January 25, 2023 • 38 mins
EPISODE 119: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) OF McGONIGAL, DERIPASKA, AND MANAFORT, Part 1: Even at this late date, the ex-FBI executive arrested Saturday, Charles McGonigal, could put Donald Trump in jail forever. McGonigal is not only facing prison for working for Russian oligarch and election conspiracist Oleg Deripaska, but when the FBI revived the "But Her Emails" smear against Hillary Clinton 11 days before the 2016 election and three days later leaked it had "cleared" Trump, McGonigal was the head of the FBI's 2016 Trump-Russia investigation. He's the centerpiece of TWO of the plots to install Trump, and his arrest should start the entire investigation of the Trump-Russia Conspiracy.
B-Block (13:34) OF McGONIGAL, DERIPASKA, AND MANAFORT, Part 2: McGonigal, like Paul Manafort, became an employee of Putin crony Deripaska. It's time again to examine Manafort, in bed with Deripaska to the tune of $60,000,000 and appearing in front of Tom Barrack right after Trump lost the Iowa Caucuses saying "I've got to GET TO TRUMP." His story, and the timeline that led McGonigal to a prison cell.
C-Block (31:55) OF McGONIGAL, DERIPASKA, AND MANAFORT, Part 3: Suddenly the picture looks so familiar: emails, a computer, gaslighting. It's time to remember the horrible feeling of the morning the sun did not rise: November 9, 2016, and to launch either a Senate or Presidential investigation of the successful Trump-Russia plot to install him in the White House before they succeed again.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
It is, of course hilarious the twelve days after doing
(00:26):
his Holier than thou bit about Biden's documents and the
responsibilities of vice presidents, Mike Pence's attorneys have revealed they
had found classified documents in his home. It is more
than hilarious. It is the exact definition of Shakespeare's phrase,
hoist with his own petard. It is, of course perfection
(00:49):
that when the President of the United States needed something, anything,
to short circuit the momentum, slowly turning his trivial document
case into something the lazy, putting brained American political media
complex could turn into a both sides its counterpoint to
Trump's national security and nuclear espionage document case. It was
(01:09):
handed to Mr Biden on a silver platter by the
man Trump tried to get hanged on January six, two
thousand one. It is of course tantalizing to know today
that the special grand jury sitting at Fulton County, Georgia,
has recommended multiple indictments in Trump's attempt to fix the
(01:31):
election results there, and that the district attorney there says
her decision on whether or not to bring charges is imminent,
and it is of course great that Scott Rowland has
been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. All of
that is true and juicy, and it is seemingly a
(01:52):
full meal. And I am going to try to convince
you now that none of those is the most important
story today, or this week, or so far this year.
I want you to forget all of them, and to
concentrate on three names, three names who seemingly flew past
us on Monday. Charles McGonagall, Oleg Derri Pasca, and the
(02:22):
other man, Derrick Posca employed Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.
And how at this late day, the three of them,
especially McGonagall, may yet put Trump in jail forever for
working with Russian forces to fix the two thousand sixteen
(02:43):
presidential election. And let us now agree to banish that
most mealy mouthed of words collusion and use the true
harsher one conspiracy. To remind you, the Department of Justice
made arrests Saturday, issued indictments Monday about this extraordinary development
(03:06):
that Charles McGonagall had gone from investigating Oleg Deri Posca
for his role in Russian interference in the two thousand
and sixteen election to secretly and illegally working for OLDG.
Derrick Posca in two thousand one. These charges could get
McGonagall seventy five years in prison, yet they barely scratch
(03:26):
the surface because mcgonagal is at the center of the
most brazen political criminal act in the history of this nation.
Charles mcgonaghal is one of the key players, how key
we do not yet know in the FBI's decision to
set a match to the Department of Justice. Is pious
(03:50):
self congratulatory policy still in use, as we know all
too well today, to never act in any way to
interfere with an upcoming election. On October four, with two
thousand sixteen, the FBI issued a press release. FBI Director
(04:10):
James B. Comey has named Charles mcdonaghal as the Special
Agent in Charge of the counter Intelligence Division for the
New York Field Office. Mr mcdonagall entered on duty with
the FBI in He was first assigned to the New
York Field Office, where he worked with Russian foreign counter
(04:32):
intelligence and organized crime matters. On Friday October two thousand sixteen,
so twenty four days after mcdonagall was appointed and eleven
days before the presidential election, the FBI interfered with our
presidential election. Director Comy wrote to four Senators and four Congressmen,
(04:57):
all committee chairs, all Republicans, that he had now to
change the conclusion he had testified to that the BI
had completed its investigation of Hillary Clinton's email server and
the matter was closed. Quote, the FBI has learned of
the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to
that investigation. I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate
(05:19):
investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails,
although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this
material maybe significant, just in case that seeming to reopen
the trivial Clinton email stories story because of the trivial
(05:43):
discovery of more trivial emails, giving birth to a million
headlines like the one that covered half the New York
Times front page emails in Anthony Weener inquiry joel Hillary
Clinton's campaign in case that did not complete the FBI's
goal of throwing the election to Trump. The following Monday,
(06:03):
October in sixteen came a headline that might have even
been more egregious, A top of story that had been
leaked to the New York Times investigating Donald Trump, FBI
sees no clear link to Russia. It was a sober
and serious article which was basically there only to justify
(06:26):
the use of that headline. In it, there was an
anonymously sourced conclusion about Trump that quote, no evidence has
emerged that would link him or anyone else in his
business or political circle directly to Russia's election operations. At
least one part of the investigation has involved Paul Manafort,
(06:47):
but the focus in that case was on Mr Manaforts
ties with a kleptocratic government in Ukraine. Thus, in the
span of four days, the FBI smeared Hillary Clinton a
new because the previous smear had not done the job,
and then it ostensibly cleared Donald Trump, and it insisted
(07:10):
Paul Manafort was not involved in the Russian conspiracy. And
Director Comy acted on the record in one case and
by anonymous innuendo in the second, because as testimony after
testimony from witness after witness showed, Comey was afraid if
he did not act, somebody in the FBI New York
(07:31):
Field office would leak the same story about Clinton and
the Wiener laptop. Anyway, and probably an even more garish
and blood curdling ways. I will spare you the countless
on the record evidence, all of it lining up, all
of it running from the most liberal sources to the
(07:52):
most conservative ones. But on that same day, October two
thousand and sixteen, after the Time story whitewashing, covering up,
colluding with Trump's involvement in the Russia conspiracy, Attorney General
Loretta Lynch met in private with James Comey, and, as
Lynch later phrased it in her testimony, quote, We've got
(08:13):
to talk about the New York Office in general. And
he said yes. And I said, we both worked with them,
we both know them, we both, you know, think highly
of them. I said, but this has become a problem.
And he said, he said to me that had become
clear to him. He didn't say, over the course of
what investigation or whatever. He said, it's clear to me
that there is a cadre of senior people in New
(08:35):
York who have a deep and visceral hatred of Secretary Clinton.
