Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Aug 18 23 tweets 13 min read Read on X
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American politician and disbarred lawyer, Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani). He’s best-known for meddling with the pro-Kremlin forces in Ukraine, and for organizing the infamous Four Seasons Landscaping press conference.

1/22 Image
Giuliani rose to fame as the mayor of NYC between 1994 and 2001. He adopted an aggressive enforcement strategy and organized crackdowns on relatively minor offenses like graffiti and cannabis possession. His role in the 9/11 aftermath made him a global superstar.

2/22

Image
Image
Image
This fame gave Rudy new opportunities, and in 2006 he was invited to the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group (ISG), a group that assessed the situation in Iraq. He was soon kicked out of the group due to being more interested in making money by public speaking gigs.

3/22 Image
Rudy ran for president in 2008, but his campaign was ruined by corruption accusations, extramarital affairs, and Rudy’s previous endorsement of criminals like Bernard Kerik, who later plead guilty to tax fraud (and was pardoned by Donald Trump).

4/22


Image
Image
Image
Image
After Rudy’s popularity had declined drastically, he ended up Donald Trump’s advisor and personal lawyer. His first tasks were defending Trump against allegations of racism, sexual harassment, and not paying federal income tax for two decades.

5/22

Image
Image
Image
Trump wanted to repay Rudy’s obedience, and at some point he was believed to be picked for secretary of state in Trump’s administration. This never happened, but Trump named Rudy as his “informal cybersecurity adviser” in Jan 2017. Two weeks after the appointment…

6/22
Image
Image
… Hackerman Giuliani showed his computing skills when he had to consult Apple Store experts after he “was locked out of his iPhone because he had forgotten the passcode and entered the wrong one at least 10 times.”

7/22 Image
In 2018, after Mueller started investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, Rudy was added to Trump’s legal team.

He also worked on the so-called hush money case, in which Trump’s team tried to hide the fact that he had slept with pornstar Stormy Daniels.

8/22
Image
Image
During 2018, after Paul Manafort’s conviction over his shady deals in Ukraine, Giuliani quickly became the most Ukraine-connected person of the Trump team. He had travelled and met with pro-Kremlin figures in Russia, Armenia and Ukraine on many occasions.

9/22 Image
Rudy started working with two shady businessmen, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. They tried to find dirt on Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, who had played a role on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

10/22 Image
Parnas later asked Trump to recall the Ambassador of Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, and Trump complied. Yovanovitch had been a vocal opponent of corruption in Ukraine, and apparently that was bad for business. Two months later Trump had a call with President Zelenskyy…

11/22

Image
Image
Image
… asking again for a “favor” and to start investigations on Hunter Biden, urging him to meet with Giuliani. After Zelenskyy refused, Trump blocked payment of a mandated 400 million USD military aid package to Ukraine. In Dec 2019, Giuliani flew to Ukraine to meet with…

12/22

Image
Image
Image
… Yanukovych-ally and KGB trainee Andrii Derkach, who has been the most active Russian asset in spreading Biden-related disinformation to media organizations and US officials. Derkach was sanctioned by the US Treasury in 2020 for his efforts to influence US elections.

13/22
Image
Image
Rudy’s shady business deals also involved Ukrainian oligarch Dmytry Firtash, a man who’s been characterized as being an “upper echelon of Russian organized crime”. Later, in 2021, CNN published a phone call from Giuliani to Ukraine, in which Rudy…

14/22 Image
… “relentlessly pressured and coaxed the Ukrainian government in 2019 to investigate baseless conspiracies about then-candidate Joe Biden.” In Nov 2019, WSJ reported that Rudy and his associates were investigated on potential charges including money laundering…

15/22 Image
… obstruction of justice, making false statements, mail/wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Interestingly, the prosecutors later decided not to indict Giuliani for his and his associates’ questionable activities in Ukraine.

16/22
Image
Image
Giuliani was closely connected to the vatniks creating and spreading the false narrative over Hunter Biden’s connection to the Ukrainian company Burisma. In Nov 2023, Ukrainian SBU jailed one of them, Ukrainian Oleksandr Dubinsky whom Rudy hat met before.

17/22
Image
Image
Several experts have suggested that Giuliani may have violated the Logan Act with his shady businesses in Eastern Europe, and some have suggested that he failed to register for the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) while working as Trump’s lawyer.

18/22
Image
Image
After the voter fraud allegations in the 2020 US elections, Giuliani was put in charge of the lawsuits. Rudy quickly organized the most ridiculous press conference in the history of mankind at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping,a landscaping company in Philadelphia.During…
19/22
Image
… the press conference Giuliani & his “elite strike force” made allegations about “an international Communist conspiracy” and rigged voting machines. As of today, the lawsuit by the Dominion Voting System and Smartmatic against Giuliani and Sidney Powell is still ongoing.

20/22


Image
Image
Image
Image
Once dubbed “America’s Mayor”, Rudy has since become a laughing stock. After losing a defamation lawsuit in Dec 2023, he filed for bankruptcy.

