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When Sen. John N. Kennedy of Louisiana went with a group of fellow Republican lawmakers to celebrate the Fourth of July in Moscow (yes, Moscow) last year, they met with Russian counterparts in what the Russian press described as a secret room.Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of Russias foreign affairs committee, said Kennedy had promised to deliver a tough message about Russias interference in U.S. elections, but when it was his turn to speak he had absolutely nothing to say.

Now the Republicans have plenty to say, and most of it benefits the Kremlin. Indeed, the Republicans of Donald Trumps regime and the Russians of Vladimir Putins often sing in amazing harmony.

When Kennedy was interviewed Sunday by Chris Wallace on Fox News, he gave us a striking example of synchronicity. Kennedy, who was educated at Vanderbilt, the University of Virginia, and Oxford Universitys Magdalen College, and ought to know better, readily echoed a fable spawned by the Russian security services.

Who do you believe was responsible for hacking the DNC [Democratic National Committee] and [Hillary] Clinton campaign computers, their emails? Wallace asked. Was it Russia or Ukraine?To which Kennedy replied, I dont know, nor do you, nor do any others.

Wallace fired back: Let me just interrupt to say the entire intelligence community says it was Russia. Kennedy wobbled: Right, but it could also be Ukraine.

Gone are the days when the GOP dared to confront the Kremlin.

Nothing could better epitomize the ideal outcome of the Kremlins barrage of conflicting narratives, its dezinformatsiya, or disinformation designed to create a false impression that the truth is simply unknowable.

Gone are the days when the GOP dared to confront the Kremlin, and we should keep in mind that prominent Russian politicians and media figures rejoiced at the death of the late, great Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) last yearpresciently predicting that no one in the Republican Party would be able to live up to his legacy. Appearing on the Russian state television show 60 Minutes in 2018, Karen Shakhnazarov opined: Global empires like the United States are destroyed from within... The U.S. is deteriorating. They wont find other fighters like McCain. There wont be any others like him. This process is irreversible.

The Kremlin wagered its bets with stellar precision and the Republicans made the job easy. Instead of picking up the torch of democracy proudly carried by McCain, the GOP of Trump is clutching the tiki torch of Russian propaganda.

Fiona Hill, who served as the leading Russia expert on Trumps National Security Council staff, issued a stark warning during her testimony in the impeachment hearing: Some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that is being perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves. The Republican committee members who have intoned the phrase Russia hoax like a mantra feigned surprise.

President Trump did not heed the warning from Hill, nor did his Republican enablers. Calling into Fox & Friends, Trump again repeated the debunked conspiracy theory that Russia didnt hack the servers of the DNCand Ukraine was the real culprit. Then Russian state television immediately inserted the translated clip from Fox News into its news broadcasts.

The U.S. is deteriorating. They wont find other fighters like McCain.

Karen Shakhnazarov on Russia's "60 Minutes" in 2018

But weve come to expect that sort of thing from the president who took the side of Putin against his whole intelligence community at the Helsinki summit last year.

Its the capitulation to the Kremlin by the virtual entirety of the obsequious GOP that really draws attention now as Trumps impeachment by the House and trial by the Senate loom on the near horizon.

Last Thursday, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (once a close friend of McCain) launched a probe into former Vice President Joe Bidens dealings with Ukraine. His efforts were lauded almost instantaneously on the Russian state television program Vesti Nedeli. And lo and behold, that very same day Russian state media announced the alleged beginning by the Ukrainian parliament, or Rada, of an investigation into the Ukrainian energy company Burisma as well as Hunter Biden, who sat on its board, and his father.

Vesti couldnt hide its excitement with a segment entitled Rada FINALLY sits up... Opens Investigation of Hunter Biden! Vesti added: Its hardly possible to get back the money, but will likely mess up Joe Bidens election prospects.

The said investigation is in fact merely an audit. Ukraines Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka has said repeatedly that there are no criminal cases or any other cases initiated against Burisma or Hunter Biden. But the mere announcement of such an inquiry could be used for political advantage. One recalls the testimony of Ambassador Gordon Sondland revealing that a public announcement of an investigation by Ukraines president would sufficiently serve Trumps political needs.

Multiple actors in the United States, Russia, and Ukraine have been promoting the idea of investigating Ukraines alleged election meddling, as well as the inquiry about the Bidens. The calls for such measures have been promoted especially by Ukrainian lawmakers known for their pro-Russian views, including Yuri Boyko, the co-chairman of Ukraines biggest pro-Russian party.

