‘Grenell Is An Internet Troll:’ Rep. Cicilline On Trump’s New Acting Intel Chief | All In | MSNBC

Congressman Cicilline (D-RI) comments on President Trump’s new pick for Acting Director of National Intelligence: “Richard Grenell is basically an internet troll. He’s a loyalist to the President, and he is not qualified to hold this position even for a single day.” Aired on 02/20/20.
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‘Grenell Is An Internet Troll:’ Rep. Cicilline On Trump’s New Acting Intel Chief | All In | MSNBC

54 comments

    1. Actually it’s the exact opposite. Drain that swamp baby. Drain that swamp. 😁😁😁🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

    1. “Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” ―Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

    2. “But, Mr President…that is against the law” – Rex Tillerson, on common response, and why he had to leave Sec. of State.

  1. THERE ARE NOW 126 REPUBLICANS THAT HAVE BEEN FIRED, RETIRED ‘’EARLY’’ OR RESIGNED FROM THE PARTY IN THE PAST 36 MONTHS.
    ———————————————————————————————————————————————————–
    AND TRUMPS VINDICTIVE BEHAVIOR CONTINUES, HERE ARE THE LATEST FIRINGS / RESIGNATIONS ARE:
    ~~~ February 20, 2020
    126 ) ► Joseph Maguire has been replaced as top intelligence official. The move comes after a congressional briefing on election interference that enraged the president.
    ————————————————————————————————————————————————————
    February 19 2020
    125 ) ► John Rood, a top Pentagon official who had a role in the Ukraine aid deal at the heart of Trump’s impeachment, resigned Wednesday. He is the latest to be forced to resign in Donald Trumps revenge acts.

    February 7, 2020
    123- 124 ) ►Alexander Vindman and brother Lt. Col. ►Yevgeny Vindman were removed from their jobs at the white house an a vindictive move by Donald Trump.

    122 ) February 3,2020
    ►James Byrne Veterans Affairs Department Deputy Secretary was fired Monday, amid controversy over how the department handled a sexual assault allegation by a House staffer visiting a VA facility last year.

    121 ) January 19, 2020
    ► Andrew Peek – Donald Trump’s top Russia expert on the National Security Counsel. He was ‘escorted out of the white house‘

    120 )
    ► Duncan Hunter – resigns January 7 2020
    Duncan is accused of illegally using campaign funds to support his personal lifestyle. Among many other personal expenses, prosecutors say his campaign paid for a trip to a casino, paid the bill when he took his mom out for Mother’s Day (twice), and paid for Hunter’s “Hawaii shorts,” which Hunter’s wife (and co-defendant) instructed him to buy at a golf pro shop so that they could disguise the expense as “balls for the wounded warriors.”
    Hunter’s wife is accused of having the campaign pay a $700 dental bill and then claiming the money was for a ‘charitable contribution‘.

    119 )
    ►Phil Roe, R-Tenn., on Friday announced he will retire at the end of his term, adding his name to the growing list of Republicans opting to not seek re-election ahead of the 2020 elections.
    118 )
    ► William Taylor, the top American diplomat in Ukraine and an impeachment inquiry witness, has resigned from his ambassadorship role in the country, the U.S. embassy announced on Thursday. January 2, 2020

    117 )
    ► Mark Meadows is retiring from Congress it was announced on December 19, 2019

    116 )
    December 12, 2019
    ►Rep TED YOHO of Florida announced that he will step down after completing his term, joining the wave of House Republicans who have opted against running for reelection in 2020.

    115)
    ►Rep. George Holding (R-NC) announced that he will not be seeking reelection in next year’s election.

    114 ) November 24, 2019
    ► Navy Sec. Richard Spencer RESIGNS over the controversial case of a Navy SEAL that has created high-level friction between the president and the Pentagon.

    113 )
    November 18, 2019
    ► Mina Chang, Senior Trump administration official resigns after newly discovered false claims she had made about her charity work.

    1. Varekai Ascendant – THANKS for that – it just becomes the norm, this brings reality back into the picture. regds from, NZ

    1. Pvt. Hudson: What do you mean, ‘They cut the power’? How could they cut the power, man? They’re animals!

    2. Could you imagine being president, and say, “Just tell me the news, I want to hear”. Freaking crazy. LOL

    1. Why we are a broken democracy because of: 1) electoral college, 2) plurality voting 3) structurally failed Senate.
      This is the disease…everything else is a symptom…Trump, Bush, Citizens United, etc.
      When your vote is NOT a vote…that is when democracy dies.

  2. The truly scary part is that the head of the DNI is responsible for so much MORE than whether or not Russia is helping Trump in an election. This is our NATIONAL SECURITY people! Our INTELLIGENCE on EVERYTHING that can harm our nation. ALL of it. This is not the type of job you just hand to you of your crony trolls like tossing a biscuit to a puppy! To put someone in such a critical position with zero relevant experience is beyond madness!

  3. Richard Grenell is said to have no intelligence experience. Now no one in the White House has experienced intelligence

    1. John Bender – I didnt know if you allowed to mention that on comments – but yes I did wonder as read that Repl had a low support for Gays.  I think more important Germany sent him home for poor job – its all in Wiki.

