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Führer Trump’s Impeachment Inquiry Thread. Update: The Senate completes the coverup

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Lev Parnas’ Private Instagram Has Multiple Pics With Giuliani, Trump and First Family

The private Instagram page of a Rudy Giuliani associate accused of a conspiracy to funnel foreign money into elections show that he also had regular access to the President and his inner circle.
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Lev Parnas’ Private Instagram Has Multiple Pics With Giuliani, Trump and First Family

The private Instagram page of a Rudy Giuliani associate accused of a conspiracy to funnel foreign money into elections show that he also had regular access to the President and his inner circle.

The Wall Street Journal sifted through the contents of Lev Parnas’ instagram page, which is not viewable to the general public, on Monday.

Parnas poses with President Donald Trump in multiple pictures on the account. One photo shows a thank you noted signed by the President and first lady Melania Trump.



Another post shows Parnas and his business partner Igor Fruman at the White House with the President and Vice President Mike Pence. One entry shows the President’s legal team the day after Attorney General Bill Barr published his four-page summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

“Congratulations team trump !!!” the caption reads, per the Journal.



Parnas and Fruman were arrested on campaign finance charges earlier this month, accused of a plot to funnel nearly $1 million of a foreign national’s money to Republican causes. The two were also allegedly involved in hiding the source of a $325,000 donation to the well-known pro-Trump super PAC America First Action.

Several photos show Parnas and Fruman with Giuliani, including at campaign events around the country. There’s also another photo from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) 2018 victory party. One entry even appears to show that Giuliani and Parnas took a private tour of the fire-damaged Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

The Instagram account also shows Parnas in Madrid with Giuliani when Giuliani took an August meeting with a close adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Questions about that meeting and others now fuel the House’s impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump’s actions.

Attorney John Dowd wrote in a recent letter to Congress that Parnas and Fruman “assisted Mr. Giuliani in connection with his representation of President Trump.” They’ve also been represented by Giuliani, Dowd wrote.

There was a large gap in Parnas’ instagram page when the Journal was able to access it. The Giuliani associate had photos dated from 2015, but none from 2016 and 2017. The photos began again in mid-2018.

Among the 2015 photos is one of Parnas and his business partner David Correia, the co-founder of the cyber security venture known as “Fraud Guarantee.” Giuliani has said the firm paid him $500,000 for consulting work he began last year. Correia also faces charges in Parnas’ case, to which he’s pleaded not guilty.

Also in the photo: The President’s ex-wife, Ivana Trump. Parnas captioned the photo, “Fraud Gaurantee pow wow.”



Parnas’ attorney told the Journal that he would plead not guilty, and also that the pictures reflected the fact that Parnas was a major donor and that he was helping Giuliani represent Trump. Fruman’s attorney declined to comment, the Journal reported.
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Report: Mulvaney Faced Termination Before Impeachment Probe Began

Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney reportedly faced termination before House Democrats launched the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. CNN reported on Sunday that top White…
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Report: Mulvaney Was Close To Getting Sacked Before Impeachment Probe Began


Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney reportedly faced termination before House Democrats launched the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

CNN reported on Sunday that top White House officials, such as Jared Kushner, were actively seeking out Mulvaney’s replacement before the impeachment probe began on September 24.

Several unnamed sources told CNN that the officials had found at least two potential candidates, but had to put off the search to deal with the inquiry.

There were reportedly two factors that spared Mulvaney: 1) Trump’s reluctance to have four chief of staffs cycle through his administration and 2) Mulvaney knowing too much about Trump’s efforts to get foreign governments to dig up dirt on Joe Biden — the very foundation of the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.

White House spokesperson Judd Deere told CNN that Mulvaney “has the President’s confidence” and that his standing in the White House “has not changed.”

