James Kirchick, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, is author of The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues and the Coming Dark Age. This article is a co-publication with Eurozine.
“Would somebody please help me out here: I’m confused,” read the email to me from a conservative Republican activist and donor. “The Russians are alleged to have interfered in the 2016 election by hacking into Dem party servers that were inadequately protected, some being kept in Hillary’s basement and finding emails that were actually written by members of the Clinton campaign and releasing those emails so that they could be read by the American people who what, didn’t have the right to read these emails? And this is bad? Shouldn’t we be thanking the Russians for making the election more transparent?”
Put aside the factual inaccuracies in this missive (it was not Hillary Clinton’s controversial private server the Russians are alleged to have hacked, despite Donald Trump’s explicit pleading with them to do so, but rather those of the Democratic National Committee and her campaign chairman, John Podesta). Here, laid bare, are the impulses of a large swathe of today’s Republican Party. In any other era, our political leaders would be aghast at the rank opportunism, moral flippancy and borderline treasonous instincts on display.
Instead, we get this from the president of the United States, explaining away his son’s encounter with Russian operatives who were advertised as working on behalf of the Kremlin: “Most politicians would have gone to a meeting like the one Don jr attended in order to get info on an opponent. That’s politics!” And from elected Republicans, we get mostly silence—or embarrassing excuses.
Never mind that Trump Jr. initially said the meeting was about adoption, not a Russian offer of “ultra sensitive” dirt on Hillary Clinton. We’ve gone from the Trump team saying they never even met with Russians to the president himself now essentially saying: So what if we did?
None of this should surprise anyone who paid attention during last year’s campaign. Trump Sr., after all, explicitly implored Russia to hack Clinton’s private email server. He ran as the most pro-Russian candidate for president since Henry Wallace helmed the Soviet fellow-traveling Progressive Party ticket in 1948, extolling Vladimir Putin’s manly virtues at every opportunity while bringing Kremlin-style moral relativism to the campaign trail. Worst of all, GOP voters never punished him for it. This is what they voted for.
Nor was Trump Jr. the only Republican to seek Russian assistance against Clinton. In May, the Wall Street Journal reported that a Florida Republican operative sought and received hacked Democratic Party voter-turnout analyses from “Guccifer 2.0,” a hacker the U.S. government has said is working for Russia’s intelligence services. The Journal has also reported that Republican operative Peter W. Smith, who is now deceased, “mounted an independent campaign to obtain emails he believed were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s private server, likely by Russian hackers.”
Amid a raft of congressional and law enforcement probes into Russian meddling during the 2016 presidential election, it’s still unclear whether members of Trump’s campaign actively colluded with Moscow. But we now know that they had no problem accepting the Kremlin’s help—in fact, Trump Jr. professes disappointment that his Russian interlocutors didn’t deliver the goods. Forty-eight percent of Republicans, meanwhile, think Don Jr. was right to take the meeting. During the campaign, as operatives linked to Russian intelligence dumped hacked emails onto the internet, few Republicans stood on principle, like Florida Senator Marco Rubio, and condemned their provenance. “I will not discuss any issue that has become public solely on the basis of WikiLeaks,” Rubio said at the time. And he issued a stark warning to members of his party who were looking to take advantage of Clinton’s misfortune: “Today it is the Democrats. Tomorrow it could be us.”
Unfortunately, the vast majority of Rubio’s GOP colleagues completely ignored his counsel. Suddenly, Republican leaders and conservative media figures who not long ago were demanding prison time (or worse) for Julian Assange were praising the Australian anarchist to the skies. Every morsel in the DNC and Podesta emails, no matter how innocuous, was pored over and exaggerated to maximum effect. Republican politicians and their allies in the conservative media behaved exactly as the Kremlin intended. The derivation of the emails (stolen by Russian hackers) and the purpose of their dissemination (to sow dissension among the American body politic) have either been ignored, or, in the case of my conservative interlocutor, ludicrously held up as an example of Russian altruism meant to save American democracy from the perfidious Clinton clan.
Contrast Rubio’s principled stand with that of current CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who, while now appropriately calling WikiLeaks a “hostile intelligence service” that “overwhelmingly focuses on the United States while seeking support from antidemocratic countries,” was more than happy to retail its ill-gotten gains during the campaign. Today, just one-third of Republican voters even believe the intelligence community findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, no doubt influenced by the president’s equivocations on the matter.
I was no fan of Barack Obama’s foreign policy. I criticized his Russian “reset,” his Iran nuclear deal, his opening to Cuba, even his handling of political conflict in Honduras. For the past four years, I worked at a think tank, the Foreign Policy Initiative, that was bankrolled by Republican donors and regularly criticized the Obama administration. Anyone who’s followed my writing knows I’ve infuriated liberals and Democrats plenty over the years, and I have the metaphorical scars to prove it.
