The death of Alexei Navalny, announced a week after Vladimir Putin’s sit-down interview with Tucker Carlson and reported as senior officials gather for a security summit in Germany, is an expression of the ruthlessness of the Russian authoritarian. Add Navalny to the list of foes Putin’s regime has assassinated — the most prominent since Boris Nemtsov was shot to death while crossing a bridge — and know that so long as the current regime is in power, it will continue to assassinate anyone who rises up against it.
Whether they die by poison or bullet or walking in a prison yard north of the Arctic Circle, it’s all the same to him.
Navalny’s defiant stand in opposition to the corrupt Putin regime is the definition of courage. He used every tool at his disposal to expose their corruption, their lavish lifestyles and the way they perverted Christian faith to guard against criticism. Perhaps that’s why Putin chose this moment to have him embark on a permanent exit. Putin has no respect for his Western supporters — he views them as lesser men, failed would-be CIA agents, poor interviewers, gullible and subservient.
This killing is a message to the West and to the Munich Security Conference, where Navalny’s widow just spoke, that Putin does not fear any consequences for his actions, in any context.
And why shouldn’t he? Carlson, as representative of the West and as if in exchange for the access to Putin, embarked on a multi-episode propaganda effort on his new paid platform espousing the beauty and cleanliness of Moscow under the Russian regime. He released videos glorying in the artistry of the Moscow metro — originally constructed intentionally as propaganda for the nation’s communist rulers — with a montage featuring a beautiful mosaic of Vladimir Lenin made by an artist whose home was seized, starved to death and is buried in a mass grave. Carlson chortled at the charm and inexpensiveness of a knock-off Moscow grocery, expressing surprise at the coin-operated grocery cart, having never apparently darkened the threshold of a Lidl or an Aldi here at home. When he pronounced Moscow “so much nicer than any city in my country,” Tucker went Full Duranty — and you never go Full Duranty.
What will be the response from this administration? When asked about the imprisoned dissident in 2021 following his summit with Putin, Joe Biden made a lot of tough talk: “I made it clear to him that I believe the consequences of that would be devastating for Russia… What do you think happens when he’s saying it’s not about hurting Navalny, all the stuff he says to rationalize the treatment of Navalny, and then he dies in prison?”
Well, Joe, now Navalny has died in prison, just as you and many others predicted. So what happens now? And if the answer is: virtually nothing, how can we possibly take this White House seriously? They were more invested in getting Brittney Griner out of the country in an effort to appease their domestic base rather than lobbying for the release of anyone of political note.
For my part, my concern is for my friend Vladimir Kara-Murza, currently in isolation. You can read his latest piece dictated from prison here. He was a pallbearer for John McCain with me — and on Putin’s enemies list, he is in all likelihood the next target. Unlike Navalny, he is a permanent resident of the United States — and his wife and three children are American citizens. If the Biden administration is to have any moral authority, any at all, they must use every tool at their disposal to get such prisoners out, and make Alexei Navalny the last dissident Vladimir Putin murders.
Let us at least find solace in recalling this from Navalny’s 2021 closing statement, in one of his incalculable trials and court hearings:
A man recently wrote to me, “Navalny, why does everyone write to you, ‘Hold on, don’t give up, be patient, grit your teeth?’ What do you have to tolerate? You kind of said in the interview that you believe in God. The Bible says, ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.’ Well, that’s just great for you, isn’t it!” And I thought, how well this man understands me! Because it’s not that I’m fine, but I’ve always thought that this particular commandment is more or less an instruction to activity. And so, while certainly not really enjoying the place where I am, I have no regrets about coming back, or about what I’m doing. It’s fine, because I did the right thing. On the contrary, I feel a real kind of satisfaction. Because at some difficult moment I did as required by the instructions, and did not betray the commandment.
Navalny had no regrets about coming back to Russia. The West can make Putin regret his actions, and they should — but will they?
More on this from Owen Matthews, Lisa Haseldine, Ann Simmons, Thomas Grove, and the crew in Munich.
Fani Willis Lights Herself On Fire
Against the advice of her lawyers, Fani Willis just gave an incredible display in court. Her rise to the stand in Georgia to defend herself against her surrounding foes played out like a scene from a latter-day Tom Wolfe novel. The erstwhile recipient of laudatory coverage from the New York Times, TIME magazine and the rest of the #Resistance media was now in the sights of an antagonistic case that the Gray Lady framed through a classically racist lens: the strong black woman, set upon on all sides by the judgement of mostly white and almost certainly racist southerners.
“I don’t really like wine to be honest with you, I like Grey Goose,” she said, responding to questions about payments for a “pairing” session with her paramour, Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade, to whom she funneled massive amounts of money in return for work for which he seems at best poorly qualified. “We are talking about sex,” Ms. Willis said with defiance in response to a line of questioning, before clarifying to a male attorney, “Mr. Wade, he’s a man. He probably would probably say [our relationship ended] in June or July. I would say we had a tough conversation in August,” because women measure the end of things by conversations, while men measure it by sex.
