Thread by @SethAbramson

Wait... everyone knows Trump had Mulvaney put a block on military aid to Ukraine in *2017 also*, right? And that the stated reason at the time was Trump didn't want to "upset Russia"? Everyone knows that, right? Media has made it perfectly clear, I assume? thedailybeast.com/mulvaneys-omb-…

1/ Because, you know, golly, if media *hadn't* been hammering this point home daily, it might well give the GOP an opportunity to falsely argue that the whole impeachment is about "one phone call" and that Trump has *no history* of blocking military aid to Ukraine via Mulvaney.

2/ The Ukraine scandal is *insanely* complex. My research suggests it's *more* complex than the Russia case—which was already wild as hell...but media *must* find a way to explain it to America during this "lull" in the impeachment story. *Teach* America about the Naftogaz angle.

3/ Here's the simple version: Trump has been laundering campaign donations using Giuliani and Parnas in exchange for helping the two men do business in Ukraine. All of which is part of a shakedown of Ukraine to politically *and* financially benefit Trump, Putin...and nobody else.

4/ The Ukraine scandal begins in *March 2016*. Yes—I'm serious. Trump has been scheming over how to use Ukraine to his benefit for *over four and a half years*. The July 25 Zelensky call was a *minor episode* in a *years-long* course of conduct that was criminal, start to finish.

5/ Within *two days* of pro-Kremlin operative-in-Ukraine Paul Manafort joining Trump's campaign in March 2016, Trump—whose only Ukraine policy to that point was "let Russia have Crimea without penalty"—was *directing his national security team* to deep-six all lethal aid to Kyiv.

6/ So Kremlin agent Manafort—who signed a deal with Putin lieutenant Deripaska in 2006 to aid Putin in America; Google it—joins Trump's campaign and *immediately* Trump is *proactively* setting up an anti-Ukraine foreign policy that goes *beyond* opposing sanctions on Russia.

7/ Within *days* of Russia's hack of the DNC being caught, that same Kremlin agent—Manafort—is telling Trump Ukraine did it, not Russia, and Trump is going on the stump and saying "no one knows" who did the hack. Folks, this... *isn't* rocket science for a criminal investigator.

8/ Trump then spends the next two years trying to ensure Manafort doesn't talk to the feds... partly by *threatening Ukraine* out of assisting Mueller. And that includes blocking military aid to Ukraine...*in 2017*. And yet we're pretending this is all about one call in mid-2019?

9/ I mean *jeez*, do people realize Mulvaney was only *made* Trump's acting chief of staff in December 2018 (but Trump made *sure* he kept his OMB job!) *because* Mulvaney helped Trump shake down Ukraine in late 2017 and early 2018? That is *how Mulvaney got his damn job*, folks.

10/ Trump knew *in March 2016* that Ukraine could be shaken down via military aid—which is why Trump did that for the first time in July 2016. (July *2016*—at the RNC.) Trump has been shaking down Ukraine to help Putin and himself for *half a decade*—all the evidence confirms it.

11/ You, me, the media, Democrats, Republican voters... we're *all* being punked by a small group of unpatriotic folks who know damn well what they've been doing.

Oh, Trump "doesn't know" Parnas? How about he *can't stop going to private events with him*. cnn.com/2019/11/12/pol…

12/ Has Parnas met secretly with Trump to advise him on Ukraine? You bet! Multiple times! Was he part of a salon that regularly met at the Trump International Hotel—the BLT restaurant—and included *three* Trump lawyers and a Nunes aide? You bet—Google it! All major-media sources!

13/ Listen, U.S. media, *stop looking for a new story daily*. The Ukraine scandal is *so juicy* and *so complex* and *so sprawling* that you can *break* with your usual business model and do nothing but cover the *past*—the *past*!—all day every day, and people will be *riveted*.

14/ I'm telling you there are so many twists and turns to the Ukraine scandal that you could set aside a whole TV network to do nothing but *explain* its crazy features for the next year—yes, a full year!—and you'd get a viewership because the details would blow everyone's minds.

15/ The president's personal attorney as recently as 48 hours ago *flew on the private jet* of the chief villain in this whole story, Dmytro Firtash.

That's right: the degrees of separation between Trump and the chief villain of this years-long story is {*checks math*}... *one*.

16/ Except it's not! It's *zero*. Because—surprise ending!—it turns out that Donald Trump was going to *go into business with Firtash* in the late 2000s, in a deal that was to be set up by... hmm, let me check my records... someone pretty obscure, surel—

—Paul Manafort.

17/ Is anyone surprised Trump lied about how well he knows Manafort, just like he's lied about how well he knows Felix Sater (that lie was under oath!) or Lev Parnas or even (now that he's saying he never told Giuliani to go to Ukraine, and doesn't know who his clients are) Rudy?

18/ All I do for this research is read major-media. I spend 0% of my time thinking of "theories," as I don't believe in "theories"—only major-media reporting and how far-flung major-media reports help inform one another. Everything on this feed is from major media. And 100% true.

19/ We got played. We fell for believing the Ukraine scandal is about a *phone call* because that seemed—not just to media, but even to some DC Democrats—like the only story Americans would understand. My view? Americans will always tune in to a fascinating story—however complex.

20/ This thread isn't even the good stuff. It's bits and pieces. Again, a TV network could be constructed just to explain the major-media reporting on this. Like, did you know Trump's attorney was just in Kyiv meeting with someone (Andrey Derkach) trained by Russian intelligence?

21/ Has anyone told you the indicted Lev Parnas worked as a salesman for the Trump Organization when Fred Trump ran it 30 years ago? That Paul Manafort not only moved into Trump's home—Trump Tower—in 2006 but simultaneously got a *second* home next to Fred Trump's longtime fixer?

22/ Did you know Trump's friends Parnas and Fruman between them (sometimes separately, sometimes together) owned at least six companies that moved millions and millions and millions of dollars...

...but had no customers, no clients, no offices, no business model, and no budget?

23/ Did you know, i.e. did media tell you, that Trump spent all of 2017, 2018, and early 2019 denying the *previous* Ukrainian president (Poroshenko) a White House visit in *just* the same way—and for *just* the same illegal reasons, as he did with Volodymyr Zelensky in mid-2019?

24/ Google any of this—*any* of it. You won't find yourself reading some obscure, dodgy website—I'd never visit or pay any attention to those. No—you'll find yourself reading NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and so on.

25/ What no one does is put these stories together. I did it in book format, but online all we have (though it's pretty great) is The Moscow Project, aided by @robreiner. My ask, here, to @robreiner: it's time for The Kyiv Project. I *promise* you'll have the same volume of info.

@robreiner PS/ Everyone getting a clearer picture now? The Giuliani "helper" and KGB-trained Derkach spent 2017 telling Kyiv it would lose aid if it investigated Manafort; Mulvaney blocked the aid; Trump *opposed* the aid... and Poroshenko dropped the investigations. wsj.com/articles/trump…

@robreiner PS2/ WSJ: "Trump's skepticism toward Ukraine cropped up in [2017] deliberations in which he initially opposed the sale of missiles to Ukraine...his distrust also showed in his initial resistance to meeting Ukraine’s then-president in 2017 at the White House." Two *related* facts.

@robreiner PS3/ And when Trump finally let Ukraine have missiles in 2018, he told them... they *couldn't use them*, as it might "provoke Russia." nytimes.com/2019/10/24/wor…