This Seems Fitting

Lev Parnas on the #Ukraine scandal: "President Trump knew exactly what was going on.” #Maddow pic.twitter.com/60WxyLsq0P

— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) January 16, 2020

Maybe it's just me, but isn't it completely fitting that Lev Parnas gave a televised interview the very evening after House impeachment managers were chosen and the articles of impeachment were carried to the Senate? Just as if to underscore the importance of the Senate obtaining as much information as they can to fulfill their necessary duty?

Okay, I'll admit--Parnas is not a completely perfect witness because he's a conspirator. However, look at who he's torching up here: he says Trump knew what was going on. He says Pence had to have known what was going on. He says Barr was definitely in on it (and I do believe it would now behoove Mr. Barr to recuse himself, right?). He isn't exactly doing that for his health. I mean, he's doing it very publicly as a form of self-protection, but there are reasons why one would not make such claims without documentation. And so far? He basically just corroborating and filling in details that had to be true based on the timeline, and even suggested by the transcript (call summary) put out by the White House. After all, Trump himself advised that the ambassador would be going through some things in his call to Zelenskyy. He also in that very call suggested that Zelenskyy get in touch with either his personal attorney Giuliani or AG Barr--which I do not believe he would have offered if Barr was not in the loop.

For what it's worth, no reasonable person should believe that the story stops with Parnas or that more information is not forthcoming. After all, we're still hearing information being released from the Mueller report. Mike Flynn is still up to some kind of legal shenanigans with the withdrawal of his plea deal.

But speaking of reasonable people--let's look at "reasonable" Sen. Susan Collins as providing one example of why the Senate might still half-ass their job and acquit Trump:

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said on Wednesday she doesn't think newly released evidence, which happens to show Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump were deeply involved in the effort to force Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, should be allowed at the Senate impeachment trial.

"I wonder why the House did not put that into the record and it's only now being revealed," Collins said, referring to documents Democrats released on Tuesday from Lev Parnas, the indicted Giuliani aide who turned over his notes and text messages with Giuliani and other Ukrainian officials as part of the impeachment investigation.

Parnas only just released the documents to the House Intelligence Committee because federal authorities had seized them as part of its investigation into Parnas' political activity. Parnas was ultimately indicted for breaking federal campaign finance law.

When it was pointed out to Collins that this information had only just been obtained by the House by court order, she blamed...the House. Did she genuinely not know this information was only just obtained? (Clueless? Not paying even marginal attention?) Or was she pretending she did not know because she would prefer not to deal with the subject and felt rather annoyed she had a job to do? (There is always retirement if the business of the Senate doesn't amuse, Ma'am.) And this type of response--fake cluelessness, denial, shifting of blame, has been normalized. It's truly appalling.

So let's call the revelation of more information even as the articles have finally reached the Senate be seen as a fitting reminder--it looks bad because it is bad, and will look worse. There's a lot of blame to go around--but it should rest on those involved in doing the bad things. Not the people pointing it out.