The Seychelles Meeting Inches Kushner Closer to Quid Pro Quo with Sanctioned Russian Money
The Intercept has an article that has gotten surprisingly little attention, particularly given the reports that Mike Flynn is prepping to flip on Trump and that the House Intelligence Committee will have Erik Prince testify in its investigation.
It reveals that the previously unknown identity of a Russian that Erik Prince met in the Seychelles in January is the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund.
The identity of the Russian individual was not disclosed, but on January 11, a Turkish-owned Bombardier Global 5000 charter plane flew Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, to the Seychelles, flight records obtained by The Intercept show. Dmitriev’s plane was an unscheduled charter flight and flew to the island with two other Russian individuals, both women. The RDIF is a $10 billion sovereign wealth fund created by the Russian government in 2011.
[snip]
Although Prince repeatedly stated he couldn’t remember the Russian’s name — “We didn’t exchange cards” — a spokesperson for Frontier Services Group confirmed to The Intercept in September that Prince “crossed paths” with Dmitriev in the Seychelles.
The article goes on to note that the RDIF separated from its parent company Vnesheconombank in 2016 to evade sanctions.
While it is legal to do business with RDIF in certain circumstances, there are several nuanced restrictions that if ignored or overlooked can easily lead to a violation. The resulting uncertainty has created opportunities for companies and individuals to find loopholes to bypass sanctions.
Analysts say RDIF attempted to do this in 2016 when the fund distanced itself from its parent company, the Russian bank Vnesheconombank, or VEB, which is also subject to U.S. sanctions. Legislation signed by Putin in June 2016 enabled RDIF to transfer its management company, known as the RDIF Management Company LLC, to the Russian Federal Agency for State Property Management.
Sadly, the Intercept article doesn’t lay out the timeline this creates:
Early December: Flynn and Kushner meet with Sergei Kislyak
Later December: At the behest of Kislyak, Kushner meets with Vnesheconombank’s Sergey Gorkov
December: Mohammed bin Zayed holds undisclosed meeting in NY with Kushner and Steve Bannon
December 29: Flynn tells Kislyak Trump will ease sanctions
January 11: At behest of Mohammed bin Zayed, Erik Prince meets with Dmitriev
January 17: Anthony Scaramucci meets with RDIF in Davos
I also think Mueller will have Erik in to figure out this money went, since after all Jared needs cash (nownownow) for the 666 project. Or, this might be a tangent to pursue later, but either way it doesn’t look right at all.
I thought Erik Prince was holed up in the Gulf where he can’t be extradited for the Blackwater (by whatever name) crimes in Iraq and elsewhere?
This Intercept article says that while federal prosecutors scored a 2012 deferred prosecution agreement against Prince’s former companies, they never filed criminal charges against Prince. In September 2015, the deferred charges were dismissed after the U.S. government certified that the companies had “fully complied” with all of its conditions, which had included paying nearly $50 million in fines and other penalties.
As reported by other news organizations, Prince is free to come and go as he pleases, maintaining a house in Virginia, sussing out residency requirements for a Senate run from Wyoming, hanging out at Trump Tower, appearing with Bannon on Breitbart broadcasts, chipping in $100k to Bob Mercer’s PAC during the 2016 election cycle, running his post-Blackwater businesses out of the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong, conferring with sister Betsy Prince DeVos, and applauding himself in the media for so v v much impressing SecDef Mattis when they met at the Pentagon to discuss Prince’s vision for privatizing America’s wars.
Flynn better be able to fill out the details because there still no ‘there’ there. Meetings, yes but details about deals or things that had been done, etc. The general public reads this and its a shrug of shoulders before turning away..
Yes yes, all criminal investigations ought be controlled by the ability of uninformed idiots in the public ability to understand and pay attention. Swell comment.
It should be noted that ending or modifying the Russian sanctions is a perfectly legitimate policy worth of consideration. Now it is true that nobody within the Obama State Department nor really anyone in the Beltway in a policy position would consider such which starts to get us into the boy Great Global Strategic Genius thing. He, they, just figured they would do it all on their own, on the QT, and if somebody made a little money on it so much the better. Of course this is no way to govern, even in a dictatorship. You have to build some sort or political coalition to effect a change in policy. But no, these stupid wankers think they are as gods, moving chess pieces to manage the world, when they couldn’t manage a Dollar General store.
The Intercept says the plane Dmitriev flew in was “Turkish-owned”. Does that mean the government of Turkey owns it or an individual? If an individual, who? Because there’s all that Flynn and Turkey business lurking these days, those questions need an answer.
