WHAT HAS PUTIN GOT ON TRUMP? NOTHING SAYS BARR

This week all hell broke loose with the revelations of influential high profile insiders Bob Woodward, Michael Cohen and Peter Strzok all of whom provided credible detailed damning evidence of Trump’s commitment to Putin and Russia, (and of course a lot else including his callous incompetence relating to the pandemic). Trump’s former Head of National Intelligence Dan Coates had summed it all up, in the Woodward tome, “What has Putin Got on Him?”. While Trump spluttered on incoherently about his soulless management of the pandemic, regaling the world in his own words courtesy of Woodward’s tapes, a WhistleBlower filed a complaint that he had been instructed to withhold the intelligence that the Russians were once again intervening in the 2020 Presidential election because it made the POTUS “look bad”. 

None of this fuzzed Trump’s latest Consiglieri, the Attorney General of the United States William Barr who in the style of the infamous Roy Cohn doubled down and accused the accusers with the full power of the Justice Department behind him. He is Trump’s last hope to persuade the electorate that Russia was a “hoax” much like the coronavirus is now.

 BARR TRIES TO CREATE A COUNTER NARRATIVE THAT THE BAD GUYS WERE THE ONES THAT INVESTIGATED NOT THOSE THAT THEY INVESTIGATED

Ironically these devastating revelations in the three best selling books emerged at the same time Barr was working full time to negate the fact that Russia intervened in the 2016 election. Barr had instituted an investigation into the Russian investigation to back up Trump’s assertion that it was all a “hoax”. To this end he had already intervened in criminal cases where members of Trump’s campaign had been found guilty arising out of their complicity with America’s totalitarian adversary. Barr needed some proof, before November the third, that the "Deep State" was out to get the POTUS. Trump was relying on it.   

WHAT HAS PUTIN GOT ON TRUMP? NOTHING SAYS BARR.

If Barr’s agenda to exonerate criminals wasn’t outrageous enough, the lead attorney, Nora Dannehy, in the Attorney General attempt to rewrite history on the investigations into the Russian interference in 2016, resigned. Apparently she was under political pressure from Barr to deliver the goods to do the impossible, produce indictments to exonerate Trump, in time of the election.

Barr’s intervention in the case of Roger Stone, Trump’s long time alter ego, caused three prosecutors to resign and the incident is now being investigated by the Inspector General of the Justice Department. Trump’s response to this type of potentially damaging enquiry is to fire the Inspector General which he has done a number of occasions before. 

Also the full bench of the DA Federal Appeals Court ruled by eleven votes to two that Barr had no right to withdraw the criminal case against Flynn, Trump’s former Chief National Advisor after he had pled guilty before two separate judges. The amicus Counsel, in Flynn’s case argued that Judge Sullivan should proceed to sentence Flynn regardless of Barr’s actions, He maintained inter alia, in his detailed thirty page brief: 

 

“Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s lies to the FBI are so clear. and their effect on the FBI’s Russia probe so obvious that the Justice Department’s  decision to drop the case can only be a pretext to help an ally - President Trump. There is clear evidence that this motion reflects a corrupt and politically motivated favor unworthy of our justice system…”

Yet another attempt to intervene in favor of Trump’s interests by the Justice Department was pummeled by the courts when Barr attempted to return Michael Cohen to prison because he refused to agree not to publish or discuss his tell all book on Trump. Justice Hellerstein in a scathing ruling against Barr’s Justice Department stated:

“….I find ….the purpose retaliatory. Retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment Rights to publish a book….. In twenty one years of being a judge and sentencing people and looking at the terms and conditions of supervised release I have never seen such a clause……”. 

 Barr and his other enablers have prevented the production of Trump’s financial documents prior to the November elections. The financial history it is believed will answer in detail the question, “What has Putin got on him?”.

But Barr has even recently argued to the courts that a case involving an accusation of rape against the POTUS should be against the state and not Trump.

 

The need for Trump to win in 2020 becomes a matter of life or death to him as he could not survive as a private citizen and no one knows it better than Barr. 

One wonders what Trump has on Barr for him to behave in this fashion. 

THE REVELATIONS FOCUSSING ATTENTION ON TRUMP THE SECURITY RISK

In Bob Woodward’s blockbuster, Rage, the former highly respected Republican Head of National Intelligence Dan Coates, is quoted as saying that Vladimir Putin “had something” on Donald Trump. As far as Coates was concerned there could be “no other explanation” for the President’s behavior. Incidentally Coates, sounding like Randy Rainbow,  mused that, “He can’t tell a truth from a lie”. The highly regarded Indianian former Senator served as the National Security Advisor for two and a half years and was Trump’s choice to replace Obama’s retiring James Clapper.

