A Story Too Immense?

By David Corn  September 9, 2023

Rudy Giuliani outside the Fulton County jail on August 23, 2023, in Atlanta, after surrendering to authorities following his indictment. Brynn Anderson/AP

Last week, my colleague Dan Friedman and I wrote about a matter that I thought was a big deal but that so far has not drawn much notice: An FBI whistleblower alleged that a top adviser to Donald Trump was co-opted by Russian intelligence.

The adviser is Rudy Giuliani.

Johnathan Buma, an FBI agent based in the Los Angeles area, filed a statement this summer with the Senate Judiciary Committee that outlined a series of explosive charges. He reported that while investigating foreign influence operations aimed at the United States, he examined activity during the 2020 presidential campaign that involved Giuliani, who was then digging for dirt in Ukraine on Hunter and Joe Biden. He said that he discovered that Giuliani was used as an asset by a Ukrainian oligarch tied to Russian intelligence and by other Russian operatives for a disinformation campaign that aimed to discredit Biden and boost Trump. Moreover, Buma asserted he was the target of retaliation within the bureau for probing this sensitive topic.

We already know that Giuliani, who last month was indicted in Georgia for his alleged role in trying to overturn the 2020 election results, was fully in cahoots with sketchy characters whom the US government has identified as Russian operatives (and subsequently sanctioned) while he was pushing disinformation about Biden and Ukraine. (I recently wrote about some of that here.) But to have the man once known as America’s Mayor be tagged by a current FBI agent as a Moscow stooge and to have that G-man claim that an investigation of this was stymied—well, these are serious allegations warranting attention. If nothing else, they are sharp reminders that Vladimir Putin not only intervened in the 2016 American election to help Trump; he tried again in 2020.

So far, Buma’s allegations have been largely ignored by the media. (Insider and the New Yorker have covered his claims.) A major take-out on Giuliani’s downfall that recently ran in the New York Times made no mention of his confirmed interactions with Russian disinformation agents. It included the episode in which Sacha Baron Cohen (aka “Borat”) punked the former New York City mayor but ignored the Moscow connection.

This is yet another indication of how the political-media world has failed to come to terms with the Russia story. It shows that Trump’s “Russia, Russia, Russia” strategy has largely succeeded. He and his supporters have spent years declaring that all talk of Putin’s 2016 attack on the US election is a “witch hunt” and a “hoax.” Of course, that’s a very big lie. Russian intelligence hacked Democrats and leaked documents to benefit Trump, and Trump and his henchmen aided and abetted the operation by echoing Moscow’s denial (after his campaign was informed that the Kremlin wanted to covertly assist Trump’s presidential bid). This has all been confirmed by the US intelligence community, special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry, and a bipartisan report of the Senate Intelligence Committee (released when Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, chaired the committee).

Yet Trump, the right-wing noise machine, and his zombie-defenders on Capitol Hill have never stopped beating the hoax drum, while relentless braying about sideshows, such as the Steele memos and the bogus (and failed) Durham investigation. To a large extent, they succeeded in either drowning out or distracting from the facts.

In the case of Russia’s attempt to swing the 2020 election toward Trump, it hasn’t been necessary for Trump and his cult to resort to such measures. The issue has never become prominent enough for them to confront—though it was linked to Trump’s first impeachment. (Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to back up the phony allegations about Biden that were being peddled by Russian operatives.) And once again, there’s no dispute over what happened. While searching for derogatory information on Biden during that campaign, Giuliani collaborated with Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian legislator and son of a former KGB officer. Derkach supplied Giuliani with unsubstantiated information about the Bidens’ supposed activities in Ukraine. After making a trip to Ukraine in the summer of 2020, Giuliani told the Washington Post that Derkach had been “very helpful.”

Yet Trump’s own Treasury Department sanctioned Derkach in 2020, dubbing him an “active Russian agent for over a decade.” In March 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified report that said that Putin had signed off on a Russian intelligence operation to use proxies to feed prominent US individuals “influence narratives” aimed at undermining Biden and helping Trump. The report cited Derkach and asserted that Putin “had purview” over his activities. Giuliani was obviously one of the Americans who had been manipulated by the Russians.

Clear as vodka. Trump’s consigliere and dirt-gatherer had been used by Russian intelligence in an attempt to sway the 2020 election. And Buma’s statement backs this up and suggests that the FBI did not want to investigate this. But there’s no uproar over this. Meanwhile, Republicans mount scam investigations and hurl allegations of wrongdoing at Joe Biden without providing evidence.

At times, I wonder if there are certain stories that are just too hard for us as a nation to wrap our heads around. The Russian attack in 2016 revealed that American democracy could be undermined by a foreign adversary. Was that too hard to accept? Can America acknowledge being that weak? Being a loser?

The same might be true, in a way, for acknowledging what happened in 2020 with Trump’s Big Lie and coup attempt. Certainly, his cultists believe his false claims of election fraud and refuse to see his machinations to retain power as improper or illegal. But it still seems that much of the rest of the country does not fully recognize the threat Trump posed—and poses—to the republic. It is no game changer for them. In recent polls, Trump has been running about even with Biden. Is it too difficult for some non-Trumpists to conceive of Trump as dangerous to the constitutional order?

