HIDING FROM CLINTONS: Where Are Crooked John and Tony Podesta?
When we last heard of the Podesta brothers, they found themselves knee-deep in quicksand.
But we haven’t heard much from them. If the two brothers are smart, they volunteered for Witness Protection in order to avoid the wrath of the Clintons.
In an ironic twist, one of the last times the Podestas were in the new had to do with John referencing a conspiracy to tie him to Russia. Russians.
As The Hill wrote back in October of 2017,
Former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said on Tuesday that he was the victim of a “big lie campaign” created by President Trump.
“Not bad enough that I was the victim of a massive cyber crime directed by the Russian President,” Podesta tweeted.
“Now I’m the victim of a big lie campaign by the American President.”
Not bad enough that I was the victim of a massive cyber crime directed by the Russian President (1/3)
— John Podesta (@johnpodesta) October 31, 2017
Now I’m the victim of a big lie campaign by the American President (2/3)
— John Podesta (@johnpodesta) October 31, 2017
Sweet irony, indeed!
It appears that President Trump wants to know the whereabouts of Podesta. As Western Journalism reported,
As special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian collusion of the 2016 election continues on, President Donald Trump has one big question on his mind.
“Whatever happened to Podesta?”
“They closed their firm, they left in disgrace, the whole thing, and now you never heard of anything,” the president said during a wide-ranging New York Times interview.
In his interview with The Times, President Trump reiterated his stance on Mueller, saying he felt Mueller would be fair. However, the president expressed curiosity and frustration that Podesta has seemingly escaped scrutiny since stepping down from the firm he founded in October.
Podesta’s activities mimicked those of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s pre-Trump association. And in fact, Manafort is more closely tied to Podesta, ergo the Clintons than he is to Trump.
As Politico points out, Manafort has a long history of lobbying for foreign entities, and led a public relations campaign for a nonprofit called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine. Similarly, the Podesta Group took part in promoting Ukraine in the United States, paid to do public relations work.
His group filed paperwork with the Justice Department indicating that it had worked on behalf of the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, benefiting the same Ukrainian political party that Manafort advised.
Interestingly, when the Russia investigation hit the fan for the Left, suddenly we had the Podestas making unorthodox moves. This next move came on the heels of John Podesta’s claim of a conspiracy against him.
As CNN reported of Tony Podesta,
“The biggest story yesterday, the one that has the Dems in a dither, is Podesta running from his firm,” tweeted the President of the United States on Tuesday morning. “What he know about Crooked Dems is earth shattering. He and his brother could Drain The Swamp, which would be yet another campaign promise fulfilled. Fake News weak!”
What, exactly, is President Donald Trump talking about? Podesta! Wait, isn’t that the guy who ran Hillary Clinton’s campaign? Is this controversy as big a deal as Trump says it is?
Start here: Tony Podesta, the guy with the lobbying firm, is the brother of John Podesta, who was chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, chief of staff to then-President Bill Clinton and a major player in Democratic political and policy circles for decades.
As John rose up the ranks of Democratic politics, Tony was following a similar ascent in the world of political influence — emerging as one of the most powerful Democratic lobbyists (and biggest party donors) in Washington.
And no a peep from either Podesta since.
In the most recent piece I could find on these two Clintonian crooks, the New York Times wrote the following in November of 2017
And now, in a twist with Shakespearean undertones, the two influential Washington brothers have found themselves on opposite sides of the scandals over Russian interference in the 2016 election.
John D. Podesta, perhaps more than anyone except Hillary Clinton, was a victim of the Russian cyberassault on allies of her presidential campaign, of which he was the chairman. Emails stolen from his personal Gmail account were dribbled out by WikiLeaks last fall, revealing the embarrassing rifts roiling the campaign and Washington’s Democratic establishment. He has pushed hard for an aggressive investigation of Russia’s role in the election.
Mr. Podesta’s older brother, Tony Podesta, has been ensnared in the investigation by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, into Russia’s meddling in the race and whether it involved any associates of President Trump. The efforts by his firm, the Podesta Group, to win support for the agenda of Viktor F. Yanukovych, the Russia-aligned former president of Ukraine, were cited in an indictment handed down last month against two former campaign aides to Mr. Trump, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, who arranged the Ukrainian lobbying work.
Neither Tony Podesta nor anyone at the Podesta Group has been publicly charged in the case. But Mr. Mueller has subpoenaed the firm and its employees for documents and testimony related to their work and interviewed roughly half a dozen people about Tony Podesta’s involvement. And as the Podesta Group has withered under the scrutiny, its employees were informed in a tearful meeting on Thursday that they may stop receiving paychecks after next week, according to people in attendance.
One thing is certain. The Podestas will be front and center in the news in 2018.
Don’t be surprised if one or both goes to prison.