What I never expected was that the Republican Party—which once stood for a muscular, moralistic approach to the world, and which helped bring down the Soviet Union—would become a willing accomplice of what the previous Republican presidential nominee rightly called our No. 1 geopolitical foe: Vladimir Putin’s Russia. My message for today’s GOP is to paraphrase Barack Obama when he mocked Romney for saying precisely that: 2012 called—it wants its foreign policy back.
***
I should not have been surprised. I’ve been following Russia’s cultivation of the American right for years, long before it became a popular subject, and I have been amazed at just how deep and effective the campaign to shift conservative views on Russia has been. Four years ago, I began writing a series of articles about the growing sympathy for Russia among some American conservatives. Back then, the Putin fan club was limited to seemingly fringe figures like Pat Buchanan (“Is Vladimir Putin a paleoconservative?” he asked, answering in the affirmative), a bunch of cranks organized around the Ron Paul Institute and some anti-gay marriage bitter-enders so resentful at their domestic political loss they would ally themselves with an authoritarian regime that not so long ago they would have condemned for exporting “godless communism.”
Today, these figures are no longer on the fringe of GOP politics. According to a Morning Consult-Politico poll from May, an astonishing 49 percent of Republicans consider Russia an ally. Favorable views of Putin – a career KGB officer who hates America – have nearly tripled among Republicans in the past two years, with 32 percent expressing a positive opinion.
It would be a mistake to attribute this shift solely to Trump and his odd solicitousness toward Moscow. Russia has been targeting the American right since at least 2013, the year Putin enacted a law targeting pro-gay rights organizing and delivered a state-of-the-nation address extolling Russia’s “traditional values” and assailing the West’s “genderless and infertile” liberalism. That same year, a Kremlin-connected think tank released a report entitled, “Putin: World Conservativism’s New Leader.” In 2015, Russia hosted a delegation from the National Rifle Association, one of America’s most influential conservative lobby groups, which included David Keene, then-president of the NRA and now editor of the Washington Times editorial page, which regularly features voices calling for a friendlier relationship with Moscow. (It should be noted here that Russia, a country run by its security services where the leader recently created a 400,000-strong praetorian guard, doesn’t exactly embrace the individual right to bear arms.) A recent investigation by Politico Magazine, meanwhile, revealed how Russian intelligence services have been using the internet and social networks to target another redoubt of American conservativism: the military community.
Today, it’s hard to judge this Russian effort as anything other than a smashing success. Turn on Fox News and you will come across the network’s most popular star, Sean Hannity, citing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a reliable source of information or retailing Russian disinformation such as the conspiracy theory that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich—who police say was killed during a robbery attempt—was the source of last summer’s leaks, not Russian hackers. Fox’s rising star Tucker Carlson regularly uses his time slot to ridicule the entire Russian meddling scandal and portray Putin critics as bloodthirsty warmongers. On Monday night, he went so far as to give a platform to fringe leftist Max Blumenthal — author of a book comparing Israel to the Third Reich and a vocal supporter of the Assad regime in Syria — to assail the “bootlicking press” for reporting on Trump’s Russia ties. (When Blumenthal alleged that the entire Russia scandal was really just a militarist pretext for NATO enlargement, Carlson flippantly raised the prospect of his son having to fight a war against Russia, as he did in a contentious exchange earlier this year with Russian dissident Garry Kasparov. At the time, I asked Carlson if his son serves in the military. He didn’t respond).
Meanwhile the Heritage Foundation, one of Washington’s most influential conservative think tanks and a former bastion of Cold War hawkishness, has enlisted itself in the campaign against George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist whose work promoting democracy and good governance in the former Soviet space has made him one of the Kremlin’s main whipping boys.
And it’s not just conservative political operatives and media hacks who have come around on Russia. Pro-Putin feelings are now being elucidated by some conservative intellectuals as well. Echoing Kremlin complaints that Russia is a country which has been “frequently humiliated, robbed, and misled” – a self-pitying justification for Russian aggression throughout history – Weekly Standard senior editor Christopher Caldwell extolls Putin as “the pre-eminent statesman of our time.”
How did the party of Ronald Reagan’s moral clarity morph into that of Donald Trump’s moral vacuity? Russia’s intelligence operatives are among the world’s best. I believe they made a keen study of the American political scene and realized that, during the Obama years, the conservative movement had become ripe for manipulation. Long gone was its principled opposition to the “evil empire.” What was left was an intellectually and morally desiccated carcass populated by con artists, opportunists, entertainers and grifters operating massively profitable book publishers, radio empires, websites, and a TV network whose stock-in-trade are not ideas but resentments. If a political officer at the Russian Embassy in Washington visited the zoo that is the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, they’d see a “movement” that embraces a ludicrous performance artist like Milo Yiannopoulos as some sort of intellectual heavyweight. When conservative bloggers are willing to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars from Malaysia’s authoritarian government to launch a smear campaign against a democratic opposition leader they know nothing about, how much of a jump is it to line up and defend what at the very least was attempted collusion on the part of a brain-dead dauphin like Donald Trump Jr.?
