BY BRIAN BEUTLER, SARAH LAZARUS

& CROOKED MEDIA

Thursday, October 10, 2019

—The Poll Reader, having a normal one.

HIGH CRIMES AND THE REGULAR KIND

The “easy to follow” Ukraine scandal just got a lot more complicated and crimey: Two associates of Rudy Giuliani who are directly implicated in President Trump’s scheme to extort Ukraine were arrested Wednesday night—while they were apparently attempting to flee the country—on charges of conspiring to influence U.S. politics with foreign money. 

It’s a little confusing—OK, it’s a lot confusing—but basically: A couple of goons who are sitting on potentially incriminating information about Trump and Giuliani just got charged with committing crimes, some of which tie back to the House’s impeachment inquiry. And now we pop popcorn. 

Who are we talking about here? Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman are “businessmen” who helped Giuliani coerce Ukraine into investigating into Joe Biden. They also simultaneously exploited their proximity to Giuliani and Trump to attempt a takeover of a Ukrainian gas company so they could steer lucrative contracts to Trump allies in the U.S. House Democrats subpoenaed them for documents today after they refused to cooperate.

Why were they arrested today? A bunch of crimes, but one is particularly relevant. The two men illegally funneled a bunch of money (including from an unnamed Russian businessman) to former Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) to enlist his help getting U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch recalled from Ukraine. They wanted her out in part because she wasn’t friendly enough to their shady business interests, but also because she wouldn’t participate in the plot to smear Biden either. A few months later, Trump recalled her.

Oh is that all? No! The FBI arrested them as they attempted to board a one-way flight to Frankfurt last night, hours after dining with Giuliani at the Trump's Washington, DC, hotel. Probably another crazy coincidence! Just a casual meal among completely innocent friends, before flying off to some sort of fun vacation for innocent people!

Now what? Two main things to look out for: 1) Were Trump and/or Giuliani mixed up in any of the crimes spelled out in the indictment? 2) will Parnas and/or Furman “flip”—that is, provide federal investigators in New York with incriminating information about Giuliani and/or Trump in exchange for leniency? Trump told reporters, “I don’t know those gentlemen. Now it’s possible I have a picture with them, because I have a picture with everybody,” and said he hopes Giuliani doesn’t get indicted. The highly sophisticated Keke Palmer “sorry to this man” defense: you love to see it.

Michael Pillsbury, an outside adviser to President Trump, told the Financial Times that he received information on Hunter Biden while he was in Beijing, shortly after Trump called upon China to investigate him on the South Lawn. Also, Rudy Giuliani appeared on Sean Hannity’s show before God and everyone and said, "keep your eye not just on China, keep your eye on Romania. Just watch Romania.” Then at the end of the interview he hinted that yet another country is involved in his international freelance collusion racket. It’s like Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego, if Carmen Sandiego did global political conspiracies and also just constantly announced where in the world she was.

While everyone is looking ahead to 2020, there are some important races underway in 2019 and one of our biggest chances to make a difference is in Virginia. We only need to flip TWO seats in the Virginia House of Delegates and TWO seats in the state Senate (and protect currently held Democratic seats which are all up for reelection) to win majorities and help ensure a fair redistricting process in 2021!

If you live in or near Virginia, Vote Save America can help you find volunteer opportunities all month that will help make the difference in November. You can also find remote volunteer opportunities to help from wherever you live or donate to our Fuck Gerry(mandering) fund to help make sure Virginia candidates in some of the closest races have the resources they need in this final stretch.

Go to votesaveamerica.com/fuckgerry to pitch in and do your part to unfuck America, one state at a time.

Since it’s apparently high crimes month, thought you should know that in 2017 President Trump pressed his then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to use his diplomatic powers get one of Rudy Giuliani’s Turkish clients off the hook for charges that he circumvented sanctions on Iran. Happy Thursday!   

At least 23 Kurdish fighters have been killed in Syria since Turkey’s invasion began Wednesday. Trump responded to the impending slaughter of U.S. allies in the fight against ISIS with sensitive comments like "They didn't help us in the Second World War, they didn't help us with Normandy." 

Deutsche Bank told a U.S. court that it does not have copies of President Trump’s personal tax returns. Congressional committees subpoenaed Deutsche Bank earlier this year for financial records related to the president, and bank officials had told the New York Times that they had portions of Trump’s tax returns. "It is unclear when Deutsche Bank stopped retaining the tax returns,” the Times notes, which definitely doesn’t evoke the image of paper shredders. 

The American wife of a U.S. diplomat in the United Kingdom was involved in a crash that left a teenage motorcyclist dead, then fled the country, citing diplomatic immunity, and when Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked Trump to send her back to the U.K., Trump literally said “it happens,” and did nothing. 

Former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) will join President Trump’s legal team. You may remember him from chairing the House Select Committee on Benghazi, or have seen this clip of him defending the importance of Congress’s oversight powers. Anyhow, we’ll likely be seeing him on TV a lot, so that’s something to look forward to.

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) will not seek reelection in 2020. Lowey, 82, was first elected to Congress in 1988, and is the first woman to chair the House Appropriations Committee.

Splinter has shut down after two years. The site was itself a successor to Gawker, which was forced to shut down after conservative billionaire Peter Thiel helped the wrestler Hulk Hogan sue it into oblivion as an act of revenge. 

Tulsi Gabbard threatened to boycott the next Democratic primary debate in a frankly baffling video. In it, she accuses the Democratic National Committee and media of rigging the primary through the use of…polls and debates? Against the right of voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina to get special attention, just as the Founders intended? Marianne Williamson wholeheartedly agrees, and we remain incredibly confused.

Former national security adviser John Bolton will write a book about his service in the Trump administration. Bolton left the White House amid a flurry of lies and bad blood, so hopefully it will be a spicy one to flip through for five minutes at the airport and never, ever purchase.

As predictable and comforting as the return of pumpkin spice everything, layering season has arrived. And this year, instead of layering to head out, we’re all about layering to stay in. With natural alpaca throws, plush robes, cozy quilts and other warm essentials – Parachute has everything you could possibly want to dress your home for fall.

For free shipping and returns → parachutehome.com

The Environmental Protection Agency will overhaul rules governing how communities must test for lead in water, for the first time in decades. The new rule, which has been in the works since 2010, is meant to provide a “proactive and holistic approach” for catching elevated lead levels more reliably, and forcing utilities to fix problems faster. The rule strengthens testing protocols, but environmental advocates say it fails to address the biggest problem: at least six million lead service lines that are still underground across the country, and continue to cause contamination. In other words: the coming proposal will hopefully make some short-term improvements, but there’s still a lot of work to do.

Here comes the cavalry? The Trump campaign has raised a ton of money and wildly outspent Democrats, particularly on social media—an advertising medium Trump exploited to (unfortunately) great effect in 2016. As of earlier this week, Trump had dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars on anti-impeachment Facebook ads alone, while the largest pro-impeachment ad-buyer was a Wisconsin spice company that spent just over $100,000. But that just changed. 

The Democratic digital firm ACRONYM will spend $1 million on an ad campaign to test different pro-impeachment across five swing states— Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—and may take the campaign national after this test run. “Our hypothesis is that the facts speak for themselves,” said ACRONYM’s Chief Marketing Officer Shannon Kowalczyk. “So when you lay them out clearly people will understand what’s going on.”

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