MSNBC paranoia: Any attempt to investigate Biden is a Russian plot

MSNBC’s Morning Joe
07-22-20
7:00 AM

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Let’s bring in NBC News correspondent Heidi Przybyla. Her latest report is on Joe Biden, blasting Republican Senator Ron Johnson’s probe into his ties to a Ukrainian gas company, saying the senator is promoting a hard-core, right-wing conspiracy theory. Here we go again. Heidi, what’s going on?

HEIDI PRZYBYLA: Pretty harsh words in this memo obtained by NBC. They say that Johnson is refusing to basically say whether he’s party to a foreign influence operation against the U.S. And that secondly, he’s diverting critical resources from his coronavirus oversight, which is one of the goals, one of the oversight responsibilities of that committee, to this hyper partisan investigation. Here’s the most important thing, guys, in reporting this out. The committee — Johnson’s committee, is refusing to tell us or any other news organization, for that matter, whether they’re accepting materials on the Biden family from foreign sources. There are reports of pro-Kremlin Ukrainians confirming that they have passed materials to Johnson’s committee, including tapes that are reportedly highly edited tapes between former Vice President Joe Biden and the former Ukrainian president Poroshenko. We asked them. They said, “We’re not taking oppo,” which could be defined in many ways, but they wouldn’t say whether they’re taking materials, period. So, this coincides with a letter that Democrats sent up to the FBI yesterday, saying that they need an urgent briefing from Christopher Wray about whether there are attempts to influence Congress. And Politico reported that as an attachment to that, they specifically singled out Ron Johnson’s committee as being a problem. So, they’re demanding an urgent briefing before the August recess. And you know, it’s no surprise here that just before the election, we’re seeing Joe Biden’s political nemesis try and revive this investigation, which was really at the heart of President Trump’s impeachment, Mika.

(….)

JOE SCARBOROUGH: How fascinating, Mika, the background of this. Here we have in 2016, as Esvidate said a couple of days ago that Donald Trump used information hacked from Russia every single day in the last month of the campaign. He’s never denied doing it. His campaign never denied him doing it. His administration never denied that he was doing it. And here we are, Kasie Hunt, four years later, and you have the chairman of a Senate committee now reportedly using information that Russian operatives have passed along to him in his committee! What can you tell us?

KASIE HUNT: Well, Joe, I can say that there are other Republicans on this committee that even are uncomfortable with how this has gone. Mitt Romney among them. There have been a lot of questions along the way, as Ron Johnson has tried to proceed with this investigation, moments where we thought that Romney or someone else on the committee might stand in the way of letting him go forward. Now, ultimately, Johnson has gotten his way on this, but I think the fact that there is even some reluctance among — you know, Romney’s broken with the president, but there are some others on the committee as well and pushing back in this way, I think it shows you that there are real concerns about what is going on here. I mean, this is not simply a straightforward, partisan food fight. There is real worry that the way in which this is being conducted is not necessarily above board. And I think it’s all for the reasons that you just laid out. I mean, we went through the impeachment process. There was real questions about the president’s conduct, even, you know, some of the Republicans who voted to acquit, like Lamar Alexander, won’t even go — wouldn’t even go so far as to say, oh, I’m not worried about the president’s conduct, I just didn’t think it was impeachable conduct. And I don’t think that there is a great desire to revisit this ahead of the election, except by some of these really pro-Trump corners of the GOP.

SCARBOROUGH: Well, and of course, Mika, there was also back during impeachment, you actually had Fiona Hill bring up the point — and she was right — that Republican senators were actually using Russian propaganda and passing along Russian propaganda that they were warned against using by the intelligence communities. Said, don’t say the crowdstrike was a Ukrainian operation, because that’s Russian propaganda. And even after the warning, Republican senators still used that Russian propaganda. They pushed along an ex-KGB agent, Vladimir Putin. They pushed along the propaganda that his government wanted pushed out, that the GRU wanted pushed out. That people who consider the United States its enemy wanted pushed out. So, now we have, still the Republican party in 2020 still reportedly following the wishes of Vladimir Putin and Russia? I just — I’ve got to say, who’s talking, Mika, about how we forget all of the things that happened? I think one of the most remarkable things that I have seen by the Trump media has been the expression picked up by respected newspapers, “The Russia hoax.” Oh, my god! What history will do. What history will say. About those who follow Donald Trump’s propaganda and, “The Russian hoax.” Three hours would not be enough time to talk about what Donald Trump and his campaign did during the 2016 election, that they lied about subsequently, and their interactions with Russia, what he did in the early months of his campaign with the Russian foreign minister and Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations inside the Oval Office, the intel that they passed along. I mean, I’m not even going to get into it, because I don’t have enough time. But here you have the Republican party, which, by the way, if you look at polls going back to 2016-2017, Republicans went from being very skeptical of Vladimir Putin to actually being more supportive of Vladimir Putin. Look at the polls. It really is remarkable. You talk about the Trump personality call. Just look at how Republicans have reacted towards Russia. Look at how Republicans have reacted towards Vladimir Putin over the past four years. And look more specifically as you go to vote this year, look what the Republican Senate has done time and time again.

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