Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at today’s parliament session:
For weeks now, the supposed opposition has been desperately attempting to politically exploit a legal process in the USA that has no links at all to Albania, the government or me personally. What has actually happened?
A former high-level FBI official, namely the head of the counterintelligence division in New York, Charles McGonigal, is accused of illegal cooperation with the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
During their probe, prosecutors have found, according to them, a series of violations connected with the trips of the former FBI counterintelligence chief to our region, with the indictment noting he has visited Albania and has been meeting with me. The indictment also notes that he failed to disclose travels or meetings in the region and has borrowed money from an Albanian-American citizen, the so-called person A. In its lines, the indictment also includes the U.S. investigation into Russian money for the Democratic Party, noting that person A has received material regarding this case.
The indictment also refers to another person B, who used to serve as my informal advisor several years ago and a friend of the defendant. Nobody else except the former senior FBI official Charles McGonigal stands accused in this case.
These are the facts as presented in the indictment forwarded to the court in the United States of America, But despite a long investigation, which I only found out about when it made to the media, more precisely when they were asked by an American journalist from Insider, if I’m not mistaken, the indictment contains not a single charge and not even other piece of information in addition to correctly and repeatedly reporting my meetings with the senior American official, but also the true fact that he has talked with me about the Russian threat. However, the front of the political-media prosecution has embarked on another investigative, judicial and prosecutorial process domestically here in Albania with a revolutionary momentum. I think there is little need for explanations as to who the authors of this misguided self-judgment are and why they are doing this. They are known and they stand out worldwide for such initiatives and one cannot mistake them for someone else and they cannot become someone else either.
It is precisely those who once in power committed all the wrongdoings they are accusing us of day and night since they became political opposition. Not only is there no need for more details about them, but I am here today not for them and I will never do so again. I am here and I would attend parliament’s sessions whenever necessary to respect the voters that I have the honor to represent and also the majority lawmakers who I could not leave alone in this absurd motion for debate today. This is the most absurd debate motion in history of this Assembly at the height of divisions and confusion among the opponents of this majority in the form of a conspiracy craze that the Hollywood spy filmmakers would turn down as a delusional depravity of human fantasy. I have been thinking and I have already stated before all this tumultuous situation was about to start at the beginning of the new year that I will no longer make my energy available to the daily fire of the constantly conflicting and rowdy politics.
I no longer wish to arm myself with the vocabulary of this heinous political war on a daily basis and I am not willing at all to fit in with an opposition that only repeats itself in the infinity of a dead-end of successive defeats and masquerades.
Unfortunately, I have been willingly and fervently involved in this heinous war over the years and I have unwittingly become a part of that dark, evil and vile group that has alienated people with politics, making them think that all of us in its arena are merely a massive excrement of the nation divided in half. Enough!
There are so many useful things to make outside this contaminating inhumane loop. Speak up, shout, scream, accuse, slander, threaten, curse, fabricate, insult, fabricate, protest, blackmail, do whatever you wish to do, but I will no longer render you the pleasure to confront me either here or outside these walls, as it has been the case to date. Convince yourselves and tell as many others as you can that I am hiding, I am scared, I am running away and I have perished. If you wish, never again leave the crossroads of your imaginary revolutions to topple me, but I will no longer bother confronting you in this endless wave of your swords, a national abomination that I unwittingly and unwillingly have become an inseparable part of. However, it is now the tenth year you have embarked on the path of ousting me several times every year. You have dragged me every two years, you have forced me to flee once every year. You have succeeded in gathering 100,000 or even 200 000 people to protest for the 120th time on the boulevard, forcing me to hide in Dajt Mountain 60 times and 60 more times without knowing where to hide.
This is not real politics, but it is its most degraded, most vulgar and most shameful version.
Politics is a completely different thing; noble and useful for the people and with the people, for the country and the coming generations. It is about delivering together with others on things that one cannot do alone.
In the worst case scenario, I will rarely be very committed to treatment of the virus of this grave and serious politics and illness, primarily in me.
I will now return to the persons A , B, C and so on and so forth, starting from me myself and focusing on the facts only.
It is deliriously repeated all day and night the following sentence that “the Prime Minister is mentioned 14 times in the indictment and it is being repeatedly stated that it is about 14 counts, one graver than the other.
