Steve "Halfwit" Witkoff gave instruction to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on how to get a favorable response out of Trump regarding the Witkoff-Putin appeasement plan.

Witkoff is working for Russia – not the United States.

A few days after Trump said that members of Congress should be "executed" for telling members of the armed forces to follow the law, we discover that Halfwit Witkoff is acting like a traitor. Members of both chambers of Congress from both parties are calling for Witkoff's removal.

A handful of US representatives have reacted furiously to a leaked recording in which the special envoy to Ukraine reportedly coached Moscow on how to handle Donald Trump, but most have so far remained mute on the revelation that American officials were advising a US adversary. Don Bacon, a Republican representative, called for Steve Witkoff’s immediate dismissal. “For those who oppose the Russian invasion and want to see Ukraine prevail as a sovereign & democratic country, it is clear that Witkoff fully favors the Russians,” the Nebraska lawmaker wrote on X. “He cannot be trusted to lead these negotiations. Would a Russian paid agent do less than he? He should be fired.” Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican wrote that the leak represented “a major problem” and “one of the many reasons why these ridiculous side shows and secret meetings need to stop”. He urged that the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, be allowed to “do his job in a fair and objective manner”. Democratic representative Ted Lieu went further, calling Witkoff an “actual traitor,” and adding: “Steve Witkoff is supposed to work for the United States, not Russia.” In a recording obtained by Bloomberg of a 14 October phone call between Witkoff and Yuri Ushakov, Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy aide, Witkoff said peace would require Moscow gaining control of Donetsk and potentially additional Ukrainian territory.

Journalist and historian Anne Applebaum at The Atlantic has this to say about the latest wound of Halfwit Witkoff ineptitude.

[T]he only way to persuade Russia to stop fighting is to put pressure on Russia. Not Ukraine, Russia. The Ukrainians have already said they will stop fighting and agree to a cease-fire right now, on the current lines of conflict. Yet Witkoff is seeking to persuade Trump not to put pressure on Russia, and we don’t really know why. Witkoff has no previous diplomatic experience, so perhaps he is naive. He spent many years in New York real estate, at a time when Russians were spending fortunes on property, so perhaps he feels gratitude. Maybe he’s helping Russia win because he has “the deepest respect for President Putin,” as he told Ushakov, and admires his brutality. Maybe he, or others in the White House entourage, have business interests tied to Russia—or hope to. In addition to discussing “peace,” Witkoff has also been, according to the document made public last week, talking with the Russians about American investments “in the areas of energy, natural resources, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, data centers, rare earth metal extraction projects in the Arctic.” Whatever the reason, Witkoff is prolonging the conflict. He is not promoting peace. His call to Ushakov was not, as Trump said last night, a normal negotiating tactic. Every time he intervenes, advocating for Putin’s positions, he encourages the Russians to think they can get Trump on their side, pull America away from Europe, break up NATO, and win the war. In other words, every time he intervenes on behalf of the Russians, he contributes to the deaths of Ukrainians, the attacks on infrastructure, the ongoing tragedy that affects millions of people.

There's obviously a conflict of interest if Witkoff has the potential to profit from a Russian dictated settlement in Ukraine.

Steve "Halfwit" Witkoff is not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Even last April when this was written, Witkoff already had an established reputation as a dumbass.

The Useful Idiot’s Useful Idiot

Witkoff has risen in the Trump administration as swiftly as measles cases in Texas. First, Trump dispatched him to the Middle East, perhaps reasoning that a novice diplomat should start in a region where countries have a long history of getting along superbly. How has that peacemaking gone so far? Well, let’s just say that Trump won’t be breaking ground on the Mar-a-Gaza Beach Club any time soon. But he was apparently so happy with Witkoff’s rookie performance that he added another crisis to his portfolio: Ukraine. With Witkoff now running America’s foreign policy, Secretary of State Little Marco will be lucky to be included in the next Signal chat with Jeff Goldberg. In Ukraine, Witkoff’s gifts as a useful idiot have been on magnificent display. On March 21 he appeared on the podcast of former Fox News host-slash-fellow useful idiot Tucker Carlson, where he announced that he “liked” the president of the Russian Federation. "I don't regard Putin as a bad guy," he astutely observed. Elsewhere on the podcast, he exhibited a shaky grasp of Ukrainian geography but a near-total mastery of Russian talking points. Struggling to list the four Ukrainian regions demanded by Russia as part of any peace settlement—Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk—Witkoff could only emit, "these so-called four regions, Donbas, Crimea." Carlson helpfully pitched in with Luhansk, using the Russian pronunciation—which, naturally, Tucker prefers—“Lugansk.” Witkoff dutifully repeated after him, before adding, confusingly, “and there’s two others.”

