The compensation we get for having to witness the absolute decimation of our country is the occasional schadenfreude that is on offer. To wit:
A criminal investigation of Mr. Giuliani raises the stakes of the Ukraine scandal for the president, whose dealings with the country are already the subject of an impeachment inquiry. It is also a stark turn for Mr. Giuliani, who now finds himself under scrutiny from the same United States attorney’s office he led in the 1980s, when he first rose to prominence as a tough-on-crime prosecutor and later ascended to two terms as mayor of New York.
That piece of turnabout comes via the federal prosecutor’s office in the Southern District of New York. If you grew up in the New York City metropolitan area, as I did, then you know why I can’t stop laughing.
Please know that Giuliani was the prosecutor there when La Cosa Nostra came to grief. New York’s five crime families have never been the same, and having an Italian-American prosecutor do the heavy lifting made it all seem like it was on the up and up.
But now Giuliani is embroiled in an international crime syndicate with Russian-backed thugs who specialize in “guaranteed fraud” and run a nightclub called Mafia Rave.
Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, associates of Rudy Giuliani, were caught trying to flee the country Thursday and were arrested on campaign finance violations. But nobody anticipated the outrageous business names associated with the pair.
Fruman was associated with a club in Ukraine called Mafia Rave, and Parnas even has an easily navigable website, listing himself as co-founder and CEO of Fraud Guarantee, a fraud protection company.
This is too perfect all by itself, but it’s only the tippy top of the iceberg. Giuliani, after all, was acting in his capacity of personal attorney to the president of the United States. He chose for his associates people who are accused of funneling Russian money to American politicians. His exploits have damaged not only Trump but Vice-President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, Attorney General William Barr, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, and lawmakers Sen. Rick Scott of Florida and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. It has even ruined former congressman and RNCC chairman Pete Sessions’ planned comeback.
And now Giuliani might go to jail for the simple reason that William Barr can’t seem to put a lid on the whole thing or control what the Southern District of New York wants to do.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani broke lobbying laws in his dealings in Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the inquiry.
The investigators are examining Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to undermine the American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch, one of the people said. She was recalled in the springas part of Mr. Trump’s broader campaign to pressure Ukraine into helping his political prospects.
Maybe the best part of it all is that Giuliani went on television and told everybody that he was about to embark for Ukraine and commit some crimes. He then did precisely what he had promised. They guy is a certified genius.
Anyone who has ever watched a spy show on television knows that Giuliani did everything wrong. Christ, he had lunch with these criminals on the same day they tried to flee the country rather than deliver their scheduled testimony to Congress. And they ate at the Trump Hotel in Washington. What kind of operational security is that?
But what do you expect from a man who made Bernie Kerik the police commissioner of New York City, went into private business with him and then convinced the Bush administration to name him as their nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security?
But fortunately Bernie Kerik can give Giuliani some useful advice, or at least tell him what to expect:
Convicted of false statements and tax charges relating to my children’s nanny and apartment renovations, I was sentenced to four years in federal prison, serving just over three years. I learned that the deprivation of freedom is far more profound than one can imagine, and that going to prison is like dying with your eyes open. A horrific experience for any American citizen.
Giuliani became a national hero on 9/11 at the exact time that the city was supposed to be selecting his replacement as mayor. Out of a job, he milked his newfound fame for all it was worth and became a homeland security consultant. That worked domestically for a while, but when Barack Obama became president, Giuliani had to look overseas for easy marks. Ukraine was obviously filled with just enough corruption for him to make big bucks, and so he hugged Trump as tightly as he could so he could market himself as a rainmaker in Kiev.
But he fucked it all up. Boy, did he fuck it up.
Who could have predicted?
Thanks for the backstory on RG. I was only peripherally aware of his history (not having grown up in the region). Boy, he does seem like not only did he metaphorically step in the sh*t, he’s now tracking it all over the place.
Rudy was doing exactly what Trump wanted him to do for him until it backfired. Nothing he was doing for his own benefit would bother Trump at all. They probably laughed about it together.
They only laugh at other people’s misfortune.
Yeah, Giuliani was doing what he was doing at the direction of Donald Trump. Donald Trump was doing what he was doing at the direction of the true mobster, Paul Manafort. And everyone was doing what they were doing as part of the international conspiracy between Turkey, Russia, KSA, UAE, and Israel. To remake Europe and the Middle East.
Sure, Giuliani is an idiot and a bumbler, but many of Russia’s own military intelligence officers are bumbling idiots who made their own mistakes. The truth is that our elites are all just stupid shit gibbons who have failed their people for profit, power, and self-enrichment. Even the “good elites” are bad. Germany is staring a recession in the face and they’re calling for balanced budgets! In the face of climate catastrophe and dirt cheap money. This is lunacy!
For decades, Mafia admirer and (now) US Mob Boss-in-Chief Trumper has been playing the oldest organized crime game in the book—use of corrupt “lawyer(s)” to carry out the Trump crime family’s dirty work, under the umbrella of attorney-client privilege. Boss Trumper used Mickey Cohen for decades until the crimes caught up with that “lawyer” and he was forced to sing to the G-men. Boss Trumper’s spittle-flecked outrage over the breaching of (imagined) attorney-client privilege was all he could blather about at the time Cohen was apprehended–Trumper couldn’t have cared less about Cohen the cog, and did what he could to force Cohen not to sing. Boss Trumper has been using Rudy Three Fingers Giuliani in the same role for quite a while, too, and with the loss of fixer Cohen, obviously Rudy became indispensable. Hence his use in all this Ukraine skullduggery, as well as the Ukraine Shakedown by Boss Trumper himself.
Obviously the only answer now is for Minister of Justice Barr to take control of the situation, and inform the NY US attorneys that their investigation will turn up no new “problems” and that Rudy is untouchable. If the NY attorney disagrees or sticks to his guns, Trumper replaces him. We know from Bushco’s US attorney purge that “conservatives” are willing to bleat that a purge of the DOJ for any reason whatsoever is well within the unitary power of the (Repub) executive, so the ground has already been prepared by past corrupt Repub practice.
Sure, firing the lawyer will look terrible (to non-cult members) and will be another impeachable offense to throw on the abuse of office pile, but Minister Barr and Trumper know that (“illegitimate!!”) impeachment is already a certainty and ending the possibility of a Rudy indictment (and his potential singing about the Boss’s multitudinous crimes) is critical. Boss Trumper quailed to fire Mueller, but he has very likely learned his lesson, and Minister Barr has already paid a visit to NY to tell the boys what they are expected to do. But it is likely that we will (at last) be spared from having to watch the Trump crime family’s paid liar and corrupt fixer Rudy G insult our intelligence on the TV every goddam day.
The President’s Joint Defense Agreement With The Russian Mob