Graham got punked

By the same comedians who pranked Adam Schiff.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has in the last year become something of a congressional point man for President Donald Trump’s negotiations with Turkey, leading discussions on everything from Ankara’s purchase of a Russian missile system over the summer to their more recent incursion into northern Syria.

So when he received a call from a man he thought was Turkey’s minister of defense earlier in August, it didn’t strike him as unusual. “Thank you so much for calling me, Mr. Minister,” Graham said. “I want to make this a win-win, if we can.”

But it wasn’t the Turkish defense minister at all. Instead, it was Alexey Stolyarov and Vladimir Kuznetsov, Russian pranksters with suspected ties to the country’s intelligence services who go by “Lexus and Vovan.”

[...]

The substance of Graham’s conversation with Stolyarov, who was posing as Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, is newly relevant in light of the South Carolina senator’s push for sanctions on Turkey as punishment for their offensive against the Kurds in northern Syria. Graham labeled the Kurds a “threat” to Turkey in the call, seemingly contradicting what he has said publicly in recent days.

  Politico

So what's his game squealing about Trump withdrawing Kurdish support?

Graham also mentions Trump’s personal interest in a “Turkish bank case” in the call that appears to refer to a U.S. case involving Reza Zarrab, an Iranian-Turkish gold trader and client of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Trump had asked then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in 2017 to help persuade the Justice Department to drop the Zarrab case.

[...]

According to U.S. prosecutors, Zarrab and others used the Turkish bank Halkbank to “launder billions of dollars-worth of Iranian oil proceeds, ultimately creating a slush fund for Iran to use however it wished — the very harm that U.S. sanctions were put in place to avoid.” A senior banker at Halkbank was found guilty of working to evade sanctions on Iran, and Halbank itself could still face fines by the Treasury Department.

Zarrab also had ties to the Turkish government, according to a memo written in 2016 by former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, and was “engaged in a massive bribery scheme... paying cabinet-level [Turkish] governmental officials and high-level bank officers tens of millions of Euro and U.S. dollars” to facilitate his transactions.

So perhaps he decried Trump's move because he knew this report was coming out. Politico's reporters would have contacted his office before publishing. But who is he playing to by slamming Trump's move to withdraw support for the Kurds?

"He has been clear he wants a stronger relationship and often talked about the importance of maintaining peace in northern Syria to prevent the reemergence of ISIS," Bishop added.

"With Turkey’s invasion into northern Syria the drive for better relations between our two countries has suffered a body blow. Turkey should immediately withdraw their military forces and America should reinstitute the safe zone concept to keep the peace in the region. Until this is done, Senator Graham will continue to push for severe, biting sanctions against Turkey."

Yeah, I'm not getting it, I think. Unless he's just talking out of both sides of his mouth, depending upon who's listening. It may be just that simple.

The pranksters’ conversation with Graham, a Trump ally who has the president’s ear on national security issues, also raises obvious questions about potential security breaches. While the pranks appear on their face to have been relatively harmless, the incident suggests it’s getting easier for bad actors to elicit sensitive information from policymakers. Stolyarov provided POLITICO with a recording of their call.

In the call, Graham was primarily concerned with getting Turkey back into the F-35 program and urging the “defense minister” to refrain from using Russia’s S-400 anti-aircraft weapon system, which was fully delivered to Turkey last month in defiance of requests from the U.S. and NATO.

But Graham also expressed sympathy for Turkey’s “Kurdish problem” and described the Kurds as a “threat.” Those private comments appear to contradict his public statements this week, in which he criticized Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria because it’s “wrong to abandon the Kurds, who have been strong allies against” the Islamic State.

[...]

“I told President Trump that Obama made a huge mistake in relying on the YPG Kurds,” Graham continued. “Everything I worried about has come true, and now we have to make sure Turkey is protected from this threat in Syria. I’m sympathetic to the YPG problem, and so is the president, quite frankly.”

[...]

The pranksters managed to get Graham on the phone again a few days after the first call. In the second call, Graham says he met with Trump to discuss what the “defense minister” had told him. “We want a better relationship with Turkey. That’s exactly what he wants,” Graham said, referring to Trump and again urging Turkey to rethink the S-400 purchase.

[...]

“And this case involving the Turkish bank, he’s very sensitive to that,” Graham said of Trump. “The president wants to be helpful, within the limits of his power.”

Uh, Lindsey....he has no limits. He has Article II, which says he can do anything he wants. Did he forget to tell you that?