Since the January 6 insurrectionist riot that he incited, Trump has hailed the domestic terrorists that attacked the Capitol and vowed to pardon them in a second term, has called for suspending the Constitution so he could be reinstated as president, has endorsed the nutso QAnon conspiracy theory, and has disclosed his intention to impose an authoritarian regime should he regain the White House. Oh, yes, he’s been indicted multiple times for assorted crimes, including leading a criminal enterprise to overturn the government. Yet he persists as the leading contestant in the GOP presidential sweepstakes, and, as noted above, continues to be competitive in matchups against Biden.

Maybe it’s too tough for some of us to comprehend that our democracy can be so fragile and that a president—or former president—could be so venal. And perhaps it’s just too difficult to process and respond to profound and out-of-the-ordinary threats. (See climate change.) Some might say that Trump’s authoritarian impulses have drawn plenty of attention. But their full consequences have not been truly absorbed by our national discourse. Neither has the fragility of our political system. That’s why American democracy remains in jeopardy.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com

New and Improved American Psychosis at a Discount

Dumbass Comment of the Week

The other day I received a note from the judges via the pneumatic tube messaging system we have at Our Land Global Headquarters: “Can’t we just rename this feature ‘Dumbest Tucker Carlson Comment of the Week?’” That would make life easier for the judges, but it might become a bit dull. The judges do have a strong case for throwing him the bouquet this week, even after giving it to him last week.

Yet before we turn to the defenestrated Fox host, we have a special shout-out to former Trump toady Mike Pence. Yes, he’s still running for president, while continuing to languish in the mire of single-digit standing. This week during a speech in New Hampshire, Pence tried to juice up his campaign by decrying right-wing populism as a threat to the nation and exhorting GOP voters to return to the fold of good ol’ Reaganesque conservatism. Drop the politics of “personal grievances and performative outrage,” he urged, reject isolationism, stop bashing corporations, eschew trade wars, and don’t turn your back on fiscal responsibility. Pence did not shy away from poking Trump directly. “Donald Trump,” he declared, “along with his imitators, often sound like an echo of the progressive they would replace in the White House.”

There was so much that was absurd about Pence’s remarks. Most of all, he had served as Trump’s No.1 fanboy for four years, lavishing praise on Dear Leader, as Trump ran up deficits, set the stage for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, bashed NATO, enacted protectionist trade deals, and engaged in the politics of “personal grievances and performative outrage.” All these actions Pence now denounces never seemed to bug him while he was looking adoringly at the onetime failed casino owner.

But what was especially dumbass was his comment that “we have come to a Republican time for choosing.” That line was a reference to a speech called “A Time for Choosing” that Ronald Reagan made in 1964 on behalf of GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. Reagan was then a B-movie actor who had become a corporate pitchman for General Electric. Part of his GE gig was to travel across the country slinging right-wing nostrums hailing freedom and assailing big government. During this infomercial for Goldwater, delivered a week out from Election Day, he declared, “There is no such thing as left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order; or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.” Yes, Reagan was saying a vote for President Lyndon Johnson would be a vote for dictatorship. He offered a stark choice for the election: either “preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth” or “sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

Talk about being a drama queen. America chose LBJ in a landslide, and no “thousand years of darkness” ensued. Instead, America got civil rights legislation, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pence’s evocation of Reagan’s speech shows he is stuck in the past and doesn’t understand history. Keep this in mind for the September 27 GOP debate, scheduled to be held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Pence will likely make the same mistake there.

On to Carlson. Demonstrating, as I noted recently, that there is no bottom to his cynicism, the ex-Fox host this week devoted his Twitter broadcast (X broadcast?) to revisiting the debunked claims of a fraudster and convicted forger named Larry Sinclair who in 2008 said that nine years earlier he had a cocaine-fueled sex romp with Barack Obama. Why was Carlson spreading this nonsense? Ratings? Was this an attempt to revive the racist trope of the lust-driven Black man?

With Sinclair by his side, Carlson attempted to make him seem credible by pointing out that Sinclair in 2008 “went on to make these claims publicly at the National Press Club in Washington, to sign a sworn affidavit, and to take a lie detector test.” But, Carlson huffed, Sinclair “was dismissed. In fact, he was attacked” by “Obama shills in the media” who “batted the claims without refuting them.” He mimicked these supposed shills shouting, “They’re absurd!” Carlson then insisted “the claims weren’t absurd.” He added, “We’re not claiming they’re true. But they certainly were credible.”

Credible but not true? They came from a convicted forger.

Here’s the big whopper. Carlson referred to Sinclair submitting to a lie detector test. That was true. But—drum roll, please—Sinclair failed this test. Carlson did not mention that public fact. Citing a polygraph exam that indicated deception to legitimize an allegation is the ruse of a true scoundrel. It is also a tactic easily exposed and, thus, utterly stupid. Carlson wins again.