And he said, it is, it is deep. It's and
he said, he said it was surprising to him, or
or stunning to him, a cadre of senior people in
New York who have a deep and visceral hatred of
(08:57):
Secretary Clinton and the senior people in the FBI Field
Office in New York included work, perhaps led by the
brand new head of the counter Intelligence Division in the
New York Field Office, the old hand on Russia, the
expert running the entireties of the FBI's investigation of Trump
(09:18):
and Russia, Charles McGonagall, the defendant who within five years
would be working for one of the Russians at the
Russian end of the two thousand sixteen presidential election conspiracy,
who is today facing seventy five years in jail for
his own conspiracy with the Russian with a Russian oligarch,
with the Russian oligarch putent ally, with the man who
(09:41):
paid Trump's campaign manager millions, the one who just happened
to work for free, who just happened to be so
convinced of the necessity of a Trump presidency that actor
Trump lost at the Iowa Republican caucuses. On February first,
two thousand sixteen, this man went to one of his
oldest friends, who was also a friend of Trump, and
shouted at him, I've got to get to Trump. I've
(10:02):
got to get to him. Paul Manafort. The Trump Russia conspiracy,
which six and a half years ago we were naively
minimizing by calling it collusion, was not only true, is
not only true, but we can now be certain it
(10:23):
constituted Donald Trump's real first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government of the United States, and we can also
conclude it worked. We need to look at these men McGonagall,
der Pasca, and Manafort, which I will do throughout the
rest of this edition of Countdown. I've got to get
(10:46):
to Trump after this of McGonagall, Derrick Fosca, and Manafort,
Part two. Constant listeners may remember I did two video
series for GQ magazine in two thousand sixteen and two
thousand seventeen, The unfortunately and ultimately inaccurately named The Closer
(11:10):
and The More Close to the Mark The Resistance. These
two series constituted an effort to fight back in real
time against what is ever more clear. Much of the
rest of this podcast will be drawn from things reported
in those series. They were true then, somehow they seemed truer.
Now the station was not only the victim of an
attack on its form of government by a foreign power.
(11:32):
But the attack was a conspiracy, and it had two axes,
one in the Kremlin in Moscow and one in the
other kremlin in Trump Tower in New York City. And
covering both the attack and the conspiracy was this vast
shifting billowing poisoned fog, probably the greatest example of gas
(11:54):
lighting in this nation's history. And Paul Manifort, like the
just indicted Charles mcdonagall, worked for all derri Posca. Paul
manifest Rich was at its core. Quote Shortly after Trump
lost the Iowa Caucuses, the Washington Post wrote about the
supposed Trump whisperer, billionaire Tom Barrack. He reconnected with his
(12:18):
old friend Manafort, a longtime Republican consultant. I really need
to get to Trump, Manafort said. According to Barrack, he
told Barrack he wanted to work as Trump's convention manager,
helping him navigate what they expected would be a contentious affair.
I really need to get to Trump. Whyever would Paul
(12:41):
Manafort have put it that way? Get to whyever would
Paul Manafort tell a friend of forty years he knew
this man Barrack forty years, that he had to get
to Trump, whatever the reason, it worked. He would convince
Barrack to send Trump and to send to Ivanka Trump
(13:01):
emails encouraging them to let Manafort get to Donald Trump.
And the next thing you knew, Maniport was high in
the Trump campaign and attending the Trump Junior meeting with
the Russian lawyer Natalia vessel Neetskaya, and then he was
chairman of the campaign, and all of it for free.
Why I think we got the answer in a report
(13:22):
by NBC News from October fifteenth, two thousand seventeen, quote,
Paul Manafort has much stronger financial ties to a Russian
oligarch than have been previously reported. An NBC News investigation
reveals that twenty six million dollars changed hands in the
form of a loan between a company linked to Manifort
(13:43):
and the oligarch oleg Deri Posca oleg Derri Pasca, a
billionaire with close ties to the Kremlin. The loan brings
the total of their known business dealings to around sixty
million over the past decade, according to financial documents filed
in Cyprus and the Cayman Islands. Why did an afford
(14:05):
really need to get to Trump? Well, there are sixty
million reasons right there. It is an old analogy. If
you are outside in a thunderstorm at night, when the
lightning flashes for a second or two, you get a
picture of the landscape so vivid, so illuminated that you
can almost see everything in too much detail, and then
(14:26):
until the next thunderstorm, it is pitch black again. The
Trump Russia conspiracy is a lot like that. Even before
the two thousand sixteen election, we got flashes of insight
with never enough exposure to truly see them for what
they really are, and then for an unpredictable length of
time there was just darkness. And one of the things
(14:49):
we have presumably seen but not been able to process,
is evidence of why the people around Trump allegedly sold
this country out to the Russians, not why he would
have done it. You've seen him now for eight years,
and you and I both know he would do anything
for hour, or for spite or for applause. But why
would the people around him do it. According to the
(15:14):
Cyprian financial documents, the twenty six million dollars went from
a company owned by the Russian oligarch directly to a
firm connected to Manafort and Derrick Faska's company issued a
seven million dollar unsecured loan to another Cypress firm connected
to Manaford, and the two Cypress companies that got the
total of thirty three million from the Russian They in
(15:35):
turn loan twenty seven million to a corporation in Delaware
that NBC also reported was linked to Manafort. It's called
jess and L l C. Jess And Manafort has two daughters,
Jessica and Andrea jess And so actually those sixty million
(15:56):
reasons Paul Manaford had might be more like eighty five
or eighty six million. The October two thousand seventeen NBC
pieces full of references to money laundering, and the Special
Council Mr Muller not only got warrants to search Manafort's home,
he got no knock warrants that basically permitted the FBI
to breakdown Manaforts door, because there was reason to believe
(16:17):
that if they knocked Manafort might try to destroy the evidence.
I really need to get to Trump. Almost as interesting
as these dangerously high sums of Russian money, Manafort was
reportedly receiving handling laundering before. He just had to get
(16:41):
to Trump and become his campaign chairman for free. Was
the reaction to the NBC story by manaforts spokesman actually
make that reac shuns. There were two different reactions to
the NBC story. Quote Jason Maloney declined to give specific
answers about the loans, but released a statement to NBC
News saying, in part, Mr. Manafort is not indebted to
(17:04):
former class today, nor was he at the time he
began working for the Trump campaign, a clear and robust denial,
except again quoting NBC's coverage. Manafort's spokesman, Maloney quote later
revised that statement, removing that sentence entirely. Maloney's second response
(17:24):
to the story of the sixty million reasons is not
about debt or clients or when Manafort began working for Trump.
