Ever since those shriveled, limp Republican cowards in the Senate fake-acquitted Donny Smallhands on the impeachment charges, Donny has been especially treason-y and criminal. He keeps interfering in on-going court cases and sentencing hearings, and it’s gotten so bad that the pathetic, limp attorney general William Barr is “considering resigning” over Trump’s Twitter demands to do more crimes. Not content to meddle with still-active legal situations, Trump then went on a pardon-and-commutation spree, helping out various Republicans, GOP donors, junk bonders and problematic white men. What is the endgame here? To pardon every white bro in prison? Probably. But the larger endgame is to destroy the justice system entirely and turn it into a Smallhands-operated mob family “justice” system. Plus, he wants to simply numb us to the larger pardons to come. Speaking of…remember Julian Assange? He’s baaaack.
A lawyer for Julian Assange has claimed in court that President Donald Trump offered to pardon Assange if the WikiLeaks founder agreed to help cover up Russia’s involvement in hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee. Assange’s lawyers said on Wednesday that former Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher offered Assange the deal in 2017, a year after emails that damaged Hillary Clinton in the presidential race had been published. WikiLeaks posted the stolen DNC emails after they were hacked by Russian operatives.
The claim that Rohrabacher acted as an emissary for the White House came during a pre-extradition hearing in London. Assange has argued that he should not be extradited to the U.S. because the American case against him is politically motivated. He spent almost seven years hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in Central London claiming that he would be jailed in the U.S. if he wasn’t granted asylum. He was kicked out of the embassy last year.
His lawyers told the court that Trump’s alleged offer to pardon Assange proved that this was no ordinary criminal investigation. Edward Fitzgerald, who was representing Assange in court, said he had evidence that a quid pro quo was put to Assange by Rohrabacher, who was known as Putin’s favorite congressman.
Fitzgerald said a statement produced by Assange’s personal lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, included a description of “Mr. Rohrabacher going to see Mr. Assange and saying, on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr Assange… said Russia had nothing to do with the DNC leaks.”
Rohrabacher weighed in on Wednesday afternoon, insisting he never spoke to Trump about Assange prior to his personally-funded “fact finding mission” to London. He said he told Assange that he would “call on” Trump to pardon him if he was able to say who gave him the hacked emails.
“I was not directed by Trump or anyone else connected with him to meet with Julian Assange,” he said in a statement. “At no time did I offer Julian Assange anything from the President because I had not spoken with the President about this issue at all.”
I’m not going to spend the time researching all of the layers of Russian propaganda and Assange’s increasingly sketchy lies over the years, but it was my understanding that Assange has NEVER admitted that he acted as the middleman to Russia’s strategic hacking to benefit Donny Smallhands, right? All this time, Assange has continued to deny the obvious, to deny that fact for which there is ample evidence: that Trump and his people met with Russian agents, and they all agreed on a plan of action, which is that Hillary Clinton needed to be dirtied up with But Her Emails, and they would launder this criminal enterprise through Wikileaks as a not-so-neutral third-party. From free-speech darling to tool of Russian fascism in just a few short years, that’s Julian Assange (that’s not even his real name).
Anyway, yeah – this doesn’t surprise me at all. Of course Trump is going to try to pardon Assange. He’ll probably succeed in pardoning Assange. And then he’ll use that pardon as “proof” of his innocence. Or something, I can’t keep up with this bulls–t. I’m too busy pricing condos in Argentina.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red and Backgrid.
Ahh Julian Assange, my home town’s greatest son. What a twat, second only to Donnie himself.
(For any Aussies on here: Townsville, continuing to produce the best of the best.)
Again everyone licks and screams over Trump, and debates his actions to death. But nothing happens to him.
IKR??!! It’s incredible. I refuse to click on any stories about him even when the clickbait link/headline screams that he will finally get his due, because I know damn well that the story does not fulfill the headline. I only clicked on this because of Assange, another dirtbag.
WHY? Why is this man getting away with EVERYTHING??? I keep saying that history will not be kind to him but what the hell do I know??? It’s hopeless.
Destroying the current justice system is clearly what the Rethugs wants as well, they are clearly using Emperor Smallhands as their front boi to achieve that for them. Once the damage is done they will fight tooth and nail to stop any attempts to undo it.
