The amazing thing about the Devin Nunes/GOP story about Ukraine is that it is a pure Russian invention & it contains no truth. My guess is that Putin has told Trump "in secrecy" on an open phone line & Trump has his loyalists parroting this untrue line.
1. The only legal query that may exist is how Mykola Zlochvsky, the owner of Burisma, gained his gas licenses from the Ukrainian state when he was Ukrainian Minister of Ecology, 2010-12, but that is an entirely Ukrainian affair.
2. That Hunter Biden benefited financially from sitting on a supervisory board is frankly irrelevant as long as no crime is even suggested.
3. Trump's apparent attempts to whitewash Paul Manafort are truly objectionable. His skillful support of Yanukovych in the presidential election in 2010 broke Ukraine's democracy & he attempted to deliver Ukraine to Russia. Manafort's crimes in Ukraine should be investigated.
4. Mueller established that Manafort made $75 million for his work for Yanukovych 2010-14. During the 5 preceding years, he was by hearsay paid $50 million. In addition, he received $60 million from Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
5. We have all reasons to believe that Manafort was a GRU (Russian intelligence) asset since 2005. He was paid by GRU (Deripaska); he worked for GRU (sent polling data & worked on "peace plan"); GRU ran the troll farm & hacking of elections in the US.
6. The conclusion that Mueller should have drawn is that Manafort & GRU won the US presidential elections for Trump, but for unknown reasons the obvious logical conclusion was not dug out. This is the real scandal. it is Russian & American, but the track goes through Ukraine.
7. None of Trump's claim about Ukrainian interference in the US elections has any substance whatsoever. The Crowdstrike server is sheer Russian invention refuted by US intelligence; complaint about one article is nonsense. Grow up or resign, Nunes!
8. Until the appointment of Ukraine's current prosecutor general Ruslan Ryaboshapka, Ukraine had not had any prosecutor general that anybody suspected of being honest, while Trump & Giuliani praise disreputable Viktor Shokin & Yuriy Lutsenko.
9. When Joe Biden campaigned for the ouster of Viktor Shokin in 2015-16, he did so as leader of the West & anti-corruption forces in Ukraine. No serious person opposed his actions, while they were widely acclaimed. I myself wrote an article of praise that very day.
10. In no way did the ouster of Shokin benefit Burisma. On the contrary, Shokin had refused to look into Burisma. Republicans simply need to recognize truth & stop lying with Fox.
11. Instead US law enforcement should focus on Rudolph Giuliani's business abroad. He concludes "cyber security contracts" with multiple wealthy international criminals & then lobbies for them with Trump & the US Department of Justice w/o being registered as a lobbyist or FARA.
12. Giuliani seems to be trying to pick up Manafort's business model - too work for the worst & wealthiest foreign criminals because they pay the most, but his forte is lobbying with US law enforcement. This cannot be legal & it should be prosecuted in the US.
13. W/o doubt, Giuliani makes millions of dollars on his lobbying business every year. This is big & probably illegal money. I bet that he does not declare it all with the IRS & also commits money laundering. This is the likely economic crime connected with Ukraine.
14. The main point about Trump-Manafort-Giuliani in Ukraine is that it appears a Russian cover for Kremlin interference in US politics by corrupt means through agents & corrupt oligarchs (Deripaska & Dmytro Firtash). Is anybody investigating this?
