Dueling Conspiracies (Part 3)

Parnas and Giuliani

Stayed up last night to watch more Lev Parnas on the Rachael Maddow Show. Her interview only made this whole Ukrainian farce even murkier. Here are a few takeaways:

- Rudy Giuliani has lost a lot off of his fastball to have trusted this man who, at the drop of an indictment, switched sides. The motto of the Ukraine must be “duplicity” ... for everyone there seems infected. Rudy once knew how to handle the New York mafia. But they were pikers next to the Ukrainians.

- My guess was that Parnas was lying about every third utterance. But, like any good liar, he said enough credible things to be convincing. He clearly was playing to the prosecutors in the Southern District of New York for leniency in his money laundering and illegal political contributions charges,

- It is very doubtful that Ambassador Marie Yovanovich was ever in any physical jeopardy. Maddow neglected to mention that she was recalled the very night before Zelensky was inaugurated as the Ukraine’s new president. This obviously was significant.

- Parnas did say ... believably, and because of dirt supplied by him ... that Trump tried to fire Ambassador Yovanovich a number of times only to be thwarted by the Deep State at the State Department. How Trump has prevailed in all that he has accomplished ... against the entrenched bureaucracy, disinclined to even get him a cup of coffee ... tells me he is a remarkable manager.

- Last observation: If the Senate calls witnesses like Parnas and opens up this whole Ukraine corruption can of worms, Trump’s impeachment trial will last at least until June ... in order to sort through all this bleep.

Dueling Conspiracies

My liberal lunch buddies asked me today that, if Trump, or Giuliani as directed by Trump, wanted to have former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovich killed, would I be in favor of removing Trump from office? My answer, “Of course.”

Where did this newest Trump-derangement conspiracy theory come from? Apparently, all my lib friends have already totally swallowed this bait, hook, sinker, line, reel and rod. So I am forced to try to plumb the web to find any possible facts behind this newest mudball. (Has anyone noticed that the syncopated timing of these anti-Trump revelations from Adam Schiff ... drip, drip, drip ... to me, seems very suspicious and conspiratorial.)

I first went to the Snopes truth-tellers site ... see: Snopes Discussion ... nothing but a bland, biased AP  story. Next I emailed my lunch buddies for help and got back these three references: The Hill, The Intercept and Palmer Report ... all of which I read (with difficulty). And, in order to follow this discourse, I’m afraid you should too.

The key player in this melodrama is an Ukrainian named Lev Parnas. Above is a snippet from his interview with Rachael Maddow. I didn’t know to watch the whole thing ... but a lunch buddy did and here are his comments:

Just saw Rachael Madow interview with Lev Parnas.  He implicates Giuliani, Trump, Pence and even Barr in the circle of conspirators who were trying to get Zelinski to open a Biden investigation.  No explanation for why Ukraine never made the desired announcement. 

As for the Ambassador, Parnas apologized  to Ambassador Yovanovich for his role in getting her fired for blocking the Biden probe. Important to note:  Parnas says the Hyde threats were never taken seriously, as Hyde was "constantly drunk."Thus he discredits the report that she was in danger.

His reason for singing now:  He is under indictment for improper campaign contributions.  Maybe he hopes cooperating in this affair will help him get an easier sentence.  He implies that the more info becomes known, the safer he will be.  (Think Epstein).

Except for suggesting that Trump would kill Parnnas, pretty fair minded. More in another post.