Trump Revenge Strikes Again

Read any stories about Richard Burr, the now former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee?  They are all over the news today, relating how the Justice Department has launched an investigation about likely insider trading violations that he committed, which resulted in Mitch McConnell removing him as head of the Intelligence Committee.  Well, hooray for the Justice Department!  All of a sudden they have made a 180 degree turn and are just so concerned with Republican corruption!  Here is a section from the Washington Post story dealing with this development:

"Sen. Richard Burr is stepping down as chairman of the Intelligence Committee, following the seizure of his cellphone by FBI agents investigating stock trades made before the coronavirus crashed financial markets...Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement that Burr informed him Thursday morning “of his decision to step aside as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee during the pendency of the investigation. We agreed that this decision would be in the best interests of the committee and will be effective at the end of the day tomorrow.”

The decision to step aside acknowledges the awkward, ethically fraught dynamic that would have existed if Burr (R-N.C.) had continued to lead a committee with oversight responsibilities for an agency conducting a criminal investigation of his conduct."

Wait, how can that be?  We all know that somehow this cannot be the real story, and of course it's not.  Donald Trump does not give a God damn about Republican corruption, as we all know, but from what I have read, the mainstream news is not going to bother to report on what actually happened.

Here is the truth:  Burr, as head of the Intelligence Committee, has been about as bipartisan as any Republican gets these days.  Weak tea, admittedly, but it is something.  Well, in early March, Burr allowed his committee to release a report that, at least on some level, confirmed every fear that decent Americans had about Trump conspiring with the Russians to steal the Presidential election in 2016, an act that could not go unpunished.  You can read the press release from the Intelligence Committee here, but this is the essence of it:

“The Committee found no reason to dispute the Intelligence Community’s conclusions.

“One of the ICA’s most important conclusions was that Russia’s aggressive interference efforts should be considered ‘the new normal.’ That warning has been borne out by the events of the last three years, as Russia and its imitators increasingly use information warfare to sow societal chaos and discord. With the 2020 presidential election approaching, it’s more important than ever that we remain vigilant against the threat of interference from hostile foreign actors.”

The Committee finds the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) presents a coherent and well-constructed intelligence basis for the case that Russia engaged in an attempt to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election."

A complete contradiction of the mass of lies that Trump has been telling about his treasonous collusion with the Russians, ever since he was sworn in.  Well, we can't have that, and most particularly we can't have a Republican chairman of a Senate committee who would dare to tell the truth about Donald Trump.  And that is the real reason that Barr is gone.  Of course he deserves to be booted out of the Senate for his profiting from inside information, but if that were the standard practice, two thirds of the Republicans in Congress would be out in the street.  You can be absolutely positive that whoever replaces Burr will be a William Barr level sycophant, and no information will ever emerge from that committee on a bipartisan basis that tells the truth ever again.

Mission accomplished, Trump and McConnell.




A Little Note:  I just heard Rachel Maddow say the same thing I am- that this was all about punishing Burr for daring to release an honest, bipartisan report about Trump's collusion with Moscow, and to see that no Republican ever does anything like that again.  Hooray for you, Rachel.