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Viktor Shokin

Fox News Promotes Crooked Ukraine Prosecutor To Smear Biden

On August 25, Fox News previewed an interview of former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin by network host Brian Kilmeade that is set to air in full on August 26. In the preview segment, Shokin accused President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden of “corruption” and “being bribed” to push for the prosecutor’s removal from office in 2016.

In fact, there was widespread agreement at the time across the political spectrum in the United States and the European Union that Shokin should be fired for being soft on corruption, including State Department allegations that Shokin himself was corrupt. Additionally, at the time of his removal, Shokin wasn’t actively investigating Hunter Biden or Burisma, an energy company that had hired Hunter Biden to serve on its board of directors. Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer recently testified that it would have been better for Burisma if the Ukrainian government had kept Shokin because he was unlikely to move against the company.

Shokin’s claims are part of a longstanding smear campaign led by Rudy Giuliani on behalf of former President Donald Trump, which ultimately led to Trump’s first impeachment. Fox News knew Shokin’s claims were baseless then and continues to know it now, but the network is airing Shokin’s baseless allegations regardless.

Pushing for Shokin to be fired was the policy of not only the United States, where it was supported by leading Republicans, but also the international community


  • European nations, the United States, and over 100 members of Ukrainian parliament had pressured the Ukrainian government for months to fire Shokin. The international community concluded that Shokin was “turning a blind eye to corrupt practices” and “defending the interests of a venal and entrenched elite.” [Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 2/11/16; The New York Times, 3/29/16]
  • In 2015, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt called Shokin “an obstacle” to anti-corruption efforts. Ukraine’s refusal to act on anti-corruption measures, including keeping Shokin, resulted in the International Monetary Fund threatening to withhold $40 billion in aid. The European Union applauded his removal. [The Wall Street Journal, 9/22/19]
  • Protests in Ukraine demanded Shokin’s removal after he launched an investigation into an anti-corruption watchdog group and had fired various anti-corruption prosecutors. The group, Anti-Corruption Action Center, had publicly criticized Shokin. [Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 3/28/16; Kyiv Post, 3/25/16]
  • In 2016, Republican Sens. Rob Portman, Mark Kirk and Ron Johnson and Democratic colleagues addressed a letter to then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, calling for him to “press ahead with urgent reforms to the Prosecutor General’s office and judiciary.” The bipartisan letter was also signed by five Senate Democrats, underlining that removing Shokin was the consensus view in Washington, D.C. — not a pet project of the Biden family. [CNN, 10/3/2019]
  • Johnson would later lead a committee that investigated Hunter Biden’s role at Burisma and failed to uncover any evidence of wrongdoing. The New York Times noted, “In fact, investigators heard witness testimony that rebutted those charges,” and Johnson acknowledged there were no “massive smoking guns” in the report. [The New York Times, 9/23/20]
  • George Kent, the State Department’s expert on Ukraine, testified during Trump’s first impeachment trial that Shokin’s corruption led to his removal. Shokin was fired over corruption allegations and was not actively investigating Burisma when he was removed. The Washington Post reported in 2019 that Kent confirmed that Joe Biden called for the removal of “a corrupt prosecutor general … who had undermined a system of criminal investigation” into Ukrainian corruption cases, and “destroyed the entire ecosystem that we were trying to create.” Kent, who was the No. 2 official in the embassy at the time, explained that Biden was following the official U.S. government position that Shokin must be removed because he was “an impediment to the reform of the prosecutorial system, and he had directly undermined in repeated fashion U.S. efforts and U. S. assistance programs.” In fact, Kent testified that the idea to fire Shokin originated in the State Department before being pitched to others, including then-Vice President Biden. [The Washington Post, 11/19/19; Media Matters, 11/12/19]

At the time of his removal, Shokin was not actively investigating Burisma, and Hunter Biden was never the subject of an investigation into the company

  • Former Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaliy Kasko said in May 2019 that the investigation into Burisma had been “shelved by Ukrainian prosecutors in 2014 and through 2015.” Shokin had stalled investigations into Burisma and its co-founder Mykola Zlochevsky. In 2014, he undermined an attempt by British authorities to freeze $23 million worth of Zlochevsky’s assets. [Bloomberg, 5/7/19]
  • Devon Archer testified that he was not aware of any Shokin-led investigation into Burisma. He also testified that he had no reason to believe that then-Vice President Biden called for Shokin’s removal “was driven by anything other than the U.S. Government’s anticorruption policy in Ukraine,” and confirmed that firing Shokin “was bad for Burisma because he was under control.” [Media Matters, 8/3/23]
  • Investigations involving Burisma targeted Zlochevsky, who had been accused of “abuse of power, illegal enrichment and money laundering,” rather than the company itself. Shokin had allegedly “dragged his feet” on these investigations, and Hunter Biden, as a board member, was not a target. [The Wall Street Journal, 9/22/19]