It's merely about how poor Manafort was under surveillance and
wild conspiracy theories, and he never colluded with the Russian government,
and absolutely nothing questioning any of the reporting, the reporting
(17:45):
that Manafort was up to his eyeballs in sixty million
dollars in Russian money and somehow financially obligated to former
clients when he just had to get to Trump to
work as his campaign manager. For free can current with
all that, the House Intelligence Committee was reportedly investigating and
(18:08):
receiving documents from the company Cambridge Analytica, owned in part
at times by Steve Bannon and the right wing billionaire
and Trump supporter Robert Mercer, and the investigation it was
about the company's possible role in the use of micro
targeted Facebook ads and propaganda during the campaign, ads paid
for by branches of the Russian government, and the analysts
(18:31):
at Oxford University in England reported that they had discovered
there was a quote entire ecosystem of that pro Trump
propaganda on Facebook and Twitter which was micro targeted specifically
at current and former US military personnel. I really need
to get the Trump. This is I think where a
(18:56):
timeline of events of two thousand sixteen and two thousand
seventeen and now beyond might be very, very helpful. We
all absorbed these things in real time as they happened,
as one might absorb getting hit by a different car
every day. In the moment it just hurts. From the distance,
(19:16):
you can now see that the different cars all had
the same couple of drivers. Let's begin with Manafort, like McGonagall,
the Derrick Pasca employee, the other Derrick Pasca employee. Right
after the Iowa caucus is Trump lost. So this is
February two or three or four, two thousand sixteen, when
he tells Tom Barrack, I really need to get to Trump.
(19:38):
March two thousand sixteen, Trump names a new campaign coordinator
in charge of getting delegate pledges. His name is Paul Manafort.
April two thousand sixteen, the Russian ambassador to this country,
Sergey kiss Leak, attempts Trump's first major foreign policy speech
at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. Trump and kiss Leak meet,
(20:02):
perhaps briefly, perhaps privately. Jeff Sessions will later say he
does not recall meeting kiss Leyak at all, but we
later learned kiss Leach told the Kremlin he in Sessions
quote discussed campaign related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow.
June third, two thousand sixteen, per his own email chain,
Trump Junior is offered a meeting at which he will
(20:24):
be given quote very high level and sensitive information that
would incriminate Hillary as part of Russia and its government
support for Mr. Trump. June seven, thousand sixteen, Trump Junior
confirms that meeting, and three hours later, Trump himself promises
a speech the following week about Hillary Clinton's quote corrupt
(20:47):
dealings with the Russians. June nine, sixteen, Trump Junior and
Manifort and Kushner meet with the Russians inside Trump Tower,
and ten to twenty minutes after the meeting end, Trump
tweets disparagingly about Clinton's emails, and for the first time
(21:11):
he uses the number thirty three thousand emails. June fifteenth,
two thousand sixteen, the hacker goose Afer two point oh
posts documents hacked from the computers of the Democratic National Committee.
June two thousand sixteen, Trump fires his first campaign manager,
krey Lewandowski. His replacement is given hiring decisions, advertising decisions,
(21:34):
control over media strategy, and a budget that was increased
by twenty million dollars, but none for him because he's
gonna work for free. Paul Manaford. July seven, two thousand sixteen,
the Trump national security advisor Carter Page travels to Moscow,
ostensibly to give a speech to a Russian economics institute
broadly criticizing US foreign policy. He will later be investigated
(21:58):
on an accusation of meeting with the Russian leader in
charge of monitoring and meddling with the American election. July eighteenth,
two thousand sixteen, during the Republican Convention, Ambassador kiss Leak
meets with Carter Page and Jeff Sessions, and in a report,
kiss Leak informed quote his superiors in Moscow who were
(22:20):
eager for updates about the candidates positions. July two thousand sixteen,
at what would prove to be the last news conference
of his campaign, Donald Trump urges Russia to find Clinton's
emails if you're listening. September eight, two thousand sixteen, Jeff
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Sessions meets with Ambassador kiss Leak in sessions own Senate office.
Even later, intelligence sources will not reveal what, if anything,
they have learned of kiss Leak's message to the Kremlin
about this. His third separate meeting with Sessions October four,
two thousand sixteen, FBI Director Comy makes it raange in
(23:04):
the New York FBI office, which he fears might be
about to go rogue. He names a new head of
the investigation into Trump and Russia. Man's name is Charles mcdonagall.
October seven, two thousand sixteen. Having repeatedly boasted of contact
with Goose, offer two point oh and Julian Assange, and
then tweeted about Clinton's campaign chairman. It will soon be
(23:27):
John Podesta's time in the barrel and Assange and payroll coming.
Roger Stone watches as Wiki Leaks begins to publish twenty
thousand pages of emails stolen out of Podesta's computer. October
two thousand sixteen, Comey of the FBI reveals the Anthony
(23:50):
Weiner laptop laptops again where we heard of laptops recently.
Republicans immediately announced the FBI has reopened the Hillary Clinton
emails case, which he actually did not do, but might
as well have. And he did all this because he
feared if he did not, senior agents in New York
would do it. Among the senior agents in the New
(24:12):
York field offices, Charles McDonald. October two thousand sixteen. Anonymous
FBI sources tell The New York Times a week in
two days before the election that they have an essence
cleared Trump in the Russia case. Oh and cleared Mantifort too.
December one or second, two thousand sixteen, kiss Yat goes
(24:33):
to Trump Tower, meets with Kushner and the incoming National
Security advisor Michael Flynn and Jared Kushner proposes using Russian
embassies or consulates or other Russian intelligence controlled communications systems
to allow Michael Flynn of the Trump transition team to
talk directly to people in Moscow without Americans knowing about it.
(24:59):
January tenth, two thousand seventeen, at his confirmation hearing, Sessions
testify under oath before the Senate quote, I didn't have
did not have communications with the Russians. May two thousand seventeen,
Trump reveals classified intelligence later reported to be specifics of
Israel's penetration of ISIS, to the Russian foreigns and Minister
(25:23):
Lavrov in the Oval Office, with no Americans present, only
Ambassador kiss Leak and a Russian photographer. June two thousand seventeen,
Sessions testifies to the Senate and again denies that he
ever met with kiss Leak at the Mayflower Hotel. Says
he doesn't even remember any brief interaction with him. July seven,
(25:44):
two thousand seventeen, Trump meets Vladimir Putin with no other
Americans present, again for a private meeting, again initially undisclosed
to anyone. At the G twenty summit in Germany. July
two thousand seventeen, Trump Junior issues a statement claiming his
Russian eating at Trump Tower was actually about adoptions. It
(26:10):
is later reported the statement denying it was about anything
else was dictated by Trumps Senior while he was a
board Air Force one, two thousand eighteen, exact date unknown.
Charles mcdonagall retires from the FBI. February fourteenth, two thousand nineteen,
Trump names William Barr as his new attorney general. Three
Democrats vote to confirm Bar, two of them Joe Manson
(26:32):
and Kirsten Cinema. April eighteenth, two thousand nineteen, Attorney General
Bar announces the conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation
into Russian interference in the two thousand sixteen election. He
utterly mischaracterizes Muller's findings and says no Americans colluded with
the Russians. Trump immediately declares he has been utterly cleared
(26:54):
and found innocence. At an unspecified dating one, Charles mcdonagall
begins to work surreptitiously and illegally four Oleg derrif osca
of the sixty million to Paul Manafort. Derrick Posca's at
least that's what's in the charge sheet. In January, Charles
(27:18):
mcdonagall is arrested by the very FBI for which he
once worked for his collusion with Derri Pasca. I'll conclude
this special edition next with something I wrote the morning
after Trump's election of McGonagall, Derrick Pasca, and Manafort Part three.
