible thing, but it was because he was thinking a geopolitical thought.
So, like a person who is allowed to be on Twitter, he formed this thought on Twitter. Which is a shame, because if he was doing this for Daddy's approval or affection or love, Daddy cannot see him there.
It was a thought about Finland, a free country, joining NATO. Literally all people who love democracy and freedom think this is a good idea. The only people who don't like this idea are Putin and his sycophants. Hell, Putin even tried to cut off the electricity, but Finland was like fuck off and now Putin is paying lip service to how it's fine totally fine for Finland and Sweden to join NATO.
Which brings us to:
I get there\u2019s nothing going on at home that Congress could be worrying about, but after decades of not being in NATO and being just fine isn\u2019t the notion of eliminating this buffer zone a little bit how the Ukraine invasion started?https://twitter.com/newsmax/status/1526169875701329920\u00a0\u2026— Donald Trump Jr. (@Donald Trump Jr.) 1652705516
Wow, Junior, how did you hit so many of Vladimir Putin's sweet spots in so few characters?
Suggesting Finland is "just fine" and shouldn't worry about anything, despite how its hostile neighbor -- which has attacked it before, with horribly embarrassing results, for its neighbor -- is currently committing war crimes and genocide on another peaceful neighbor? Check.
Suggesting Putin deserves to have a "buffer zone" from NATO, because whatever Putin wants Putin gets, if it's what you say Junior loves it, especially later in the summer? Check.
Suggesting Putin simply had to invade because Ukraine was about to join NATO (it wasn't), thereby eliminating that "buffer zone"? Check.
Suggesting "the Ukraine invasion started" for any other reason besides how the garbage dictator in Russia with all the stupid-looking fillers in his face was feeling murder-y and decided to start killing people to fulfill his clownish dreams of a reconstituted Russian Empire? Checkity check check check!
Boy, Junior. You sure did learn from the best, when it comes to being on Putin's side instead of America's side.
We'd say your father must be impressed, except we know he's never impressedwith you.
Womp womp.
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Putin's 'Victory Day' Speech Long On Bullsh*t, Short On Victory
At least there was a Trump-style parade.
"Victory Day," the May 9 Russian national holiday marking Nazi Germany's surrender in World War II, is a far bigger deal in Russia than VE Day (May 8) is in the USA, and it's not only because it's celebrated on a different day due to the time difference. It's like Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and an itty little bit of Independence Day wrapped up together, plus of course all the fascist nationalism that Vladimir Putin can spin on top of it, too. A lot of Western analysts were expecting Putin to use the holiday as an excuse to announce an expansion of his "special military operation" against Ukraine;. Some even predicted he might formally declare war against Ukraine, while others suggested he might declare victory in the eastern parts of Ukraine that he said were really Russian, even though Ukraine is still very much resisting.
Instead, Putin claimed the war (but don't call it that!) was absolutely necessary for Russia's survival, because he thinks Ukraine is full of "Nazis" (it is not) and the USA and NATO were planning to invade Russia through Ukraine maybe (they are also not), and now the US and NATO haven't done that, thanks to Putin's strategic brilliance, hooray, as CNBC explains:
Putin claimed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had been necessary because the West was “preparing for the invasion of our land, including Crimea,” according to comments translated by Reuters.
It’s unclear whether Putin was referring to Russia, or territory that Moscow considers to be Russian. This includes Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and the eastern Donbas region, where Donetsk and Luhansk — two pro-Russian self-proclaimed “republics” — are located.
Putin then presumably held a banana to his ear and insisted it kept him safe from tiger attacks.
In his speech, Putin explicitly compared Russia's invasion of Ukraine to the fight against Germany 76 years ago, telling Russian troops that they're "fighting for the motherland, for its future, so that no one forgets the lessons of World War II.” Silly us, we thought the lesson of WW II was that the world should be wary of nationalist megalomaniacs bent on expanding their territory. That, and "loose lips sink ships."
And despite increased Russian attacks in eastern Ukraine, including the nearly total destruction of the port city Mariupol, Putin also didn't use the speech to brag about how wonderfully the "special military operation" is going. No "Mission Accomplished" banner behind him, like, not even in Russian.
A New York Timesanalysis of the speech noted that instead of doubling down or declaring victory, Putin
remains cautious about demanding too much from regular Russians. The only policy announcement Mr. Putin made in his speech, in fact, was aimed at assuaging the pain directly caused by the war — a decree to provide additional aid to the children of killed and wounded soldiers.
Not that he would say exactly how many such children would need the aid. Maybe people would think it was only 20 or 30.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said if anyone's acting like the Nazis, it would be Putin, who is "repeating the horrific crimes of Hitler’s regime today.”
“On the day of victory over Nazism, we are fighting for a new victory,” Mr. Zelensky said as he was shown walking alone through the streets of Kyiv, past government buildings protected with barriers and barbed wire.
Here's video, with English subtitles:
President of #Ukraine @ZelenskyyUa: \u201cWe won then. We will win now, too! And Khreshchatyk will see the parade of victory \u2013 the victory of Ukraine. Glory to Ukraine!\u201dpic.twitter.com/339L7s6Faz— MFA of Ukraine \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6 (@MFA of Ukraine \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6) 1652077845
Also too, as Rachel Maddow noted on her MSNBC show last night, Russians scrolling through the program schedule on smart TVs were greeted with a surprise: Hackers had altered the menus to display the message "You have the blood of thousands of Ukrainians and hundreds of dead children on your hands. The TV and the authorities are lying. No to war." Reuters notes the messages appeared just before the Victory Day parade in Moscow.
In addition, the pro-Kremlin News site Lenta was defaced by two of its own employees, who filled the homepage with headlines like "Vladimir Putin has turned into a pitiful dictator and paranoiac,” “War makes it easier to cover up economic failures,” and (our favorite) “Zelensky turned out to be cooler than Putin.” Gizmodo reports that the two rogue journalists
reportedly told the Latvian-based independent news site Meduza they had re-located outside of Russia and worried they may need new jobs or even political asylum.
We have to wonder whether those former Lenta employees are any good at writing about sky dicks, weed-guarding alligators in bathrooms, or vegan baby buttholes. We'd like to help if we can.
[CNBC / Reuters / NBC News / NYT / Gizmodo / NBC News]
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