Book: Crime In Progress

New book, to be published November 26, by Glenn Simpson, head of Fusion GPS, and Peter Fritsch, NYT journalist. They'd been reporting on Paul Manafort and his ties to Russian organized crime for a decade, and were shocked when the Trump campaign tapped him. The right-wing and Republican efforts to discredit Fusion GPS for their hiring of Christopher Steele are detailed, and unprecedented. The authors were subpoenaed to testify before the Republicans investigating the origins of the Mueller report. Very timely during this time of writing articles of impeachment.

Just ordered. Authors interviewed on Rachel tonight.

Subtitled “Inside The Steele Dossier and The FusionGPS Investigation of Donald Trump.” Arrived today, looks very promising.

Simpson & Fritsch state that the Fusion GPS investigation of DJT was initially funded by a "Republican presidential candidate."  They don't name him, but I've read elsewhere it was Ted Cruz.

The IG's Dec. 9 report on Fusion and the Steele dossier and how Democrats plotted a coup against their duly-elected president may choose to omit that point.

The evidence that DJT is a charlatan, a fraud, a serial liar and a tax cheat is overwhelming. The Ukrainian affair may be the hook the Democrats need to impeach him, but they'll need to expose him for his financial misdeeds in order to gain any traction in removing him from office.

I'm hoping -- maybe even expecting? -- that SDNY is close to obtaining his New York tax returns, which are outside his control. That would explain why Nadler and Schiff are moving ahead with articles already. They may be saving his tax returns as a surprise, to avoid tipping off the Trump administration that they have the goods on him.

At least I hope so. This president is exposed, and to enter impeachment without bringing out all the, really PUBLIC, facts on his financial improprieties (which do rise to the level of felonies) would be a dereliction.

Apparently Christopher Steele's source for the golden showers allegation was "a hotel staffer who had been on duty at the time." The report was verified by no less than seven additional sources.

Sources for the rest of the report were "Source A was a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official; Source B a former top-level intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin; Source C a senior Russian financial official; Source D a close associate of Trump; Sources E and F were inside the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow; and Source G was a senior Kremlin official."

I still say the dossier has not been disproved in any of its allegations.

Maybe Republican lawmakers are not unwitting victims of Russian disinformation? Maybe they too have been compromised by the GRU?

The authors' documentation of Trump's coordination with, compromise by, and work to advance the motives of Vladimir Putin is nothing short of awe-inspiring. This book is a smoking gun.

Is there anything impeachable?

Is there anything strictly-speaking illegal?

Possibly not -- but that doesn't make it okay. Holy fuck this is scary shit. Someday, after the Orange Assclown is out of office, this book & others like it will be seen as clarion warnings that we ignored at our own peril.

Which, I fear, we are.

For reasons speculated above.

Christopher Steele wrote:

If this guy [Trump] wins, I may never be able to come to America while he's in office.

That says something. A Russian counter-intelligence expert unable to visit American soil for fear of what the US president might do to him.

Astonishing.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Maybe Republican lawmakers are not unwitting victims of Russian disinformation?  Maybe they too have been compromised by the GRU?

Here's another maybe.  Maybe the Democrats on the Intel Committee have been fully briefed on Trump's Russian kompromat and are simply using the Ukraine scandal to remove him from office. Before he can do any more damage.  But without having to divulge publicly the extent to which he is compromised.

Because they can't trust Senate Republicans -- several of whom are implicated -- with details of an ongoing FBI investigation, which will eventually sweep them up as well.

That would explain why Schiff refused to call Bruce or Nellie Ohr to testify, or Chris Steele, or Glenn Simpson or Peter Fritsch. They all could have reinforced the Democratic narrative, but not without revealing sources.

This is very interesting reading, especially in light of today's hearings.

Glenn Simpson & Peter Fritsch, in the New York Times on January 2, 2018, wrote:

A generation ago, Republicans sought to protect President Richard Nixon by urging the Senate Watergate committee to look at supposed wrongdoing by Democrats in previous elections. The committee chairman, Sam Ervin, a Democrat, said that would be “as foolish as the man who went bear hunting and stopped to chase rabbits.”