(27:44):
Forgive me if you've heard this final part before. I
wrote it as the million threads of grim news gathered
together in front of all of us on election night,
November eight, two thousand sixteen, the moment of the proverbial
sum of all fears. I think, with the arrest of
a man now linked to the Russian oleg Derri Pasca,
in an allegation of crime serious enough to send him
(28:06):
to jail for decades and linked to the FBI, is
tampering with the election, first by falsely re smearing Hillary
Clinton eleven days before that election, and then falsely clearing
Donald Trump three days later. I think this is best
heard virtually intact, with minor changes only made only for
the sake of clarity and tents. This is the script
(28:29):
of the final edition of my first g Q video series,
The Closer, I recorded it first, literally just after sunrise
on the grim morning of Wednesday, November nine, two thousand sixteen.
I'd like to begin by congratulating the FBI on its
successful coup against the electoral process of the United States
of America. You've been working on one of these for
(28:50):
a while, boys, and I know everybody at the bureaus
just delighted that the F canal also stand for fascist. Also,
let us acknowledge something a little larger and a little
less removed from trees and its mouthfeasance. The terrorists have one. This,
after all, was their goal now twenty one long sad
(29:13):
years ago, to strip from the world's foremost power, it's
traditions of relative and growing tolerance, to hamstring the international
influence of a country that rarely stuck to the double
white line of the moral road, but came closer than
any other, to take our energies from trying more or
less to help the world move forward, and instead to
(29:35):
make us direct those energies inwards at one another within
our own borders, to divide us, so to complete the
rupture of our settled, bizarre culture that had been so
long Based on the inner monologue of I really can't
stand those people in the other party, or the other state,
or of the other color. But my strongest emotion is
(29:57):
going to remain annoyance rather than hate, because we are
all Americans, and we are all in this together today.
A officially that's gone. Obviously, the perpetrators of nine eleven
had other designs that have yet to come to pass,
the destabilization of all the secular states of the Middle East,
the rising up of a caliphate, etcetera. But for the moment,
(30:20):
that's not important to our discussions here, because the premise
of the two thousand one terrorism here was to take
those divisions that were already then apparent in American society
and multiply them by fear. Fear of more attacks, of sedition,
of disloyalty, of weakness, of difference of immigrants, of minorities,
(30:41):
of the loss of the playing field that was still
tilted towards white people but was leveling just a little
more every year. It took a long time, long time
for hatred and fear to find some figure here who
would pander to it, someone whose ego and lust for
(31:04):
our would be the perfect vessel to exploit our collective
post traumatic stress disorder, someone who would say anything, do anything,
have an answer for everything, even if the answer was
made up out of whole cloth and on the spot.
The goals of those who attacked us in two thousand
(31:26):
one finally found an outlet, and last night Americans, certainly
half of them, with no more sense of the permanence
or importance of their decision than they brought to their
votes for American idol, opened the door and put the
spokesman for hate and fear and bluster, and most of
all in competence in charge of the nation. Collectively, we
(31:46):
have slit our own throats and ordered mixed drank, and
paid the bill for our own poison. So what is next?
If you look for transformation within the new elected leader,
fat chance nothing has changed him in seventy years. And
(32:07):
if there is anything to guarantee that he will not
temper his hilarian personality, that he will not be restrained
by any remaining adults among Republican leadership in the House
or Senate, that he will not reach out to those
who did not vote for him. If anything could actually
increase his obstinates and refusal to share or delegate, it
would be this extraordinary unprecedented development in American history. Right
(32:31):
now he thinks he is superman, but of course he
is not. The economy will be a complete shambles. There
will be no fix available from making great deals, corner
cutting or bellowing I'm not paying for sloppy work. He
(32:52):
will of course insist that everything is great, and his
mere presence will assure we have made America great, and
anybody who thinks otherwise is disloyal or an isis sympathizer
or somebody he's going to sue. As the standard of
living plummets, he will try a diversion, the wall or
the deportations, but by those things take time, so we'll
(33:12):
probably do what they all do. When there is no
fix to the vital day to day issues, a war
or some bizarre gambit in the Middle East that will
in fact restore Isis and destabilize the world just a
little bit more every week. It will be bad. It
will be very bad. Americans and others will die. But
(33:35):
necessarily there will be blowback. There always is blowback against
the good, as this election just showed, but also blowback
against the bad. Now that some junctures, soon there will
be a resistance those of us who warned against, and
pleaded against, and fought against this madness will find avenues
for dissent, which will have enough support to at least
(33:58):
impede the monster. Put any title you like in front
of his name. And this is still an aggressively self
destructive man, and it will be the goal of the
resistance to help him in that task. At some other junctures,
soon or late, probably even before the midterms of two
thousand eighteen, a tipping point will be reached. Whether it's
war or the economy, or some wild card we can't
(34:23):
see yet it is bouncing around in that great stash
of fun house mirrors in his head. It will be
the Republican governors and the Republican senators and the Republican
congressman who will see the crowds of Republican voters demanding
action against the irresponsible and delusional president, and an impeachment
will begin of what is nominally a Republican president by
(34:44):
a Republican Congress. None of that is guaranteed, but it
should be noted that Richard Nixon was not forced from
office until his Republican colleagues acted in concert with Democrats
to remove him. Moreover, the political history of this country
for the last fifty years has been a series of
wild pendulum swings, from the Civil Rights Acts to Richard
(35:06):
Nixon in three years, from Bill Clinton to George W.
Bush in three seconds, from Barack Obama to this creature
in less than three months. And if this creature is
still in charge of this government and has not yet
fled the country, then there are those midterms in two
thousand eighteen and the attempt to begin a restoration unless
(35:29):
he acts in the interim against free elections. And I
would never assume that in a nightmare like this, the
freddie Krueger in chief suddenly starts obeying the laws about elections.
In any event, I'll leave you with three quotes. It's
hl Mankin from n. Six, and the long form of
(35:51):
it actually is, no one in this world, so far
as I know, has ever lost money by underestimating the
intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. The
other quote here, of course, is as you can fool
all the people some of the time, and some of
the people all the time, but you cannot fool all
the people all the time. This is attributed to Abraham Lincoln,
(36:12):
and it pretty much sums up that phase of the
American experiment, which the electorate ended last night, because there's
no real evidence that Lincoln ever said that. Plus, in short,
you can fool all the people just long enough to
become the first anti democracy president of the United States.
And one more quote conceit probably whistling past graveyards, perhaps
(36:39):
a little Churchill adjusted to the occasion. Even though large
tracts of America and many old and famous states have
fallen or may fall into the grip of Trump and
all the odious apparatus of Trump rule, we shall not
flag or fail. We shall go on to the end.
