What Putin did for his Piddle Puppet, Donald Trump, is obvious. Had Putin’s Russian operatives not intervened on Trump’s behalf, Trump would not be infesting the oval office today. However, to benefit from the illegal act of another is not itself illegal. In order to prove conspiracy, one must demonstrate quid pro quo. Now Trump’s quid is obvious. And here is another nice slice of quo for Putin.
The United States has awarded a contract to guard the U.S. embassy in Moscow to a company with KGB ties, The New York Times reports.
The State Department awarded the $2.8 million contract to Elite Security Holdings, a company co-founded by retired Russian general Viktor Budanov.
A State Department official told the Times that the company has been properly "vetted" and will only carry out security tasks previously handled by local guards hired by the embassy.
The firm will operate at the Moscow embassy, as well as U.S. consulates in three other Russian cities. U.S. Marines will still guard the grounds and high security locations of the outposts.
Budanov, 82, previously led Soviet counterintelligence as the head of the KGB, where he oversaw now-Russian President Vladimir Putin when he was a young intelligence officer… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <The Hill>
On the surface, this might not seem like a very big deal, but it is. Rachel Maddow spent 24 minutes setting up the history and explaining why it is such a big deal.
Rachel also demonstrated how this dovetails with other slices of quo that Trump has served his Puppeteer.
RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!
12 Responses to “Putin Gets Quo Again”
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I might say that this is 100% in line with Agent Orange’s policy of putting foxes in charge of the henhouse, although I would have to qualify it that this is one hell of a super-fox, and the henhouse seems to contain numerous golden-egg-laying hens.
Somewhere there has to be a middle ground between swallowing every cockamamie conspiracy theory that comes along and being unbelievably naive. Perhaps one of the best possible uses of tax dollars would be state-of-the-art BS detectors for every man, woman, and child in the United States.
Off topic – but Saint Basil’s Cathedral is IMO so beautiful, it’s a crying shame it has become a symbol of Russian chicanery. And I don’t mean you, I mean everyone and everywhere. Sad.
I hear you. I don’t remember a time that St. Basil’s and the Kremlin were not conjoined.
Yes. Even during the USSR when the government was outspokenly non-religious (to put it mildly). And now, of course, Putin, like GOP all over the world, claims to be religious (to put it mildly.)
Amen!
What putin wants, he gets. And…Humpty Dumpty blithely complies with any directive from him.Why doesn’t he just go live there?
So, are we in treason yet?
That’s gonna depend on whether it will be possible to define “war” to include “cyberwar” without a constitutional amendment. But we are at conspiracy for sure.
I’m good with: “Whatever It Takes!”
I consider installing a puppet Resident an act of war, so yes.
Rachel points it down only the way only she can: she ticks off a long list of “strange” behavior of this administration in regard to the Russians that is there for all to see and then ends with recalling how the Russian attack on the election was an unprecedented thing, “but time and time again the behavior of the administration towards Russia, since they’ve been in office, is just previously unthinkable submission.”
And now they’ve handed over the keys of the American embassy in Moscow, and two other cities, to the KGB with a neat bow of $2.8 million around it. Unbelievable but true, on top of 25 years of blundering in this regard right up to Ronnie, the KGB is now actually being paid to spy on the Americans by this administration.
As Rachel correctly states: Whatever happened back there in the campaign, it appears not to be over. Who am I to disagree.
Thanks all. Kudos to Lona.
Rachael did an excellent job of outlining the history (abridged version of course, but all the salient points) of the US – Russia relations WRT embassies and the related spy games. The Drumpf administration either does not know this history or is willfully ignoring it — I favour the latter — all for a few pieces of silver no doubt. Drumpf calls for healing of the relationship with Russia??? What has he been smoking?
It is absolutely outrageous that the Drumpf administration would consider a security contract, an untendered one at that, with former KGB people who are close to Putin. What happened to America first? To me, the Drumpf administration is selling out the country to the Russians and I call that treason. I sure hope the Senate puts an end to this bull shit by nixing the contract and impeaching Drumpf and his line of succession.
I think this is one of your best ever pieces TC! Thanks