So Witkoff's main qualifications for office are that he lets Trump cheat at golf, and he's a billionaire.

Another description for Witkoff...

I can imagine Putin telling his cur Witkoff, "now go fetch Ukraine for me".

Related.

BTW, Trump likes to think he "holds all the cards" on Ukraine. He forgets that Europe holds trillions of cards.

Trump dealt major blow as Europe threatens ‘nuclear option’ if Ukraine deal goes left

European nations are reportedly weighing the "nuclear option" of destabilizing the American economy should Donald Trump abandon Ukraine and compromise continental security. Discussions between American and Ukrainian representatives resumed Sunday in Miami, with both parties working to hammer out a peace agreement. [ ... ] Insiders informed the WSJ that European leaders are weighing severe countermeasures in response, calculated to trigger economic turmoil across the United States. The proposed strategy includes liquidating trillions in American government bonds held by European governments. A swift sell-off could potentially trigger a crash in the value of the US dollar, instigate a liquidity crisis across the banking system, and cause a significant surge in borrowing costs. It could also plunge the American financial sector into a paralysis more severe than the 2008 crisis. A prominent European economist described the plan to the WSJ as a potential financial backlash that could hit the US harder than any external shock in modern history.

A rather strange postscript to the recent so called "peace plan" regarding Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Sec. of State Marco Rubio is putting distance between the proposal and the United States.

Rubio called the bipartisan delegation to the Halifax International Security Forum on Saturday afternoon, they said, while en route to Geneva for talks with Ukrainian officials. He described the plan as a Russian proposal, they said, and not a U.S. initiative.

That makes sense since it certainly reads like it was personally written by Putin and other Kremlin war criminals.

“He made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). “It is not our recommendation. It is not our peace plan. It is a proposal that was received, and as an intermediary, we have made arrangements to share it — and we did not release it. It was leaked.”’

Lil' Marco then tried to distance himself from his distancing.

Rubio, in a late Saturday message on X, disputed the notion that the U.S. wasn’t involved in drawing up the plan. “The peace proposal was authored by the U.S.,” he wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. But it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”

What's clear is that Rubio had little idea of what is going on and is being directed in a disordered way on what to say.

It was suspected a few days ago that the proposal was leaked by Moscow. Susan Glasser of the New Yorker implied as much on The Bulwark podcast in conversation with Tim Miller. She said that this was an attempt by Russia to embarrass Trump via the pea-brained Steve Witkoff. Witkoff's grasp of foreign policy, and Eastern Europe in particular, almost makes Trump seem like Zbigniew Brzeziński in comparison.

To be honest, Ukraine should be the country dictating terms – not Putin's Russia. People like Halfwit Witkoff may get orgasms from looking at Mercator projection maps of Russia, but it's Ukraine which has been punching way over its weight in this war.

There are news stories like this almost every day which show Ukraine destroying Russian infrastructure or military installations. They sometimes feature footage taken by people inside Russia itself.

In this operation Ukraine knocked out a large power station 120 km east of Moscow in Shatura.

Ukraine strikes Russian power and heat station in Moscow region

Ukraine struck a heat and power station in the Moscow region on Sunday with drones, triggering a major fire and cutting off heating for thousands in one of Kyiv's biggest attacks to date on a power station deep inside Russia. [ ... ] But early on Sunday, Ukrainian drones struck the Shatura Power Station, about 120 km (75 miles) east of the Kremlin, Moscow region governor Andrei Vorobyov said. Video footage on Telegram showed balls of flames and black smoke rising into the night sky from the power station. Reuters was able to confirm the location, though not the date of the video.

This is a collection of clips from recent Ukrainian military actions. The first 2+ minutes shows the attack on the Shatura power plant in Moscow Oblast.