Friday, March 24, 2017

WHAT'S SCARING DEVIN NUNES? And Does He Have a Russian Connection?


(I wrote this way back but it's very relevant right now.)

That Devin Nunes is one worried-looking dude! And he keeps trying to cover for Trump and the Russians. 

Does he have a Russian connection too? Is he terrified of being exposed along with the rest of Trump's crowd? After all, he too worked on the Trump campaign.

He reports raising about $2.5 million for his own 2016 campaign for his Congressional seat in California's 22nd District, spending about $1.3 million on the 2016 campaign, and in December 2016 having $3.5 milllion on hand. His Democratic opponent raised no money and spent nothing. 

Why all that campaign funding for Nunes? He had no actual opposition in the general election.

Where did the extra $2 million come from?  Maybe this apparently unexplained $2 million was left over from prior years? Hmmm....Let's give him the benefit of the doubt?

It likely didn't come out of Nunes' own pocket. He claims to have a personal net worth of only about $83,000, one of the lowest in Congress. 

But his private holdings, small as he claims them to be, are interesting.

According to his federal disclosure forms, almost all his net worth consists of his share in ownership of a wine company, Alpha-Omega Wine LCC, that sells in Russia through a Russian distributor who is reputedly a friend of Putin.

 Was Alpha Omega the beginning of a Russian dirty money journey into a pipeline to cleanliness in an American wine company account? Wouldn't it be difficult to show that someone who claimed to have sold wine to a Russian distributor really just took the money that needed laundering but didn't send the wine. 

Maybe just sent crates of bottles filled with water?

Actually a pretty clever way to launder money.

You likely know that the Russian billionaire-politicos have a big problem getting their money washed of criminality and moving it out of Russia, often resorting to a Cyprian bank now that the Caribbean has been exposed as a flow-way for dirty money. A computer in the Trump Tower campaign HQ was connected last year to a Russian bank, leading the FBI to suspect something criminal or disloyal was afoot. The FBI therefore trotted off to court, showed probable cause for the agency's suspicions, and was able to get a warrant to conduct surveillance of the Trump-Russian bank connection.

This court-licensed surveillance was based on a showing of probable cause, meaning the FBI had some goods on Trump & Co. From the moment in January when we learned Flynn had been caught lying about phone calls with the Russians, those who know some law realized the FBI had been surveilling Trump & Co. with a court order or the Russians without one. In January the NY Times ran a story about this, though not explaining about probable cause and court-issued warrants. Trump saw at least the headline, and in his unfathonable ignorance of the law, he thought Obama must have ordered the surveillance.

Not so, Mr Trump! Only a court can green-light government surveillance of citizens. 

Not until Monday did the pieces fall into place for Nunes. Perhaps what FBI Director James Comey disclosed at the Congressional hearing opened Nunes' eyes. Or were his eyes opened by a document he now claims to have been shown in an ancillary building on the White House, grounds, this info being provided by a mysterious unnamed figure. Nunes reputedly then ran post-haste to the White House, to warn the Trump team that ...... Well, what did he warn them of? "We are all in the deep poo-poo"? As if they didn't know.......?

In typical Trump fashion, Mr. Trump tried to twist the truth to his advantage, announcing that this Nunes' disclosure actually proved he was right about Obama spying on him.

Nonsense, Mr. Trump! Once again: the president CAN'T order surveillance. No one would accept that order. If an intelligence agent did so, that agent would be open to criminal prosecution. Mr. Trump, get this: Nunes and Comey are inadvertently saying that there was probable cause for a search warrant, probable cause to believe you and the Russians were up to no good. There can be no "spying", as you call it, without a warrant! No warrant without some evidence of something!

We are, in fact, a nation of laws, Mr. Trump. Get that through your strangely-colored head!

And now you and your cohorts — including maybe Devin Nunes — are going to run straight into the withering light of the law. 

When things are rotten, they smell. You can hide the rotten under a basket, but the smell will out. Read "Hamlet", for heaven's sake, Mr. Trump, the all-time political story of usurpation of power!

"You shall nose him out as you go up the stair."



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