 What will turn out to be the definitive explanation of Trump’s threat to national security is  Peter Strzok’s, “Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump”. On the “Daily Beast” podcast, “The New Abnormal” with former Republican strategist Rick Wilson, Strzok even entertained the possibility that Trump had a Russian handler.

 Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer detailed Trump’s involvement in negotiations with Russia to build the Moscow Trump Tower in his book “Disloyal”, at a time when Trump was denying again and again any business relationship with Russia. 

THE LOVE BETWEEN TRUMP AND PUTIN JUST GREW AND GREW BUT NO INVESTIGATION INTO THAT RELATIONSHIP HAS SURFACED. 

Matters have gotten far worse since Coates resigned with Trump failing to challenge the Russian oligarch for placing a bounty on American troops, which he has reportedly paid to Taliban mercenaries, refusing to condemn the attempted murder of the former KGB operative’s leader of opposition and the confrontation by Putin’s armed forces on American personnel and operations in the Middle East to quote just a few of the very latest mystifying behaviors of the POTUS. In contrast he has been no help to America’s traditional allies NATO while allowing Russia to annex Crimea without as much as sending a few more troops to Europe. Rather he is withdrawing them. 

 Strzok maintained that there was no Intelligence investigation into the relationship between Trump and Putin. It was initially believed that this would be probed but he explained that “Mueller, on the instructions of Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, referred that component to the FBI and no one knows to this date where that investigation is at now. Woodward in "Rage" makes it quite clear that Rosenstein was a Trump supporter and he had total control of the Mueller probe. In fact Woodward calls it the Rosenstein Investigation. So much for the investigation of Trump's personal relationship with Putin.

 Strzok was fired for alleged bias, which had been reflected in his e mails in his preference for Clinton as President in 2016 so his involvement in the Russia investigation ended very early on. The termination was reviewed by the Inspector General of the Justice Department who exonerated the former Chief of the Counterespionage Department and found that there was no basis to the claim that bias interfered with Strzok’s professionalism and work. 

Now Strzok is the real deal and his twenty two year work on busting Russia’s spies is legend. In his book he lays down the sophisticated and comprehensive infrastructure he presented to Mueller as to how to probe the connections between Trump and Russia. But more about him and his book later.

PERSONAL ATTORNEY COHEN DETAILS TRUMP’S RUSSIAN FINANCIAL PURSUITS

Then there is Michael Cohen, Trump’s former consiglieri and personal attorney who went to jail according to the prosecutors for following Trump’s instructions to pay off Stormy Daniels to shut up about their affair. In his expose - the third in one week - “Disloyal”, Cohen spills the beans about Trump’s campaign lies that he had no financial dealings with Russia. At the time Cohen was negotiating what would have been Trump’s biggest deal of his life - the Moscow Trump Tower. The disgraced attorney had a theory about the vast sums of moneys and profits that Trump made from selling properties to Russians - particularly the fifty million dollars he pocketed for a turnkey deal in Florida. He postulated that the money was Putin’s and Trump was in effect laundering it for him. 

TRUMP AND ENABLERS DEFY THE CONSTITUTION AS PRESSURE GROWS FOR FINANCIAL RECORDS THAT WOULD SHOW “WHAT PUTIN HAS GOT ON HIM”

Now Trump has refused to cooperate with Congress to provide his financial records and taxes which he has promised to produce about as often he has reassured his cult that Mexico would pay for the wall he still hasn’t built. The Supreme Court failed to intervene telling the two branches of Government to sort it out. Trump is almost at the end of his rope as it gets closer and closer to the New York State Attorney laying his hands on his financial records which even the Supreme Court agreed that they were entitled to have. However they allowed Trump to go back to the courts again to argue his case. At stake are eight years of records that have been subpoenaed from Trump’s accountants. What is not at stake is the fact that the records will not be in the NY State Attorney’s hands before November the third the date of the elections.

So the situation now is much where it was when Christopher Steele produced his dossier nearly five years ago. Trump and his campaign willingly welcomed, called for and cooperated with the Russians in their effort to support him and to vilify Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. This finding was corroborated by the Mueller report, (four hundred pages) and a bipartisan Senate Intelligence investigation, (a thousand pages). The Senate report suggested that Barr’s Justice Department investigate Trump son Don Jnr. and son in law Jared Kushner for perjury -  Don’t hold your breath!.