Virtually any Turkish affiliation would qualify for that characterization: Turkish individual, business entity, state agency. There are also differences among legal ownership of the aircraft, its contractual operator(s), the entity that charters it for a given flight, and the people on that flight.
Also of interest in the Intercept article is that, not surprisingly, Steve Bannon was involved in at least one NYC meeting with Kushner and Zayed.
An Abu Dhabi prince acts as go between for American and Russian agents, acting for foreign principals, presumably to offer deniability and to have a pretense of not violating American sanctions. How careful were they?
Erik Prince, of course, is being his usual stiletto-in-the-eye self in suggesting that he might have had a meeting that lasted as long as a beer, but hasn’t the foggiest who it was with. Doesn’t everybody have that level of recall when flying thousands of miles on a private luxury jet to an island paradise off the East African coast, while being chauffered in hardened limos from one protected villa to another? And conveniently, according to a source cited by the Intercept, immigration and customs in the Seychelles often ignores foreign arrivals if they are sufficiently wealthy.
And note that The Intercept points out the meeting lasted over parts of two days. That was a damned big beer Prince was drinking if it lasted that long.
second the interest in turkish connections and associations.
i’m of the opinion that the white house did not seriously look askance at flynn’s turkish offensive.
not to mention the proposed kidnapping gambol, plus herr trump’s affection for turkey’s little mustache of power.
Shit, the more I read about Flynn, the more I think, “is he a fucking traitor?”
Help me out here……..
Traitor in the colloquial sense is a valid question. The legal sense, as defined in the Constitution, is restricted and not apparently applicable here.
As EW highlights, Flynn was very intimately involved with US intel activities, at a very senior level. He would have had lots to share with the right inducement. Given that he was for a short time in business for himself, among those right inducements would be sufficient amounts of cash.
Flynn was fired as head of the Pentagon’s DIA, traditionally a post for a three-star general. (The first head was writer James Carroll’s dad, about whom he writes eloquently in An American Requiem and House of War.)
For a Pentagon that tolerated the excesses of Curtis LeMay, Flynn must have been off his rocker for the conflict-avoiding Obama to have fired him and for there to have been so little push back from the generals. Then there’s that Flynn and Trump are still so much like two peas in a pod.
That behavior suggests that Flynn might not be the kind of guy who dots his eyes and crosses his tees; his reputation is that he’d rather shoot between the eyes and ask questions later. That might leave plenty of mess from which Mueller’s team might glean considerable evidence. Then there’s the dad who doesn’t want his son to enjoy prison showers if he could negotiate a plea deal that would keep him out of them.
So if Flynn took money to serve the interests of foreign powers while he was head of the NSA, how is that different from Aldrich Ames and other turncoat spies who sold secrets to Russia? Weren’t they prosecuted under the Espionage Act? If that doesn’t apply to Flynn or Trump, then are foreign powers permitted to pay our government officials to work for them behind the scenes? If it’s not treason or violation of the Espionage Act, what’s the law that does apply? Is there one? It seems astonishing that Trump might be prosecuted for money laundering/tax evasion and Flynn for failing disclose foreign payments, but not for selling out their country.
Seriously? Do you think Ames was convicted of treason? No, it was an espionage conviction.
Yes, I do know that. I know treason only applies in wartime, though that seems inadequate just now. My question is, and it really is a question, could Trump and Flynn be prosecuted under the Espionage Act? Or is it only about selling secrets because those who wrote the law couldn’t conceive of a foreign power being able to co-opt a president and a National Security advisor to act on their behalf?
Cool, then I apologize!
And I think you ask a really good question. I don’t know the answer. If I knew what the Mueller team knows, I could give a good answer. I don’t, and I cannot yet. To date, I guess I would have to say no, but there is very good cause to be asking these questions.
The Pollard ring was convicted of spying for Israel (an ally) a couple of decades back. That means spying doesn’t have to be for an enemy, it has to be clandestine and involve trading of our secrets.
Flynn delayed the assault on Roka while in the employ of Turkey. If he did so at the behest of Turkey that would seem to meet the definition of traitorous.
The problem is, that was in the service of Turkey. So, I’m not so sure.