We shall fight in state legislatures. We shall fight in
(37:01):
the stores and banks. We shall fight with growing evidence
and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our America,
whatever the cost. Maybe we shall fight online. We shall
fight in the press and on the television. We shall
fight on the street corners of public opinion. We shall
never surrender. Wednesday, November nine two, I will add one
(37:30):
thing more, only in closing with the news of McGonagall
and Derrick Pasca, and by extension Manifort and Trump and
Putin and Comey and everybody else. I urge President Biden
or Majority Leader Schumer, or both of them to impanel
a commission senatorial or presidential to formally investigate the two
(37:53):
thousand sixteen presidential election and the roles that McGonagall, Derrick Posca, Manafort,
and others played in Russia's successful effort to install Donald
Trump as their but in the White House. And if
anybody says, well, we can't do that, we can't use
the investigative or legislative apparatus is of this country to
(38:13):
act so close to a presidential election and aimed so
directly at a presidential candidate, my reply is Mr President, Mr.
Senate Leader, subpoena them too. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
(38:36):
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
It is, of course hilarious the twelve days after doing
(00:26):
his Holier than thou bit about Biden's documents and the
responsibilities of vice presidents, Mike Pence's attorneys have revealed they
had found classified documents in his home. It is more
than hilarious. It is the exact definition of Shakespeare's phrase,
hoist with his own petard. It is, of course perfection
(00:49):
that when the President of the United States needed something, anything,
to short circuit the momentum, slowly turning his trivial document
case into something the lazy, putting brained American political media
complex could turn into a both sides its counterpoint to
Trump's national security and nuclear espionage document case. It was
(01:09):
handed to Mr Biden on a silver platter by the
man Trump tried to get hanged on January six, two
thousand one. It is of course tantalizing to know today
that the special grand jury sitting at Fulton County, Georgia,
has recommended multiple indictments in Trump's attempt to fix the
(01:31):
election results there, and that the district attorney there says
her decision on whether or not to bring charges is imminent,
and it is of course great that Scott Rowland has
been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. All of
that is true and juicy, and it is seemingly a
(01:52):
full meal. And I am going to try to convince
you now that none of those is the most important
story today, or this week, or so far this year.
I want you to forget all of them, and to
concentrate on three names, three names who seemingly flew past
us on Monday. Charles McGonagall, Oleg Derri Pasca, and the
(02:22):
other man, Derrick Posca employed Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.
And how at this late day, the three of them,
especially McGonagall, may yet put Trump in jail forever for
working with Russian forces to fix the two thousand sixteen
(02:43):
presidential election. And let us now agree to banish that
most mealy mouthed of words collusion and use the true
harsher one conspiracy. To remind you, the Department of Justice
made arrests Saturday, issued indictments Monday about this extraordinary development
(03:06):
that Charles McGonagall had gone from investigating Oleg Deri Posca
for his role in Russian interference in the two thousand
and sixteen election to secretly and illegally working for OLDG.
Derrick Posca in two thousand one. These charges could get
McGonagall seventy five years in prison, yet they barely scratch
(03:26):
the surface because mcgonagal is at the center of the
most brazen political criminal act in the history of this nation.
Charles mcgonaghal is one of the key players, how key
we do not yet know in the FBI's decision to
set a match to the Department of Justice. Is pious
(03:50):
self congratulatory policy still in use, as we know all
too well today, to never act in any way to
interfere with an upcoming election. On October four, with two
thousand sixteen, the FBI issued a press release. FBI Director
(04:10):
James B. Comey has named Charles mcdonaghal as the Special
Agent in Charge of the counter Intelligence Division for the
New York Field Office. Mr mcdonagall entered on duty with
the FBI in He was first assigned to the New
York Field Office, where he worked with Russian foreign counter
(04:32):
intelligence and organized crime matters. On Friday October two thousand sixteen,
so twenty four days after mcdonagall was appointed and eleven
days before the presidential election, the FBI interfered with our
presidential election. Director Comy wrote to four Senators and four Congressmen,
(04:57):
all committee chairs, all Republicans, that he had now to
change the conclusion he had testified to that the BI
had completed its investigation of Hillary Clinton's email server and
the matter was closed. Quote, the FBI has learned of
the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to
that investigation. I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate
(05:19):
investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails,
although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this
material maybe significant, just in case that seeming to reopen
the trivial Clinton email stories story because of the trivial
(05:43):
discovery of more trivial emails, giving birth to a million
headlines like the one that covered half the New York
Times front page emails in Anthony Weener inquiry joel Hillary
Clinton's campaign in case that did not complete the FBI's
goal of throwing the election to Trump. The following Monday,
(06:03):
October in sixteen came a headline that might have even
been more egregious, A top of story that had been
leaked to the New York Times investigating Donald Trump, FBI
sees no clear link to Russia. It was a sober
and serious article which was basically there only to justify
(06:26):
the use of that headline. In it, there was an
anonymously sourced conclusion about Trump that quote, no evidence has
emerged that would link him or anyone else in his
business or political circle directly to Russia's election operations. At
least one part of the investigation has involved Paul Manafort,
(06:47):
but the focus in that case was on Mr Manaforts
ties with a kleptocratic government in Ukraine. Thus, in the
span of four days, the FBI smeared Hillary Clinton a
new because the previous smear had not done the job,
and then it ostensibly cleared Donald Trump, and it insisted
(07:10):
Paul Manafort was not involved in the Russian conspiracy. And
Director Comy acted on the record in one case and
by anonymous innuendo in the second, because as testimony after
testimony from witness after witness showed, Comey was afraid if
he did not act, somebody in the FBI New York
(07:31):
Field office would leak the same story about Clinton and
the Wiener laptop. Anyway, and probably an even more garish
and blood curdling ways. I will spare you the countless
on the record evidence, all of it lining up, all
of it running from the most liberal sources to the
(07:52):
most conservative ones. But on that same day, October two
thousand and sixteen, after the Time story whitewashing, covering up,
colluding with Trump's involvement in the Russia conspiracy, Attorney General
Loretta Lynch met in private with James Comey, and, as
Lynch later phrased it in her testimony, quote, We've got
(08:13):
to talk about the New York Office in general. And
he said yes. And I said, we both worked with them,
we both know them, we both, you know, think highly
of them. I said, but this has become a problem.
And he said, he said to me that had become
clear to him. He didn't say, over the course of
what investigation or whatever. He said, it's clear to me
that there is a cadre of senior people in New
(08:35):
York who have a deep and visceral hatred of Secretary Clinton.