The body politic is none the wiser as to what Putin has on Trump because he has defied the Constitution, with his enablers help, to allow for the investigation into his malfeasance. However, Peter Strzok, the master Russian Counter Intelligence agent, in his epistle “Compromised”, outlined in detail the investigation he presented to Mueller to ascertain how to find out.  Rosenstein apparently was not interested. Supposedly the FBI were given the mandate to follow Strzok’s guidelines but nobody has a heard a word. 

STRZOK’S BOOK “COMPROMISED - COUNTER INTELLIGENCE AND THE THREAT OF DONALD J. TRYMP

In a compelling narrative Strzok’s best selling book lays out the case for Trump being at best “A useful idiot” and at worst cooperating directly with the Russians. He outlined the way the Russians conduct their counter intelligence operations. His book is a must read for anyone remotely interested in the future of America. Bear in mind that Donald Trump has had “business relations” with Russia since the 1980’s. In 2013 Trump held his international pageant in Moscow where he allegedly mooted his Moscow Trump Towers project. Putin was offered the penthouse as a gift according to Cohen. 

Besides all the gory details Strzok puts it very simply as to what would made a counter intelligence agent freeze with fright when he makes the following observation of a Presidential candidate:

“The moment Trump said publicly, “I have no business dealings with Russia”, he knew he was lying. Putin knew he was lying and the FBI had reason to believe he was lying but Americans citizens didn’t know that…..(it) signaled to Putin that Trump was more interested in maintaining his personal interests than telling the truth to America and that he needed Putin’s complicity to maintain the lie…. in this moment Trump became compromised”

Then with regard to the Trump campaign involvement in the Russian campaign Strzok notes…. 

“For starters, we knew that one of Trump’s foreign policy advisors, Papadopoulus, had boasted about his knowledge that Russia had information damaging to Hillary Clinton and Moscow had offered to assist the Trump campaign by releasing the material…. Papadopoulos lied to us… he, (subsequently), deactivated a Facebook account that he had used to communicate directly with the Russians”

Should there be any doubt as to the Trump/Putin axis what followed should obliterate any uncertainty. Trump’s campaign managers, deputy campaign manager, foreign policy advisor, lawyer, national security advisor, life long advisor, (Roger Stone), were all indicted for their involvement in the Russian efforts to elect Trump. In addition his incoming Attorney General had to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation because he had lied about his contacts with the Russians. Finally, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report on the campaign the body recommended prosecutions for perjury of Trump’s son Donald Junior and his son in law Jared Kushner.

WHERE WE ARE NOW - OVER TO BARR

The Trump administration aided and abetted by Barr in the teeth of a Whistleblower complaint are attempting to deny Russia’s involvement in 2020. Barr in fact hopes to provide Trump with “proof” prior to the election that the Mueller investigation and presumably the Senate report are “hoaxes”. Barr is not investigating Jared and Don Jnr in spite of being presented with a water tight case of perjury against them. Nor is he investigating the new Postmaster General for 2016 campaign fraud. He is undeterred that his chief investigator of the investigators has resigned because of political pressure he has placed on her to produce the goods for Trump.

Barr when asked how he believed history will judge him responded history is written by the winners. He should read the history written by the “loser” German historians on the collusion of the Judiciary and the Justice Department in the Third Reich to realize that history, “is what it is”. He might also take note of the fact that John Mitchell, Nixon’s Attorney General went to jail.

Perhaps Barr is also compromised by the Russians.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

No - one is taking too much notice of this major scandal because Trump’s behavior has been normalized. In addition they are focussed on his climate denial on both sides of the continent, his science denial of the pandemic coupled with his heartless disregard for human life illustrated by his restarting of his Nuremberg style rallies. In fairness to him his historic peace deal in the Middle East between Israel and two of the Sunni Gulf States is garnering some deserved attention.

Disgust never ends and the nearly forgotten plight of the separation, in some cases forever, of parents and children at the border has been revived by a WhistleBlower complaint that women were having their uteruses removed without their permission! 

If the Pennsylvania Town Hall was a dress rehearsal for the debates in two weeks then Trump needs to stop prepping with Fox.  

In spite of all of this Trump is in there with a chance and has signaled he ain’t going to give in without a fight literally and figuratively .  

With Barr's belief that lockdowns for the virus are akin to slavery the

time for him take medical leave is now.