Politics

Despite reality, Vance says Trump was impeached over Russia scandal

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

Despite reality, Vance says Trump was impeached over Russia scandal

Eight years after Donald Trump pushed “drain the swamp” rhetoric, the phrase has apparently made a comeback, despite the fact that this became one of the Republican’s most notorious broken promises.

His running mate, Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, took some time at an event last week to explain what he thinks the phrase means in 2024.

“I mean, look, just go back a few years ago, you had the entire government, you had an impeachment, a fake impeachment that was completely oriented around the idea that Donald Trump was in bed with a foreign government,” the senator said. “We all remember that the Russia Russia Russia scam? That scam was a complete lie.

“Even the independent justice department investigator basically said this is all completely made up. But here’s the problem. They admit that it was made up. They admit that it distracted this country. It led to a fake impeachment. How many people have been fired from that? Zero.”

So, a few things.

First, Trump was impeached twice, but he was never impeached for the Russia scandal. I know Vance is new to politics, but his running mate’s presidency really wasn’t that long ago, it’s kind of weird that the senator doesn’t know why Trump was impeached. (It was especially amusing to see Vance incorporate the phrase “we all remember that” in his comments, because he clearly doesn’t remember the story at all.)

Second, the scandal was neither a “scam” nor a “lie,” no matter how many times Republicans claim otherwise. In reality, investigations from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team and the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee documented the extent to which Trump and his team welcomed, received, and benefited from Russian campaign assistance. (They also obstructed the investigation into this assistance — by some measures, 10 times.)

Third, Vance told the public that “the independent justice department investigator basically said this is all completely made up.” This is apparently in reference to former special counsel John Durham, whose report Republicans only pretended to readand who did not in any way conclude that the underlying scandal was baseless. (I’m reminded of a New York Times report from last year, which noted the GOP’s partisan reactions to Durham’s findings had become “Exhibit A in how the American right seems to be living in its own universe.”)

But even if we put all of these relevant details aside, does Vance really want to spark renewed interest in Trump’s Russia ties right now? Because it was just days before the Ohioan made these comments when the public learned about Bob Woodward’s new book, which alleges that the former president has spoken to Vladimir Putin “as many as seven times“ since leaving office.

Woodward’s book also alleges that the former Republican president, while in office, secretly sent Covid testing equipment to Putin at the height of the pandemic, even as people in his own country struggled to gain access to such resources.

If Vance wants to explore all of the allegations surrounding Trump’s Putin ties in more detail, I’m game, but this seems like a conversation the GOP ticket should want to avoid.

Steve Benen

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

Politics

World Cup fuels ticketing reform demands

Published

3 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Demands are growing for a political reckoning over ticket scams at the World Cup — and beyond.

The National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance, organizations representing and advocating for entertainment venues and artists respectively, sent a joint letter to Congress on Thursday, calling on lawmakers to ban speculative and ghost tickets, cases where resellers flog tickets they don’t actually have.

The letter — addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — includes nearly two dozen accounts of fans who say they were scammed out of thousands of dollars trying to get tickets to the World Cup, which began last week. The groups are also asking fans to share their own stories with elected officials via the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center that launched last week.

“Every one of these stories erodes the public’s faith that consumers should and will be protected from fraud,” NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker and Fan Alliance founder Donald Cohen wrote. “We urge Congress to work with us to prevent fraud like this in the future and finally enact ticket resale consumer protections that will protect Americans and ensure affordability.”

The letter flagged fans like Dacy Gillespie, who bought World Cup tickets for her sons on Christmas, only to learn on match day — months later — that the seller couldn’t deliver them. And Skylie Shore, who Parker and Cohen said spent well over $6,000 on tickets to the Scotland-Haiti match on June 13, but was forced to wait outside the stadium because she couldn’t access them as fans marched in on gameday.

“These examples reveal a consistent pattern: consumer deception, speculative ticket sales, and broken-hearted American families at the hands of resale ticketing companies like StubHub,” Parker and Cohen wrote.

In a statement, StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said that the platform does not allow speculative ticket sales, and blamed FIFA for users’ difficulty in accessing their tickets.

“We understand that attending the World Cup represents a significant investment in time and money, and we take our responsibility to every fan who books through our platform seriously,” Sterne said in a statement. “Many of the issues fans are facing trace back to the event organizer’s technology infrastructure, newly announced transfer restrictions, and a new app that was launched just a month ago.”

In response, FIFA said in a statement that the organization “can guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platforms” and that FIFA.com/tickets “is the official ticket sales channel” for the tournament.

NIVA and Fan Alliance are urging congressional leadership to place universal price-gouging limits on ticket resale, enact stringent fines on perpetrators and a violation-reporting mechanism for ticket scams, and require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment and consumer complaints.

The groups are not the only ones monitoring for evidence of shady ticket practices. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a consumer guidance in advance of the tournament, urging match-goers to beware of fraud and promising to hold offenders accountable. And the FBI in May put out a public service announcement, warning fans against purchasing tickets on copycat websites modeled on FIFA’s.

“With the World Cup coming to Kansas City, excitement is high and, unfortunately, so is the potential for fraud,” Hanaway said in her statement. “Missourians should be able to enjoy this once-in-a-generation event without fear of being deceived. My office will hold accountable anyone who seeks to exploit our families, and we stand ready to assist anyone who encounters suspicious activity.”