Russias influence over its largest European neighbor can be restored only by undermining the American involvement.

According to the English-language Ukrainian newspaper Kyiv Post, three other Ukrainian lawmakersOleg Voloshyn, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, and Andriy Derkachare also doing Trumps dirty work to try to prompt the investigations he demanded from the Ukrainian president.

The Kyiv Post pointed out the lawmakers links to the oligarch Dmytro Firtash, discredited former Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, and President Trumps former campaign chief Paul Manafort.

Voloshyn, who calls Manafort his friend, authored a flattering opinion piece about him in December 2017. At the time, Robert Muellers prosecutors argued that Manafort violated a gag order by heavily editing Voloshyns op-ed that attempted to whitewash Manaforts work in Ukraine.

The politically motivated investigations of the Bidens and Ukraines alleged interference in the U.S. elections would play right into President Vladimir Putins hands by jeopardizing bipartisan U.S. support for Kyiv. The Kremlin, which seized and annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, sees Ukraine as the highly coveted jewel of the post-Soviet region. But Russias influence over its largest European neighbor can be restored only by undermining the American involvement. Putin personally pitched in to paint a negative picture of Ukraine, when President Trump inexplicably sought his guidance on how to deal with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The Kremlin has strived continually to drive a wedge between the United States and Ukraine in order to get the country back firmly into Russias sphere of influence. Russian state media repeatedly urge the Ukrainian government to go along with Trumps demands, no matter how humiliating, or else lose any hope of continued U.S. support.

The host of Russian news talk show 60 Minutes, Evgeny Popov, warned: If Trump gets re-elected, and you dont investigate Biden... [Ukraine] wont get anything from America. Not a thing. The co-host of 60 Minutes, Olga Skabeeva, scoffed: With respect to mutual American-Ukrainian love, as we know, nothing lasts forever, adding, Trump could spit on Ukraine.

The leader of a pro-Russian group of Ukrainians, Yuriy Kot, picked up that refrain: Trump could spit on Ukraine! Kot added that if Trump is re-elected, Ukraine can expect four more years of hell from the United States of America. You dont even understand the horror that is coming your way. Skabeeva summed up: For Ukraine, this is a catastrophe... Americans are directly telling you theyre sick of you. Nobody needs you.

Trump could spit on Ukraine.

Olga Skabeeva, co-hose of Russia's "60 Minutes"

Such demoralizing drivel from Russian state media is, of course, designed to push the fledgling democracy away from the U.S. and back into Russias orbit.

Trump, for his part, has been in the blame Ukraine camp for years as a way to diminish or discredit the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community and many of its Western allies that, as Fiona Hill pointed out, Putin had waged a systematic effort to undermine U.S. democracy, with support for Trump a part of that strategy.

Putin and Trump reportedly have discussed allegations of Ukrainian interference in U.S. elections. In a 2017 Oval Office meeting, Trump told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that he was unconcerned about Moscows election interference. At the G20 in June of this year, Trump grinned and playfully wagged his finger as he told Putin: Dont meddle in the election."

One month later, during Trumps now infamous July 25 call with Ukraines Zelensky, Trump urged him to investigate Ukraines alleged meddling in the U.S. electionsand the lesson drawn from all this by Putin? Appearing at the economic forum Russia Calling, he smirked: Thank God no one is accusing us of interfering in the U.S. elections anymore. Now theyre accusing Ukraine.

But heres the fact of the matter. Russias unprecedented interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election has been described, with reason, as the most successful influence campaign in history, one that will be studied globally for decades, and it is far from over.

Instead of counteracting Russias malign influence, American foreign policy under Trump is seemingly being guided by it and leaders of the Republican Party are doing their best to aid and abet that program.

The wave of Kremlin disinformation started with faceless workers at the St. Petersburg troll factory banging away at their keyboards, striving to reach everyday not-very-well-informed Americans who would in turn misinform others within their sphere of influence.

The operation surpassed Putins wildest dreams when ripples of disinformation surged into a tsunami as Candidate Trump and then President Trump started openly to recite Russias fictive talking points. The range of dissemination was then magnified by Trumps Republican supporters, along with his 67 million Twitter followers, and media outlets hanging on to every word uttered by the leader of the mightiest country in the world.

In sum, theres no question the presidency of Donald J. Trump has proved to be enormously beneficial for the Kremlin, and supporters of the Russian president are openly rooting for Trumps re-election.