The scene was incredible, contentious and absurd. Ms. Willis claims with a straight face that in the course of a multi-year relationship with Mr. Wade, every one of his purchases — tracked to the nth degree to his misfortune by credit card and discovered during a contentious divorce from his wife — of flights, hotels, meals, sundries, gifts and other things he might not have been able to afford without the largesse of the State of Georgia were reimbursed from her own pocket. How? With cash, a veritable “horde” of cash — she bristled at the word and suggested it meant something else — that she kept in her home, hidden away, in response to paternal advice. She did not use this supposed cash to pay off her various tax liens, nor is there any bank record of it — instead, she suggested that she gets cash by overpaying at Publix, and she never uses checks.
Because Georgia requires the disclosure of any gift from anyone having business with the county of over $100 in aggregate, Ms. Willis must maintain that despite the lack of any records, she paid for her exact portion at least. She also is required by this obvious fiction to be deliberately vague about when the inappropriate relationship began and ended.
“[Mr. Wade] had a type of cancer that makes your allegations ridiculous… but I’m not going to emasculate a black man,” Ms. Willis said, when lawyers were questioning her relationship timeline, which may have started as early as 2020. When the defense lawyer responded: “I’m sorry, what? “I’m not going to emasculate a black man. Did you understand that?”, before again disclosing, in eminently emasculating fashion, that the question was not necessary because Mr. Wade was being treated for cancer at the time, and presumably could not perform his very private duties.
The thick accents of the Georgia lawyers served to inflame, but none so much as that of defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant, the original discoverer of the hot goss that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade were an inappropriate item. Ms. Merchant’s law firm consists of herself, her husband and a paralegal — you can find it just across from a gas station in Marietta, Georgia. But when she was hired by a Trump case defendant so low down the list that MSNBC rarely uses his picture, she was not one to avoid following a lead — and what she found could wreck the entire Georgia case, setting it back months until after the election and resulting in terrible consequences for Ms. Willis.
“Let’s be clear, because you’ve lied,” Ms. Willis yelled at Ms. Merchant. “It is a lie! It is a lie!” It is unclear what she meant. But for the post-case framing, Ms. Willis’s play is obvious. First, she was the hero for anti-Trump media, a champion for the white ladies who buy books like the latest from Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman: Find Me the Votes: A Hard-Charging Georgia Prosecutor, a Rogue President, and the Plot to Steal an American Election (several sections of which were introduced to impeach Ms. Willis’ testimony today). Next she was the butt of consternation from the left — how could someone so under the microscope engage in such obvious and salacious misbehavior? And now, the tough, strong prosecutor pivots to the next act: martyr for the cause, a new Stacey Abrams, a strong black woman who intimidated the white (obviously racist) establishment by being not just hard-charging and anti-Trump but sexy and virile. Heaven forfend!
“Where’s Belize? What continent?” Ms. Willis inquired at one point. “I’m not being funny. I don’t know. I’ve been to Belize with [Mr. Wade]. I’ve been to the Bahamas with him. I’ve been to Aruba with him. Don’t embarrass me. I’m not sure what continents those are on.” You see, the racists are calling her stupid, too — so stupid she expects us to believe that everything seen today isn’t an act. What’s more troubling is: maybe it’s not?
More on this from Charles Lipson and Ivana Saric. Willis has announced she won’t continue to testify today.
Biden on Afghanistan: I Regret Nothing
President Biden is privately defiant that he made the right calls on Afghanistan in 2021 despite the U.S. military's chaotic exit, according to an upcoming book obtained by Axios.
Why it matters: Biden believes history will look kindly on his decision to end the two-decade war — America's longest — even though it came at an enormous political cost to Biden, whose polling numbers have never recovered from the fallout.
13 U.S. service members were killed in a suicide bombing outside Kabul's airport as the U.S. evacuated. In all, more than 2,400 U.S. service members died in Afghanistan during the war, and more than 20,000 were wounded.
After Afghanistan, "no one offered to resign, in large part because the president didn't believe anyone had made a mistake. Ending the war was always going to be messy," Politico's Alexander Ward writes in "The Internationalists: The Fight to Restore Foreign Policy After Trump." …
Brian McKeon, the deputy secretary of state for management and resources, jumped in and said their diplomats would be fine: "We at the State Department have a much higher risk tolerance than you guys," he quipped at the uniformed personnel.
Ward writes that "Milley nearly jumped out of his chair, but restrained himself from shouting how he and many serving in the armed forces had lost friends in war. Austin showed no signs of anger, but he later told colleagues that he was offended by McKeon's remark."
During the chaotic scenes that unfolded around Kabul's airport as Taliban-aligned forces began taking over the capital, White House officials knew the president was making promises he couldn't keep to get people out of the country, Ward writes.
Biden told ABC News on Aug. 18, 2021, that he was committed to having troops stay in Afghanistan until every U.S. citizen who wanted to leave could do so. A senior White House official told Ward at the time: "There's no one here who thinks we can meet that promise."