Surveying this lamentable scene, why wouldn't Russia try to “turn” the American right, whose ethical rot necessarily precedes its rank unscrupulousness? It is this ethical rot that allows Dennis Prager, one of the right’s more unctuous professional moralists, to opine with a straight face that “The news media in the West pose a far greater danger to Western civilization than Russia does.” Why wouldn’t a “religious right” that embraced a boastfully immoral charlatan like Donald Trump not turn a blind eye toward—or, in the case of Franklin Graham, embrace—an oppressive regime like that ruling Russia? American conservatism is no better encapsulated today than by the self-satisfied, smirking mug of Carlson, the living embodiment of what Lionel Trilling meant when he wrote that the “conservative impulse” is defined by “irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.”
The entire Trump-Russia saga strikes at a deeper issue which most Republicans have shown little care in examining: What is it about Donald Trump that attracted the Kremlin so?
Such an effort would be like staging an intervention for a drunk and abusive family member: painful but necessary. One would have thought a U.S. intelligence community assessment concluding that the Russians preferred their party’s nominee over Hillary Clinton would have introduced a bit of introspection on the right. Moments for such soul-searching had arrived much earlier, however, like when Trump hired a former advisor to the corrupt, pro-Russian president of Ukraine as his campaign manager last summer. Or when he praised Putin on “Morning Joe” in December of 2015. Republicans ought to have considered how an “America First” foreign policy, despite its promises to build up the military and “bomb the [censored] out of” ISIS, might actually be more attractive to Moscow than the warts-and-all liberal internationalism of the Democratic nominee, who, whatever her faults, has never called into question the very existence of institutions like the European Union and NATO, pillars of the transatlantic democratic alliance. Now that he’s president, Trump’s fitful behavior, alienating close allies like Britain and Germany, ought give Republicans pause about how closely the president’s actions accord with Russian objectives.
But alas there has been no such reckoning within the party of Reagan. Instead, the Russia scandal has incurred a wrathful defensiveness among conservatives, who are reaching for anything – paranoid attacks on the so-called American “deep state,” allegations of conspiracy among Obama administration holdovers – to distract attention from the very grave reality of Russian active measures. To be sure, the Republican Congress, at least on paper, remains hawkish on the Kremlin, as evidenced by the recent 98-2 Senate vote to increase sanctions against Russia for its election meddling and other offenses. But in no way can they be said anymore to represent the GOP party base, which has been led to believe by the president and his allies in the pro-Trump media that “the Russia story” is a giant hoax. It wasn’t long ago that the GOP used to mock Democratic presidential candidates for supposedly winning “endorsements” from foreign adversaries, like when a Hamas official said he “liked” Barack Obama in 2008. Today, most Republicans evince no shame in the fact that their candidate was the clearly expressed preference of a murderous thug like Vladimir Putin.
If Republicans put country before party, they would want to know what the Russians did, why they did it and how to prevent it from happening again. But that, of course, would raise questions implicating Donald Trump and all those who have enabled him, questions that most Republicans prefer to remain unanswered.
This article, written by a REPUBLICAN...so don't try to use, oh look at the source excuse.
The bottom line for all that is happening in D.C...Putin and the Russians are doing all they can to leverage Trump and to influence Americans, presenting a false sense that Russia is harmless.
How many Republicans believe Russia is harmless?
How many Republicans understand what Putin's goal is as leader of Russia?
At the least, Putin wants to rearrange the world order with Russia being a dominate force of the world.
Those of you who believe Russia is your friend...you better start educating yourselves.
There is likely a Russian nuke aimed right at you...
Putin is not a nice guy and he is not an ally or friend to America.
How many Republicans are helping to spread Russian disinformation?
Here's one of them...
GOP Sen. Kennedy Backtracks On Crowdstrike-Ukraine 2016 Theory: "I Was Wrong"
Posted By Ian Schwartz On Date November 25, 2019 link
CNN: Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) backtracked on claims he made on FOX News that no one can be sure it was only Russia who tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, saying he misunderstood the question and that he sees no evidence that Ukraine hacked the DNC server.
"Senator Kennedy, who do you believe was responsible for hacking the DNC and Clinton campaign computers, their emails? Was it Russia or Ukraine?" 'FOX News Sunday' host Chris Wallace asked the Senator.
"I don't know, nor do you, nor do any others," Kennedy said Sunday.
A group of GOP lawmakers spent July 4 in Moscow after several days of meetings with Russian officials, according to NPR.
The group, which included seven Republican senators and one House member, was the first congressional delegation to visit Russia since the country’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
The GOP lawmakers, Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), Steve Daines (Mont.), John Thune (S.D.), John Kennedy (La.), Jerry Moran (Kan.) and John Hoeven (N.D.), and Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), spent July 4 in Moscow’s U.S. Embassy, NPR reported.