Fox News knew its sourcing on the Ukraine conspiracy theory was unreliable

  • Conservative writer John Solomon was a key distributor of Rudy Giuliani’s conspiracy theories regarding Shokin’s firing. From March 20, 2019 — when Solomon published his first story on the Ukraine conspiracy theory — through October 2, 2019, Solomon appeared on Fox News or Fox Business at least 72 times, including 51 appearances on Sean Hannity’s prime-time show [Media Matters, 10/17/19]
  • During that period, Fox News senior political affairs specialist Bryan S. Murphy produced an internal “research briefing book” that “openly question[ed] Fox News contributor John Solomon’s credibility, accusing him of playing an ‘indispensable role’ in a Ukrainian ‘disinformation campaign,’” according to The Daily Beast. Murphy’s research came from what was known as Fox’s “Brain Room,” which the network later disbanded, and described Solomon as having “played an indispensable role in the collection and domestic publication of elements of this disinformation campaign.” [The Daily Beast, 2/6/20]
  • Murphy’s research book also advised that Giuliani had a “high susceptibility to disinformation” that was being fed to him by unreliable Ukrainian sources. [The Daily Beast, 2/6/20]
  • Fox News continues to accuse Joe Biden of taking bribes regarding Shokin’s firing even when confronted with contradictory evidence. On August 9, a panel discussion on The Five descended into chaos after co-host Jessica Tarlov attempted to get her co-panelists to acknowledge recent testimony from Hunter Biden business associate Devon Archer. Archer “was asked, if someone concluded … that Joe Biden was bribed, would you disagree with that? ‘Yeah, I would.’ Devon Archer said that,” Tarlov said to the panel. [Fox News, The Five, 8/9/23]

Giuliani, a Trump lawyer who would later be arrested for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, was the lynchpin to the entire scheme

  • Solomon’s reporting laid the groundwork for Giuliani’s investigations in Ukraine, which ultimately led to Trump’s first impeachment. Some of Solomon’s key sources were “disgraced former Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko and the allies of Dmytro Firtash, an indicted Ukrainian oligarch and accused high-level Russian mafia associate,” who “have been seen as forces driving Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine to dig up dirt on Trump’s political enemies.” [Media Matters, 10/17/19; The Daily Beast, 2/6/20]
  • Giuliani ultimately sent his findings to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, complete with “with unproven allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden” with the goal of undermining a future Biden presidential run. Giuliani used his documents “to bolster unproven allegations that Biden pressured Ukraine in order to protect his son, Hunter Biden, who has been involved with a business interest there, and that the Obama administration was using Ukraine to help Hillary Clinton win the 2016 election.” [NBC News, 10/3/19]
  • After Trump’s phone call attempting to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was revealed, Giuliani engaged in a press strategy to redirect the focus back to the Bidens. Some mainstream outlets took the bait, with headlines like “Scrutiny over Trump’s Ukraine scandal may also complicate Biden’s campaign” and “Why Trump’s Ukraine scandal could backfire on Biden.” [Media Matters, 9/23/19]

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Tom Fitton

Who Are Trump's Unindicted Co-Conspirators In Georgia Case?

It’s hard to go 15 minutes watching cable news without hearing some random Republican talking about the mythical “Biden crime family." However, the indictment laid out in Fulton County, Georgia, on Monday describes a very real crime family—one in which 19 defendants are facing 41 felony counts, including a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations violation, commonly referred to as RICO.

But even those 19 names don’t come close to telling the whole story of the Donald Trump Crime Family. The total number of those involved in the scheme is at least in the hundreds, including 84 people who signed on as false electors and dozens of state and local officials who cooperated in arranging their selection.

In the indictment, 30 people come in for special attention as “unindicted co-conspirators.” Some of them evaded charges because their involvement in the criminal acts mentioned in the indictment was incidental—like being present at a meeting where some portion of the scheme was discussed. Others surely avoided prosecution because when District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigators came calling, those unnamed folks hurried to spill everything they knew. Some of them are familiar names. Some of them should be familiar names. In any case, filling out the list helps show that those who landed a charge are just the tip of a very large and very ugly iceberg.

