Lock Them Up

more gopers for the gaol 

McConnell, Rand Paul Linked To Scheme Funneling Trump Russian Money (bipartisanreport.com)

What is the worst thing that we could imagine Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), the Eddie Haskell of the Senate, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) doing? Ah, so many choices. McConnell let a Russian oligarch build an aluminum processing plant in his state. Rand attacked COVID expert Dr. Anthony Fauci. Oh, wait. Here it is.
Mitch Grand-Reaper McConnell hired a legally questionable guy named Jesse Benton to lead his campaign in 2014. That was until the guy was forced to step down amid “legal scrutiny.” And Paul’s son, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), chose Benton to lead his election campaign.
But how is that bad? Well, Benton and a guy named Doug Wead were bad, very bad, according to POLITICO

‘TWO VETERAN REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN OPERATIVES — INCLUDING ONE WHO GOT A PARDON FROM THEN-PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP ONE MONTH BEFORE HE LEFT OFFICE — ARE CHARGED IN A NEW FEDERAL INDICTMENT WITH FUNNELING $25,000 FROM A RUSSIAN NATIONAL INTO THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN IN 2016.’

Benton, 43, and Wead, 75, pled not guilty to six felony charges in a video hearing at the U.S. District Court in Washington. The charges stemmed from their part in helping this foreign national contribute to Donald Trump’s campaign on October 27, 2016. They served as straw donors and filed false campaign finance reports.
The two accepted $100,000 from a thus-far unidentified Russian national at a Trump fundraiser on September 22, 2016, according to the grand jury indictment. And all the mysterious Russan wanted was a face-to-face meeting with the near-president? Come on.
[continues]

Stephen Colbert, Bob Woodward Reveal Why the GOP Will Never Be Held Accountable (thedailybeast.com)

During his Late Show monologue Tuesday night, Stephen Colbert joked that a more accurate title for Bob Woodward and Robert Costa’s new book Peril might have been “AAAAGGH!” When the authors joined him later in the show, they confirmed his worst fears about just how dangerous the Trump administration really was.
[…]
The topic that seemed to animate Colbert most was the concept of “accountability” when it comes to the “Big Lie” about the 2020 election and the violence that it provoked. “Did the people in Washington believe that there was fraud, even the ones who were being sort of tacitly approving of the tactic?” the host asked of Republicans who helped perpetuate those conspiracies.
“No,” Woodward replied, plainly, revealing that some of Trump’s closest allies in Congress privately admitted to him that there was “no evidence” of a rigged election but would not say so publicly, presumably out of fear from Trump and his base.
“Our reporting shows that the Big Lie, this idea of election fraud, was not some passing storm for American democracy,” Costa added. “It’s the climate right now inside of the Republican Party.” Even if those Republicans “don’t believe in President Trump’s claims,” he said, “they’re not willing to go out there and counter him. That’s the dynamic right now ahead of 2022 and ahead of 2024.”
From there, Colbert pushed Woodward to say whether he’s “ever seen a more cynical or destructive use of political gamesmanship” over his many years as a reporter in Washington, D.C. When Woodward equivocated, saying, “There have been lots of efforts going back to Nixon,” Colbert pressed him further, asking again, “Anything close to this?”
“This was a subversion, or an attempted subversion, of democracy,” Woodward said. “And it never stopped. And here’s the problem: It continues.” He warned that Trump is “going to run again and he’s got a lot of support.”
The final line of their book is “Peril remains.” And Colbert, who said those words gave him “a little chill” down his spine, added, “I think the peril will remain, unless there actually are consequences.” He likened the Jan. 6 rioters to drug addicts who are now being prosecuted. “But the drug dealers are not being pursued,” he said. “So the addiction will continue.”
As for any accountability for the Republican Party, Costa said, “The people who voted to impeach President Trump in the Republican Party, those are the ones who are getting out of the GOP because of the primary races.”
“So the only consequences are for the people who did the right thing,” Colbert replied.

gaetz and greene digging up dirt for another junket to unseat cheney?

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