Today, amid a growing criminal inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, congressional Republicans are again chasing rabbits. We know because we’re their favorite quarry.

In the year since the publication of the so-called Steele dossier — the collection of intelligence reports we commissioned about Donald Trump’s ties to Russia — the president has repeatedly attacked us on Twitter. His allies in Congress have dug through our bank records and sought to tarnish our firm to punish us for highlighting his links to Russia. Conservative news outlets and even our former employer, The Wall Street Journal, have spun a succession of mendacious conspiracy theories about our motives and backers.

We are happy to correct the record.

...

We don’t believe the Steele dossier was the trigger for the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russian meddling. As we told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, our sources said the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp.

The intelligence committees have known for months that credible allegations of collusion between the Trump camp and Russia were pouring in from independent sources during the campaign. Yet lawmakers in the thrall of the president continue to wage a cynical campaign to portray us as the unwitting victims of Kremlin disinformation.

We suggested investigators look into the bank records of Deutsche Bank and others that were funding Mr. Trump’s businesses. Congress appears uninterested in that tip. We told Congress that from Manhattan to Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., and from Toronto to Panama, we found widespread evidence that Mr. Trump and his organization had worked with a wide array of dubious Russians in arrangements that often raised questions about money laundering. Likewise, those deals don’t seem to interest Congress.

We explained how, from our past journalistic work in Europe, we were deeply familiar with the political operative Paul Manafort’s coziness with Moscow and his financial ties to Russian oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin.

...

What came back shocked us. Mr. Steele’s sources in Russia (who were not paid) reported on an extensive — and now confirmed — effort by the Kremlin to help elect Mr. Trump president. Mr. Steele saw this as a crime in progress and decided he needed to report it to the F.B.I.

...

It is time to stop chasing rabbits. The public still has much to learn about a man with the most troubling business past of any United States president. Congress should release transcripts of our firm’s testimony, so that the American people can learn the truth about our work and most important, what happened to our democracy.

Okay, I finally finished "Crime In Progress" after having to set it aside several times to watch the live hearings about the crimes in progress.

It was VERY timely. It was VERY informative. It was VERY important.

All during this Russian collusion investigation, from the beginnings of the Mueller investigation to the disclosures of the Steele dossier to the House Republican hearings into Fusion GPS before the 2018 mid-terms and the House Democrat hearings into the Trump Administration after the 2018 hearings, we only got to hear one side of the Fusion GPS story.

This book tells the other side, the factual side, the side that will matter after Trump is out of office and the truth comes out.

It was fascinating.

It only reports up to the point in time where Mueller testified before Congress on July 24. We all know what happened shortly after that date -- the Ukraine scandal was exposed and Trump was impeached.

But the Russian story is still out there, still waiting for resolution, still hanging over Trump's head when he leaves office. Simpson & Fritsch state that Mueller was blocked by Trump from investigating his financial ties to Russian oligarchs and dirty organized crime money, so the whole story was not able to be included in his report.

But the Supreme Court has agreed, today, to rule on the lower court orders that Trump must release his taxes.

This story is not over.

This book will be a pillar of the future history of this era. With it, the reader can see far into the future.

In the afterward the authors mention that DJT was seriously bankrupt in the early 1990s, owing a billion dollars to various creditors.

He was bailed out.

I think we have our leverage point.

One wonders what goes through the heads of Fox News viewers.

As usual with any book critical of right-wing causes and conspiracies, there are DOZENS of one star reviews on Amazon, all not listed as "verified purchases," all filled with invective uninformed by any familiarity with the book's contents. In other words, they obviously haven't read the book.

I wonder what they think they accomplish by posting negative reviews. If they repeat negative things often enough, they'll come true? If enough one-star reviews are posted -- no matter how ill-informed or didactic -- somehow buyers will be frightened off of buying the book, and "their side" will win by sheer numbers?

Or do they think they are carrying water for the president?