The trip comes amid bilateral planning between the U.S. and Russia for next month’s sit-down between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump has said he will address Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election at the summit, in addition to Russia's military involvement in Syria and Ukraine.
The lawmakers reportedly discussed Russian influence in U.S. elections during their meetings over the past week, but Moran told The Associated Press that every Russian official they spoke to denied the Kremlin's involvement.
The group’s visit coincided with the release of a Senate Intelligence Committee report, which found that Russia backed Trump during the election.
The report, released Tuesday, confirmed conclusions by the U.S. intelligence community that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump win the White House.
“I think it’s a given in the United States, in both parties, that Russia tried to meddle and probably did meddle in the election,” Shelby told the AP.
The lawmakers did not meet with Putin, but offered a warning for Russia against meddling in the 2018 U.S. elections.
“We made the point that if Russia persists in trying to influence our elections, it's going to be very difficult, if not impossible, for us to establish a better relationship,” Kennedy said to NPR.
“We didn't come here to say, what you've been doing is great, and we're going to look the other way,” Shelby told NPR. “We came here to talk candidly and honestly. The Russians can earn a better relationship with the U.S. if they want to.”
Included in this story, the information that those named warned Russia/Putin about interfering in the 2018 election.
That is exactly what I would expect from any American elected official visiting Russia at that time (July 2018). Stay out of our elections...
But, just over year later, we have one of the same group of Senators, ignoring American intell reports and pushing the false narrative that the Ukraine hacked the DNC computers, not Russia.
How does this happen...such a change in the beliefs of this one Senator?
Who knows who or what is happening in the back rooms and alleys to turn guys like Kennedy and Graham into lap dogs?... I don't see Trump's charisma or character being the answer that full grown men fawn over him like submissive well beaten eunuch fools.
Your feelings and opinions do not add up to facts.
Included in this story, the information that those named warned Russia/Putin about interfering in the 2018 election.
That is exactly what I would expect from any American elected official visiting Russia at that time (July 2018). Stay out of our elections...
But, just over year later, we have one of the same group of Senators, ignoring American intell reports and pushing the false narrative that the Ukraine hacked the DNC computers, not Russia.
How does this happen...such a change in the beliefs of this one Senator?
Maybe Epstein, before his ‘suicide’, handed his buddy trump his list of pedophiles....?
Accused Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s Political Connections: A Guide
From Donald Trump to Alan Dershowitz, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein is connected to some of the most powerful men in the country — but what did they know?
On Saturday night, shortly after billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was arrested at Teterboro Airport on charges of sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy, Christine Pelosi, a DNC official and the daughter of Nancy Pelosi, tweeted that the arrest would possibly implicate a number of Epstein’s powerful friends on both sides of the political spectrum — except she didn’t quite put it that way. “It is quite likely that some of our faves are implicated but we must follow the facts and let the chips fall where they may — whether on Republicans or Democrats,” she wrote on Twitter.
Because Epstein is being charged with sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy, with prosecutors alleging that he built a network of girls as young as 14 to satisfy his sexual needs, Pelosi’s phrasing was interpreted as more than a bit flip. But whether they qualify as “faves” or not, it’s certainly true that many prominent political and entertainment figures have deeply entrenched connections to Epstein. By his own admission, Epstein actively cultivated such high-profile friends, telling a New York magazine reporter in 2002, “I invest in people — be it politics or science. It’s what I do.”
To be clear, none of these individuals have faced criminal charges, and they are not implicated in the most recent indictment. Yet on social media, there has been a great deal of speculation as to whether they will be, as well as whether any of them — most notably, current U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, whose approval of a 2007 sweetheart deal landing Epstein a 13-month prison sentence for sex abuse charges prompted the hashtag #AcostaResign — helped the hedge fund manager and philanthropist avoid facing consequences for his alleged crimes for so long.
The fact that the Epstein case is being handled by the public corruption unit “does beg some questions” as to whether anyone involved in the Trump administration or any other “public officials engaged in business dealings with Epstein” will be implicated in the case, says Duncan Levin, a former federal prosecutor in the Eastern District, tells Rolling Stone. (He has no direct association with this case.) At this point, “we just don’t know” whether anyone else will be implicated at any future point.
Here’s a guide to the famous men who have been linked to him, which we will update throughout our coverage of his case.
Donald Trump
The most notable person to be associated with Jeffrey Epstein is President Donald Trump, who was photographed with Epstein at Mar-a-Lago in 1997 and again in 2000 with wife Melania and Epstein’s partner, British media mogul heir Ghislaine Maxwell. In fact, in the aforementioned 2002 New York Magazine profile of Epstein, Trump crowed about his friend and touted his fondness for younger women: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump said at the time. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Most recently, the Trump administration drew intense scrutiny when the Miami Herald reported on the allegations against Epstein, identifying nearly 80 women and girls who had accused him of sexual abuse. It also reported on a plea agreement the then-Florida U.S. attorney (now-U.S. labor secretary) Alexander Acosta secretly made with Epstein nearly 11 years ago, when Epstein was hit with prostitution charges. In exchange for pleading guilty to charges of solicitation of a minor in 2007, Epstein was required to serve a paltry 13 months in prison — a sentence he in part served out in the comfort of his cushy Palm Beach office on a work-release agreement he made with Acosta.