The Washington Post, The Guardian, and The Daily Beast have all taken a stab at putting name tags on the co-conspirators. There’s a smattering of disagreement among the three lists, and more than a few slots are still unclaimed. Here’s what we know about those who were involved in the Trump Crime Family scheme but who have so far avoided facing legal repercussions. Not all have been clearly identified, but most have. They can be broken into a few categories.

THE INSIDERS

Individual 1 appears, appropriately enough, in the first act described by the indictment—a discussion with Trump that took place four days before the election in which Trump admits that he plans to claim victory and to allege election fraud. The name The Daily Beast puts to the other participant in this discussion is Tom Fitton. That name might not seem all that familiar, but you might find numerous references if you check the spam folder in your email. That’s because Fitton runs the far-right legal scam organization known as Judicial Watch. Those are the guys who make daily claims about how their prowess in court has forced President Joe Biden to turn over some new information that some agency was hiding under a rock. And if you’ll only send them another $5 or $10 or maybe $100, boy will they get that Biden this time! Rinse, repeat, spam five more times tomorrow. It would be really great to have the full text of the conversation as Trump explained to Fitton his whole plan for throwing the election into disruption even before it had happened. Maybe Judicial Watch should get on that.

Individual 2 was the recipient of a lengthy voicemail from Rudy Giuliani, which has to be a sort of nightmare scenario for anyone. It’s clear this was one of the false electors, but other than being forced to listen to Giuliani lie about fraud in the election, it’s uncertain they did anything more. Regardless, it is crystal clear they turned evidence of Giulani’s lies over to the investigators. Good job, number two. No one seems to have a good candidate for this individual.

Individual 3 was a lot more active and more obvious, because that individual “appeared at a press conference at the Republican National Committee Headquarters” along with Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis, according to Act 3 of the indictment. Honestly that leaves a couple of possibilities, but the best guess from The Daily Beast is Boris Epshteyn. Epshteyn is one of those names many had hoped to find on the indictment, and his involvement gdocumentcloudoes well beyond this single appearance. There he is again in Act 94 exchanging emails with Jan. 6 idea man John Eastman and Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro (both indicted) as they plot new ways for Republicans in the House to screw up the election process. He’s back again with the same pair in Act 109 working out ways to “disrupt and delay'' the process on Jan. 6. Honestly, Epshteyn’s squeal should have been audible across the continent for him to have avoided having the “un” struck from “unindicted.”

Individual 4 also makes repeat appearances. In fact, this person is everywhere talking to everyone. There they are in Act 4, getting an email instructing them to assist bail bondsman Scott Hall, who is described as “someone who has been looking into the election on behalf of the president.” Hall was involved in another case where he was accused of using his political connections in an effort to extort a sheriff into “donations.” Exactly how the very much indicted Hall became a go-to guy for Trump and Citizens United chief David Bossie is going to be one of the more interesting stories of the trial, but Individual 4 makes a return in Act 63 in connection with indicted political operative Mike Roman. They’re back again in Act 66, involved in an email chain with Roman and indicted Georgia state Sen. David Shafer. They’re involved again in Act 67, this time with Shafer alone. Then in Act 68, Individual 4 is back to solicit Giuliani’s contact information from Roman. In Act 71, Individual 4 is on the receiving end of an email from Chesebro containing information to be used by the Georgia false electors. In Act 72, Chesebro taps them again to remind them that Giuliani "wants to keep this quiet until after all the voting is done." In Act 73, Shafer messages them to give the details of the false electors meeting. Hasty texts about the movement of the false electors are in Act 76. In Act 86, Individual 4 lets Roman know that all the paperwork is done and that it “went smoothly.” Frankly, this person was so neck-deep in the planning and execution of the fake electors scheme that they have to be the key witness to the nuts and bolts of how this was carried out. The Guardian pegs Robert Sinners, a former state director for the Georgia Republican Party, former regional director for the Republican National Lawyers Association, and the current communications director for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as Individual 4. Assuming they are right, I don’t know how a guy who was at the center of Trump's scheme in Georgia ends up working for the guy who is best known for resisting Trump’s efforts to strong-arm him.

