Breitbart: The Podesta Group is one of the two unnamed lobbying firms mentioned in the grand jury indictment of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his partner Rick Gates that was unsealed on Monday, sources told NBC News.
The indictment, issued by the special counsel probing Russian interference and any collusion in the presidential election, listed 12 counts of money laundering, tax evasion, violation of lobbying regulations, and making false statements related to their work on behalf of the Ukrainian interests from 2006 through 2016.
The indictment referred to two companies that Manafort and Gates hired on behalf of a pro-Russian Ukrainian organization — “Company A” and “Company B.” NBC News confirmed that “Company A” is Mercury Public Affairs, and “Company B” is the Podesta Group.
Hours after the indictment was unsealed Monday morning, Tony Podesta, co-founder and chairman of the Podesta Group resigned from his position, as first reported by Politico. Podesta founded the firm with his brother John Podesta, who served as Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.
I guess the plan now is to scapegoat Manafort and tie him to Tony Podesta, leaving John Podesta and Hillary unscathed. I notice the media has been emphasizing that Johnny P. hasn’t been around the Podesta Group for, like, ages.
Nailing both Tony Podest and Paul Manafort puts a nice “bipartisan investigation” bow on the package. The thing is, this wasn’t originally supposed to be about any Democrats at all. Mueller is under pressure and underperforming, and he’s improvising now.
When this fog of show indictments clears, Uranium One will still be standing there like a monolith among the molehills of which Mueller is trying to construct mountains.
Mueller has exceeded his mandate in almost comical terms. The only charges he’s laid is money laundering and failing to register as an agent of a foreign power and something about violating the lobby act. All done before the Presidential election. What is it going to take to get this guy fired? Hell, if he’s going to pick up Podesta for money laundering almost 10 years ago then why not go after the Clintons and Uranium 1? Naw, that’s Hillary and she’s untouchable.
Manafort and Papadopoulos are no longer leading the news. The media has dejectedly shifted to leading with Facebook and Twitter testimony in Congress about Russia. Sad.
In a just world, the Podestas et. al. would be the Boogie Woogie Treason Boys of “Company B.” Alas, this is not a just world.
@flip: I read through the comments here just to find a “Boogie Woogie” reference.
Wasn’t disappointed.
🙂
Vietvet- I put that story on the schedule late last night and I still can’t get that song out of my head.
MJA: Maybe this will help:
http://tinyurl.com/y9vp638t
😉
@VietVet: It’s very difficult to beat you to a good pun. 🙂
@flip: Not if I’m not logged on for a while, or if I haven’t seen a particular post. There’s too many nowadays to read all of them, and they go by so fast that I just have to pick a few that look interesting and skip over the ones I missed while doing other things (like sleeping). Stay off the site for a day or so, and the last post you remember reading is on page 5 or thereabouts and nobody’s going to read your comment, even if you make one.
Sometimes I long for the time when there were only 4 or 5 posts a day. At least I got to read them all then.
🙂