On Sunday, Mulvaney told Fox News host Chris Wallace that he “absolutely” did not offer to resign after his disastrous presser this week, during which he admitted Trump had withheld military aid to Ukraine for political gain.
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Pompeo Distances Himself From Mulvaney’s Shocking Admission Of Quid Pro Quo

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday that he "never saw" quid pro quo as a factor in the Trump administration's decision to freeze aid to Ukraine, despite acting Chief of Staff Mick…
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Pompeo Distances Himself From Mulvaney’s Shocking Admission Of Quid Pro Quo


Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday that he “never saw” quid pro quo as a factor in the Trump administration’s decision to freeze aid to Ukraine, despite acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney’s confirmation that it was.



ABC News’ “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos relayed to Pompeo Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) criticism of Mulvaney’s comments, of which she said: “You don’t hold up foreign aid that we had previously appropriated for a political initiative, period.”

“George, I never saw that in the decision-making process that I was a part of, the decision surrounding whether there should be Department of Defense assistance, as well as some State Department assistance, provided to push back against Russia,” Pompeo said on Sunday.

“The conversation was always around, ‘What were the strategic implications?'” he continued. “‘Would that money get to the right place, or would there be corruption in Ukraine, and the money wouldn’t flow to the mission that it was intended for?'”

Stephanopoulos pointed out the remarks Mulvaney made during his presser last week, during which he outright told reporters that Trump had delayed military aid to Ukraine to get the Ukranian government to investigate his political rivals and that seeking political assistance from foreign governments is normal (Mulvaney later backtracked and insisted that people had “misinterpreted” what he said).

“I–I will leave to the chief of staff to explain what it is he said and what he intended,” Pompeo said in response. “I can speak clearly to what America’s strategic objectives were in providing this defensive weapons–weaponry to the people of Ukraine.”

When Stephanopoulos pressed Pompeo on Mulvaney’s comments, the secretary of state kept repeating that he would only say “what I was involved with” and that he wouldn’t “get into hypotheticals.”

“I’m telling you what I saw transpiring and how President Trump was working to make the evaluation about whether it was appropriate to provide this assistance,” Pompeo said.
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Are House GOPers Going All In On Crowdstrike Conspiracy Nonsense?

As the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry barrels on, some Republicans in the chamber are boosting a fundamentally nonsensical conspiracy theory about the 2016 elections…
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Are House GOPers Going All In On Crowdstrike Conspiracy Nonsense?


As the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry barrels on, some Republicans in the chamber are boosting a fundamentally nonsensical conspiracy theory about the 2016 elections, one that the President brought up in his call with Ukraine President Zelensky.



On Tuesday, a Justice Department lawyer swatted away a question from a Republican congresswoman about the conspiracy, which focuses on the cybersecurity firm the Democratic Party hired in 2016, CrowdStrike.

“It has been reported that the FBI never obtained the original servers from the Democratic National Committee that had allegedly been hacked by Russia, instead relying on imaged copies,” Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) told a panel of election security experts during a hearing on election security. “Is that correct?”

Adam Hickey, a deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s National Security Division, volunteered to answer.

“We got the information that we required for our investigation, and it’s pretty common for us to work with a security vendor in connection with an investigation of a computer intrusion,” he said.

The back-and-forth pointed to a well-worn and completely bonkers conspiracy.

Its adherents allege that during its initial investigation of the Russian hack of the Democratic Party’s computer system, Crowdstrike actually manufactured evidence to incriminate Russia — despite the conclusions of both the intelligence community and the Mueller investigation that Russian actors were responsible for the hack.

Some versions of the conspiracy assert that the manufactured evidence also served to cover up the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer whose death became fodder for right-wing conspiracists who claim he was the actual source of leaked Democratic documents.

Trump, on his infamous July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, appears to have asserted that a single server from the DNC hack somehow ended up in Ukraine. Although that section of the White House memorandum of the call is pockmarked with ellipses, Trump is recorded as telling Zelesnky: “The server, they say that Ukraine has it.” He then asks the Ukrainian President to call Attorney General Bill Barr and “get to the bottom of it.”

It’s unclear who told Trump this version of the story, though the theory got its start on the online conspiracy mill 4chan and eventually bubbled into mainstream Republican consciousness. In reality, Crowdstrike did what many cybersecurity companies do when cooperating with federal investigators: It took digital “snapshots” of the hacked DNC servers for its investigations and then handed those snapshots to the FBI. James Comey confirmed as much during congressional testimony in March 2017.