To Earl’s point above: call him Benedict Arnold and a spy all you want, and let’s hope the Army gets to send him to Leavenworth for the rest of his life to make little rocks out of big ones after a general CM. I think the Army waits on Mueller. However, Treason is a crime specified in the US Constitution for a reason since that was a favorite method to attack political opponents in Merrie Olde England to the point where disagreeing with the monarch was treason. So, the convention made it a very specific requirement for specific acts with witnesses to aid and comfort our enemies. Turkey is a NATO ally and as far as I know not the subject of a declaration of war.
Between the Espionage Act, FCPA, FARA, attempted kidnapping, conspiracy to commit a felony, etc., et al there is plenty of trouble for Flynn already documented.
Indeed. Sleeping with the heir to the throne’s wife, for example, would have been treason. Makes me think of an old Paul Anka song, “Oh, please, stay by me….”
Thankfully, the US defines state treason much more restrictively. There are other statutes for truly dangerous behavior.
The “War on Terror” can be used against this trash in the same way that the existenc of WW II enabled the US to execute the Rosenberg’s.
Even if you are not operating for the “enemy” this sort of “espionge”, even for a freindly country, could be used to fry flynn and his son.
The question only then becomes what toxic waste site could handle the toxic waste of disposal of the remains of these criminals.
Oh jesus, here come the Rosenbergs as an example. What were they convicted of?? Yeah, it was NOT “treason”.
Again, a freaking espionage charge (attempted at that). Please stop ginning up this false bullshit.
The US gov. executed them using the existence of WW II even though the USSR, at the time, was an ally of the U.S.
The law at the time only allowed a death sentence if “crimes” were committed during wartime.
So unless the law has changed they can convict him and his misbegotten spawn and then fry them. Or use an experimental drug “cocktail” to kill them like some states are doing.
Hopefully it will be an ineffective cocktail that will cause death after extreme suffering. Hey if it is good enough for Oklahoma to torture an inmate during execution where he writhed in pain or Ohio or any other of a number of state sanctioned torture/murder excercises then it is good enough for this trash.
OT but important: the GOP with its tax bill is doing what GOP governments have done in the states for decades, with massive tax cuts followed by a fiscal crisis that has to be solved by “austerity” measures that don’t work. WI and KS are case studies, especially the latter.
https://crooksandliars.com/cltv/2017/11/all-gop-tax-cut-create-emergency-need
It really is. And people keep biting off on this shit like there is not a track record of relentless failure.
Kind of amazing. Maybe this is why the GOP keeps undermining education, both lower and higher; they just want an uninformed and illiterate America, because that favors their idiocy.
And the GOP’s principal patrons don’t want to spend a bent dime on anything they don’t directly benefit from. Any amount of lobbying expenses is cheaper than paying general taxes that provide for health, education, and the general welfare. Like Amazon and its “second” hq, it would rather stick the local community with all the costs of its operation.
The tax break return on donor investment (as contributions) is positively obscene. It’s bad enough to be a crook, but a cheap one at that (now that we have Citizen’s United opening the floodgates for dark money) is inexcusable.
About the use of traitor or treason with regard to Flynn , Prince, Kushner et al: it seems to me that if “conspiracy” with a defined enemy of the United States to effect the outcome of an election can replace the term “collusion” and can be proven then all actions to provide relief from sanctions as a quid pro quo can be seen as treason. There is a nexus among obstruction of justice involving the firing of Comey to protect Flynn, the conspiracy with Russia to effect the results of the election, and the efforts which are now ongoing to undo the sanctions. I guess I am wondering if the term “war” can be replaced by “enemy of the United States” to apply treason to the the context in which we are now immersed.
Are we at war with Russia? No? then no.
If the hacking and interference in the elections by Russia gets defined as an act of war, the answer to your question becomes a bit murkier.
I don’t think so at all. There was no war, and there is a little ex post facto problem in retroactively declaring it. Talk of “treason” on any of this is just fucking nuts.
Again as I pointed out as long as a state of war exists no matter who is the friends or enemies espionge act allows execution.
Loophole they used to murder the rosenberg’s.
Precedent is precedent whether one likes it, agrees with it or not.
So if the “War on Terror” and use of force resolutons in place then they can execute this trash
Please stop making readers here dumber with your uneducated bullshit. You either don’t know the law, or you are flat out lying. Either way, stop. The constant braying of people as to “treason” and “traitor” is really tiring. Here is a fairly decent piece from the Take Care legal blog. A true legal explication could take up 35 or more pages of a law review article. Suffice it to say though, the constant yammering about “treason” is absolute horse manure.
Rather then insult address the issue.