Individuals 5 and 6 are difficult to pick apart, because all their appearances in the indictment are connected to Trump’s legal team and several occur together. Individual 5 is in Act 20 meeting with Arizona representatives in the company of Giuliani and Ellis. Individual 5 is alone in getting an email that was also sent to Giuliani in Act 40 and an email from Chesebro in Act 61. Both Individuals 5 and 6 appear in Act 9, where they are part of a meeting with Pennsylvania legislators headed up by Trump, Giuliani, Ellis, and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Individuals 5 and 6 are a double act again in Act 17, where they are part of a meeting with Arizona legislators involving both Giuliani and Ellis. Individual 6’s only solo appearance comes in Act 91, where Sidney Powell insists that she and Individual 6 must get “all the data” from legal technology (i.e., voting machine hacking) firm SullivanStrickler LLC. The close association with the legal team and the frequent pairing of these two make me think of Trump attorney couple Victoria Toensing and Joseph diGenova. However, The Daily Beast went over past statements and concluded that Giuliani’s eternal pal Bernie Kerik is Individual 5. Both The Daily Beast and The Washington Post peg Powell-loving conspiracy theorist Phil Waldron as Individual 6.

FALSE ELECTORS AND FRIENDS

Individual 7 shows up in Act 18, Act 63, Act 77, and Act 86. In all but one of these instances (Act 18), they are the recipient of emails on the planning of the false electors scheme. That’s it for what we know.

Individual 8 was a participant in the Georgia meeting where Giuliani, Ellis, and Trump’s Atlanta-based attorney, Ray Smith, tried to convince legislators to set aside the election results and pick the Trump-selected electors. Multiple sources peg this individual as then-state senator and current Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. None of the other unindicted co-conspirators come close to Jones’ 17 assumed appearances in the indictment. He’s all over the place (Acts 34, 35, 38, 68, 73, 79–82, 102, 161) exchanging emails with Eastman on plans to call for a special legislative session, trying to get an official nod for the false electors, and tweeting, “... today is the day we need you to call your state Senate & House Reps & ask them to sign the petition for a special session.” He’s also named (as Individual 8) in many of the charges. He was working with Roman. And Chesebro. And Giuliani. And seems to have been right at the core of efforts to crush democracy in Georgia … and yet he didn’t get indicted. Why? Because Jones convinced Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney to disqualify Willis from targeting him due to her connections with a fundraiser for Jones’ Democratic opponent. He’s not indicted at the moment because Willis couldn’t indict him. But considering Jones’ deep involvement in the most egregious aspects of this scheme, don’t be surprised if someone else pulls that trigger. A Georgia special counsel has been named to investigate Jones.

Individual 9 was clearly one of the 16 fake electors that Roman and his merry band hustled through the state Republican HQ. They show up in Acts 47 and 48 as the recipient of documents that were sent out by Roman and Chesebro. (They were also obviously the source of these documents for Willis’ team.) They sent a text agreeing to attend the meeting of the Trump presidential elector nominees (Act 74) and joined in (Acts 79–82), which is the big summary of all the false electors doing false electoring. Based on email addresses from one of the messages, The Daily Beast tags this person asJoseph Brannan, who is the former treasurer of the Georgia Republican Party.

Individuals 10-19 are more false electors. None of them seem to have done anything particularly interesting except being on the receiving end of emails from Chesebro and Shafer. Oh, and they all showed up to sign a bunch of forged documents and make a bunch of illegal statements, and they should all be very happy Willis had bigger fish to fry.

THE MIKE FLYNN CATEGORY

Individual 20 appears just once in the indictment: That’s in Act 90, where they are part of the infamous White House meeting where Giuliani and Trump listened as Powell explained that it was time to have the military seize the voting machines, have Trump appoint her special counsel of a general inquisition, and blow away any pretense of democracy. The obvious candidate for this role is former general and full-time fascist Michael Flynn. Flynn was known to be there, and the description of Individual 20’s role in this event (discussing “certain strategies and theories”) matches what was known of Flynn’s participation. There were a lot of people at that meeting, and The Daily Beast doesn’t try to fill in this blank. The Guardian gives Flynn only a tentative tap. The Washington Post seems more interested in spotting the most obscure names on the list and skips over this one. Former FBI agent Peter Strzok, head of the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, names Flynn as one of two possibilities. I’m sticking with Flynn.