Following massive public outrage over the details of the plea agreement, the White House attempted to distance the president from Epstein by denying the two had a social relationship, and former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders vowed that the administration would be looking into the details of the arrangement Acosta made with Epstein. But court documents from a civil suit filed by one of Epstein’s accusers, a woman named Virginia Giuffre, allege that Giuffre was recruited by Maxwell to have sex with Epstein and his high-powered friends when she was just 15 and employed as a towel girl at Mar-a-Lago. Bradley Edwards, a legal representative for many of Epstein’s accusers in civil court, has also alleged that Epstein was banned from Mar-a-Lago after he was accused of sexually assaulting a young girl at a club, though neither Mar-a-Lago nor the Trump Administration have confirmed this. As for Acosta, he still remains employed by the White House.
Bill Clinton
In addition to Trump, one of the most high-powered political figures linked to Epstein is former President Bill Clinton, who reportedly appeared 26 times on flight manifests for Epstein’s private Boeing 747 between 2001 and 2003. In 2002, according to flight records, Epstein, Clinton, and actors Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker flew on his private jet on a trip to Africa. In addition to allegedly taking multiple trips on Epstein’s private plane, Clinton was also a recipient of Epstein’s financial largesse, with the hedge fund manager making repeated donations to the Clinton Foundation. In a statement to New York Magazine in 2002, Clinton referred to Epstein as “a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets and an in-depth knowledge of twenty-first-century science.” However, in a statement to the magazine this week, he claimed that he was only on the plane four times — all for official Clinton Foundation business — and denied any knowledge of Epstein’s “terrible crimes… which he pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York.”
Alan Dershowitz
The high-powered attorney and former member of O.J. Simpson’s defense team represented Epstein in the 2007 case against him and helped broker his plea agreement — which, notably, provided immunity to all “potential co-conspirators.” Dershowitz was also explicitly named in Giuffre’s civil suit, with the lawsuit alleging that the 80-year-old lawyer “was Epstein’s attorney, close friend, and co-conspirator. Dershowitz was also a participant in sex trafficking, including as one of the men to whom Epstein lent out Plaintiff for sex.” A second alleged Epstein victim, a woman named Sarah Ransome, also named Dershowitz in a civil suit against Epstein and his partner Maxwell, alleging that she was instructed by Maxwell and Epstein to have sex with Dershowitz. Dershowitz has repeatedly and publicly denied the allegations, calling Giuffre and Ransome “liars,” prompting Giuffre to file a defamation lawsuit against him back in April.
Woody Allen
Allen was a guest at a party Epstein threw for Prince Andrew in 2010; he also was named in a 2011 Daily Beast story as one of a handful of celebrity friends who stood by Epstein following his sexual abuse conviction, including George Stephanopolous, Katie Couric, and Chelsea Handler. Allen was photographed strolling Madison Avenue with his wife Soon-Yi and Epstein in 2013.
Prince Andrew
The Duke of York — who recently appeared in a photo with President Trump during the latter’s tour of Buckingham Palace — was a longtime friend of Epstein’s. The two were seen partying together in St. Tropez and Thailand, among other locations, and Andrew was even photographed meeting with Epstein in Central Park shortly after his release from prison. Of Epstein’s famous former cronies, Prince Andrew has arguably been the most directly implicated in the criminal allegations against Epstein. According to Giuffre’s civil suit, she was instructed by Epstein to have three sexual encounters on three separate occasions with Prince Andrew at Epstein’s home in New York, in Maxwell’s London home, and on Epstein’s estate on Little Saint James as part of an “orgy with numerous other under-aged girls.” Buckingham Palace forcefully denied the allegations, telling the Guardian “the allegations made are false and without any foundation.” But the Duke of York’s friendship with Epstein apparently so tarnished his reputation that in 2011, Prince Andrew was removed from his post as a U.K. trade representative to the United States following the negative media reports.
Mort Zuckerman
The media mogul and owner and publisher of the U.S. News and World Report partnered with Epstein to spend up to $25 million to fund the first issue of the gossip publication Radar in 2004. According to a 2006 Gawker report, news of the sexual abuse allegations against Epstein led the powerful magnate to rapidly disassociate himself from Epstein and shut down the first incarnation of the publication a mere 14 months after its inception in 2005.