Fact; Rosenbergs were convicted and executed for espionge during WW II
Fact; The Rosenberg’s were accused of, and convicted of, working for the USSR
Fact; The USSR was an ally of the US during WW II
Fact; The prosecutors based their arguement for death upon the reality that the US was at war and against whom and with whom was irrelevent for purposes of the case.
Whether the declaration of a “War on Terror” and associated act to use military force in that war ( which has morphed from Afghanistan to Iraq to Isis to …..) constitutes the country being in a state of war is open to some question but does not preclude government prosecutors from using it if they wish.
So Which of these facts are wrong?
Please try to stay on subject and not retreat into personal insults.
How about instead you quit blowing shit up people’s asses. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. Trying to morph that into a baloney argument that treason applies here is the epitome of intellectual dishonesty. Again, stop making people here dumber.
Oh, and by the way,
That is the part that is wrong. And you trying to force feed this bunk here is wrong. That’s what.
It also begs the question about how an “enemy of the United States” is defined. Do you really think that Kaiser Tweeto hasn’t put together a list of his enemies?
I’m tryin’ to understand what has been variously described as “conspiracy against the United States” as a potential charge against Flynn. And bmaz, I guess ya can’t hedge the word “war” in the Constitution as it applies to treason. But what about conspiracy against the USofA?
War. Cyber War. We are in a different world
One could make the argument…..
No. Based on established legal precedent, you really cannot make that argument.
One thing has been bothering me. Flynn routinely posted conspiracy theories about Clinton, etc… For instance, he talked about money laundering (really) and child sex rings, etc…
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/feb/14/michael-flynns-troubling-penchant-conspiracy-thoer/
Now, as someone who “knows things,” as Digby recently wrote, I’m wondering if he’s either really, really stupid or if he’s actively being a political douchebag. His penchant for retweeting Russian twitter bot prop,
https://twitter.com/NIVIsa4031/status/791380726310662148
suggests that he’s been a target of the online Russian troll farm for some time. Now, it’s easy to think that he is just being a political hack, but his close friendship with Trump suggests that they’ve bonded on this issue, since both have been ridiculously conspiracy minded…
Ok, so what bothers me is how does someone who knows real secrets get drawn to this nonsense? He’s either dumb as fuck or there’s something else going on.
I suspect that when Mueller moves on these guys, we’re only going to get a partial understanding of how deeply the Russians have penetrated our NatSec. The sad thing is that both the Russians and the Americans involved don’t seem particularly bright.
Follow the money. It’s also what drove Benedict Arnold, fundamentally. That and an excessive amount of personal pride.
So, “treason” cannot occur absent actual “war” between “enemies?” The word “enemy” assumes “war?”
http://bgladd.com/Treason.jpg
The US Constitution re Treason is flawed.
It assumes the enemy is not within.
U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly does not get it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/2017/11/28/3aa11fe6-d479-11e7-b62d-d9345ced896d_story.html
A federal judge refused to block President Trump’s choice of budget director Mick Mulvaney from serving as acting director of the prominent federal consumer watchdog agency on Tuesday, denying a request by Leandra English, the No. 2 official at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to serve in his stead.
Wowser,
There must be different kinds of treason: One penalty – Death, the other no more than five years? What the fuck?
I ‘m playing 2381 in the Mass State Lottery Numbers Game….
The CEO that ExxonMobil seconded to the State Department, Rex Tillerson, justifies gutting the State Dept. by saying that he and Trump will solve some of the world’s biggest problems during Trump’s first term.
Having solved the world’s most pressing problems, the US won’t need to help it further with talk therapy; if help is needed, military might will do just fine. So the US and the world will be able to get by just dandy with a defunct Department of State.
The stupid, it burns…. But Rex isn’t stupid, which means his cynicism score must be well above the Beltway average. It would also mean that he doesn’t give a shit what Americans or the world thinks. He and his private, merry band of external consultants will carry on decimating the State Department – in a dynamic familiar to companies merged or taken over – in harsher ways than the GOP gutted it during the McCarthy era.
Or maybe Rex is speaking tongue-in-cheek about Trump’s likely accomplishments, and dissing the press and his opponents. That would mean he won’t be at State long enough to enjoy the new carpets and drapes.