    2. You may be just as qualified .Think about that.Stop being divisive.and spreading separation.It is about our country and our freedom.

    3. Do you think that Russia helped in trump getting elected so that he will pick people with experience to work on behalf of America?

  4. I can see a rigged election coming from miles away. If Trump wins, it’s the official end of Democracy in this land.

  5. Another “Yes Man” installed while real intelligence pros are thrown under the bus. Meanwhile. the GOP does nothing. Trump does take Russia’s election interference seriously. That’s why he stood at a podium and asked Russia for help in finding Hillary’s emails and why he doesn’t want to stop Russia’s interference now. HE is the beneficiary so why would this criminal stop it?

  6. Richard Grenell, Trump’s inexplicable pick for the Director of National Intelligence,  has less than zero experience in intelligence or national security. He had even less experience in diplomacy when Trump named him as the Ambassador to Berlin. What Grenell does have however, are shady connections to Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, who are connected to the Russian mob, and the Kremlin. And this is the man that Trump’s wants to trust with the entire treasure trove of Amercan intelligence and classified information?!?!😲

    For years, Grenell’s bread and butter had been serving as a political consultant and advisor. He founded Capital Media Partners in 2009, to assist clients with “international strategic communications.” Grenell boasts of having “clients based in the U.S. Iran, and throughout Europe. The former Soviet Republic of Moldova, a little country that few Americans ever think about, became a subject of intense interest to Grenell shortly before our 2016 election. The poorest corner of Europe, Moldova barely has any legitimate economy.

    Moldova is known for its out-of-control corruption and crime, particularly its lurid role in the illegal trade of 5ex slaves. Moldova’s main industry is the selling of its young women, often children, to human traffickers, who dispatch them around the globe to be exploited. Grenell, who does not seem to have shown any interest in the troubled country before, oddly published four American op-eds between mid-August and mid-October 2016, extolling Moldova’s virtues.

    To those familiar with Moldova’s nasty politics, it was clear that Grenell was going to bat for Vladimir Plahotniuc, the most powerful political player in Moldova, not to mention the country’s wealthiest oligarch. In the summer of 2016, Plahotniuc’s charmed life as his country’s most feared Oligarch was in trouble. Mihail Gofman, the country’s anti-corruption czar, went public about Plahotniuc’s crimes. Seeking safety in America, Gofman explained to the FBI how Plahotniuc oversaw the theft of $1 billion from Moldova’s state treasury—one-eighth of the country’s annual GDP—then laundered it with Kremlin help.

    Gofman’s fears for his future and safety were warranted. When Moldova’s former Prime Minister Vlad Filat, a critic of the Kremlin, denounced Plahotniuc for his role in the billion-dollar-theft, he was arrested and sentenced to nine years in prison, reportedly on Plahotniuc’s orders. Gofman’s account, which confirmed what many Western intelligence agencies suspected, was that Plahotniuc is deeply in bed with Russian organized crime, specifically the notorious Solntsevo Brotherhood,  led by Semyon Mogilevich, according to INTERPOL..

    In his 2016 op-eds, Grenell insisted that Gofman was wrong about Plahotniuc. Grenell even  attacked Congressmen, Randy Weber, a Texas Republican, who tried to assist Gofman in exposing Moldovan crime and corruption, accusing Weber as pro-Kremlin.

    So why did Grenell develope a sudden and passionate need to defend Vlad Plahotniuc. It wasn’t an act of charity, but Grenell has failed to disclose what motivated his public defense of Moldova’s top oligarch, and crime boss. His financial disclosure forms submitted for his appointment as ambassador to Berlin reveal that over the previous year, Grenell made $688,362 from Capitol Media Partners, i.e. for political consulting. For whom, however, is unclear.

    This is important since Plahotniuc isn’t just a corrupt oligarch who is accused of robbing his impoverished country blind. He’s also a human trafficker, in fact the leading one in Moldova. INTERPOL admitted his role in human trafficking in 2012. Although Plahotniuc has never been charged with this crime, this isn’t surprising given the influence he possesses over Moldova’s highly corrupt judiciary.

    What Plahotniuc really is represents one of the worst-kept secrets in Eastern Europe. His criminal enterprises are well known to Western intelligence and police agencies. If Grenell went to bat for Plahotniuc for money, the American public deserves to know how much and from whom.

  7. In Sept, one month before Lev Parnas was indicted on campaign finance charges, his wife received a $1 million wire transfers from a bank account in Russia. The the source was a lawyer for Dmytro Firtash, according to a court filing by U.S. prosecutors.

    Firtash is a Ukrainian oligarch who made a fortune in the natural gas trade, and is perhaps the most enigmatic figure in the scandal related to Trump’s impeachment.

    A billionaire with close ties to the Russian mob, Firtash is facing bribery-related charges here in the U.S. and fighting extradition from Vienna. He once attempted to buy the famous Drake Hotel in NY with the now imprisoned Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager. He’s seen by Ukrainian anti-corruption activists and Western governments as a corrupt instrument of Russia.