The Mailbag

Speaking of Tucker Carlson, there was much reader response to my recent piece on his “bottomless cynicism.”

Edward Hackett wrote:

It is evident that Carlson has never read or doesn't believe in the concept of a Faustian bargain. He has made a deal with a man [Trump] who has repeatedly shown that although he demands loyalty, he has none himself. Trump will throw him under the bus at the first signs of wavering support. Putin kills those who transgress against him, whereas Trump destroys people and makes them out to be laughingstocks.

The Republican Party has assembled the most venal, disreputable clowns ever to be elected to public office. None of this bunch has any constructive answers for the real problems facing our country. Global warming—a hoax; gun violence—liberal distortion of true facts; immigration —a liberal failure; drag queens—a threat to our children; income disparity—your fault for not working hard enough or being born into the wrong family.

Old-fashioned Republicans like Bush and Romney are hiding and hoping that Biden will defeat Trump. Even if he does, there will still remain all of the Trump cult, including the ones in Congress. This is a cancer that is eating into the American body politic, and it could spell the end of our democracy. I worry that too many people are watching TV and other forms of social media but not thinking about the consequences of elections, both federal as well as state and local.

See the lead item above.

Richard Knabel emailed:

In addition to the bottomless cynicism of Carlson, Hannity, and their ilk, is the bottomless gullibility of the rubes in the cult. Without that gullibility, the cynicism wouldn’t resonate. Trump believes that reality is whatever he says it is at any given moment, and he knows his rubes will believe him. Thus he’s 6’2” and 239 lb. in one instance, and at his subsequent booking in Georgia he’s 6’3”, and 215 lb. But that’s consistent with how he arrives at his net worth: He says it’s whatever he thinks it is on a given day. Then there’s his ability to declassify sensitive documents merely by thinking them declassified even when he’s no longer president.  

I haven’t bought the paperback version of American Psychosis yet, but I will as I’m curious to read what you’ve added. It seems to me that the psychotic infection carried now by millions of Americans is progressive, i.e., getting worse. How bad will it get? Then there’s my own cynicism, which increasingly tells me I’m shoveling rationality against a rising tide of media driven bullshit. It used to be only ankle deep. Now it feels at least knee deep. Your efforts to counter it all, as in this piece, are very helpful. However, preaching to the converted, while definitely necessary, seems to make little dent in the rest.

Richard, I appreciate the plug. As I’ve written, I am a big fan of preaching to the choir. The goal is not to persuade the unpersuadables but to fortify those fighting for the right causes.

Sandy Plumb had a question:

Do you know how many people tuned in to the GOP presidential debate and how many tuned in to the Carlson interview with he-who-cannot-be-mentioned?

This is an interesting topic, for, it turns out, there is no good answer. We know from television ratings that 12.8 million people watched the GOP presidential debate hosted by Fox. It’s harder to measure the audience for Carlson’s X broadcast with Trump. Carlson’s Twitter account registered 154.7 million views of the interview the day after. But, as Forbes reported, this does not translate into 154.7 million people watching the show:

The high view count doesn’t actually mean that people watched the 46 minute-long interview—or even part of it—as it only refers to the number of views the post got, meaning the number of users logged into X who simply saw the tweet on any platform, regardless of whether they follow Carlson. X used to make the number of video views public, but appeared to get rid of that feature in May—and even then, it referred to the number of people who watched at least two seconds of a video with at least 50% of the video player in view, rather than the whole video. That means it’s likely far fewer users actually watched Trump and Carlson’s video than the number that viewed the tweet.

So Elon Musk’s site only gives us inflated numbers that don’t record what actually happened. Big surprise.

MoxieCam™

“See, Moxie, sometimes, you have to stop and smell the roses.”

“That’s not smelling, and those are not roses.”

“Oh, don’t be so pedantic.”

“How about…dogmatic?”

Read Recent Issues of Our Land

September 6, 2023: One of the best books I’ve ever read; the Mailbag; Full Circle offers a fascinating neo-noir trip; and more.

September 1, 2023: Can Donald Trump rally be barred from the 2024 ballot?; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Tucker Carlson): the Mailbag; Jade Bird and LP belt it out (separately); and more.

August 26, 2023: The bottomless cynicism of Tucker Carlson; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

August 23, 2023: David Brooks’ blind spot; American Psychosis, the paperback; whatever happened to our service economy?; the Mailbag; Citizen Cope takes a “Victory March”; and more.

August 17, 2023: Donald Trump, mob boss (then and now); Dumbass Comment of the Week (Matt Gaetz); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

August 12, 2023: From the Our Land  archives: In Ohio, sex sells freedom; and more.

August 8, 2023: Ron DeSantis—not dead yet; Our Land on Cape Cod; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Mike Pence campaign); and more.

August 5, 2023: From the Our Land archives: The tale of Jeffrey Clark (Trump’s “co-conspirator 4”); Hightown, a crime drama that explores the underside of Cape Cod; and more.

Got suggestions, comments, complaints, tips related to any of the above, or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.