Leslie Wexner
The chairman of Limited Brands, the company that owns lingerie store Victoria’s Secret, Wexner was one of Epstein’s hedge-fund clients, as well as the former owner of the opulent townhouse at 9 East 71st Street (valued at $77 million) which Epstein purchased, and where he is alleged to have committed many of the crimes outlined in the indictment. Epstein also formerly served as a trustee for the charitable Wexner Foundation. In a recent statement to Forbes, a spokesperson for Wexner said, “Mr. Wexner severed ties with Mr. Epstein more than a decade ago.”
Lawrence Krauss
As a philanthropist, Epstein aligned himself with many prominent scientists and leading thinkers, including Lawrence Krauss, a prominent theoretical physicist, bestselling author, and so-called “celebrity scientist” who directed a program on the origins of life that Epstein funded. Krauss gave a glowing quote in defense of his benefactor to the Daily Beast following Epstein’s brief incarceration. “If anything, the unfortunate period he suffered has caused him to really think about what he wants to do with his money and his time, and support knowledge,” Krauss told the Daily Beast in 2011. “Jeffrey has surrounded himself with beautiful women and young women but they’re not as young as the ones that were claimed. As a scientist I always judge things on empirical evidence and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I’ve never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people.” Coincidentally, Krauss himself was put on paid leave by Arizona State University after facing his own sexual misconduct allegations in 2018; an ASU investigation found sufficient evidence that Krauss had violated its sexual harassment policies. Though he denied the claims, he retired shortly thereafter.
Kenneth Starr
In addition to Alan Dershowitz, attorney Kenneth Starr — yes, that Ken Starr — also defended Epstein in 2007 and reportedly played a “significant part” in helping to secure his plea agreement, according to Dershowitz. Also according to Dershowitz, the lawyer who investigated the Monica Lewinsky scandal was recruited to help Epstein because “Starr had experience in investigating sex investigations. He had experience as the solicitor general and as a judge. He had all the bases covered,” he told the Daily Beast in 2015. Along with Dershowitz, Starr was also listed as a recipient of emails from Florida prosecutors discussing withholding the terms of the plea agreement from Epstein’s alleged victims.
Lawrence A. Summers
Former Harvard president and secretary of the treasury Larry Summers boasted a close relationship with Epstein: the two served on multiple foreign relations advisory panels together, and their friendship was detailed at length in a glowing Harvard Crimson profile of Epstein, who had just donated $30 million to the university. Summers and other former Harvard officials who had close ties to Epstein declined to comment for a 2018 follow-up piece on Epstein following the publication of the Miami Herald report.
Bill Barr
Attorney General Bill Barr and Epstein go way back: back in the early 1970s, Barr’s father hired Epstein to work as a physics and math teacher at the elite Manhattan private school Dalton, despite the fact that Epstein did not have a college degree. Following Epstein’s arrest, former FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi hinted that Barr could “attempt to interfere” with the prosecution of the case, though this would be unlikely given the “obvious” link between the two men. During his confirmation hearings, Barr himself said he would likely recuse himself from any involvement with the Epstein case, as he previously served as counsel for the law firm Kirkland and Ellis, which also represented Epstein in negotiating the terms of his 2007 plea agreement. But in an essay for the Daily Beast, former federal prosecutor Mimi Rocah expressed concern that Barr wouldn’t keep his word in this regard: “while it pains me to say this, given Barr’s conduct in the past acting more as a defense attorney for Trump than an overseer of justice, I am concerned that Barr might interfere if he thought that Epstein might implicate Trump, who was friends with Epstein,” she wrote.
The murder of Epstein? That doesn't surprise me. Too many big names there. Too much political power there.
Seeing as the Clintons have some 20-50 "accidental" or "suicide" deaths in the background - none proven, as, who would want to prove it knowing they would die next.............well, let's just say overall, Epstein didn't kill himself. And, I won't mourn his death. And, IF others named are proven to be be felons in the sexual abuse of girls, may God have mercy on their souls, because I won't.
That includes Trump, Clinton............heck, everyone listed.
And, IF others named are proven to be be felons in the sexual abuse of girls, may God have mercy on their souls, because I won't.
That includes Trump, Clinton............heck, everyone listed.
arch...anyone who associated with Epstein...any name that appears on a list or on documents should be investigated...regardless of political affiliation.
arch...anyone who associated with Epstein...any name that appears on a list or on documents should be investigated...regardless of political affiliation.
Politics has nothing to do with this.
Which is why this is in the republican = putin thread instead of the Epstein thread.
arch...anyone who associated with Epstein...any name that appears on a list or on documents should be investigated...regardless of political affiliation.
Politics has nothing to do with this.
Which is why this is in the republican = putin thread instead of the Epstein thread.
Does Putin have a list of his own, dealing with world leaders?
Was Epstein involved with Putin and Russia, in any way?
arch...anyone who associated with Epstein...any name that appears on a list or on documents should be investigated...regardless of political affiliation.
Politics has nothing to do with this.