His law license has been suspended, he’s been accused of sexual assault & even of selling pardons for 2 million apiece with Trump.
21/22


Image
Image
Image
Image
Another infamous Rudy Giuliani moment was seen in the movie Borat 2, in which he flirts with a fake reporter and later, after being invited to the hotel room by the actress, reaches for his trousers and allegedly touches his genitals.

I mean, just watch the clip below.

22/22
You can now pre-order my upcoming book (September of 2024) “Vatnik Soup - The Ultimate Guide to Russian Disinformation” from here:

kleart.dk/webshop/p/vatn…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Pekka Kallioniemi

Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @P_Kallioniemi

Aug 8
In today’s 300th #vatniksoup, I’ll go through some of the most heroic feats that Ukrainians have achieved since Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

In the last 900 days, under-equipped underdog Ukraine has fared well against the imperialist and genocidal Russia.

1/23 Image
As in most conflicts, Ukraine relies heavily on leadership. For this reason, the Kremlin first focused their main propaganda efforts on Zelenskyy, even claiming that he had already fled from Ukraine to Poland. Soon after these allegations, Zelenskyy and his cabinet…

2/23
Image
Image
… published a video from the streets of Kyiv to fight this propaganda campaign. This video quickly became one of the biggest morale boosters for Ukraine, and it has become one of the most legendary and symbolic videos of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

3/23
Read 24 tweets
Aug 6
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a British far-right activist, Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra). He’s best-known for his role in the far-right, Islamophobic organizations like the English Defence League (EDL) and his close connections to the Kremlin.

1/23 Image
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was born in Luton and during his youth delved into a life of crime, serving four prison terms between 2005 and 2019. He used several pseudonyms to hide his criminal past, finally sticking to Tommy Robinson.

2/23 Image
Tommy joined the fascist and far-right British National Party (BNP) in 2004 but left a year later. The party didn’t allow non-whites to join and was then led by Nick Griffin, who today is better known for sharing video game footage while claiming it’s real.

3/23
Image
Image
Read 25 tweets
Jul 31
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American politician and author, JD Vance (@JDVance). He’s best-known for his strong stance against US aid to Ukraine, and for being the Republican party’s nominee for vice president in the 2024 election.

1/20 Image
Vance hails from the small town of Middletown, Ohio. His parents divorced when he was a toddler, JD’s mother struggled with drug addiction, and he was raised primarily by his grandparents. Later he enlisted in the US Marine Corps, and spent 6 months as a PR guy in Iraq.

2/20 Image
In 2016, Harper published JD’s book, Hillbilly Elegy, in which he described his life and hardships, and the socioeconomic problems of his hometown. The book was very successful, and it was even adapted into a shitty Netflix movie. It also made JD famous.

3/20
Image
Image
Read 21 tweets
Jun 26
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss the Wagner Group, its founders Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin, and the mutiny they started on 23 Jun 2023. The event marked the climax of the Wagner Group–Russian MoD conflict, and finally led to the deaths of Prigozhin and Utkin.

1/22 Image
Wagner has been used in many conflicts around the world, but they came to global prominence during the war in Donbas in 2014-2015. Wagnerites helped the Donbas separatists fight against the Ukrainians during the conflict, which helped Putin to “outsource” the insurrection.

2/22 Image
The group doesn’t have any central ideology, but many of its members and leaders have ties to various neo—Nazi movements in Russia. For example, Wagner leader Dmitry Utkin had several Nazi symbols tattooed on his body. Neo—nazi group Rusich has also fights as part of Wagner.
3/22

Image
Image
Image
Read 23 tweets
Jun 20
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an Amsterdam-based propaganda channel, Bonanza Media (@bonanzamedia2). It’s best-known for producing & spreading online pro-Kremlin propaganda videos while closely coordinating & collaborating with the Russian intelligence agency GRU.
1/19 Image
Russian intelligence has been extremely active in the Netherlands for a long time. For example in 2018, four GRU agents were caught while trying to hack into OPCW,an organization that monitors the use of chemical weapons. In addition, the International Criminal Court (ICC)…
2/19 Image
…and the MH17 investigation have become targets for the Russian intelligence and propaganda operations. These operations are often complemented with “investigative journalism” media outlets, that often echo the Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation.

3/19 Image
Read 20 tweets
Jun 14
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll talk about the recent EU elections and what are their implications for both the Kremlin and Ukraine. Right-wing political parties, some pro-Kremlin, won a lot of seats around Europe, and this result can also change the EU’s stance on Ukraine.

1/19 Image
But before we start, I want to promote a truck fundraiser I'm doing together with the fantastic @ArturRehi and @69thSB.

Our goal is 20 000 USD, and you can contribute to this important fundraiser here:

2/19artursarmy.com/contribute/reh…
EU’s support of Ukraine is essential for their survival against genocidal Russia. So far,this support has been delayed mostly by Orban’s Hungary (& to some degree, Fico’s Slovakia). Now, this support will probably be challenged by many new members of the European Parliament.
3/19
Image
Image
Read 20 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(