I’m more concerned about the person that brought Hillary into this discussion being all defensive and trolling.
Nah @soccernutter didn't deserve a serious answer given I'd posted a lengthy article only that morning which questioned Parnas's true role in all of this.
Marcy Wheeler with an interesting take on the Parnas affair. It is obviously alarming that Parnas could collect receipts on so many top Trump officials and save them up for a rainy way. But what is his media campaign all about? LEV PARNAS WOULDN’T REVEAL WHETHER HE HAS RECEIPTS ON BILL BARR In other words, whatever the reality, Parnas appears to be dribbling out the receipts implicating the people that SDNY prosecutors work for in an attempt to either increase the chances of cooperating out of his indictment or at least raising the costs of any further charges. Perhaps a more interesting question is why SDNY prosecutors permitted Parnas to launch this media campaign. They didn’t have to: Parnas got permission to modify the protective order on this stuff so he could release it, and they may have had to question Robert Hyde earlier than they otherwise intended to because of the publicity surrounding Parnas’ texts with Hyde. SDNY might be doing it to encourage a criminal target to run his mouth and say something incriminating. They might have done it for counterintelligence reasons, to see who responded to this media campaign. But it’s also possible that SDNY is happy for Parnas to expand the possible scope of their own investigation by making it harder for Barr to protect Rudy and others. The suspense, though, has to do with that non-committal answer Parnas gave about whether he has any texts directly implicating the Attorney General of the United States. A defendant being prosecuted by the Department of Justice was asked whether he had proof that the top law enforcement officer in the country was personally implicated in his corrupt influence peddling. And Parnas is not telling. Yet. https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/01/...-reveal-whether-he-has-receipts-on-bill-barr/
Wheeler has made the point that Parnas and Trump (and Guliani) are conspirators in the same crime that we first found out about from the whistleblower. To some extent it does not matter if Trump knew Parnas, because the President's lawyers already admitted Parnas was working with Guliani in the course of Guliani's representation of Trump in the affair. The real difference so far is that Parnas has actually produced receipts to prove some of his key allegations - unlike the President. It seems pretty obvious Barr is protecting Rudy from prosecution but is happy to let Parnas go down. In Parnas version of the story, he suspects he has been arrested to silence him, and was told to take the fall for the President. Remember Parnas was already being pressured to testify in the House before he was arrested.
Where Wheeler dovetails with Franklin Foer's Atlantic article is that Parnas may not simply be another chancer in the Trump orbit who was recruited into the scheme. The genesis of this story may well be the other way round, and that origin story leads back to Firtash Wheeler says: Foer asks: Because the Biden story sprung into the light via the whistleblower, the origin story tends to focus on Trump's corrupt plot around the aid money. But we know this all started before Zelensky even became President.
The WSJ has a very interesting backstory on the rise of Parnas into GOP circles from his shady background A very oddly structured 500K bung got them direct access to Rudy. The payment was apparently structured as "consultancy" via their company Fraud Guarantee, yet was not there money. We know some of the money Paras threw about came from Firtash https://www.wsj.com/articles/lev-parnas-paid-his-way-into-donald-trumps-orbit-11579469071
Well, that's one way to go... or you could just accept that mentioning 'strong fund raising' was an odd choice in the context of why she was allowed that level of influence in the DNC, particularly as it relates to donny tiny hands influence over the RNC, (albeit not because of money). That last bit, in case you haven't realised, very much DOES relate to this thread. Like I say, I didn't mention the matter, did I.
The point doesn't stand though. There is a whole lot of stuff that is simply BAU in US politics and indeed the Western World and is not illegal AND has nothing to do with Presidential campaign fund raising. e.g. Paid for speaking opportunities by a private citizen Celebrity "Foundations" ----> these are not political fundraising but a form of brand & influence peddling. e.g lots of Athletes have them. Furthermore, one point of the so called invisible primary is precisely to capture the support of the donor class behind your campaign. All of these silly clinton conspiracy theories have precisely zero to do with what is going on with Trump, Parscale & the RNC So it gets annoying that "but Hillary" concern trolling derails the on topic conversation yet again.
This is what you claim These interpretations have nothing to do with what i posted This is "But Hillary" level whataboutism
You missed the point then. It was that some of the other people mentioned, (by TJ IIRC), were either many, many years ago OR were right-wing politicians who had, shall we say, certain 'issues'. So despite me saying the precise opposite and that there is NO meaningful comparison, (other than in the most general sense), it's the same as some right-wing hacks position? Really? Come on! You know that's not reasonable. Anyway, let's leave it here, shall we.
They call their company "Fraud Guarantee". Its like calling your fake insurance company "Assured Casualty" . Or, your fake bank "Open Vault" Trump is a Teapot-Dome-a-Day. The Ukraine thing is just the little bit above water.
I know right. This is just the stuff we found out about. Maggie Haberman commented that normally these kind of grifters wouldn't get access all areas I mean 500K was enough to buy Rudy and with it, direct access to Potus?
Alls I know is, you cited, in support of the claim that there is/was something "dodgy" about Hillary's actions, an article which claimed that the dodginess was in that the nature of the activity wasn't precedented. Then when I cited examples going back to the FF you objected to those examples on account of their age. Ya really can't have it both ways, ya know? If it is precedented, it isn't unprecedented, or so I was taught. Any dodginess in these cases is not in the nature of the process, but in the purpose and/or result. The Clinton Foundation raised money to get AIDS drugs to infected African children. The Trump foundation raised money to get his portrait painted, and to make some payments on lawsuits he lost, among other things IIRC.
One foundation jaywalked, the other robbed a bank. I guess you can put them into the same bucket of "dodgy" if you like. Lord knows most Americans did.
Well, for two hundred of years, or whatever, it was unprecedented then. Is that better? I'm not sure where you're going with this, tbh. I didn't mention anything about the Clinton Foundation, did I so I'm not sure why you are. The point at issue was about her 'strong fund raising'. IIRC Bill Clinton said that when he left office he was millions of dollars in debt and yet was well off some years later so the idea the money they raised was solely for AIDS drugs for African kiddies obviously isn't correct, is it. Anyway, like I say, we're done here
Legal bills from nonstop right wing investigations. Ken Starr was all up in that. And he was a well-paid speaker because he was well-liked. Like the Obamas are.
In the interests of the on topic discussion ... Bill made a lot of money on the pro-speaking tour. Obama is doing the same. That is earning not fund raising. Nor are we talking about charitable fund raising. When it comes to RNC, key methods of fund raising are from the mega donors, events and organically (email campaigns etc). As @Yoshou correctly pointed out, most such fundraising will come to be dominated by the biggest star in the show - i.e the President, whereas during the Obama years, the RNC did not have one dominant personality. Trump/Parscale have come to dominate that machinery, and it gives them huge power over the rank and file GOP. Perhaps the best example of this is McSally who went full Trump, scored Fox appearances, and used all of that to raise money for her own campaign. So this is how Trump is enforcing cult like discipline. But the results so far have been broadly negative., with huge losses down ballot in 3 years to date
Dude, why don't you try to educate yourself before getting into innuendos and spreading that crap? Clinton speakers fee were back in the early 2000's in the 250K fee a pop. Those were standard. If we were talking about big banks or big oils companies, that fee were in the million range. Those are easily verifiable facts (see the link below). One can criticize Bill and HRC for many other reasons, however with regard to the foundation, it has been audited at length by the IRS among other and they have not found any issue with their finances. https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/politics/hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-paid-speeches/index.html