How Charlie Kirk Doomed Ronna McDaniel
“You’re a loser,” Kirk said. “A professional, Romney-infiltrating loser.” Then he got personal. “Is Ronna McRomney there to make sure that we lose in 2024? I’m telling President Trump privately and publicly he’d better remove her. Does Ronna Romney want Donald Trump in prison? I really think she’s an infiltration at this point.”
McDaniel might not have believed Trump was listening to such chatter – right up until Feb. 4, when the former president was asked on Fox News’ Sunday morning program to assess McDaniel’s job performance.
“I think she did great when she ran Michigan for me. I think she did okay, initially in the RNC,” Trump replied. “I would say right now there’ll probably be some changes made.”
By the next day, McDaniel was in Mar-a-Lago meeting with the president and top Trump adviser Susie Wiles. Charlie Kirk’s name came up, according to sources familiar with the discussion. One topic of conversation was whether TPUSA was attracting dollars and donors that would otherwise flow to his campaign and whether Kirk’s criticism of Martin Luther King Jr. might undermine Trump’s growing strength among black voters. At issue was Kirk’s attack last month on what he called “the deification of MLK,” while blaming the civil rights icon for helping to usher in a “proto” version of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Later Kirk blamed corporate DEI programs for making him think twice about the qualifications of black pilots…
Another highly-placed Trump source told RCP, “What’s true is that Ronna attempted to knife Charlie, but no one of importance in Trump’s orbit bought the knifing.”
Sources familiar with the Mar-a-Lago conversation tell RealClearPolitics that McDaniel didn’t mention Kirk first – Trump did. Regardless of who put Kirk in the barrel, and leaving personal vendettas aside, Kirk’s recent remarks on race have alienated people besides Ronna McDaniel. Some prominent Trump loyalists question whether he is doing more harm than good.
“He’s giving them ammunition to use against President Trump,” Darrell Scott, a Cleveland pastor who co-founded Trump’s 2016 campaign diversity coalition, said in an interview of Kirk’s comments on MLK and race.
Tudor Dixon, who was once a guest on Kirk’s podcast and whom Trump endorsed for Michigan governor, questioned whether Turning Point USA could turn out the youth vote in 2024 and told RCP that Kirk’s “recent attacks against black people and women are despicable, do not reflect the Republican platform, and deserve condemnation.”
At issue are remarks Kirk made about the legacy of King and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “MLK was awful,” Kirk said last December at America Fest, one of the many political conventions organized by Turning Point. “He’s not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn’t believe.” …
“If I see a black pilot, I’m going to be like ‘Boy, I hope he is qualified,’” he said on his podcast, the “Charlie Kirk Show,” before adding that is “not who I am, that’s not what I believe.” It was instead, he explained, how the ham-handed diversity, equity, and inclusion policies being adopted by woke corporations made him question whether individuals were hired and promoted because of qualifications or quotas.
Feature
Items of Interest
Foreign
Ward: What’s really behind the Biden administration’s foreign policy?
Biden admin sought alliance with Marxists in Latin America.
The politics of culture wars in Canada.
IDF knows where Hamas is hiding.
Biden raises fears of full scale Mideast war.
Murray: Shameful Biden tries to reward Hamas.
Domestic
Meeting with Speaker Johnson got heated.
Rosendale drops Montana Senate bid, already?
Zito: East Palestine, revisited.
Pro-Palestinian protesters harass Tony Blinken’s kids.
Lawfare
Hur was in hot water before the White House released report.
York: Jack Smith is in a hurry.
2024
Noonan: Democrats are resigned to a Biden 2024 campaign.
Khachigian: Why Democrats can’t quit Biden.
Nikki Haley unloads on Trump over Putin.
Media
Krakauer: Jon Stewart is about to learn a hard lesson.
McLaughlin: Tucker Carlson’s lowest moment.
Sixsmith: Carlson should be less excited about groceries.
Redbird IMI acquires All3Media, huge UK production company.
Ephemera
Prince Harry suggests he wants to become American.
Don Jr. wants to be a lifestyle influencer.
First reactions: Dune Part Two.
Land of Bad director on Russell Crowe, living large.
Biggest NFL offseason questions.
Taylor Swift boosted female viewership of Super Bowl.
Nine amazing things that prove Russia is better than America.
Quote
“There is not a single person in this world who sat bright-eyed in school, thinking: ‘When I grow up, I’m going to join the FSB, and they’ll send me to wash the opposition leader’s underpants because someone smeared them with poison.’ People like that just don’t exist. No one wants to be doing it. Everyone wants to be normal, respectable; they want to catch terrorists, gangsters, spies; they want to fight all this. And this is really important – not to fear those who are seeking the truth, but maybe to support them, either directly or indirectly. Maybe not even to support them, but to at least not enable this lie, this falsehood…. not to make the world around you a worse place. There is, of course, a small risk involved in this, but firstly, it’s not a significant one, and secondly, as a fantastic modern philosopher called Rick Sanchez once said: ‘To live is to risk it all. Otherwise you’re just an inert chunk of randomly assembled molecules drifting wherever the universe blows you.’”