Russian state television channel Rossiya-1 has dispatched its reporter Denis Davydov to broadcast directly from the impeachment hearings and, probably this should not be a surprise, Russian state-media coverage sounded eerily like much of Fox News, echoing the disingenuous claims by Trump supporters that there was no pressure against Ukraine and no quid pro quo.

For the first time in modern history, in the era of Trump, Russian state television is more than happy to support the Republicansand for a good reason.

See the original post:
Why Are Republicans So Anxious to Play Putin's Game on Ukraine? - The Daily Beast

During his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on Nov. 13, Ambassador William Taylor described our diplomatic relations with Ukraine in terms of two channels. The first emanates from the Department of State and is managed by diplomats and staffers under the oversight of the ambassador and secretary of state.

The second, as described by Taylor, Russia expert Fiona Hill, Ambassador Gordon Sondland and other witnesses, was a highly irregular channel operated by an ad hoc team comprised of Ambassadors Sondland and Kurt Volker and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, all under the guidance of President Trumps personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.

But, asked Stephen Castor, the lawyer charged with questioning the witnesses on behalf of the Republicans, In fairness, this irregular channel of diplomacy, its not as outlandish as it could be. Is that correct?

Well, yes, the irregular channel could have been more outlandish. Volker, Sondland and Perry, The Three Amigos, might have actually attended embassy dinners dressed in black mariachi outfits and sombreros.

Instead, all The Three Amigos did was jeopardize the fledgling, reform-minded government of an important ally, undermine that nations effort to defend itself from an aggressive adversary and strengthen the hand of international bad actor Russia, all in an effort to gain a domestic political advantage for Trump.

Certainly any outlandish scheme can be more outlandish. But the peculiar weakness of this argument exemplifies the transparency of the defense that the Republicans gamely mounted during more than 30 hours of testimony.

Mostly the Republicans made the same arguments over and over. The Democrats, they asserted, began their campaign to impeach Trump even before his inauguration; some testimony was taken in closed-door sessions; the military aid eventually reached the Ukrainians so there cant have been anything fishy going on; Chairman Adam Schiff isnt being fair; wheres the whistleblower?; and so on.

All of these claims are either irrelevant or highly disputable. Nevertheless, they were stubbornly repeated virtually every time the Republicans had the stage.As the hearings wore on, Republicans tried to pick away at the case against the president by attacking the witnesses themselves.

Without evidence they impugned the loyalty of foreign-born Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman.

Without evidence, Republicans suggested that David Holmes, the political counselor at the U.S. embassy in Ukraine who overheard the awkward phone conversation between Sondland and Trump, had mishandled sensitive information.

If the Republicans had better arguments they wouldnt have to rely on flimsy ones such as these, nor would they have to repeat them constantly.

Did Trump withhold a White House meeting and military aid from Ukraine, at a time when it desperately needed both, in exchange for help with his re-election? The evidence against Trump is overwhelming.

What now? Impeachment in the House seems inevitable; so does acquittal in the Senate. But what our nation needs more than anything right now is a few good Republicans willing to place principle over party.

I had a fleeting hope for Rep. Will Hurd, a soft-spoken, moderate Republican from Texas who had the courage to serve as an undercover C.I.A. officer in Afghanistan, as well as to stand up to Trump on his border wall and other issues. Alas, on the last day of testimony he hewed close to the party line.

But its not too late for Hurd and other Republicans to weigh carefully the competing interests of their own political futures versus the acknowledgement of the truth and the primacy of the rule of law in our country.

Courage is contagious. The public integrity of only a few Republicans could change the arc of this sorry episode back toward the stringent accountability required by the Constitution of those in public office.

John M. Crisp is a syndicated columnist.

The rest is here:
What the country needs is a few good Republicans - Boston Herald

The core question this impeachment process is raising isnt What did Donald Trump do? The hearings have filled in important details and added confirming witnesses, but the story is largely the one weve known since the White House released the call record.

Instead, the core question the hearings are raising is: What will Republicans accept and defend? The answer, at least judging by the arguments of Reps. Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan, is chilling.

On this weeks episode of Impeachment, Explained, Andrew Prokop joins me to analyze the first, and perhaps only, week of public impeachment inquiry. Then, Thomas Mann, co-author of Its Even Worse Than It Looks joins me to discuss how the Republican Party became the institution on display in this process.

Ive heard from listeners who enjoy this podcast, but wish it could be more balanced. I wish it could be more balanced, too. But to pretend that an imbalanced system is balanced is a poisonous form of bias. This episode is about seeing whats right in front of our eyes, and taking seriously what it means for our future.