The first time I am mentioned at point 8, page 3:
“Person B operated as an informal advisor to the Prime Minister of Albania”
Person B operated as an informal advisor to the Prime Minister. It is true.
Dorian Duçka used to serve as an informal advisor to me in those years, but where crime and implication are to be found in this fact?
Point 22, page 6, second time;
“On September 9, 2017, in Albania, defendant McGonigal met with Person B and the Prime Minister of Albania”.
Very correct. It is a fact,
The question is, where can one find the crime and implication in this fact?
Third time: “Defendant McGonigal urged the Prime Minister of Albania to be careful about awarding oil field drilling licenses in Albania to Russian front companies”.
Absolutely true and this is a fact that the former head of FBI counterintelligence division in New York told me to be cautious about Russian companies that can use others to gain access to the strategic oil sector. But is there any crime or implication in this fact?
Fourth time: Defendant McGonigal provided FBI paraphernalia to the Prime Minister of Albania in the presence of Person B.
This is also very correct. But how can one brand handing or receiving symbolic gifts as a crime or implication when this is randomly the case upon every visit exchanges?
In the case in question, while visiting the FBI division in New York, the counterintelligence chief gave me a FBI cap I still hold in my office.
Fifth time: Point 25, page 7. I am reading the indictment only and I am quoting the 14 times that mentioning my name, according to you, means that hell has broken loose:
“Following his September travel to Albania, defendant McGonigal maintained an ongoing relationship with the Prime Minister of Albania”.
It is a completely true fact. After the September meeting – I admitted it when asked months ago – we had a relationship with the FBI counterintelligence chief.
Is it a crime or implication to maintain ties with the FBI counterintelligence chief? This is what the indictment says.
Sixth time: Point 28, page 7
“Defendant McGonigal had met with the Prime Minister of Albania in Albania and with a Kosovar politician in Kosovo”.
Another meeting. Yes, he met me here in Albania. The remaining question: Is there any crime or implication in this?
The indictment I am reading now refers to no talks at all.
The imaginary talks are something else.
Seventh time: Point34, page 48
“On November 20, 2017, defendant McGonigal met with the Prime Minister of Albania in Albania”.
Again, on November 20, 2017, the defendant McGonighal met with the Prime Minister of Albania in Albania. Yes, absolutely correct. Well, I don’t precisely remember whether the date was 20, but they are definitely correct. It was November20.
But is there any evidence of crime or implication in this?
Eighth time: Point 36, page 8
“On November 25, 2017, defendant McGonigal informed the Department of Justice prosecutor referenced above of a potential new criminal investigation involving a U.S citizen who had registered to perform lobbying work in the United Stated on behalf of an Albanian political party different from the one in which the Prime Minister was a member”
And the indictment goes on and focuses on the fact that an American citizen, registered in the United States of America to lobby for a party that is not the Prime Minister’s political party. There is no reason for me to doubt about that, I personally, because they who have written that know quite well it, but I personally have written as a fact drawn after having read the indictment, because the truth is the security chief has never told me and I never asked him to do so, of course not because I was shy or because I didn’t want to ask him, but because I know pretty well the ethical limit between the post of the Prime Minister and the high-level officials from other countries, but the question one would ask is: where crime or implication are to be found in this?!
A narrative as hallucinating as hilarious is witnessed every day on how states function or how certain foreign officials act, against whom the cherishers of this narrative hold a deep grudge.
According to them, the U.S. Department of State is “a pie shop” that receives curd supply from me, “dough” from Sorros, “rolling pin” from Charles, “wood” for the oven from person A, whose origin is Tropoja, “the pan” from person B, whose origin is Skrapar, whereas the Secretary of State kindles the fire with his signature and the pie is baked and then distributed in Tirana’s bazaar to poison the heart of the opposition people.
What a vision for the world and imagine these have ruled Albania.
These are the ones who have governed Albania. Look at the way they see the world.
But how can one possibly imagine the United States, the world’s superpower as “a pie shop” like the ones built along Lana riverside once upon a time, the ones built illegally, but with the blessing of these bodyguards and drivers from the democratic December movement, where one could visit such places to receive false mortgage stamps, to obtain permission for property occupations, to spy on someone to take their place later or to make friends to beat people who obstructed the lobby of democratic capitalism.
