In July, Buma sent the Senate Judiciary Committee a 22-page statement full of eye-popping allegations, and the document leaked and was first reported last month by Insider (after a conservative blogger had posted it online). According to Buma’s account, Giuliani was used as an asset by a Ukrainian oligarch tied to Russian intelligence and other Russian operatives for a disinformation operation that aimed to discredit Joe Biden and boost Trump in the 2020 presidential race. Moreover, Buma says he was the target of retaliation within the bureau for digging into this.

  • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    66
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Lol. The entire Republican Party is on the Russian payroll, even if they don’t know it.

    • Slwh47696@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      48
      ·
      1 year ago

      I would be much more surprised if Trump and Co. weren’t all Russian assets

      Pretty wild how all these Republicans hated Russia more than anything else up until the last few years, and now they suddenly love Russia

    • Syldon@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      There is a lot of cooperation between the UK’s Tory party and the Republicans through a group called the national conservative group. There is also a lot of similarities with the stunts being pulled by the Republicans and the Tories with gerrymandering and general corruption of the process in government.

      There has been some very credible links with the Tory party and Russian influence. We have a Russian in the Lords. Johnson performed some actions that were incredibly poorly judged. The Tories fought tooth and nail to stop sanctions being applied to certain Russian oligarchs that had money in the UK. Johnson’s government stopped the electoral commission from investigating Russian influence with the Brexit referendum. He then went further by pulling the electoral commission directly under government control.

      There is now a bad smell about both the Republicans and our Conservatives when it comes to Russian influence. Don’t let Trump slide, make him pay for what he has done, and if that proves to have Russian influence then take everything from him. His kids should not benefit from this.

    • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Lol, the Russians don’t need to pay them. They have all the compromat they need to keep the GOP in line.

      • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Oh yeah they do. I’m sure it’s all child molestation. Like, Trump would fully admit to raping an adult and his base would be like “yeah grab it,” but no one can get away with raping a kid.

        • SilverFlame@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I remember reading court records that detailed settlements he paid out for rape. Some of those little boys were as young as 8 if I recall. I tried looking for the records a few weeks ago and couldn’t find them.

          • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            I mean, he can’t settle his way out of a criminal charge, and if criminal charges weren’t filed it could have been a shakedown.

            I’m not saying he didn’t do it—but it gets sketchy when there isn’t a criminal charge for something to a kid.

  • NegativeLookBehind@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    64
    ·
    1 year ago

    Trump and Giuliani are the high watermark tests. If they don’t spend the rest of their lives in prison cells for committing treason at the highest levels, that’s a clear cut signal that certain people can get away with anything, and that American justice has failed.

  • Rapidcreek@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    45
    ·
    1 year ago

    Wow. Compromising giuliani must have been hard. I mean you need a bottle of vodka and a girl. Where are you going to find that?

    Borat compromised him FFS

  • theodewere@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    42
    ·
    1 year ago

    before Rudi was mayor, he was helping clean up the Italian mafia in NYC… the Russian mafia filled a bunch of the vacuum left behind, and Rudi and the Russians have been friends ever since for some reason…

  • Techmaster@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    37
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    I can’t wait to find out that Trump and all his co-conspirators were all involved in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I just have this feeling that they have been involved in planning the whole thing all along, and the plan was for Trump to win a second term so he could allow it to happen or even deploy our military to help Russia. He was literally impeached for extorting Zelenakyy and refusing to send him military aid.

  • FoundTheVegan@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    28
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    In a headline that isn’t surprising, I find the most suprsing-thats-not-suprising thing is…

    paid locals to spray-paint swastikas around Kharkiv in the weeks before Russia’s invasion. Buma says Fuks did so to bolster Vladmir Putin’s claim that the invasion aimed to achieve the “de-Nazification of Ukraine.”

  • nkat2112@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    ·
    1 year ago

    Now, for some quotes not included in the post above:

    Ukraine has sanctioned Fuks, and it is reportedly investigating him for fraud and tax evasion. Fuks now lives in London, according to recent media reports.

    Nice!

    In his statement, Buma says that he developed suspicions that Giuliani, through his relationship with Fuks, was “compromised by the RIS,” meaning the Russian Intelligence Services. That is a striking claim—an allegation that Russian spies may have obtained influence over a top adviser to the US president.

    But I guess we all suspected as much. It’s still shocking to see it.

    Buma reveals in his statement that he also probed whether Russian operatives or assets were involved in a 2020 Giuliani effort to make a film about Hunter Biden’s business activities in Ukraine and elsewhere.

    Oh, no. Let’s find out how that went, shall we?

    The anti-Biden film was to include commentary from Konstantin Kulyk, a former Ukrainian prosecutor who Treasury sanctioned in 2021 for working with Derkach to spread “fraudulent and unsubstantiated allegations” about Biden. That is, this project was to feature information from sources who the US government later deemed were connected to a disinformation campaign linked to Russian intelligence.

    D’oh!

    Giuliani played a key role in trying to line up investors for the movie.

    Hehe

    The investors Giuliani did help find were two brothers, David and Kable Munger, who own a large blueberry producing company in California and have donated generously to GOP candidates.

    Ok, so they got funding.

    The movie never came close to being made, and people involved in the endeavor told Mother Jones the project was disorganized and incompetently managed.

    I can laugh my rear off, but really, I shouldn’t be surprised. What a clown show - MAGAs shivving MAGAs:

    The Mungers recently sued two GOP activists involved in producing the film, Tim Yale and George Dickson, along with a company they formed. Giuliani was not named as a defendant in the suit.

    The Mungers say that Giuliani helped persuade them to invest $1 million by saying that they would receive a share of the film’s profits. The brothers also claim that Yale and Dickson told them the movie would be “more profitable than Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11.”

    Oh, really? They were going to out-do Mr. Moore?

    Giuliani, Dickson, and Yale also said, according to the Mungers’ lawsuit, that they possessed “smoking guns” revealing Joe Biden was corrupt.

    Smoking guns, folks, smoking guns!

    Giuliani and his colleagues possessed no such material. The Mungers allege that Dickson and Yale stole their investment.

    Ruh-oh! There was no smoking gun - not even one.

    Giuliani, according to the lawsuit, was paid $300,000 for his participation in the film project. A lawyer and a spokesperson for Giuliani did not respond to requests for comment.

    Of course not.

    The icing on the cake for me, if I may say, is the following paragraph:

    Buma’s revelations may only be the start. A source familiar with his work tells Mother Jones that other potential FBI whistleblowers who participated in the investigation involving Giuliani have consulted the same lawyer as Buma and might meet with congressional investigators in coming weeks. That attorney, Scott Horton, declined to comment.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Remember when little donnie, the lying liars networks, the Republicans, the “centrists”, a whole lot of the “liberal media” (lol) and even some supposed leftists were gaslighting and proclaiming that the Russia thing was a “hoax”?

    How long will they keep that up, by the way?

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    1 year ago

    Is this suprising to anyone? Its clear as day a lot of the GOP is compromised by Russian interests.

  • carl_dungeon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’m so shocked because most republicans are so law abiding and definitely not involved with like 50 felonies!

  • LiquidMastering@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    1 year ago

    What city in a foreign country would hire Ghouliani to provide ideas for “updating security”? That seems like the dumbest excuse for a payoff ever.

  • Grant_M@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Back in the 80s. Rudy cleared out the American mob to make way for his Russian mob associates.

  • lagomorphlecture@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Literally nobody is surprised about this after the Trump presidency. And people who know a little more seem to think he cleaned out the Italian mob only to hand NYC over to the Russian Mafia. Hmmm.