Read the original:
Author of Its Even Worse Than It Looks on the GOP and Trump impeachment inquiry - Vox.com

Activist groups are sending mobile billboard trucks to follow a handful of House Republicans home for Thanksgiving with a message: Defend democracy.

Progressive groups MoveOn and Need to Impeach commissioned the billboard trucks to visit eight districts across seven states from Monday through Wednesday. The eight targeted Republicans include either retiring members, members who have split from President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump puts Kushner in charge of overseeing border wall construction: report Trump 2020 national spokesperson gives birth to daughter New McCarthy ad praising Trump includes Russian stock footage MORE in the past, or vulnerable members in more moderate districts.

The billboards, which comes as Congress concludes its second week of public hearings on impeachment, demand that these members of Congress stop covering for Donald Trumps abuses of power, in which he pressured a foreign government to interfere in a U.S. election to advance his own political interests, undermined state and local elections, interfered with national security, and got caught trying to cover it all up, the groups said in a joint announcement.

A truck targeting Rep. Elise StefanikElise Marie StefanikBillboards calling on House Republicans to 'do their job' follow members home for Thanksgiving The Hill's Morning Report Bloomberg is in; independents sour on impeachment Rising GOP star thrust into spotlight with Trump defense MORE (R-N.Y.), who emerged as a staunch Trump defender during the public impeachment hearings, kicked off its tour of the upstate New York district Monday in Glenn Falls.

56% of Americans believe Donald Trump should be impeached. Were in @RepStefaniks district to demand she listen to the American people and #ImpeachAndRemove Trump! pic.twitter.com/bkn5CTc1uL

An image shared with The Hill by the groups shows a truck with Stefanik and Trumps faces, side by side. It reads Donald Trump Committed bribery. ... Tell Rep. Stefanik: Defend democracy. Impeach Trump. The group also launched an ad calling on Stefanik to honor her oath and defend our Constitution.

The other trucks are the same, swapping out the member's name and image next toTrumps with the shared message.

Other targeted Republicans are Reps. Brian FitzpatrickBrian K. FitzpatrickBillboards calling on House Republicans to 'do their job' follow members home for Thanksgiving Mark Ruffalo brings fight against 'forever chemicals' to Capitol Hill Hillicon Valley: Critics press feds to block Google, Fitbit deal | Twitter takes down Hamas, Hezbollah-linked accounts | TikTok looks to join online anti-terrorism effort | Apple pledges .5B to affordable housing MORE (Pa.), Scott PerryScott Gordon PerryBillboards calling on House Republicans to 'do their job' follow members home for Thanksgiving Yovanovitch impeachment testimony gives burst of momentum to Democrats House Republicans prepare for public impeachment proceedings with mock hearing MORE (Pa.), Mark AmodeiMark Eugene AmodeiBillboards calling on House Republicans to 'do their job' follow members home for Thanksgiving Trump's defenders are running out of options Avoiding the snake in the grass: Let's not allow impeachment to divide us MORE (Nev.), Francis RooneyLaurence (Francis) Francis RooneyBillboards calling on House Republicans to 'do their job' follow members home for Thanksgiving How House Republicans have stayed unified on impeachment Bipartisan Senate climate caucus grows by six members MORE (Fla.), Will HurdWilliam Ballard HurdDavis: Congressman Will Hurd, If not now, when? Billboards calling on House Republicans to 'do their job' follow members home for Thanksgiving Democrats set to open new chapter in impeachment MORE (Texas) and Chip RoyCharles (Chip) Eugene RoyBillboards calling on House Republicans to 'do their job' follow members home for Thanksgiving Senate approves stopgap bill to prevent shutdown Senate scraps plan to force second stopgap vote ahead of shutdown MORE (Texas).

Stefanik, first elected in 2014, represents a district Trump carried by 13.7 points. She was praised by Trump and Republican leaders for her performance during the impeachment hearings, but since then her Democratic opponent Tedra Cobb boasted bringing in more than $1 million in campaign donations.

Hurd has announced he will not be seeking reelection. His vacated seat in Texas and Perrys seat in Pennsylvania represent two districts that The Cook Political Report ranks as a toss up in 2020. Fitzpatrick and Roys races are ranked lean Republican.

Rooney has also announced he is not seeking reelection.

Amodei was reported to be the first Republican to back impeachment in September, but he later clarified and said he supports the oversight process but that did not mean he backed impeachment.

