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This is the Michael Cohen playbook. We have seen this movie before. A year ago, Democrats staged a hearing with disgraced former Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen, who had already pleaded guilty on federal campaign finance charges. Cohen, who had also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress, provided nothing of value to Democrats in his testimony. They seem to hope this time will be different, once again using a desperate and dubious witness to fling dirt at the president.
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Rachel Maddow has no credibility. Maddow’s reputation has never recovered from her years-long obsession with the “Russia collusion” conspiracy theory. In fact, she continues to obsess about it: last month, she tried to link Russia to Trump’s alleged effort to pressure Ukraine. In 2017, Maddow earned mockery from the left for releasing one of Trump’s tax returns, showing merely that he paid a lot of taxes. Parnas could not have chosen a worse forum if he wanted to be taken seriously.
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Parnas claims he acted at Trump’s direction. The problem is that Parnas’s only evidence of that is that Ukrainian officials agreed to meet with him. “They have no reason to speak to me. … Who am I?” He offered no evidence of private or direct conversations with Trump. Though he claims Trump is lying about not knowing him, the best Parnas offered Maddow was conversations at “roundtables” — i.e. with many others present — and overhearing Giulaini talking to the president.
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Parnas claims that Trump knew about Giuliani’s investigations, which were “never about corruption” in general. We already know, from the closed-door testimony of Catherine Croft (whom Democrats deliberately omitted from public hearings), that Trump had an independent concern about corruption in Ukraine, and raised it with the previous president. We also know that Giuliani’s task was preparing a legal defense for Trump, one Trump knew about. Nothing about that is new.
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Parnas claims that he presented himself to Ukrainian officials as the president’s representative. Unfortunately for Maddow, he presented himself as working for the president’s personal attorney — something he said that Giuliani reiterated in every interaction with Ukrainian officials. Neither Parnas nor Giuliani ever presented themselves as representing the U.S. And as Trump’s personal attorney, Giuliani had an ethical obligation to investigate whatever he could to help his client.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/16/10-things-to-know-about-the-democrats-obsession-with-lev-parnas/
end part 1