In May, two days before trial, Jeff Session’s DOJ abruptly settled a $230 million Russian money laundering case for a measly $6 million.  The case, United States v. Prevezon Holdings Ltd, alleged that Russians were using New York real estate to launder Russian money into the US.  To add just a little intrigue, the Russian attorney who discovered the fraud, Sergei Magnitsky, died in a Russian prison under mysterious circumstances.  Even more important, though, was that one of the attorneys representing Prevezon in the case was none other than Natalia Veselnitskaya…that’s right, that Natalia Veselnitskaya, who met with DJT Jr last summer promising dirt on Hillary.

But that’s not all.  The US attorney in New York who was going after Prevezon?  Correct. Preet Bharara, who Trump summarily fired earlier this year.  In describing the case before he was fired, Bharara said,

In 2007, a Russian criminal organization engaged in an elaborate tax refund fraud scheme resulting in a fraudulently-obtained tax refund of approximately $230 million  from the Russian treasury….

Members of the criminal organization, and associates of those members, have also engaged in a broad pattern of money laundering in order to conceal the proceeds of the fraud scheme. In a complex series of transfers through shell corporations, the $230 million from the Russian treasury was laundered into numerous accounts in Russia and other countries ….

PREVEZON HOLDINGS laundered these fraud proceeds into its real estate holdings, including investment in multiple units of high-end commercial space and luxury apartments in Manhattan, and created multiple other corporations, also subject to the forfeiture action, to hold these properties.

Why was Bharara fired?  We’ll never really know, but he was hot after Trump’s Russia connections and other cases involving him and his companies.

This case received little attention in May when the settlement happened, but in the wake of the firestorm around DJT Jr’s emails and meeting with Veselnitskaya last summer, Democrats in Congress are beginning to connect the dots and have now demanded disclosure from Jeff Sessions about this case and its connections to both Trump and DJT Jr.  Are all of these Trump/Russia intersections simply coinkidink?  I think not, but it will take persistence of the press and honest prosecutors to uncover it, for sure.

Drip, drip, drip.

Ted Cruz refuses to say that Russia is our enemy or that Trump did anything wrong.

So you gotta wonder:  what does Trump have on Ted Cruz?  Do you think maybe Cruz’s dad really did kill Kennedy?

Republicans can’t govern worth diddle squat.  They control the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and pretty near the Supreme Court.  They still can’t get anything done.  Thank you, Sweet Jesus.

Their senatorially painful decision announced on Tuesday to sacrifice some of lawmakers’ usually sacrosanct August recess was a public confession that they have not gotten the job done even while controlling the White House, Senate and House of Representatives.

If they can’t get anything done in those two weeks, they really need to go back to the minors and let the big boys play.

On the other hand, I do imagine that not many of them want to go back home.  They are just gonna get hollered at.  Let’s face it, all of us have on our hollering shoes and our numbers grow everyday.

Ted Cruz told the news that nobody in Texas even mentioned the Russians during his last visit.  Well, when you limit your town halls to 75 people and have the Republicans line up real early, you’re likely not to hear much at all.  And, when you’re facing not being able to afford the medicine that’s keeping you alive, Russia ain’t on your mind at all.  Caring about Russia is the privileged outrage of people who can afford health insurance.

And then there’s this:

Mr. McConnell said the early August agenda would extend beyond health care, which Senate Republicans still hope to finish off next week. He ticked off a few other measures, including an always contentious debt limit increase, a usually bipartisan Pentagon policy bill and an important piece of legislation for the Food and Drug Administration.

Now what makes this guy think he can get all that done in two weeks when for the past 7 1/2 months, he’s gotten nothing done?  Is he planning on arming the senate and taking hostages?  If so, he could start with Mike Pence – that guy ain’t doing nothing.

The Washington Post has a very cool timeline of the Russian meeting.  If you look at Donald Trump’s tweets and pronouncements before and after the meeting, it is obvious that he knew exactly what was going on.

I have an image of The Three Clown Boys getting on the elevator immediately after the meeting, going one flight up and skipping down the hall, spattering buckets of entitlement on the walls, to tell Trump what had happened.

Trump knew and he tweeted it.

Drip.  Drip.  Drip.

Anybody wanna guess what’s gonna drop next?

Thanks to Bunny for the heads up.

Well, whoever is Donald Junior’s lawyer needs to burn his bar card before he’s hauled off to the writ twit hall of shame.

Junior tweeted the entire email exchange in a move he says was designed “to be transparent.”  Come to find out, the New York Times was going to publish it moments later.

The email itself is a smoking gun.

The producer of MSNBC’s The Last Word tweeted this one.

Note the date.  The meeting was in June. That means Donald Junior is …. wait for it … fake news!