And he said, it is, it is deep. It's and
he said, he said it was surprising to him, or
or stunning to him, a cadre of senior people in
New York who have a deep and visceral hatred of
(08:57):
Secretary Clinton and the senior people in the FBI Field
Office in New York included work, perhaps led by the
brand new head of the counter Intelligence Division in the
New York Field Office, the old hand on Russia, the
expert running the entireties of the FBI's investigation of Trump
(09:18):
and Russia, Charles McGonagall, the defendant who within five years
would be working for one of the Russians at the
Russian end of the two thousand sixteen presidential election conspiracy,
who is today facing seventy five years in jail for
his own conspiracy with the Russian with a Russian oligarch,
with the Russian oligarch putent ally, with the man who
(09:41):
paid Trump's campaign manager millions, the one who just happened
to work for free, who just happened to be so
convinced of the necessity of a Trump presidency that actor
Trump lost at the Iowa Republican caucuses. On February first,
two thousand sixteen, this man went to one of his
oldest friends, who was also a friend of Trump, and
shouted at him, I've got to get to Trump. I've
(10:02):
got to get to him. Paul Manafort. The Trump Russia conspiracy,
which six and a half years ago we were naively
minimizing by calling it collusion, was not only true, is
not only true, but we can now be certain it
(10:23):
constituted Donald Trump's real first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government of the United States, and we can also
conclude it worked. We need to look at these men McGonagall,
der Pasca, and Manafort, which I will do throughout the
rest of this edition of Countdown. I've got to get
(10:46):
to Trump after this of McGonagall, Derrick Fosca, and Manafort,
Part two. Constant listeners may remember I did two video
series for GQ magazine in two thousand sixteen and two
thousand seventeen, The unfortunately and ultimately inaccurately named The Closer
(11:10):
and The More Close to the Mark The Resistance. These
two series constituted an effort to fight back in real
time against what is ever more clear. Much of the
rest of this podcast will be drawn from things reported
in those series. They were true then, somehow they seemed truer.
Now the station was not only the victim of an
attack on its form of government by a foreign power.
(11:32):
But the attack was a conspiracy, and it had two axes,
one in the Kremlin in Moscow and one in the
other kremlin in Trump Tower in New York City. And
covering both the attack and the conspiracy was this vast
shifting billowing poisoned fog, probably the greatest example of gas
(11:54):
lighting in this nation's history. And Paul Manifort, like the
just indicted Charles mcdonagall, worked for all derri Posca. Paul
manifest Rich was at its core. Quote Shortly after Trump
lost the Iowa Caucuses, the Washington Post wrote about the
supposed Trump whisperer, billionaire Tom Barrack. He reconnected with his
(12:18):
old friend Manafort, a longtime Republican consultant. I really need
to get to Trump, Manafort said. According to Barrack, he
told Barrack he wanted to work as Trump's convention manager,
helping him navigate what they expected would be a contentious affair.
I really need to get to Trump. Whyever would Paul
(12:41):
Manafort have put it that way? Get to whyever would
Paul Manafort tell a friend of forty years he knew
this man Barrack forty years, that he had to get
to Trump, whatever the reason, it worked. He would convince
Barrack to send Trump and to send to Ivanka Trump
(13:01):
emails encouraging them to let Manafort get to Donald Trump.
And the next thing you knew, Maniport was high in
the Trump campaign and attending the Trump Junior meeting with
the Russian lawyer Natalia vessel Neetskaya, and then he was
chairman of the campaign, and all of it for free.
Why I think we got the answer in a report
(13:22):
by NBC News from October fifteenth, two thousand seventeen, quote,
Paul Manafort has much stronger financial ties to a Russian
oligarch than have been previously reported. An NBC News investigation
reveals that twenty six million dollars changed hands in the
form of a loan between a company linked to Manifort
(13:43):
and the oligarch oleg Deri Posca oleg Derri Pasca, a
billionaire with close ties to the Kremlin. The loan brings
the total of their known business dealings to around sixty
million over the past decade, according to financial documents filed
in Cyprus and the Cayman Islands. Why did an afford
(14:05):
really need to get to Trump? Well, there are sixty
million reasons right there. It is an old analogy. If
you are outside in a thunderstorm at night, when the
lightning flashes for a second or two, you get a
picture of the landscape so vivid, so illuminated that you
can almost see everything in too much detail, and then
(14:26):
until the next thunderstorm, it is pitch black again. The
Trump Russia conspiracy is a lot like that. Even before
the two thousand sixteen election, we got flashes of insight
with never enough exposure to truly see them for what
they really are, and then for an unpredictable length of
time there was just darkness. And one of the things
(14:49):
we have presumably seen but not been able to process,
is evidence of why the people around Trump allegedly sold
this country out to the Russians, not why he would
have done it. You've seen him now for eight years,
and you and I both know he would do anything
for hour, or for spite or for applause. But why
would the people around him do it. According to the
(15:14):
Cyprian financial documents, the twenty six million dollars went from
a company owned by the Russian oligarch directly to a
firm connected to Manafort and Derrick Faska's company issued a
seven million dollar unsecured loan to another Cypress firm connected
to Manaford, and the two Cypress companies that got the
total of thirty three million from the Russian They in
(15:35):
turn loan twenty seven million to a corporation in Delaware
that NBC also reported was linked to Manafort. It's called
jess and L l C. Jess And Manafort has two daughters,
Jessica and Andrea jess And so actually those sixty million
(15:56):
reasons Paul Manaford had might be more like eighty five
or eighty six million. The October two thousand seventeen NBC
pieces full of references to money laundering, and the Special
Council Mr Muller not only got warrants to search Manafort's home,
he got no knock warrants that basically permitted the FBI
to breakdown Manaforts door, because there was reason to believe
(16:17):
that if they knocked Manafort might try to destroy the evidence.
I really need to get to Trump. Almost as interesting
as these dangerously high sums of Russian money, Manafort was
reportedly receiving handling laundering before. He just had to get
(16:41):
to Trump and become his campaign chairman for free. Was
the reaction to the NBC story by manaforts spokesman actually
make that reac shuns. There were two different reactions to
the NBC story. Quote Jason Maloney declined to give specific
answers about the loans, but released a statement to NBC
News saying, in part, Mr. Manafort is not indebted to
(17:04):
former class today, nor was he at the time he
began working for the Trump campaign, a clear and robust denial,
except again quoting NBC's coverage. Manafort's spokesman, Maloney quote later
revised that statement, removing that sentence entirely. Maloney's second response
(17:24):
to the story of the sixty million reasons is not
about debt or clients or when Manafort began working for Trump.
It's merely about how poor Manafort was under surveillance and
wild conspiracy theories, and he never colluded with the Russian government,
and absolutely nothing questioning any of the reporting, the reporting
(17:45):
that Manafort was up to his eyeballs in sixty million
dollars in Russian money and somehow financially obligated to former
clients when he just had to get to Trump to
work as his campaign manager. For free can current with
all that, the House Intelligence Committee was reportedly investigating and
(18:08):
receiving documents from the company Cambridge Analytica, owned in part
at times by Steve Bannon and the right wing billionaire
and Trump supporter Robert Mercer, and the investigation it was
about the company's possible role in the use of micro
targeted Facebook ads and propaganda during the campaign, ads paid
for by branches of the Russian government, and the analysts
(18:31):
at Oxford University in England reported that they had discovered
there was a quote entire ecosystem of that pro Trump
propaganda on Facebook and Twitter which was micro targeted specifically
at current and former US military personnel. I really need
to get the Trump. This is I think where a
(18:56):
timeline of events of two thousand sixteen and two thousand
seventeen and now beyond might be very, very helpful. We
all absorbed these things in real time as they happened,
as one might absorb getting hit by a different car
every day. In the moment it just hurts. From the distance,
(19:16):
you can now see that the different cars all had
the same couple of drivers. Let's begin with Manafort, like McGonagall,
the Derrick Pasca employee, the other Derrick Pasca employee. Right
after the Iowa caucus is Trump lost. So this is
February two or three or four, two thousand sixteen, when
he tells Tom Barrack, I really need to get to Trump.