“The images, not the computer’s hardware, provide the evidence,” Crowdstrike said in September.

Much like Trump’s stated belief that Hillary Clinton “acid washed” her emails, the conspiracy is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of computers and how they work.

That hasn’t stopped some in the GOP from repeating it as a defense of Trump’s actions, which are now the subject of an impeachment inquiry on which Republican members of Congress could soon vote.

Former Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI), in his second day as a paid CNN contributor, got fact-checked in real time after bringing up this conspiracy on-air. In a floor speech last month, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) asserted that Trump was simply attempting, in his call with Zelensky, “to get to the bottom of these improper actions which, again, may have emanated in the Ukraine.”

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), speaking a few minutes before Lesko on Tuesday, defended Trump’s search for the truth.

“The telephone call itself mentioned CrowdStrike — Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election — and that was what President Trump was asking that President Zelensky would look into,” he said.
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Trump Re-Ups DNC Server Conspiracy

President Trump is still espousing a conspiracy theory about the DNC servers hacked by Russians in 2016.
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Trump Re-Ups Widely Debunked DNC Server Conspiracy In Hannity Interview

President Trump is still espousing a conspiracy theory about the DNC servers hacked by Russians in 2016.

During a Monday night interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump re-upped a widely debunked DNC server conspiracy that he referenced in his now-infamous July call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. The conspiracy theory accuses Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity firm that the DNC hired in 2016 to investigate the hacking of its servers, of providing the FBI with false information that incriminated Russian hackers while the DNC refused to hand over the servers themselves.

In response to Hannity reading a section of the White House-released memo of the July call in which Trump asked Zelensky for a “favor,” Trump called the 2016 election a “disaster” and said this his administration “went through hell.”

“People were destroyed, their lives were destroyed, not one person colluded,” Trump said. “They found no collusion, no nothing, and they went through hell.”

Trump then repeated the DNC server conspiracy theory that accuses Democrats of planting evidence that their servers were hacked during the 2016 election.

“There was a server, the DNC server, that had never went to the FBI — the FBI didn’t take it,” Trump said. “It was taken by somebody, I guess it’s Crowdstrike, that’s what I have heard.”

Last Thursday, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledged that Trump held up military aid to Ukraine over the same conspiracy theory.
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GOPers Divided Over Trump’s Racist ‘Lynching’ Tweet

After President Donald Trump compared the House impeachment inquiry to a "lynching" on Tuesday morning, Republicans are split over Trump invoking the country's painful history of violence against…
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Republicans Are Divided Over Trump’s Invoking Of ‘Lynching’ In Twitter Tirade

After President Donald Trump compared the House impeachment inquiry to a “lynching” on Tuesday morning, Republicans are split over Trump invoking the country’s painful history of violence against black people as part of his whining about the inquiry.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, ever the Trump loyalist (well, for the most part), reliably backed the President’s language.

“When it’s about Trump, who cares about the process, as long as you get him?” Graham said. “So yeah, this is a lynching in every sense.”

On the other hand, Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-SD), the second highest-ranking Republican in the chamber, denounced Trump’s comparison.

“That’s not appropriate in any context,” the Republican leader said, per the Hill. “It’s just inappropriate.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) also pushed back on the President’s comment.

“It’s not the language I would use,” he said before repeating the GOP talking point that House Democrats weren’t allowing due process in the impeachment proceedings.

“I don’t agree with that language,” McCarthy responded when a reporter pressed him on Trump’s tweet. “It’s pretty simple.”

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Graham’s South Carolina colleague and the only black GOP senator, gave a measured response.

“The impeachment process is the closest thing of a political death row trial, so I get his absolute rejection of the process,” Scott told reporters. “I wouldn’t use the word ‘lynching.'”

(After several hours of backlash over his racist language, Trump tweeted praise to Scott apparently apropos of nothing.)

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) criticized Trump via Twitter.

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