In my last post I referred to GOPers who had enabled the Russia Hoax coup plotters. Some got the message and cleaned up their acts, others had to be ousted, and there's at least one who still appears to be clueless: Sen. Richard Burr of NC, who yesterday decided it was a good idea to subpoena Don Trump, Jr., the very day after Mitch McConnell declared "case closed" on the Russia Hoax. You have to wonder, Who knows what about Burr? There have been hints on Twitter about a zipper problem. Anyway, Breitbart has excellent coverage: No Senate Intelligence Committee Republicans Publicly Stand Up for Richard Burr’s Rogue Donald Trump Jr. Subpoena.
Not one GOP senator on the Senate Intelligence Committee was willing to publicly align himself or herself on Wednesday evening with the panel’s chairman, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), after Burr made the determination ... to issue a subpoena to Donald Trump Jr. to testify again on the Russia probe.
... The subpoena is in contravention of a previous promise Burr made to Trump, Jr. that he would only need to testify once and would not be subpoenaed, and it contradicts McConnell’s edict on Tuesday that the Russia hoax is “case closed” after two years of investigating with no evidence of collusion or obstruction.
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Breitbart News reached out to every single Republican member of the committee to ask them if they think Burr should chairman the panel or be removed by McConnell for his rogue subpoena of Trump, Jr., as many in the Trump universe are pushing for now, and not one would publicly side with Burr.
Staff in many of these Senate GOP offices asked to speak anonymously about their bosses’ displeasure with Burr’s actions. But not a single one would go on the record to defend Burr. Several also said their bosses had sought out McConnell to intervene and stop Burr immediately.
These Senate offices include Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX), who is up for re-election in Texas in 2020; Tom Cotton (R-AR), Susan Collins (R-ME), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Jim Risch (R-ID).
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[Burr] and his staff have been completely shell-shocked by the reaction to the news of their move to issue the subpoena. They had been expecting friendly press coverage, and few Trump flunkies to criticize them, but not the fierce opposition of the Trump universe swiftly raining down upon them like what’s happened on Wednesday evening.
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“It’s outrageous that Senator Burr appears to be taking his marching orders from liberal Democrats ... Don Jr. has a long memory and come the 2020 campaign season, when Senate Republicans are begging him to raise money and campaign for them, he will remember where every Senate Republican stood on this.”
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“By doing this, Senator Burr just started a civil war in the Republican Party with someone who has undoubtedly become one of the biggest superstars in the eyes of the base,” a former high-ranking Trump White House official told Breitbart News. ...
ADDENDUM: Obviously, what's good to see is the reaction. Regarding which, here's the Daily Caller's coverage of the reaction. Included within that coverage of the reaction to Burr's rogue action, is this interesting quote from Devin Nunes:
“I’m assuming that they believe they can — if you can believe this, they are going to take Cohen’s word. Cohen, who’s in jail, they are going to take his word,” Nunes told Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “I think they want to bring Don Jr. in, from what I can tell, to see if he will keep the same story or admit to whether or not he talked to his father, blah, blah, blah, about the Trump Tower meeting.”
Nunes expressed his frustration that “nobody seems to be getting to the bottom of Fusion GPS’s involvement in the Trump Tower meeting.”
Burr is in fact being blackmailed and taking orders from the Deep State. His marching orders are to attempt to ensnare Trump Jr. in a perjury trap in much the same way as Flynn and Papadopolous were targeted. His endgame is a criminal referral to DOJ and thereby attempt to leverage Trump Sr. into backing off the SpyGate investigation. Once again, Trump can easily preempt this ploy by declassifying the documents which expose the coup. Burr is now fully burned by his blackmail vulnerability and likely will not run for reelection, so like Flake and Coker before him, he will try to what damage he can before his exit.
ReplyDeleteYes, that was my reference to the zipper problem. I'm guessing however that this isn't going to play out the way it was hoped--it's too outrageous and violates an agreement.
DeleteIn regard to a supposed Trump project to develop a hotel in Russia, I would like to learn more about two subjects:
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In the summer of 2014, Carter Page participated in an FBI investigation of a Russian Intelligence officer, Evgeny Buryakov, who was spying under the cover of an employee of a Russian bank in the USA. In that investigation, Carter "purported to be working on a casino development project in Russia."
* Was that "casino development project" related to Donald Trump?
* Was Page working for Trump or purporting to work for Trump?
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Christopher Steele wrote in his first Dossier report, dated June 20, 2016:
The Kremlin’s cultivation operation on TRUMP also had comprised offering him various lucrative real estate development business deals in Russia, especially in relation to the ongoing 2018 World Cup soccer tournament. How ever, so far, for reasons unknown, TRUMP had not taken up any of these.
It seems to me that Steele knew in June 2016 that Felix Sater and Michael Cohen were trying to persuade Donald Trump to develop a hotel in Russia. Although Steele does not name Sater or Cohen, those two are likely to be -- in Steele's yarn -- the intermediaries between the Kremlin and Trump in the hotel project.
Robert Mueller's Dossier states:
In approximately September 2015 ... Sater contacted Cohen on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert), a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov since approximately 2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov's purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert.
* Who is the "another employee of I.C. Expert"?
* Why is he not identified in Mueller's Dossier?
* Is he an informant for the US Intelligence Community?
Indeed. As James Comey has said: "So many questions!"
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