1+1=2

 (By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)

"(Kolomoisky’s) been floating that out for quite a while, to keep himself relevant to the whole discussion, and he would also like to ingratiate himself to Trump." -Ken McCallion

You'd think, by now, that Donald Trump putting the arm on Ukraine to admit to nonexistent wrongdoing (Their supposed meddling in the 2016 election) and announcing an investigation into the Bidens in return for military aid would be knowledge as public as 1+1 equaling 2. But this is the latter-day United States, people, in which water is dry, the grass blue and the sky green and Ukrainian criminals become more trusted sources of intelligence than our 17 intelligence agencies.

     Let's take the case of billionaire international thief Ihor Kolomoisky. Kolomoisky had once basked in the glow of western applause and acclaim after he'd somehow, through his private goon squad, fought Russian-backed separatists back in the day. He was hailed as a Ukrainian patriot fighting against Russian aggression.

     All that changed when Kolomoisky decided to set up a Ponzi scheme cleverly disguised as a bank named PrivatBank, which eventually got to handle a fifth of all of Ukraine's assets. Shortly thereafter, Ukrainian banking regulators discovered a $5.5 billion shortfall in the bank's ledgers, strictly by coincidence, around the same exact time that Forbes had listed Kolomoisky as the 1941^st richest person on earth, a newly-minted member of the billionaire club.

     Shortly after Volodymyr Zelenskiy, his former employee who'd worked at Kolomoisky's 1+1 Ukrainian TV station in which he'd, ironically, played the Ukrainian president, got elected president of Ukraine in a landslide. The new president had nationalized the bank, which was nothing more or less than a money-laundering operation and a Ponzi scheme that paid out no interest "loans" to Kolomoisky himself and his henchmen, loans that were never intended to be paid back. Kolomoisky even had the nerve to demand that his onetime employee turn PrivatBank back over to him despite having fled to Switzerland then Israel to avoid arrest. He honestly thought, since he helped Zelenskiy get elected and had once employed him, that the new president would make a friendly exception to his anti-corruption platform that helped get him elected to the highest office in Europe's largest nation.

     He was wrong. Just a month later in May (the same month Giuliani called off a trip to Ukraine), the new owners of PrivatBank filed a lawsuit in Delaware (Ironically, Joe Biden's adopted state) accusing PrivatBank of running a massive money-laundering scheme through a series of American shell companies and real estate holdings (As proof of this, Kolomoisky is currently the biggest commercial real estate baron in the city of Cleveland, Ohio. As further proof of his affection for his adopted city, his buildings have fallen into disrepair and his foray into metallurgy resulted in 162 Warren Steel metal workers losing their jobs).

     So what does this have to do with the price of Ohio-made and Ukrainian-owned steel and Donald Trump? Because it seems Ihor Kolomoisky, the aforementioned international thief/money launderer, the man who just as recently as October accused Rudy Giuliani of orchestrating a conspiracy campaign against Joe Biden, is now right in the middle of said conspiracy and is feeding Rudy Giuliani what is sure to be steaming dog shit regarding the former vice president and his son Hunter.

It's a Dirty, Sweaty Job But Someone's Gotta Do It!

To put it simply, Kolomoisky picked up where Dmytro Firtash left off.  Firtash, another Ukrainian crook straight out of a Thomas Nast cartoon, became somewhat of a minor notorious name in American media when the whole Trump-Ukraine shit zeppelin ruptured and exploded all over the Beltway. Firtash is one of the scumbags who was feeding Giuliani rubber dog shit about the Bidens during the Trump fixer's ongoing Carmen Sandiego round trips between here and Kiev. 

     Firtash had hired Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova, two conspiracy theorists who successfully pose as actual attorneys, pro-Trumpers who'd nevertheless refused to work for Trump when he'd solicited their services. In fact, if Thomas Nast were alive today and drawing cartoons about this Washington-Ukrainian mob swamp, Firtash and Giuliani would be depicted right in the middle with the rest of the hogs and assclowns who comprise this sad, sordid tragicomedy.

     But Kolomoisky is no benign character, either. After blowing the whistle on Giuliani and his conspiracy against the Bidens, he decided with the canniness required of every mob boss since late 19^th century Sicily that, since he has Trump's ear, Giuliani could prove to be, in the KGB's famous phrase, a useful idiot. He realized that getting in Trump's good graces by feeding his latest and hopefully final fixer outright lies about the Bidens would be his best shot at making his pending lawsuit against him and PrivatBank go away.

     After initially blowing off Giuliani and his pack of upholstered jackals, he decided to take meetings with him to deal "dirt" that he's been claiming since last October to have on the Bidens. Before anyone knew it, he was eventually singing Trump's tune and even hired former longtime Trump shyster Marc Kasowitz and Bud Cummins, who'd earlier flouted his own conspiracy theory about Ukraine's meddling in the 2016 election.

     One of the people who Giuliani met in his latest trip to Ukraine was Kostyantyn Kulyk, yet another product of Ukraine's tireless Pla-Doh factory of crooks and criminals. What Giuliani may not have known, or cared, was that the disgraced former Ukrainian official has for a while been in Kolomoisky's seemingly bottomless pocket. Giuliani had also met with Oleksandr Dubinsky, yet another crook who “heads Kolomoisky’s influence group in the Ukrainian parliament”.

     It's impossible to believe that such devious criminals are so naive as to think that Donald Trump will be in power long enough to be of any longterm use to them but here we are. It's also impossible to believe that the nation at large, beginning with those in our government who are supposedly tasked with safeguarding our electoral integrity and enforcing our laws, don't seem to know or care about this cynical use of our government at its highest levels. But one thing remains clear- If and when the Republican Party, as they've already vowed, exonerates Trump of any wrongdoing in the Ukrainian affair, they'll be opening the barn doors and essentially saying to other bad actors all over the world that it's OK to interfere in our elections as long as there's a Republican in the White House.

     That we'll do anything for you, comrades, as long as you keep us in power.