From Jason Leopold and Thomas Frank at Buzzfeed:; 11/28/17; Updated 3:01pm
Oh shit, he’s goin’ after the entire coup! I wonder how long this thing has been incubating. I wonder if there might not be a RICO case with all the rest. I’m afraid there is gunna be blood in the street however, before this thing is over.The neo-Nazi militia have been armed, trained and funded for at least 15years by folks like the Kochs. Namaste
Well, there must have been something that moved the ordinarily conflict-averse Obama to take the unusual move of firing Flynn as head of the DIA, and general agreement in the military and possibly the intel community that keeping Flynn would be a mistake. According to the Wikipedia entry, citing other sources (citations omitted):
Flynn was allowed an orderly retirement, but left his post at DIA a year ahead of schedule. Public explanations for forced resignations rarely reveal real reasons for departures. But even this brief description suggests how much he and Trump have in common, as well as how over, over the top he must have been to get fired.
Presumably, Mueller is looking under the carpet to see just how many crumbs were swept there. He must really want Flynn to give up what, if anything, he knows about his former colleagues and boss.
Inside the White House, Michael Flynn pushed proposal from company he had advised; WaPo; 11/28/17; 7:35 PM
In late January 2017 Flynn forwarded [an] email written by a former business associate to members of his National Security Council staff and instructed them to “essentially put it on White House letterhead and send it to the president for approval,” according to a person with knowledge of Flynn’s directions.”
*
That “business associate” was Robert “Bud” McFarlane, a cofounder of IP3. Flynn served as an adviser to IP3 from August to December 2016 “reporting later on his disclosure forms that he ended his association with the firm just weeks before joining the administration.”
*
The proposal was “to develop a “Marshall Plan” of investment in the Middle East. [IP3] was seeking to build nuclear power plants in the region.”
*
WaPo describes McFarlane as “a co-founder of IP3 and a former adviser to President Ronald Reagan”. There’s a little more about McFarlane in this 2/14/17 article:
*
Flynn sets record with only 24 days as national security adviser. The average tenure is about 2.6 years.
[quote] […] Robert “Bud” McFarlane had served a little more than two years as [Reagan’s] national security adviser when he stepped down in 1985 for what he said were personal reasons. He later pleaded guilty to his role in the coverup of the Iran-contra affair, in which administration officials helped sell arms to Iran in order to fund militant groups in Nicaragua. […] [end quote]
*
The following photo caption is from that article:
“U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly does not get it”
Depends on what “it” is. Kelly is a Trump nom.
It is as I expected, the Trumpies and Bushies will put ideology before the law and legislate from the bench. I would be interested to see how our legal experts here assess the logic used to override Dodd-Frank, a law considered and passed in a Constitutional manner.
This is in response yo bmaz comment
“bmaz
November 28, 2017 at 9:31 pm
How about instead you quit blowing shit up people’s asses. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. Trying to morph that into a baloney argument that treason applies here is the epitome of intellectual dishonesty. Again, stop making people here dumber.”
Obviously you did not read my comments before decideing to revert to insults.
My first point was
“Fact; Rosenbergs were convicted and executed for – espionge – during WW II”
( spacing and dashes added for emphasis.) I acknowledge that Espionge was the crime .
So is it possible to cite the error in a civil manner?
Please show the error of facts that I presented that would protect flynn and his wasted seed offspring from being convicted and executed.
The one I could envision, as I already mentioned, would be that the stated “War on Terror” and its accomaping authorization to use force does not reach the standard of being involved in a “War” since a traditional congressional declaration of war does not exist. but that would be for the courts to decide in the face of a determined federal prosecutor. Your follow up comment is a creative use of 3 dot editing.
My full quote was
“Whether the declaration of a “War on Terror” and associated act to use military force in that war ( which has morphed from Afghanistan to Iraq to Isis to …..) constitutes the country being in a state of war is open to some question but does not preclude government prosecutors from using it if they wish.”
not just the last half
No, I read your intellectually dishonest comment fully and responded appropriately.
Whew bmaz, that’s hard work you’re doing, but appreciated, thanks for the shelter. If I got any dumber it would be even harder to tell me from a stump.
Amazing that we have this whole Constitution and legislated criminal code so we can tell these thingies apart and call them by their proper names. Who’da thunk it?
You know, I don’t disagree with people like “K” and BSL etc, who think the law ought be different or have additional provisions. But it is not. And what those provisions would be could be a pretty scary gambit. Unintended consequences if you will.
Bottom line is that there are plenty of criminal laws for all these people if the facts line up. Bellowing about “treason” is not helpful, nor anywhere near pertinent under existing law.
Whre have I assumed the law to be different? Nor do I express any desire for different provisions. Nor have I even mentioned treason.
So please do not try to manufactor falsehoods an then faliciuosly attribute them to me.
