Kurt Volker and the Dangers of Talking to Rudy

 I am prepared to give Volker credit for sincerity in at least one thing -- and oddly enough, to give Giuliani a warped sort of credit as well.

Volker testified that when he met with Donald Trump on May 23, 2019 in an attempt to convince him that Zelensky was "the real deal," Trump dismissed Zelensky as no different than his predecessors and surrounded by "terrible people" and said, "Talk to Rudy."  Hoping that Giuliani held some sway with Trump, Volker talked to Rudy.  They met in person on July 19, 2019 and Volker tried to convince Giuliani that Zelensky was "the real deal" and that Yuri Lutsenko, the holdover Prosecutor General from the previous administration, was corrupt and not to be trusted.  Rather to Volker's surprise, Giuliani agreed.

And in all probability, Giuliani genuinely agreed that Lutsenko was corrupt and not to be trusted, and that Zelensky might be "the real deal."  Giuliani wrote a fawning letter (p. 28) to Zelensky that I dismissed as empty flattery may very well have been sincere.  But Giuliani's concept of "corrupt" and "the real deal" were not the same as the concepts of a professional diplomat like Volker.  Volker may not have understood that.  On the other hand, presumably he got a hint on the July 22 phone call when Giuliani started blaming everything on Soros. That is a clear detour into paranoia land, but Giuliani appears to believe it.

Giuliani's former associate, Lev Parnas, explained:

Soros became Enemy Number One, and it was understood that Soros infiltrated the U.S. government and State Department over a certain period of time . . . . He employed different prosecutors in different states, different congressmen, and the biggest thing was they thought Victoria Nuland was his person in the State Department and then let him control Eastern Europe by naming ambassadors and stuff, and then opened up this anti-corruption-type of system to cover up, actually, his corruption. That’s what we were running with. . . . . The consensus was that the reason Trump had the Russiagate and everything that was happening was because Soros and the Democrats controlled certain U.S. embassies in Eastern Europe, particularly the Ukrainian one, and were able to help with the Manafort stuff and all other kinds of stuff that basically caused problems in the Trump World.

The article goes on to explain that the push to move Zelensky away from Soros and the push for favors to Trump were indistinguishable.

In other words, to Giuliani, corrupt meant not doing Trump's bidding because one was a member of a huge Soros scheme.  The "real deal" meant willing to fight the Soros conspiracy and give Trump what he wanted. Giuliani recognized that Lutsenko was corrupt because he was resisting giving Giuliani what he wanted and demanding inappropriate favors in exchange.  Giuliani correctly recognized this as corrupt but did not recognize that was because his own demands were improper.  When Giuliani expressed hope that Zelensky was the "real deal," he was expressing hope that Zelensky would finally drain the evil Soros swamp and give Trump what he wanted.

Volker's mistake was not running like hell when he first started Giuliani ranting about Soros.