Which is why this is in the republican = putin thread instead of the Epstein thread.
Does Putin have a list of his own, dealing with world leaders?
Was Epstein involved with Putin and Russia, in any way?
Here we go again...for the second time, the very same high ranking GOP Senator tries to carry Putin's message to United States citizens...claiming the Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.
U.S. Senator: Republican Party Is Turning Into Russia’s ‘Most Important Global Asset'
link 12/02/2019 03:37 am ET Updated 23 hours ago By Ed Mazza
Sen. Chris Murphy called out the GOP for using Moscow’s conspiracy theories to defend President Donald Trump.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called out the Republican Party for advancing Russian conspiracy theories as it continues to defend President Donald Trump during the impeachment inquiry.
“Call me old fashioned, but I think it’s a little unsavory the Republican Party is becoming the most important global asset of Russian intel,” Murphy tweeted on Sunday. “I get it, Russia’s bonkers ‘Ukraine did it, not Russia’ story is all the GOP has to defend their guy, but really?”
Chris Murphy ✔ @ChrisMurphyCT Call me old fashioned, but I think it’s a little unsavory the Republican Party is becoming the most important global asset of Russian intel.
I get it, Russia’s bonkers “Ukraine did it, not Russia” story is all the GOP has to defend their guy, but really?
35.9K 7:49 PM - Dec 1, 2019
Murphy’s tweet came hours after one of his Senate colleagues essentially repeated a debunked Russian talking point on “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“I think both Russia and Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said. “I think it’s been well-documented.”
He also claimed that Ukraine’s former president, Petro Poroshenko, had been actively working for Hillary Clinton.
As host Chuck Todd pointed out, the U.S. intelligence community has implicated only Russia for 2016 election interference and recently warned senators that Moscow was trying to frame Ukraine for it.
“You realize the only person selling this argument outside the United States is ... Vladimir Putin?” Todd said. “You’ve done exactly what the Russian operation is trying to get American politicians to do. Are you at all concerned that you’ve been duped?”
fox news is nothing more than propaganda outlet for russia.
the american RT.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
and soooo many people willingly listen to literally no other outlet.
sad AND frightening.
They listen to this dementia riddled word salad mess and gobble it up like it’s the Sermon on the Mount. We’re not talking about the greatest thinkers here.
Putin criticizes NATO expansion as alliance holds London summit
SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday criticized NATO’s continued expansion, something he suggested was pointless given the absence of a threat from Moscow following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
Speaking at a meeting of Russian military leaders in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, Putin said NATO expansion posed a threat to Russia, but said he hoped that a shared interest in common security would prevail.
Despite tensions, Putin said Russia remained ready to cooperate with the military alliance.
He was speaking as U.S. President Donald Trump lashed out at European allies before a NATO anniversary summit in London, singling out France’s Emmanuel Macron for “very nasty” comments on the alliance and Germany for spending too little on defense.
Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe said that President Trump dismissed intelligence on North Korea given to him by U.S. officials, telling them, "I don't care, I believe Putin."
Trump told officials in a meeting that he did not believe North Korean missiles could strike the U.S. mainland because Russian President Vladimir Putin told him those missiles did not exist, according to McCabe.
"Intelligence officials in the briefing responded that that was not consistent with any of the intelligence our government possesses to which the president replied, 'I don't care. I believe Putin,'" McCabe told host Scott Pelley in an interview with "60 Minutes" released Sunday.
McCabe said it was "astounding" that Trump would lean on Putin's information about an issue U.S. intelligence officials were briefing him on.
"To spend the time and effort and energy that we all do in the intelligence community to produce products that will help decisionmakers and the ultimate decisionmaker, the president of the United States, make policy decisions, and to be confronted with an absolute disbelief in those efforts and a unwillingness to learn the true state of affairs that he has to deal with every day was just shocking," he said.
It wasn't russian collusion into our elections, as we've been told for over three years. It was Ukraine collusion.
Damn.........they got him this time. All about Joe Bidens son getting paid $50,000 a month for doing a job he wasn't qualified for. (along with several other dem's kids working for Ukraine) And Trump asking Ukraine to investigate.
that's hard core proof (idiocy) on the dem's part.
Seriously...........they couldn't come up with anything else? Ukraine? Withholding money? While Joe Biden himself is on VIDEO doing just such a thing?
Come on dems, you gotta come up with more than this.
sadly, you never mention Trump's daughter or son in law when it comes to kids that are unqualified fore their jobs. And in this case, it costs the American tax payers.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
This whole thing was over russian collusion. THAT is what the impeachment began as. Finding nothing there, just as they have in how many investigations? They keep proceeding. And now it's ukraine.......you know, the country that employed Bidens' son.........as his son was making $50,000 a month, and the country in which Biden threatened to withhold money from if they didn't fire the person investigating.
Full circle here.,
Damn, the libs BETTER find something on trump. Otherwise, they'll look exactly as they do now.