All of these pardons/alleged offer and news that isn’t getting much coverage (book released this week regarding shady bank dealings) just leads to obvious questions.
Is Orange just a useful tool, fueled by behavioral deficits and power? Do he and his children think they have the keys to a multi-term dynasty? If so, is the party OK with that?
I don’t believe that the Fred Flintstone lookalike plans to resign. He just wants the loose lipped tweeter to stop exposing what’s going on.
Aw, why you gotta do Fred Flintstone like that?
I felt bad even typing it. Let’s just say that Fred has a very bad twin?
Julian Assange is a rank opportunist masquerading as some kind of freedom fighter. The reality is that he’s available to the highest bidder and he doesn’t care who he puts at risk. I’m sure 45 did probably offer a trade if Assange lied and he would have happily done it since we know he isn’t loyal to anyone but his own ego, so in regular form, 45 must have gone back on his word and this is Assange trying to take revenge.
As for Barr – I can’t believe anyone is buying the idea that he is going to resign because the honor of the DOJ has been sullied. What a f*cking joke. He was installed to use the power of the office to shield his dear fuhrer from prosecution and that is exactly what he’s done – he’s not going anywhere until 45 is done completely dismantling the department and found a way to permanently protect himself from any threat of criminal charges for all the shit he’s done. Once that happens, Barr will have a nice fat book deal and a cushy spot on Fox News. Trust.
Barr is 100% playing a role, like usual. He’s pretending to have some level of accountability, moral compass, or integrity, and we all know that’s not the case. He’s following his marching orders (coming from someone clearly much smarter than Two Scoops) of making it look like the DOJ isn’t just in Trump’s pocket.
Assange won’t do anything without the say so from his Russian masters. Am sure he has so much dirt on Dump and his cohorts but won’t release it until he is told to and mark my words that will happen once Putin has no more use for Dump and the rest of the swamp.
Waiting for them to hand down Stone’s punishment today and for Trump to immediately pardon him. Trump will pardon anyone that can being him down. Wait for it as Manfort and Flynn will also get pardoned.
The quickness with which the US became a banana republic will be studied for decades to come.
From across the Pond, it looks like the Democrats are going to eat themselves in the same manner as the UK Labour party. Which is a terrible shame, if I’m correct in this assumption.
I have a question for my American CBitchy friends: how far do you think Trump can quite literally go in his bid for unilateral power? Is it possible for him to override or alter the Constitution without proposing amendments, and are there historical precedents for him to do so? What checks and balances actually remain to keep him in check after the failed impeachment? Under what circumstances could he be considered to have gone too far (given what he’s already done, and what he assumes his power consists of) and be compelled to step down from office?
I’ve studied my fair share of American history, but this administration absolutely baffles me
It really doesn’t need to get to somehow changing the constitution. The true issue is how many “norms” there were – things that weren’t laws or rules in anyway, just sort of a list of ways people generally operated, that he violates. Or how many aspects of the Constitution, a document written before street lights existed, could be pointed at while saying something like “See, it doesn’t say ANYTHING about phone calls” and people would say, “Yeah, I guess so”.
So, for example, Trump didn’t need to remove the Emoluments Clause from the Constitution, the one preventing him from receiving gifts, money, etc. from foreign states. He just said “Prove that what I’m doing is this”, and then relied on his lawyers to fight challenges. And courts, not even wildly biased courts, have thrown out most of those challenges. This is what I mean – anyone before him could have done this. But there was a tacit understanding that the USA is a country of Dignity and Honor and blahblah and stuff.
Republicans will not push the leash on as long as he’s getting conservative judges on the bench.
I hate to give him credit for being right but you ask what would be “too far”? Maybe if he gets to that state where he shoots someone on Fifth Avenue, like he joked about. Even then. I don’t know.
Thank you, @Yanka.
Trump can only pardon once a person is convicted. Is Assange in the US? His extradition and trial can be postponed to a point Trump is no longer in office.
He can pardon before conviction. He can even pardon someone before they’re charged, and for things they might be charged with later – the most famous example probably being Ford granting Nixon a full, free, and absolute pardon for ANY crimes he had committed related to Watergate.
I read a poll today that 50% of Americans disagree with the pardons, 33% agree and the remainder are undecided. If he keeps up his accelerating unhinged behavior it will rally his base but disgust everyone else.