Thread by @DempseyTwo

The US Treasury department has announced sanctions against a number of Russians. Some of these names ought to be familiar by now. Read them here. Lots to place in context, and loads to unpack. Let’s dive in. 🧵👇🏻 home.treasury.gov/news/press-rel…

I’ll start with the name that should be most recognizable, Konstantin Kilimnik. You’ll remember him from such attacks on our democracy as taking internal trump campaign information during the 2016 election from trump campaign manager and ostrich jacket connoisseur Paul Manafort.

https://twitter.com/dempseytwo/status/1295843518989115396

Another name is Yevgheni Prigozhin aka Putin’s chef. You may remember him from such swept under the rug by Bill Barr items as the Mueller Report. Putin’s chef was cooking up disinformation bots to interfere with the 2016 election. Sow some discord, add a pinch of IRA bots...

And in this connection to the Mueller Report above, you will see reference to the chef in [REDACTED] discussions re social media training in #Volume5 of the Senate Intel report. Oh, you weren’t aware because Marco Rubio released it during the Democratic National Convention? 🤔

Bonus points if you read the above and noticed Treasury had already sanctioned Prigozhin. Apparently, it didn’t have the intended effect as he got right back into the kitchen and whipped up enough trouble as to warrant more sanctioning.

Alexei Gromov is a new name to me. He was sanctioned for his efforts to interfere with the 2020 elections by means of disinformation. But that’s not all...because also sanctioned were disinfo front services that spread disinformation about the cornea virus. Ya know, to kill us.

But what else do these sanctions tell us? More than you might think just by reading these in a vacuum.

With a Department of Justice actually on team America, there will be an investigation📌 into 2020 elections too. They will find who worked against us. They will find our elected officials helped disseminate disinformation. Elected officials like Ron Johnson. Also from Treasury👇🏻

https://twitter.com/DempseyTwo/status/1348667036113760256

This is important because these sanctions come from Treasury, not Justice. Which means that pin above, the one about there being investigations? They’re already happening. Just look at what is happening with Matt Gaetz.

He hasn’t been indicted yet, but we know his phone was seized months ago. See how time works? The sanctions are based on investigations. We have inter-agency cooperation. These are not new because Biden is president, they’re *allowed* because he is. lawandcrime.com/high-profile/f…

Did you notice the phone was seized in December? That means the trump administration was first to investigate Gaetz. They were also first to know that Russia was interfering with the 2020 election through disinfo campaigns. Campaigns furthered by Senators Grassley and Johnson.

https://twitter.com/wisewinston/status/1291910713607434243

But Director of National Intelligence and Michael Scott stand-in John Ratcliffe covered all that up. He diminished the role Russia played by putting more emphasis on other countries. This was the 2016 distraction of it could be a 400lb kid in his basement modified for 2020.

https://twitter.com/DempseyTwo/status/1362419281619791885

In 2016, that was just bluster from a bloviating buffoon, this time it came from an official government source. The director of National Intelligence FFS! Do you see how rapidly they have adapted? Do you really want to see the next iteration of the trump ilk?

These sanctions are just a glimpse into what is to come. There are investigations. They have already begun, they are yielding results. January 6th was a culmination of failed efforts to overthrow our democracy. There are members of Congress today still working to undermine us.

We need to take a long deep breath, and when we exhale the news should be blanketing us with this information. All of this needs sunlight. We need to pass social justice laws, voting rights laws, sensible gun laws. How can we when MOC actively serve an adversary to destroy us?

We must remove the tumors. We have the scalpel. It is the 14th amendment. Just as we have levied sanctions, so too must we clean our own House. That starts by reporting on it.
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@maddow @MaddowBlog @JoyAnnReid @ZevShalev @gregolear @glennkirschner2 @lauferlaw @LincolnsBible

https://twitter.com/DempseyTwo/status/1368936171946921986

In an above tweet I made reference to Marco Rubio releasing the Senate Intelligence Volume 5 report on election interference under cover of the Democratic National Convention. It was the biggest news dump of all time. If you would like to read more about that, here you go.

https://twitter.com/DempseyTwo/status/1295843409358274560