(19:38):
March two thousand sixteen, Trump names a new campaign coordinator
in charge of getting delegate pledges. His name is Paul Manafort.
April two thousand sixteen, the Russian ambassador to this country,
Sergey kiss Leak, attempts Trump's first major foreign policy speech
at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. Trump and kiss Leak meet,
(20:02):
perhaps briefly, perhaps privately. Jeff Sessions will later say he
does not recall meeting kiss Leyak at all, but we
later learned kiss Leach told the Kremlin he in Sessions
quote discussed campaign related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow.
June third, two thousand sixteen, per his own email chain,
Trump Junior is offered a meeting at which he will
(20:24):
be given quote very high level and sensitive information that
would incriminate Hillary as part of Russia and its government
support for Mr. Trump. June seven, thousand sixteen, Trump Junior
confirms that meeting, and three hours later, Trump himself promises
a speech the following week about Hillary Clinton's quote corrupt
(20:47):
dealings with the Russians. June nine, sixteen, Trump Junior and
Manifort and Kushner meet with the Russians inside Trump Tower,
and ten to twenty minutes after the meeting end, Trump
tweets disparagingly about Clinton's emails, and for the first time
(21:11):
he uses the number thirty three thousand emails. June fifteenth,
two thousand sixteen, the hacker goose Afer two point oh
posts documents hacked from the computers of the Democratic National Committee.
June two thousand sixteen, Trump fires his first campaign manager,
krey Lewandowski. His replacement is given hiring decisions, advertising decisions,
(21:34):
control over media strategy, and a budget that was increased
by twenty million dollars, but none for him because he's
gonna work for free. Paul Manaford. July seven, two thousand sixteen,
the Trump national security advisor Carter Page travels to Moscow,
ostensibly to give a speech to a Russian economics institute
broadly criticizing US foreign policy. He will later be investigated
(21:58):
on an accusation of meeting with the Russian leader in
charge of monitoring and meddling with the American election. July eighteenth,
two thousand sixteen, during the Republican Convention, Ambassador kiss Leak
meets with Carter Page and Jeff Sessions, and in a report,
kiss Leak informed quote his superiors in Moscow who were
(22:20):
eager for updates about the candidates positions. July two thousand sixteen,
at what would prove to be the last news conference
of his campaign, Donald Trump urges Russia to find Clinton's
emails if you're listening. September eight, two thousand sixteen, Jeff
(22:44):
Sessions meets with Ambassador kiss Leak in sessions own Senate office.
Even later, intelligence sources will not reveal what, if anything,
they have learned of kiss Leak's message to the Kremlin
about this. His third separate meeting with Sessions October four,
two thousand sixteen, FBI Director Comy makes it raange in
(23:04):
the New York FBI office, which he fears might be
about to go rogue. He names a new head of
the investigation into Trump and Russia. Man's name is Charles mcdonagall.
October seven, two thousand sixteen. Having repeatedly boasted of contact
with Goose, offer two point oh and Julian Assange, and
then tweeted about Clinton's campaign chairman. It will soon be
(23:27):
John Podesta's time in the barrel and Assange and payroll coming.
Roger Stone watches as Wiki Leaks begins to publish twenty
thousand pages of emails stolen out of Podesta's computer. October
two thousand sixteen, Comey of the FBI reveals the Anthony
(23:50):
Weiner laptop laptops again where we heard of laptops recently.
Republicans immediately announced the FBI has reopened the Hillary Clinton
emails case, which he actually did not do, but might
as well have. And he did all this because he
feared if he did not, senior agents in New York
would do it. Among the senior agents in the New
(24:12):
York field offices, Charles McDonald. October two thousand sixteen. Anonymous
FBI sources tell The New York Times a week in
two days before the election that they have an essence
cleared Trump in the Russia case. Oh and cleared Mantifort too.
December one or second, two thousand sixteen, kiss Yat goes
(24:33):
to Trump Tower, meets with Kushner and the incoming National
Security advisor Michael Flynn and Jared Kushner proposes using Russian
embassies or consulates or other Russian intelligence controlled communications systems
to allow Michael Flynn of the Trump transition team to
talk directly to people in Moscow without Americans knowing about it.
(24:59):
January tenth, two thousand seventeen, at his confirmation hearing, Sessions
testify under oath before the Senate quote, I didn't have
did not have communications with the Russians. May two thousand seventeen,
Trump reveals classified intelligence later reported to be specifics of
Israel's penetration of ISIS, to the Russian foreigns and Minister
(25:23):
Lavrov in the Oval Office, with no Americans present, only
Ambassador kiss Leak and a Russian photographer. June two thousand seventeen,
Sessions testifies to the Senate and again denies that he
ever met with kiss Leak at the Mayflower Hotel. Says
he doesn't even remember any brief interaction with him. July seven,
(25:44):
two thousand seventeen, Trump meets Vladimir Putin with no other
Americans present, again for a private meeting, again initially undisclosed
to anyone. At the G twenty summit in Germany. July
two thousand seventeen, Trump Junior issues a statement claiming his
Russian eating at Trump Tower was actually about adoptions. It
(26:10):
is later reported the statement denying it was about anything
else was dictated by Trumps Senior while he was a
board Air Force one, two thousand eighteen, exact date unknown.
Charles mcdonagall retires from the FBI. February fourteenth, two thousand nineteen,
Trump names William Barr as his new attorney general. Three
Democrats vote to confirm Bar, two of them Joe Manson
(26:32):
and Kirsten Cinema. April eighteenth, two thousand nineteen, Attorney General
Bar announces the conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation
into Russian interference in the two thousand sixteen election. He
utterly mischaracterizes Muller's findings and says no Americans colluded with
the Russians. Trump immediately declares he has been utterly cleared
(26:54):
and found innocence. At an unspecified dating one, Charles mcdonagall
begins to work surreptitiously and illegally four Oleg derrif osca
of the sixty million to Paul Manafort. Derrick Posca's at
least that's what's in the charge sheet. In January, Charles
(27:18):
mcdonagall is arrested by the very FBI for which he
once worked for his collusion with Derri Pasca. I'll conclude
this special edition next with something I wrote the morning
after Trump's election of McGonagall, Derrick Pasca, and Manafort Part three.
(27:44):
Forgive me if you've heard this final part before. I
wrote it as the million threads of grim news gathered
together in front of all of us on election night,
November eight, two thousand sixteen, the moment of the proverbial
sum of all fears. I think, with the arrest of
a man now linked to the Russian oleg Derri Pasca,
in an allegation of crime serious enough to send him
(28:06):
to jail for decades and linked to the FBI, is
tampering with the election, first by falsely re smearing Hillary
Clinton eleven days before that election, and then falsely clearing
Donald Trump three days later. I think this is best
heard virtually intact, with minor changes only made only for
the sake of clarity and tents. This is the script
(28:29):
of the final edition of my first g Q video series,
The Closer, I recorded it first, literally just after sunrise
on the grim morning of Wednesday, November nine, two thousand sixteen.