    Firtash provided documents to Giuliani that he used to further his discredited claim that Joe Biden engaged in wrongdoing in Ukraine. The question over Firtash’s role in the effort to smear Biden deepened when Parnas said the oligarch’s involvement came from an explicit quid pro quo. In exchange for Firtash’s help in their effort to damage Biden, Parnas assured the oligarch they (Rudy, Trump, and Parnas) would make his U.S. legal troubles disappear.

    In other words, according to Parnas: Guiliani, was so eager to help Trump and hurt Biden, that he turned to a man Ukrainian activists call their country’s most dangerous oligarch — and offered the equivalent of a get-out-of-jail-free card.

    “Some folks might wonder what Mr. Giuliani was thinking. The better question is whether he WAS thinking,” said Chuck Rosenberg, a former federal prosecutor and senior FBI official. “This is so foolhardy and so reckless, that it is difficult to fathom what he was doing or how he thought it could succeed.”

    Firtash lived up to his end of the alleged bargain: His lawyers provided a now-discredited affidavit from a Ukrainian prosecutor accusing Biden of wrongdoing. But Giuliani’s team did not deliver.

    According to Parnas and a senior U.S. official, Firtash’s lawyers, Giuliani associates Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing, were unable to convince Attorney General William Barr to intervene in the Firtash case. The alleged scheme, one former U.S. official said, was stunning in its audacity.

    “Think of it this way,” said the official, who has deep knowledge of Ukraine’s politics and Firtash’s history. “You have the president’s personal lawyer trying to get the president’s official lawyer, the attorney general, to get the Justice Department to drop charges against an oligarch supported by Russia. That’s what was happening.”

    “Firtash is at dead center of the greatest corruption operation in Ukraine’s history,” said a former senior U.S. diplomat who served in the region. “He managed the flow of natural gas from Russia to Ukraine and beyond and it kept Ukraine dependent on Russia’s gas supplies.”

    Anders Aslund, a former Swedish diplomat who has studied Ukraine’s economy for years, said Firtash is more of a purveyor of bribes than a proper businessman. “He has essentially been used by the Russians to buy political power in Ukraine,” said Aslund.  “He’s the person who has spent the most money on behalf of the Kremlin on Ukraine’s politicians.”

    In 2013, as the  Obama administration was pushing an anti-corruption agenda in Ukraine, federal prosecutors in Chicago indicted Firtash, charging him with a scheme to bribe Indian officials to obtain a lucrative mining deal to sell titanium to Boeing for the 787 Dreamliner. He was arrested in Vienna in March 2014, and released on $174 million bail and has been contesting his extradition to the U.S. ever since.

    The $174 million bail, said to be the largest in Austrian history, was paid by the Russian billionaire Vasily Anisimov, who is also under U.S. sanctions.

    Richard Grenell, Trump’s pick for the Director of National Intelligence, has absolutely  zero experience in intelligence or national security. But what Grenell does have however, are shady connections to Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, who are connected to the Russian mob, and the Kremlin. Normally, something like this would be more than enough to prevent him from even getting a low level security clearance. But yet this is the man that Trump’s wants to trust with the entire treasure trove of Amercan intelligence and classified information??? 😲

    In interviews, Lev Parnas described a meeting he and Rudy had in London where they met two associates of indicted Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash, one of whom was on his legal team. The Washington Post reported on that meeting, and a Firtash lawyer confirmed that a meeting with Giuliani happened. Parnas said he was in the meeting, and that Giuliani used it to try to get material from the oligarch that would bolster his attacks on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Trump.

    Firtash is wanted in this country on multiple felony corruption and bribery charges. DOJ prosecutors say Firtash is an “upper-echelon associate” of Russian Organized Crime.

    After the meeting, two of Giuliani’s allies joined Firtash’s legal team. Victoria Toensing and Joseph diGenova began representing Firtash in the summer of 2019, and worked to score political gifts for Trump from Firtash. Parnas said they also tried to leverage their Trumpworld connections to help Firtash. 

    “During the situation that was going on with the Firtash case, Victoria called Ric Grenell because he was the ambassador to Germany and Vienna was in the same orbit there,” Parnas said. “She basically asked him, if he sees any pressure coming from DOJ to extradite Firtash, if he could let us know. She told me that Grenell said he would.”

  8. A question many have asked: How could the Nazi tragedy happen in a modern, civilized and cultural lighthouse such as Germany? The answer is of course “little by little”, by giving up the rule of law over the course of many years. You live, you learn.

    1. Well, some people live and learn. Some people just live.
      Especially when an under-funded public education system doesn’t adequately teach civics, basic philosophy and world history.

    2. @Carolyn Talbot The other side of the coin is that lots of people don’t even care, they’re addicted to materialism.

  9. The hollowing out of democratic institutions by stacking them with yes men/women loyal only to the wanna-be tyrant is a hallmark of illiberal tyranny.
    Wake up people: It can happen here and it IS happening here!

  10. “Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” ―Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

  11. We need to fund a election security cyberspace force to protect our elections from Trump’s cheating with Russian hackers help again .

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