The difference of opinion that I have attempted to address is whether the stated “War on Terror” and associated authorization rise to a level that could trigger execution on espionge or not.
Considering the use of other laws for unexpected reasons range from the protesters at the inaugral who are being persacuted for peaceful demonstrations to a variety of creative uses to step on the people who tried to stop keystone pipeline construction.
So what is to prevent an aggressive federal prosecuter to pursue flynn under espionge act?
He, like the rosenbergs, appears to have passed intelligence on to foriegn powers (Turkey) and like the rosenbergs just because we are not at war with Turkey is irrelevent as long as we are at war.
So simple question what is to prevent an aggressive prosecution of flynn and co. under espionge act and seek death?
Could you address the issue rather then ignoreing the issues and questions with unhinged diatribes and unfounded insults.
Thank You
I have cited historical facts.
So you are denying the entire arc of your supposed argument to date? You cited “historical facts” out of context and in a disingenuous play on a stupid and false argument.
Really, that is your play? Comical.
Please site how the facts I cited were out of context? or disingenuous? Or stupid ?
Or how I changed my position?
Bland assertations independent of supporting facts/arguements are not any more convinceing then demented donnie’s claim to be the best president or putin’s claim of innumerable goals against professional hockey team or baby Kim’s claim that he shot 18 holes in one first time he went golfing.
Please facts not just insults and unsupported claims.
You throw out this garbage and then demand I “site” you? That is truly special.
Even the real Watson could tell something is amiss. Its diction uses correctly spelled multi-syllabic words. Then it throws in simpler, but incorrectly spelled homonyms where it is clear the author knows the difference between them. Perhaps the software needs tweaking, or it needs a better driver to transliterate from cyrillic.
The word I used was “cited” not site. Asking for facts and doses of reality.
These sort of misrepresentations and falsehoods by you that diminish the conversation and label you as more comfortable at mewsmax or other sites where your rage at your of someone questioning your unsupported “truthiness” would be more at home.
Make you a deal I will ignore you, and your tripe, if you will return the favor of not engaging with me.
I have no time for self rightous fools.
No, you used the word site. And you ought take a look in the mirror when you yammer about self righteous fools. Especially when trying to tell people who know the law of treason about the law of treason.
Bmaz,
The reason I bring home the word “treason” is that folks get it!
We can’t play nice with these rascals and lying sacks of shit anymore…
True, you can charge Flynn under a number of statutes… but if you believe that Trump and Flynn are unhinged (something snapped) and could bring this Nation down, then conspiracy and treason are appropriate.
If Obama did what these fools did, McConnell and the rest of the Republican establishment would have him up on “treason” charges.
Let’s call it what it is…..
Words matter.
We are running out of time
BS Librul, Sigh, you do have one thing right, words matter. Shouting “Warm” in a crowded theater is much different than shouting “Fire”. Most speech we permit, a carefully circumscribed slice is so inflammatory that it is prohibited.
Treason is one of those inflammatory terms. Bmaz and others have made the point many times around the wheel that treason is very specifically and narrowly defined in our Constitution, and for good reason. Broadly defined charges of treason were part of what the early settlers of this country were fleeing.
Do you really want to emulate despicable Repub behavior, to confirm the plaintive cynical whine that “Repubs and Dems, they’re all the same”? Are made up guesses about what Mitch McConnell et al might do truly your rationalization for behavior?
“The Repubs might do it so we should do it too” crap is part of what drove me out of the Dem Party. My kids did not get away with it while they were growing up either. Some of us believe that there is a difference, Dems believe in governance, in doing well by doing things right. That includes going after Repubs for what they actually do wrong, not the wildest hysterical charges because it attracts attention and “folks get it”.
Recall too Sam Johnson’s observation close to 250 years ago that “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”. Making false claims of treason puts you in that category, do you really want to be there?
Words do indeed matter. That’s why misusing “treason” is wrong.
Lefty,
Missing Ecclesiastes…..
“There is a time to be calm, and there is a time to be inflamed”
‘Tis the season, my friend.
Not quite OT, but reports are now coming through (sourcing mainly via Abbe Lowell, I’d guess) that Crown Prince Jared met with Team Mueller “earlier this month”, with the questioning focused on Flynn. I suspect it was around the time that Lowell was making public statements, perhaps in the period after he left the Asian trip early?
Interesting that they were still being vague about this until Thanksgiving.
It all seems to click together when you realize that Vnesheconombank, which met with Kushner in December, was parent of RDIF, which met with Prince in January.