I'd like to begin by congratulating the FBI on its
successful coup against the electoral process of the United States
of America. You've been working on one of these for
(28:50):
a while, boys, and I know everybody at the bureaus
just delighted that the F canal also stand for fascist. Also,
let us acknowledge something a little larger and a little
less removed from trees and its mouthfeasance. The terrorists have one. This,
after all, was their goal now twenty one long sad
(29:13):
years ago, to strip from the world's foremost power, it's
traditions of relative and growing tolerance, to hamstring the international
influence of a country that rarely stuck to the double
white line of the moral road, but came closer than
any other, to take our energies from trying more or
less to help the world move forward, and instead to
(29:35):
make us direct those energies inwards at one another within
our own borders, to divide us, so to complete the
rupture of our settled, bizarre culture that had been so
long Based on the inner monologue of I really can't
stand those people in the other party, or the other state,
or of the other color. But my strongest emotion is
(29:57):
going to remain annoyance rather than hate, because we are
all Americans, and we are all in this together today.
A officially that's gone. Obviously, the perpetrators of nine eleven
had other designs that have yet to come to pass,
the destabilization of all the secular states of the Middle East,
the rising up of a caliphate, etcetera. But for the moment,
(30:20):
that's not important to our discussions here, because the premise
of the two thousand one terrorism here was to take
those divisions that were already then apparent in American society
and multiply them by fear. Fear of more attacks, of sedition,
of disloyalty, of weakness, of difference of immigrants, of minorities,
(30:41):
of the loss of the playing field that was still
tilted towards white people but was leveling just a little
more every year. It took a long time, long time
for hatred and fear to find some figure here who
would pander to it, someone whose ego and lust for
(31:04):
our would be the perfect vessel to exploit our collective
post traumatic stress disorder, someone who would say anything, do anything,
have an answer for everything, even if the answer was
made up out of whole cloth and on the spot.
The goals of those who attacked us in two thousand
(31:26):
one finally found an outlet, and last night Americans, certainly
half of them, with no more sense of the permanence
or importance of their decision than they brought to their
votes for American idol, opened the door and put the
spokesman for hate and fear and bluster, and most of
all in competence in charge of the nation. Collectively, we
(31:46):
have slit our own throats and ordered mixed drank, and
paid the bill for our own poison. So what is next?
If you look for transformation within the new elected leader,
fat chance nothing has changed him in seventy years. And
(32:07):
if there is anything to guarantee that he will not
temper his hilarian personality, that he will not be restrained
by any remaining adults among Republican leadership in the House
or Senate, that he will not reach out to those
who did not vote for him. If anything could actually
increase his obstinates and refusal to share or delegate, it
would be this extraordinary unprecedented development in American history. Right
(32:31):
now he thinks he is superman, but of course he
is not. The economy will be a complete shambles. There
will be no fix available from making great deals, corner
cutting or bellowing I'm not paying for sloppy work. He
(32:52):
will of course insist that everything is great, and his
mere presence will assure we have made America great, and
anybody who thinks otherwise is disloyal or an isis sympathizer
or somebody he's going to sue. As the standard of
living plummets, he will try a diversion, the wall or
the deportations, but by those things take time, so we'll
(33:12):
probably do what they all do. When there is no
fix to the vital day to day issues, a war
or some bizarre gambit in the Middle East that will
in fact restore Isis and destabilize the world just a
little bit more every week. It will be bad. It
will be very bad. Americans and others will die. But
(33:35):
necessarily there will be blowback. There always is blowback against
the good, as this election just showed, but also blowback
against the bad. Now that some junctures, soon there will
be a resistance those of us who warned against, and
pleaded against, and fought against this madness will find avenues
for dissent, which will have enough support to at least
(33:58):
impede the monster. Put any title you like in front
of his name. And this is still an aggressively self
destructive man, and it will be the goal of the
resistance to help him in that task. At some other junctures,
soon or late, probably even before the midterms of two
thousand eighteen, a tipping point will be reached. Whether it's
war or the economy, or some wild card we can't
(34:23):
see yet it is bouncing around in that great stash
of fun house mirrors in his head. It will be
the Republican governors and the Republican senators and the Republican
congressman who will see the crowds of Republican voters demanding
action against the irresponsible and delusional president, and an impeachment
will begin of what is nominally a Republican president by
(34:44):
a Republican Congress. None of that is guaranteed, but it
should be noted that Richard Nixon was not forced from
office until his Republican colleagues acted in concert with Democrats
to remove him. Moreover, the political history of this country
for the last fifty years has been a series of
wild pendulum swings, from the Civil Rights Acts to Richard
(35:06):
Nixon in three years, from Bill Clinton to George W.
Bush in three seconds, from Barack Obama to this creature
in less than three months. And if this creature is
still in charge of this government and has not yet
fled the country, then there are those midterms in two
thousand eighteen and the attempt to begin a restoration unless
(35:29):
he acts in the interim against free elections. And I
would never assume that in a nightmare like this, the
freddie Krueger in chief suddenly starts obeying the laws about elections.
In any event, I'll leave you with three quotes. It's
hl Mankin from n. Six, and the long form of
(35:51):
it actually is, no one in this world, so far
as I know, has ever lost money by underestimating the
intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. The
other quote here, of course, is as you can fool
all the people some of the time, and some of
the people all the time, but you cannot fool all
the people all the time. This is attributed to Abraham Lincoln,
(36:12):
and it pretty much sums up that phase of the
American experiment, which the electorate ended last night, because there's
no real evidence that Lincoln ever said that. Plus, in short,
you can fool all the people just long enough to
become the first anti democracy president of the United States.
And one more quote conceit probably whistling past graveyards, perhaps
(36:39):
a little Churchill adjusted to the occasion. Even though large
tracts of America and many old and famous states have
fallen or may fall into the grip of Trump and
all the odious apparatus of Trump rule, we shall not
flag or fail. We shall go on to the end.
We shall fight in state legislatures. We shall fight in
(37:01):
the stores and banks. We shall fight with growing evidence
and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our America,
whatever the cost. Maybe we shall fight online. We shall
fight in the press and on the television. We shall
fight on the street corners of public opinion. We shall
never surrender. Wednesday, November nine two, I will add one
(37:30):
thing more, only in closing with the news of McGonagall
and Derrick Pasca, and by extension Manifort and Trump and
Putin and Comey and everybody else. I urge President Biden
or Majority Leader Schumer, or both of them to impanel
a commission senatorial or presidential to formally investigate the two
(37:53):
thousand sixteen presidential election and the roles that McGonagall, Derrick Posca, Manafort,
and others played in Russia's successful effort to install Donald
Trump as their but in the White House. And if
anybody says, well, we can't do that, we can't use
the investigative or legislative apparatus is of this country to
(38:13):
act so close to a presidential election and aimed so
directly at a presidential candidate, my reply is Mr President, Mr.
Senate Leader, subpoena them too. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
(38:36):
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