THE RUBY FREEMAN THREAT TEAM

Individual 23 appears in an interesting place in the indictment: That’s in Act 115 and Act 127, right in the middle of a long (long) list of efforts made by “Black Voices for Trump” director Harrison Floyd and former Kanye West publicist Trevian Kutti to harass poll worker Ruby Freeman. These acts record at least 30 instances of the pair trying to get to Freeman. If you want a clue what that was like, watch this video of Kutti telling Freeman she’s “a loose end” that needs to be taken care of and muttering other totally not death threats. How Individual 23 was connected to this awfulness isn’t clear, but they need to take a lot of showers and do a hell of a lot of penance if they were involved in this slime. Has anyone mentioned that Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss are GD real American heroes?

SIDNEY POWELL’S HACKERS

Individuals 21 and 22 appear in Act 91 in an email from Powell to the chief operations officer of SullivanStrickler LLC insisting that they get all the data from that company’s hacking into Dominion voting machines in Michigan. Other than that … I have nothing.

Individual 24 was a hands-on participant in the effort to steal data from voting machines in Coffee County that features in Act 143. The Washington Post identifies this individual as Alex Cruce, who is on surveillance video arriving at the elections office. Cruce claims he thought he “had permission” to be there and attempt to get data from the machines. Why he thinks he had permission is a mystery likely to be resolved in testimony.

Individual 25 is identified by both The Washington Post and The Daily Beast as Doug Logan. While Cruce says he didn’t get any data from the machine, Act 150 points at Logan for illegally accessing and “downloading … data from a server” over a period of four days. What does someone have to do to get indicted around this place? If that’s not enough for you, Logan was the head of a company called Cyber Ninjas at the time. That’s the same Cyber Ninjas that conducted the Republican legislature-mandated audit of the vote in Arizona—and turned up nothing.

Individual 26 is, according to The Washington Post, Powell associate Todd Sanders, who in Act 151 downloaded some of the SullivanStrickler LLC data. However, that wasn’t his only involvement. According to the Post, Sanders also joined the SullivanStrickler team on a jaunt up to Michigan to copy more data there and was “the Powell team’s person on the ground in Nevada.”

Individual 27 is another of those cited for downloading SullivanStrickler’s illegally obtained data, this time in Act 152. The Post indicates this to be Conan Hayes, a freelance “data expert” and Trump fanatic whose connection to events is unclear.

Individual 28 not only accessed the data in Act 153, but instructed SullivanStrickler to send it to another of the co-conspirators connected to Powell as part of Act 155. The Daily Beast and The Washington Post agree that this was Jim Penrose, who is described byThe Daily Beastas a “former National Security Agency officer-turned-Powell lackey.” Penrose, who was involved with Powell before the incidents in Coffee County occurred, appears to be the person who first tapped SullivanStrickler to do Trump’s data hacking.

Individual 29 makes a one-time appearance in Act 154 as one of those who former Coffee County Elections Director Misty Hampton escorted to the servers. The Washington Post tags Jeffrey Lenberg from New Mexico, who pretty much confessed to his presence on the podcast “Conservative Daily.” Like Cruce, Lenberg says he thought he had permission to show up and access Dominion Voting System’s machines. He doesn’t say who put him on a plane to Georgia and steered him to Hampton.

Individual 30 isn’t actually a hacker. According to the Post, she’s assistant attorney Stefanie Lambert, who also had the bad taste, bad fortune, and bad judgment to work with Powell. In Act 155, Lambert was the recipient of a copy of all the data taken in Coffee County. The Washington Post tried to contact Lambert and got back a tart, “There is no law preventing local clerks from seeking independent expert analysis of voting machines.” Her team is right about that. However, there are plenty of laws against those clerks putting people on planes and dispatching them to elections offices with instructions to break into voting machines and pull out both data and software. Somehow Lambert is evading those laws in the Georgia case. But don’t worry: She’s already been handed four felony indictments in Michigan by state special prosecutor D.J. Hilson. It’s always nice when there’s a happy ending.

Like Lambert, others who didn’t make the first cut in Willis’ indictment are likely to find that they made the team elsewhere. And really, a RICO trial involving 19 defendants is already going to need a modest stadium if Willis really wants to try them all at once.

So some of these folks will keep the “un” in “unindicted” for now. But they shouldn’t get too comfortable.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Rudy Giuliani

Promoting Trump's Lies, Rudy Giuliani Finally Sank To The Very Bottom

The Italian poet Dante mapped out nine circles of hell, each circle representing a sin. As the circles went deeper into the inferno, the sins attached to them grew more horrible.

