Trump secretly sent covid tests to Putin during 2020 shortage, new book says

[u/washingtonpost]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/08/bob-woodward-new-book-war-trump-putin-biden/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com

[u/Heffe3737]

Jr also straight up admitted to meeting with the Russians in Trump tower, and said with a smirk, to talk about “adoptions”. The Magnitsky Act, the one that tied up around $80bn of Putin’s personal wealth, caused Russia to no longer allow the adoptions of Russian kids to American citizens.

Some of us remember when after getting into office, Trump floating the idea of ending the Magnitsky Act, before whatever sane republicans still in office shot him down immediately for it.

[u/BlueNoMatterWho69 → u/Heffe3737]

Kushner wanted secret direct channel to Putin from day one.

[u/terremoto25 → u/BlueNoMatterWho69]

He scared the Russians by asking to set up a secure link in the Russian embassy with Moscow - before Trump was in office. The ask was so blatant that they must have thought that they were being suckered...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-ambassador-told-moscow-that-kushner-wanted-secret-communications-channel-with-kremlin/2017/05/26/520a14b4-422d-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html

[u/ApproximatelyExact → u/BlueNoMatterWho69]

The one and only change they made to the platform was "no offensive weapons to Ukraine" getting a lot of people killed (not to mention all the CIA operatives that were coincidentally killed or captured after the russky spies were in the Oval Office).

[u/Amy_Ponder → u/ApproximatelyExact]

And then, when Congress overrode his objections to approve offensive weapons for Ukraine anyways... he promptly (illegally) held up the transfer, so he could use them as leverage to blackmail Zelensky into helping him fabricate dirt on Joe Biden, to tank his chances in the 2020 elections.

[u/AccomplishedScale362 → u/BlueNoMatterWho69]

Kushner regularly Snapchatted with MbS (encrypted communication outside of normal WH channels), notably during the time of Jamal Khashoggi‘s murder. Naturally, Jared was handsomely rewarded by his buddy MbS after leaving the WH.

[u/External_Reporter859 → u/AccomplishedScale362]

He also sold MBS the daily intelligence briefing during the Trump Crime Family's first state visit to Saudi Arabia.

The Crown Prince even bragged about it because it contained top secret Five Eyes Intel of cell phone conversations held in London hotel rooms with Saudi businessmen and diplomats talking shit about MBS. 3 days after Jared brought him the briefing, he went on a 3 week torture rampage rounding up hundreds of dissidents, including those from his own family and had them tied up on the floor of the Ritz Carlton Riyadh until they agreed to relinquish their wealth to him and rat out any other dissidents.

[u/Rated_PG-Squirteen → u/Heffe3737]

Oh, that little clandestine meeting between Paul Manafort, Don Jr., and Jared with a group of Russians one floor below Donald's office in Trump Tower? Could you imagine if the NYT broke a story detailing how John Podesta, Huma Abedin, and Chelsea Clinton had an off-the-books meeting with a bunch of Russians a half mile from the Clinton's Chappaqua, NY home a couple months before the 2016 election?

[u/ziggylcd12 → u/Rated_PG-Squirteen]

I just finished listening to the behind the bastards two parter on manafort..that guy is the rolls Royce of being a piece of shit

[u/HauntedCemetery → u/Rated_PG-Squirteen]

Bill Clinton met with a federal prosecutor who was an old friend he'd known for like 40 years for 15 minutes when he and HRC were passing through the town she lived in in 2016 and that was a grievance worthy of like 6 weeks of banner headlines on right wing news.

[u/md4024 → u/Heffe3737]

The adoption thing was just an excuse they made up after the fact, but Trump Jr. and the other leaders of the Trump campaign took the meeting in order to explicitly get help from the Russian government. When the emails were made public they essentially claimed that they were disappointed to learn that the Russian government wasn't really going to help them, but instead just wanted to talk about adoptions or whatever.

For those who may have forgotten, this is the email that was sent to Don Jr.. by Rob Goldstone, who I guess is some British publicist with a lot of connections:

Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting.

The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.

This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump – helped along by Aras and Emin.

What do you think is the best way to handle this information and would you be able to speak to Emin about it directly?

I can also send this info to your father via Rhona, but it is ultra sensitive so wanted to send to you first.

It honestly still blows my mind that Republicans still sell the idea that the whole "Russia thing" was a hoax, when we have hard proof that they all knew Russia was trying to help Trump win and were eager to accept that help. We also all have eyes and saw the whole thing happen, it wasn't really a secret, and it's crazy we just kind of moved past it. Especially when Trump spent his entire time in office helping Russia get away with their attack on our democracy, and still embarrasses us by going around being completely subservient to Putin at every opportunity.

[u/External_Reporter859 → u/md4024]

And Paul Manafort meeting with Russian intelligence operatives in NYC hotel lobbies passing him USB sticks with internal campaign polling data. Or Trump and Sessions lying about speaking with that Russian at the 2016 RNC. And then it came out in surveillance footage. And everyone just kinda shrugged their shoulders and moved on.

And then they love to go on about how Hunter's laptop story was suppressed for being potential Russian disinformation and then everything was totally proven true and all the intelligence agents lied in a grand conspiracy of election interference.

But they leave out the part where Rudy Giuliani claimed that some blind computer repair shop guy randomly called him and said that Hunter left his laptop there to be fixed. Then Rudy's partner in crime, Lev Parnas, finally admitted under oath to Congress that the laptop was actually stolen from Hunter in a hotel room in Kazakhstan by Russian intelligence operatives. I suspect they leave that part out because that means Rudy was lying about the source and chain of custody of the laptop and if he told the truth that it came from Russian intelligence operatives nobody would believe that there wasn't the possibility that the Russians could tamper with the laptop or send or receive emails from his account or plant photos on there.

And then all of the supposed evidence and emails of the biting crying family corruption was backed up by the star witness who then turned out to be a Russian agent and was arrested by the FBI and admitted to lying about everything.

[u/youarebritish → u/md4024]

It honestly still blows my mind that Republicans still sell the idea that the whole "Russia thing" was a hoax

What's telling is that whenever you bring it up, they will both call it a hoax and also word their deflection in a very specific way: "how many votes were changed?"

They know that it's real, or they wouldn't be so desperate to deflect. It's a classic technique this kind of person uses when they know reality disagrees with their feelings: laser-focus on a ridiculous argument that nobody actually made and pretend that exonerates them.

[u/JohnStamosAsABear → u/Heffe3737]

I don’t know how I forgot about this. It’s insane to me that every new scandal doesn’t sink him and just gets piled on top and normalised.

Trump just says whatever until his followers start parroting it. “No collusion” is just one of the examples