Read more here:
Billboards calling on House Republicans to 'do their job' follow members home for Thanksgiving | TheHill - The Hill

Trumps own statements and policies are the strongest argument that his vision aligns with that of white nationalists. One wonders how, precisely, someone like Charlie Kirk could have answered a question posed by Fuentes in his channel: Why does the president prefer immigrants from Norway vs. Haiti?

While the litany of Trumps acts cozying up to and encouraging a once-fringe white nationalist element is long, its worth considering the architect of the immigration policies that establishment Republicans like Dan Crenshaw champion. An ongoing series of articles by the Southern Poverty Law Centers Michael E. Hayden, drawing on some 900 e-mails sent by Trump's senior policy adviser Stephen Miller to former Breitbart editor Katie McHugh, have laid out precisely the ideological affiliations of the administrations immigration czar. From championing the Confederate flag to repeatedly linking to openly white nationalist sites like VDARE and American Renaissance, Miller stridently embraced the tenets of white supremacy; and like the Fuentes faction, he also advocated a complete cessation of legal immigration of any kind. There should be no immigration for several years. Not just cut the number down from the current 1 million green cards per year. For assimilation purposes, he wrote to McHugh.

Millers e-mails show a familiarity withand advocacy ofthe great replacement conspiracy theory, which posits a plot by elites to replace the white population of America and Europe with nonwhite immigrants. Miller stops short of embracing a crucial tenet of great replacement theory embraced by most of the white nationalist right: that this replacement is being orchestrated by Jews. (That precise theorem is what motivated the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter to murder eleven Jews almost exactly a year ago.) Perhaps this is because Miller is Jewish, a fact that the White House has belabored in its increasingly mendacious defenses of the staffer, going so far as to accuse the Southern Poverty Law Center of an anti-Semitic campaign.

But it is impossible to advocate for white nationalism, as Miller has throughout his career in politics, without simultaneously elevating anti-Semitism. For most white nationalists, anti-Semitism is a non-negotiable raison dtre for the movement, the unified field theory that ties a bigoted worldview together. In their minds, nonwhite people are too ignorant and barbaric to organize the kind of demographic coup the great replacement theory lays out; instead, they assert again and again, it has been orchestrated by cunning Jews, pulling the marionette strings of mass migration and advocating for interracial marriage. The sites, forums, and chats that advocate for an end to legal immigrationand that push the false theory that demographic change amounts to white genocideare places that praise Hitler and traffic in the ugliest of anti-Semitic sentiments. This is why an administration awash in anti-immigrant sentiment, slashing rights for asylees and refugees, governed during the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, the deadliest pogrom in American history. It is not a coincidence. It never was.

None of the Republican figures so quick to disavow Fuentes did the same for Miller; indeed, there has been a profound, impenetrable closing of the ranks around him on the right. The chief difference at play is that Miller advocates from the White House for the end of legal immigration, while the insurgent faction does so on messaging apps, and while lined up in the audience section at events, like plebes. Its difficult to avoid the conclusion that the differences are not primarily ideological; principally, they are about an aversion to heckling.

The sudden, awkward repudiation of white nationalism by conservative ideologues subjected to its unruly minions may be comical, but it is a small part of the story of a national plague. Begrimed in the filth of racist invective and nativist sentiment, which groups like TPUSA have eagerly whipped up in their own right with a constant stream of culture-war content, the Republican establishment finds itself unable to ward off the forces they have unleashed. Its akin to someone who starves a dog intentionally; lets it terrorize a neighborhood, maiming and wounding all who come close to it; and then reacts in horror and surprise when at last the wretched cur turns on them.

There are tens of thousands of children who have been separated from their families by Stephen Millers policies; there are dozens of dead, murdered in an El Paso Walmart and a Pittsburgh synagogue and a Charlottesville street and by inadequate medical care in migration facilities. Through these years, as ethnic minorities and Jews and feminists and trans people and gay people have sounded out the alarm bells, the mainstream GOP laughed. They turned a profit on triggering the libs; they called opposition to the tide of rising white nationalism Trump Derangement Syndrome. Only when the hound turned on them, its jaws red and insatiable, did they at last begin to cry out in alarm about the danger the rest of us have known for years.

Talia Lavin is a writer based in Brooklyn. Her first book, Culture Warlords, is forthcoming in 2020 from Hachette Books.

What do you do when you hear that Mike Tyson is opening a weed resort in the middle of the California desert? You go investigate.

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Why White Nationalists Are Turning on Trump Republicans - GQ