Without much reflection, MAGA world has engaged in Dante's three lowest sins. From less terrible to most terrible, they are violence, fraud and treachery. The January 6 attack on the Capitol was violence. The efforts by Donald Trump and his flying monkeys to steal the 2020 election was fraud. And the betrayal of Americans' trust in the sanctity of their democracy was treachery.

Another circle should be dug for Rudolph Giuliani, who, in addition to encouraging violence, lying and treason, practiced human cruelty with no conscience whatsoever. We refer to the two innocent Georgia election workers on whom he preyed, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss. Not only did he smear them with blatant lies, but he publicly identified them as targets knowing the monkeys would sweep down and attack.

Giuliani accused the women of pulling fake ballots out of suitcases hidden under the ballot counting stations. With a racist flourish, he likened these two Black poll workers to drug dealers "passing out dope."

Trump himself singled out Freeman 18 times in a phone conversation with Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's secretary of state. He called the 62-year-old temp worker "a professional vote scammer," "a hustler," and a "known political operative" who "stuffed the ballot boxes."

Fulton County and Georgia officials totally rejected the fantastical story. One America News Network ran with it.

It's one thing in political combat, even unfair political combat, to fume over alleged cheating by unknown forces. It's quite another to name people you've charged with fictional crimes in the knowledge that it would endanger their lives, in this case, piling on a layer of racist sludge.

These women were subject to a flood of threatening phone calls, some terrifying. Freeman reported callers saying, "We're coming to get you. We are coming to get you." And the creeps threatened Moss' teenage son. The menace grew physical as simians banged loudly on their door in the night.

The intimidators, of course, could keep their identities secret. That's the coward's way.

Another sick vision in Trump's campaign to defraud the American electorate featured the "salt of the earth" Michigan Republicans who agreed to act as phony electors, all part of a plot to change the honest outcome in their state. It was unsettling to see how easily wholesome exteriors could cover so much moral rot. All they needed was a command from Trump, and they were ready to spread their furry wings and betray their country.

So effortlessly will MAGA world gang up on a scapegoat, it will go after its own. We speak of Ray Epps, the Arizona man who participated in the January 6 riot but was designated as a sacrifice to be tarred as an undercover government agent. The story was that he pushed violence as a means to disparage Trump and his followers. Tucker Carlson beat this drum, setting off a wave of toxicity that forced Epps and his wife from their home.

Freeman and Moss have reached a settlement with One America but are still suing Giuliani for defamation. Giuliani has admitted that his statements were "false" and would not dispute the "factual elements of liability." But his defense is that those vile accusations were "constitutionally protected" under the First Amendment.

I trust the women have good lawyers. May they bleed that vampire dry. Whether the First Amendment protects such vicious lies remains to be seen. But Giuliani should hope that Dante's "Inferno" was product of a poet's imagination. If it exists, he's in deep trouble for a long, long time.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Jason Miller

CNN Names Trump's Co-Conspirators In 2020 Coup Attempt

Not long after Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted former President Donald Trump on four counts for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, CNN's Katelyn Polantz confirmed the identities of five of the unnamed co-conspirators that were included in Smith's criminal complaint.

Those people are Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Jeffrey Clark, and Kenneth Chesebro — all of whom were attorneys advising Defendant Trump at the time.

Then, on Tuesday's edition of Out Front with Erin Burnett, Polantz reported that "we are now learning that the senior campaign adviser who is signified in this indictment as one of the people who was giving Trump the harshest assessment that there was no fraud after the election that would overturn the vote, that person is Jason Miller."

Polantz continued, "I have been able to confirm that I've reached out to a representative of his and received no comment back, but I have been able to confirm that that is indeed Jason Miller. And this episode is just one of the highlights of how the special council's office was using information that the close advisors to Donald Trump on the campaign, people who even stuck with him after the 2020 election, may Miller continued to work with Donald Trump, continues to work with him. These are people who were telling him that there wasn't fraud and that Donald Trump and the alleged co-conspirators or the co-conspirators in this indictment who are not charged at this time that those people were doing something anomalous with what the campaign knew that there wasn't fraud and this."

According to the federal filing, Miller warned Trump that "when our research and campaign legal team can't back up any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force Legal Team, you can see why we are 0-32 on our cases. I'll obviously hustle to help on all fronts, but it's tough to own any of this when it's all just conspiracy sh*t beamed down from the mothership."

Watch below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.