They did find things. Did you forget about the people in prison? Did you forget Mueller said you can't get to the bottom of it when the witnesses are lying? Did you forget about all of the examples of obstruction pointed out in the Mueller report? Did you forget that the Biden thing is all a Russian propaganda tactic that is now being repeated by the GOP?
Have you even looked at the sources that prove it's been debunked over and over again?
I didn't think so. I never expected you to be so easily led around by the nose.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
We are the only remaining superpower in the world and we elect politicians based largely on advertising that we allow to be funded by companies with foreign interests. Of course other countries are going to attempt to manipulate our elections to their advantage. But, the focus on Russia is strictly a political gimmick. It's classic red baiting.
If democrats put Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar under the same microscope as Russia, they would be appalled. Russia's influence is nothing by comparison. These OPEC countries have used political influence to get the U.S. into multiple foreign wars that do nothing to serve our interests and lead us into further debt, which is the primary reason that we don't have nicer government programs.
There is no solution to these problems that does not require getting to the root of the problem, which is the very existence of the RNC and DNC. Until those organizations are taken down, these problems cannot be solved, because they are built to ensure corruption. They are built to ensure that the policy agenda in the U.S. is controlled by companies and individuals that can donate enough money to guarantee that decision makers need them in maintain their jobs.
It wasn't russian collusion into our elections, as we've been told for over three years. It was Ukraine collusion.
Damn.........they got him this time. All about Joe Bidens son getting paid $50,000 a month for doing a job he wasn't qualified for. (along with several other dem's kids working for Ukraine) And Trump asking Ukraine to investigate.
that's hard core proof (idiocy) on the dem's part.
Seriously...........they couldn't come up with anything else? Ukraine? Withholding money? While Joe Biden himself is on VIDEO doing just such a thing?
Come on dems, you gotta come up with more than this.
You really ought to read more from a wider variety of sources. Most anyplace you go research will show that these lies that your are spewing out from your current source have been debunked. Hey - but from previous discussions I know you don't want to and won't. . . . But in case you missed it, the earth isn't flat either. Seriously !
The more things change the more they stay the same.
For the last 3 1/2 years, you've had him. Just like in the 70's we were facing an imminent ice age. Just like 'man made global warming' recently. Then man made climate change. Then just climate change.
Nail Trump on something. The Dem's have been doing their darndest to get him on something, for well over 3 1/2 years. At some point, you put up, or shut up.
For the last 3 1/2 years, you've had him. Just like in the 70's we were facing an imminent ice age. Just like 'man made global warming' recently. Then man made climate change. Then just climate change.
Nail Trump on something. The Dem's have been doing their darndest to get him on something, for well over 3 1/2 years. At some point, you put up, or shut up.
They've put up: Ukraine. LOL.
I didn't get Trump. No one has 'got Trump' .... but the Muller Report/Investigation was legit and valid - as has been confirmed by a Republican review. The Ukraine issue is also valid and is ongoing .... From this post it would seem to suggest as long as the POTUS abuses his power with smaller nations it's ok? I don't really get laughing at abuse of Power because of who the target is. The other point has just been mentioned - the irony of which seems to be lost on many on the Trump side - the whole "Ukraine" thing was a hoax by guilty Putin to try and misdirect Trump. The entire intelligence community has verified this - the only people still pushing a Ukraine thing is Trump and a couple of really stupid/loyal cronies. . . . Again, the proof is actually out there if someone was so inclined to reveal it.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
You can't talk to arch about these things. I've been accused of the same that he's trying to do with you. Who gives a damn what he thinks or how many times dems have tried to get to the bottom of Trump's crimes. When you have a corrupt POS in the oval, you do whatever it takes to remove him as fast as possible.
Your feelings and opinions do not add up to facts.
You've been led around by hatred. How's that worked over the last 3+ years???
I've been led around by wanting someone with at least an ounce of honesty and integrity as our president. By the fact that a habitual liar does not belong in the White House. Obviously you and your religion don't care about basic decency. Sad really.
Quote:
Like I said, I hope you guys get him. You've 'had' him about 10 times over the last 3+ years. It's about time you put up, or shut up.
It's already up. The truth is there though you refuse to look at it. Not my problem. History will teach you the lesson you refuse to admit now.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
You've been led around by hatred. How's that worked over the last 3+ years???
I've been led around by wanting someone with at least an ounce of honesty and integrity as our president. By the fact that a habitual liar does not belong in the White House. Obviously you and your religion don't care about basic decency. Sad really.
Quote:
Like I said, I hope you guys get him. You've 'had' him about 10 times over the last 3+ years. It's about time you put up, or shut up.
It's already up. The truth is there though you refuse to look at it. Not my problem. History will teach you the lesson you refuse to admit now.
History will show these constant coup attempts for what they are...
Treason and an assault against the American people who picked their President with their legitimate votes.
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Tell me again how Trump and Putin are one. 
