Banana Republic United States

There is a power struggle in the United States.

In the midst of a fight between Democrats and Republicans for control over the country, one figure plays a prominent role – Lanny J. Davis.

A man whose name was once associated with the term „Banana Republic“ as he participated in toppling democratically elected president of Honduras in behalf of corporate interests, now is actively trying to bring down Trump.

In order to „get rid of Trump“, Davis uses the same methods in United States he successfully used in Honduras 2009 coup d’état, which was maintained not through the use of force, but through the power of lobbying and spin.

Davis’s name always pops up whenever there is a Trump scandal in the news.

He played a big role in Russian collusion narrative as he was the one who was spoon-feeding journalists with anti-Trump stories.

While serving as a lawyer for Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, Davis was regarded as a reliable news source, and he used this position to push the story that Donald Trump colluded with Russians.

He was anonymously feeding the media with stories that Cohen witnessed Donald Trump accepting the Russians’ offer to share dirt on Hillary Clinton, although Cohen later told lawmakers behind closed doors that this is not true.

Davis publicly admitted that he was an anonymous source for the disputed CNN Trump Tower meeting story and also admitted lying about it on TV.

Davis also acknowledged he had served as an anonymous source for multiple news outlets who were trying to confirm the article after it was published.

Davis, who was eager before to push the narrative, has now backed away from the story, saying he’s “not certain” if the story is accurate.

After confronted about this, Davis said he thought he was asking CNN to investigate a hunch he had that Trump knew about the meeting with the Russian lawyer, but that he did not make his uncertainty “clear enough.”

“I can understand that they interpreted what I said as a confirmation, and have not blamed CNN,” Davis said. “I have blamed myself for not being more clear that, in my mind, I did not know the details about that meeting, and I should not have encouraged any reporter.”

Besides pushing unverified stories to the press, Davis also prepared Michael Cohen to testify before Congress House Oversight Committee, where Cohen told the committee that Trump is “becoming an autocrat,” adding that The Trump Organization was steeped in a culture of threatening people — sometimes physically — who might pose a threat to Trump.

According to GOP Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows of North Carolina, Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill, Davis “pushed” Cohen to testify before the House.

“This was my idea; nobody else’s,” Davis said, according to Jordan and Meadows who claim that Cohen’s appearance before the Committee is entirely a result of Davis’ orchestration.”

Davis was also a lawyer for Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash, whose name is now in the media for allegedly helping Trump in Ukraine to get dirt on Biden.

In his ‘mission’ to have Trump removed from office, Davis often places op-eds in newspapers and magazines; and his latest op-ed is a true „masterpiece“.

Davis co-wrote an Orwellian op-ed for „The Hill“, trying to convince people that „No“ means „Yes“, and that when Trump says „No quid pro quo ” he actually means „Yes quid pro quo“.

Davis writes in this op-ed that Trump uses elliptical code words, meaning that whatever the US President says, he’s thinking the opposite.

It’s like Davis uses George Orwell’s novel “1984″ as a playbook, as he tries to reverse the very meaning of words, like Orwell did in his book.

Instead “war is peace”, now  “No quid pro” means “Yes quid pro quo”, according to Davis.

This article in which Davis is trying to convince Americans that when they hear Trump saying „No collusion“, they should interpret that as an admission of guilt, offers us an insightful glimpse into how masters of spin operate.

And Lanny Davis is really man worth learning from.

He is a real heir to Edward Bernays, the father of public relations, the man who tricked Americans into eating bacon for breakfast.

Just like Bernays, Davis also uses various manipulation tactics to get what he wants.

His anti-Trump campaing is very similar to his anti-Zelaya campaign during 2009 coup d’etat that toppled Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.

At 4 a.m. on June 28, 2009, a battalion of 150 masked Honduran soldiers under orders from Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez initiated a shootout with the Presidential Honor Guard.

Honduras’s President Manuel Zelaya was then dragged in his pajamas onto a plane at gunpoint and left on the tarmac in San José, Costa Rica.

His removal from power was the response of Honduras’s ruling class to Zelaya’s decision to raise the minimum wage by sixty percent.

Elite business interests, including United Fruit Company, the corporation now known as Chiquita, were disturbed by Zelaya raising the minimum wage, so nobody was surprised that the country’s business council CEAL (the Honduran equivalent to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) wanted to spin the coup as constitutional, and to paint Zelaya as a Hugo Chavez-aligned would-be-dictator.

To push this message, CEAL then hired Lanny Davis (and his associate, Eileen M. O’Connor) from the lobbying firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP.

Davis was a longtime political insider described by the infamous G. Gordon Liddy as one who “can defend the indefensible.”

According to Robert White, former U.S. ambassador, “If you want to understand who the real power behind the [Honduran] coup is, you need to find out who’s paying Lanny Davis.”

The coup that ousted Zelaya clearly helped Chiquita’s interests, but considering the company’s history of interference in Latin American politics, it understandably kept a low profile during the crisis.

Through its membership in CEAL, Chiquita’s name never came up, and powerful lobbyists successfully attracted attention elsewhere.

The 2009 PR blitz is very similar to Davis ‘s current anti-Trump campaign.

Davis worked with a former Honduran foreign minister and Supreme Court Justice Guillermo Pérez-Cadalso to prep him for testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs; Davis also testified personally.

Right-wing Honduran legal “experts” made creative legal arguments about the legality of Zelaya’s removal, which were then cited by an official government report.

Honduras’ lobbying firm appeared to help organize trips to the country for sympathetic legislators, briefed reporters on their interpretation of events, and placed op-eds in newspapers and magazines; Davis appeared personally on talk shows and drafted his own op-eds alleging the coup’s constitutionality.

While Lanny Davis carried out his PR blitz on behalf of CEAL and the coup, Chiquita also maintained its own lobbyists from McDermott, Will & Emory, paying the firm $140,000 in 2009.

Chiquita has had a long relationship with McDermott, working with the lobbying firm since at least 1999.

Throughout the course of the coup crisis, Chiquita and CEAL maintained separate lobbying firms and the banana company successfully managed to avoid accusations of meddling in Honduran politics.

By the fall of 2009, though, the Honduran coup had slipped from American headlines.

So few noticed when Davis and O’Connor left Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe to join Chiquita’s firm, McDermott, Will & Emory; CEAL also brought their business to McDermott.

With American news media focusing attention elsewhere, perhaps Chiquita no longer felt it necessary to maintain the appearance of separation from the coup supporters.

The coup regime and its backers had successfully spun America into believing the coup was a constitutional response to an illegal power grab by a pro-Chavez president.

Most who were following the story, including policymakers, had accepted Zelaya’s removal as legal, and the “banana republic” allegations had faded from the limelight.

Now Davis is actively trying to bring down Trump, and he does not hide the fact that he is an avid Clinton supporter.

His made his career thanks to the Clintons.

Davis had met Bill and Hillary Clinton at Yale Law School, and was plucked from relative obscurity by Clintons to serve as special White House counsel — a job that amounted to serving as Clinton’s very public legal defender against a series of allegations, most notably the fundraising issues (think “Lincoln bedroom”) surrounding the incumbent’s 1996 re-election effort.

Davis, in a bit of good fortune, left the White House just before the Monica Lewinsky scandal began to come to light, but he remained loyal to Clintons who enabled him to became a sort of lawyer/consultant/communications adviser to many celebrities and companies.

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