Tulsi Gabbard’s “crisis” consultant worked for Russian lawyer who offered Trump Jr. dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Late last week, Hawaii Congresswoman and candidate running in the Democratic primary Tulsi Gabbard’s meltdown at Hillary Clinton hinting that “a Democratic primary candidate” was being groomed by the GOP and promoted by Russian trolls and propaganda outlets that one would think she doth protest too much. I observed at the time of the initial Gabbard meltdown that the legitimate winner of the 2016 presidential election no longer has any fucks left to give and all the truth in the world to tell as her spokesperson lit up Gabbard’s dumpster fire, saying “if the nesting doll fits.”
I also observed at the time that Hillary Clinton was not revealing some great secret as the public record contained a wealth of evidence supporting her charge. Among these:
Tulsi Gabbard’s budding friendship with Putin’s puppet Syrian dictator Bashaar Al-Assad - which started with Gabbard taking a secret trip with a terrorist organization to meet her new bestie,
Russian bot and propaganda outlets that invaded our 2016 elections now giving their unequivocal and full backing to Gabbard, and
Gabbard returning the favor by insisting that American presence to protect Syrian Kurds who were the frontlines to beating ISIS was a “regime change war” and essentially backing Trump’s move to allow a Turkish invasion in the region.
Since the initial fireworks on Friday, though, the body of evidence continues to grow that Tulsi Gabbard is in fact deeply connected to Putin and the Russians, and Gabbard herself is creating much of that evidence on the public record.
Gabbard’s “crisis communications” consultant also worked (works?) for Russian lawyer who offered Trump Jr. dirt on Hillary Clinton.
On Saturday, a Hawaii-based journalist retweeted a thread she had posted of her communications with the Gabbard campaign in February. I am not sure how much press (pun intended) the thread got back then, but it appears particularly revealing given Gabbard’s highly desperate campaign to put a lid on the expose by Sec. Clinton.
Christine Gralow is a local reporter in Hawaii with journalism degrees from UC Berkeley and bylines in the New York Times and Bloomberg. She writes the blog Meanwhile In Hawaii and appears in a social media enemy’s list that the Gabbard campaign distributed to its volunteers.
Gralow reached out to the Gabbard campaign early this year for an interview on behalf of the Honolulu Magazine. In response, a consultant for Gabbard’s campaign reached out to the magazine instead and attacked the local journalist’s qualifications in truly Trump-style simply because Gralow had been critical of Gabbard. Ms. Gralow posted the letter from the consultant, a Christopher Cooper in full on Twitter, and suffice it to say that Cooper believes that a journalist who has views as a citizen and expresses them - if those views are unfavorable to your candidate - they don’t count as a legitimate journalist.
What’s interesting, however, is that it’s clear from Cooper’s response that Gralow’s original contact was not Cooper. In his letter, Cooper said that Gralow had attempted to contact a former Chief of Staff for Gabbard. Cooper must be pretty influential and high up in the Gabbard campaign to be able to commandeer communications meant for other people like that. Which begs the question, who is Christopher Cooper, and why is he working for Gabbard?
We can answer the first question. Cooper is the founder of the DC-based “crisis communications” company Plotomac Square Group. Gralow quickly discovered through Politico’s reporting that Cooper also worked for Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner during the 2016 campaign, having offered Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton. Veselnitskaya is deeply connected to Putin’s government in Kremlin. Cooper and Plotomac Square Group were hired to promote a documentary critical of the Magnitsky Act, a law that allows the US government to sanction Russian officials involved in extrajudicial killings and human rights violations and prevent their use of the US banking system. Veselnitskaya was indicted in January 2019 for obstruction of justice related to money laundering in the Trump-Russia scandal.
So, to recap, the DC “crisis communications” firm Gabbard hired is the same one that worked for a Russian lawyer who promised the Trump campaign Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton, and said crisis communications firm was paid to promote a documentary undermining US policy against Russian aggression.
No Russian connections with Tulsi here.
Gabbard continues to accept Russian propaganda support with a wink and a nod.
Over the weekend, Tulsi Gabbard continued to refuse to disavow the support of Russian bots, propaganda channels, or even official Russian channels like embassy Tweets. “I don’t control them” was her response, and she even finished it off with a very Trumpian you-people-in-the-media-aren’t-paying-attention-to-me whine.
Rep. Gabbard when asked if she disavows the support she receives online from Russian state channels: “I don't control them. I don't control what anyone else says or does. All I can do is focus on the message that I am bringing to this campaign.” pic.twitter.com/pGiB0nonaq
— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 20, 2019
It’s worth noting that Gabbard is in fact capable of disavowing support when she thinks it will not work out in her favor, as she did this very weekend with an endorsement from KKK leader David Duke. So one is left with only one reasonable conclusion: Tulsi Gabbard is grateful for and welcoming of her Russian benefactors.
Video resurfaces of Gabbard expressing relief that Mueller found Trump “did not conspire with Russia” (a categorical lie).
Tulsi Gabbard may have been the only Democratic member of Congress who couldn’t contain her glee when the Mueller report was released and it, because of a DOJ opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted, did not comment on whether Trump committed an indictable offense. Gabbard ran in front of the cameras to falsely exculpate Trump almost as far as Bill Barr, who lied about the Mueller report in his own summary. Here’s Gabbard’s gleeful response claiming Mueller found that Trump “did not conspire with Russia.”
Of course, the report found no such thing, indeed, it found to the contrary. Mueller laid out multiple possible obstruction cases against Donald Trump and his administration. But Tulsi? She couldn’t be happier we didn’t have to talk about Russia anymore.
As I said in my original piece, the best evidence that Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian tool is Tulsi Gabbard herself. Her actions continue to prove it day after day.