“I like President Erdogan,” Graham told the pranksters. “I think President Trump likes President Erdogan. I think he’s a strong man and we need to deal with strong people."

[...]

After Trump issued a surprise statement on Sunday night announcing the removal of U.S. forces from northern Syria, Graham warned Turkey that the country would be sanctioned if it attacked the Kurds—which the Turkish military did just hours after American troops were removed from the area.

Any sanctions yet?

But on Wednesday, a senior adviser to Erdogan told CNN that Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had “reached an understanding over precisely what this operation is” prior to Trump’s announcement.

Of course they did, and Erdoğan got an invitation to the White House.

Capitol Hill managed a rare show of unity on Wednesday, as lawmakers from both parties recoiled in horror at a lightning-fast Turkish invasion of Kurdish territory in Syria and coalesced around the idea of responding through tough new sanctions on Turkey. And nearly every single one—regardless of party—blamed President Donald Trump for starting it all, when he abruptly announced on Sunday the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Kurdish lands in northern Syria.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who spent the week engaging in a lengthy Twitter tirade against the president’s decision, ratcheted up his rhetoric on Wednesday morning against Turkey and the administration.

“Pray for our Kurdish allies who have been shamelessly abandoned by the Trump Administration. This move ensures the reemergence of ISIS,” Graham tweeted on Wednesday. “Will lead effort in Congress to make Erdoğan pay a heavy price.”

By Wednesday afternoon, Graham announced legislation with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) that would impose aggressive new sanctions on Turkey.

The bill would sanction the U.S. assets of top Turkish leaders, including President Recep Tayyep Erdoğan; it also would punish any foreign individual or entity who sells weapons or provides military aid to Turkey, or supports the country’s domestic energy industry.

[...]

Trump himself initially promised to impose crippling sanctions on Turkey if they moved forward with military action against the Kurdish ethnic minority.

[...]

But by Wednesday afternoon, Trump appeared less committed to the fire and fury in the wake of the invasion, but indicated he had no problem with Graham’s sanctions and still promised to “wipe out” Turkey’s economy if Erdoğan attempted to “wipe out” the Kurds.

“We’re speaking to both sides. We’ve told President Erodgan how we feel, but we are speaking to both sides and we’re seeing what can be made out of a situation, but we have no soldiers in the area,” Trump told reporters when asked about the decision to abandon the Kurds.

[...]

The president then, appearing to cite an article on TownHall.com, added the Kurds, “didn’t help us in the Second World War, they didn’t help us with Normandy as an example” … “but they’re there to help us with their land, and that’s a different thing.”

Say what???



Ha!  No doubt he would.

“With all of that being said, we like the Kurds," he said.

Dear god.

“While the Administration refuses to act against Turkey, I expect strong bipartisan support,” Graham said of his legislation.

Indeed, criticism was widespread in the GOP ranks for Trump’s move. While Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the top House Republican, slammed the move by calling on Turkey to stop it instead of mentioning Trump, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), the number three House Republican, named names.

The president’s decision to withdraw is “having sickening and predictable consequences,” said Cheney. “The U.S. is abandoning our ally the Kurds, who fought ISIS on the ground and helped protect the U.S. homeland… This action imperils American security and that of our allies. Congress must and will act to limit the catastrophic impact of this decision.”

[...]

“We have maybe one senator happy about this decision,” a GOP staffer told The Daily Beast.

[...]

Indeed, one of the few GOP lawmakers to cheer the decision was Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the libertarian-minded Trump confidant who’s urged on the president’s more isolationist instincts over the objections of most of the rest of the party.

[...]

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who controls the floor, criticized the Syria withdrawal as a mistake in a statement on Monday, but stopped short of fully blaming Trump.

[...]

Trump is poised to face widespread backlash from his own party in Congress on Syria if McConnell, or Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), moves to put new sanctions to a vote.

[...]

Regardless of how Turkey sanctions develop, many from both parties worry that an enormous amount of harm has already been done through Trump’s decision—to the Kurds themselves, to the region’s stability, and to the international reputation of the U.S.

“The damage has been done,” said a GOP staffer. “What does it say about us and our future partnerships?"

  Daily Beast

Nothing good.

“By the time sanctions are imposed on Turkey many of our key allies in the fight against ISIS will have been killed,” Sen. Brian Schatz, a senior Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a tweet. “Republicans in the Senate have to do more than disagree. They must use all their power as Senators to push back. Everything else is for show and for cover.”

  Defense News

Frankly, Brian, that's all you folks seem to know how to do any more.



...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE: