Dean Blundell missed Wednesday’s Fivestack for a meeting and Lev Parnas took the chair.
1️⃣ Cornyn Won’t Vote Yes on Blanche
John Cornyn told NBC News at 1:14 that he is not prepared to vote yes on Todd Blanche, and the meeting the two men were meant to hold never happened. Chuck Grassley gave every Republican on Judiciary until four o’clock — thirty minutes after the show came off air. Cornyn wants one thing in writing: that the administration will abandon the $1.778 billion fund a federal judge has already found was assembled without any real settlement between Trump and the IRS. Blanche says his word should be enough. “Blanche is basically taking a bullet for Donald Trump,” Parnas said, comparing him to Michael Cohen, and said a source told him before air that Cornyn is not getting his letter — he is getting phone calls. Parnas made the point that gets lost: Trump never needs the confirmation. Blanche can stay acting attorney general as long as Trump wants him there.
5️⃣ Bari Weiss Picks Five People Who Will Never Cost Trump a Settlement
Weiss named her 60 Minutes bench Wednesday morning — Ross Douthat, Trevor Phillips, Norah O’Donnell, Sebastian Junger and Gianna Toboni. Zev has interviewed Junger on Narativ and said so, and still called the roster what it is. Douthat writes opinion on Catholic questions for the New York Times. “To suggest that he could be taking Scott Pelley’s chair at 60 Minutes is astonishing,” Zev said. Days earlier the former 60 Minutes correspondent Cecilia Vega said the head of CBS News told her to report events that never happened in her coverage of the Minneapolis shootings. She refused.
3️⃣ Fauci Took the Fifth 106 Times, and Paul Threw His Lawyer Out
The show ran the tape — Rand Paul refusing to recognize Fauci’s attorney, then “Security, please remove him from the room.” What the lawyer was trying to say, Zev explained, is that Paul’s theory has never been tested: that a pardon cancels a witness’s Fifth Amendment protection. Zev called the proceeding baseless and vindictive, then declined to leave it there. The public still deserves to know why gain-of-function research was greenlit, and why it happened in Wuhan without better controls. It also deserves to know why Fauci alone sits in the chair when Trump’s own mismanagement of COVID cost millions of lives. Parnas, who ignored his own lawyers and went on Maddow rather than take the Fifth, put it plainly: two things can be true at once.
2️⃣ China Is Guiding Iran’s Missiles, and Trump Says He Bombs Tonight
Zev confirmed what he flagged earlier in the week — Chinese satellite technology is guiding the Iranian missiles now finding their targets — and reported that man-portable air defense systems are being delivered to Iran to bring down aircraft. Trump is threatening another assault tonight, which depletes American stockpiles further and makes the next fight harder. Zev returned to a rule he applies to Putin: he likes to own both sides of a war, because then he picks the winner. Parnas said he is reporting out more than 30,000 North Korean troops moving to fight in Ukraine.
Melania Trump’s demand letter came up early. Zev noted the letter names nothing inaccurate — it says the reporting is inaccurate and asks for it to come down. Narativ’s response goes back Wednesday.
Parnas closed on a tease rather than a story. He asked himself why Romania, made calls, and came back with Semion Mogilevich — one of the most wanted men in the world, and the godfather of Vladimir Putin’s first election campaign. Parnas says Mogilevich “might be linked” to Paolo Zampolli. Both men stopped there. It gets its own show.
▶ WatchThank you Cat: Poli-Psych, LC - Silence is Complicity, Cash Flow Collective, Lyudmila and Daniel, Jason Gael, and many others for tuning into my live video with Lev Parnas! Join me for my next live video in the app.
