Trump Pardon Buries FBI's Secret Work for Putin's Oligarchs

[gfarber]

14. Rossini Pardons

In January of twenty-six’s dawn,
When frost on the Potomac shone,
Donald Trump decreed with a stroke,
That an old Bureau bloke
Be pardoned and left well alone.

This agent declined to explain
His ties that were anything but plain—
With Oleg Deripaska in the mix,
And Dmitry Rybolovlev’s tricks,
Whose circles knew Vladimir Putin by name.

Six months after donors had weighed
Three and a half million paid,
From kin of Herrera Velutini,
The timing seemed hardly teeny—
To super PAC coffers conveyed.

The record was sealed with a thud,
Stamped shut in bureaucratic mud;
What services quietly flowed
To networks once sanction-bestowed
Stayed locked like a file under stud.

Mark Rossini once walked with a pass,
Through databases none else could amass;
A felony back in ’09,
Then ventures less easy to shine—
With partners whose reputes would crass.

For Charles McGonigal too
Took rubles that weren’t Bureau-blue;
From Deripaska’s own store
He pocketed plenty—and more—
Now prison’s his long rendezvous.

Thus pardons for Rossini’s side,
With Herrera and Vázquez allied,
Cast history tidy and neat:
A whistleblower saved from defeat—
While awkward old chapters must hide.

So Fifth-Amendment replies
And inner-circle ties
Grow faint in the sanctioned cold mist;
And what in those dossiers exists
Remains where the key never lies.