Winston Churchill famously declared that even he, the celebrated political prognosticator, could not "forecast to you the action of Russia. "It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma," he said in October 1939. Donald Trump got himself into this Russian mess when he started money laundering for the Russian mob through his casino and by borrowing from Russian banks when no other banks would loan to him. I’m sure that Donald Trump had no idea what he was getting himself into and that by selling his soul to Vladimir Putin he would have made a better bargain if he had sold it to Satan Himself. Nevertheless, Trump made his Faustian bargain and now the entire country is involved.
The latest development in the Trump-Russia saga is that last Thursday night Trump admitted freely to obstruction of justice while being interviewed by Lester Holt in front of millions. Trump admitted to asking James Comey if he was under investigation. This is highly improper and legal experts immediately told NBC News that was the case. "There generally shouldn't be communications about pending investigations and if you need an explanation why, see Watergate, basically," said Kathleen Clark, an ethics expert at Washington University's School of Law. Ok, let's see Watergate. Here is a copy of the Watergate Articles of Impeachment I call your attention to numbers 4, 7, and 8.
4) interfering or endeavouring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and Congressional Committees;
Firing the individual in charge of an investigation could be construed, to any reasonable mind, as interfering with the "conduct of an investigation." Next.
7) disseminating information received from officers of the Department of Justice of the United States to subjects of investigations conducted by lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States, for the purpose of aiding and assisting such subjects in their attempts to avoid criminal liability;
This is a real doozy. Trump, in this context, is himself the "subject of investigation." Trump had the hubris to ask Comey if he was under investigation, when Trump knew or should have known that it is illegal for the White House to make inquiry to the FBI about an ongoing investigation in which the White House is involved. This is what Trump said to Lester Holt last Thursday night:
"I actually asked him" if I were under investigation, Trump said, noting that he spoke with Comey once over dinner and twice by phone.
"I said, if it's possible would you let me know, am I under investigation? He said, 'You are not under investigation.'"
"I know I'm not under investigation," Trump told Holt during the 31-minute White House interview.
Comey’s version of the story is that he did not tell Trump that he was not under investigation by the FBI. Another Trump/Comey exchange that is debated is when Trump asked Comey for his "loyalty" as if that was an appropriate thing to do and then later on added, "What's wrong with that?" Apparently Trump doesn't understand that the head of the FBI needs to be a non-partisan advocate of truth. Comey's version of that occasion is that Comey declined to pledge his loyalty but promised instead to be honest.
8) making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States and personnel of the Committee for the Re-election [this is from Watergate, remember] of the President, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct.
This is an even bigger doozy than number 7. The morning after the Lester Holt interview, last Friday morning, Trump tweeted, “When James Clapper himself, and virtually everyone else with knowledge of the witch hunt, says there is no collusion, when does it end?”
First, it’s interesting that Trump characterizes an FBI investigation as a "witch hunt" isn't it? It certainly was no witch hunt back in the day when Hillary's emails were the object of scrutiny. In that instance an FBI inquiry was a holy quest, now it's a witch hunt.
Secondly, in this instance Trump actually deceives the public into believing that the investigation was concluded at some previous time, exculpating Trump completely. This is blatantly false, and this blatantly falsehood was picked up and rebroadcast by none other than Mike Pence. Pence's comment Friday morning on Capitol Hill was, “As has been stated repeatedly and the president has been told, he's not under investigation. There is no evidence of collusion between our campaign and any Russian officials.” There is nothing but evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and Clapper was on CNN last night talking about Russian interference with the 2016 election, and how that was deleterious to American institutions. Propagandist par excellence Mike Pence lied here to the American people because the Fox News manual on How To LIe To The Public, if such a thing would exist, would undoubtedly specify, "Tell the base what it wants to/needs to hear."
The most basic fact underlying this particularly falsehood of Trump/Pence’s is that James Clapper is no longer in government. His final day in office was January 20, 2017. He cannot speak knowledgeably about ongoing investigations because he's no longer in the loop. And if he was still in the loop, he still could not speak about an ongoing investigation, because it is illegal to do so. Furthermore, these comments by Pence and Trump deliberately deceive the public into believing that the investigation was concluded at some point in the past and that's patently untrue. This investigation is, if anything, heating up as never before.
James Clapper was on CNN speaking with Jake Tapper Sunday night and Clapper made it very clear that he was not an expert on the Trump-Russia investigation and that he did not mean for his comments to be construed as “exculpatory.”... Read the following and you'll see how many light years there are between what Clapper actually said and what Trump and Pence said that he meant. From CNN:
The intelligence community’s assessment of Russian interference in the U.S. election, released in January with Clapper’s input, did not mention “political collusion,” because Clapper didn’t know about that issue one way or the other, being unaware of the FBI investigation.
“We did not -- there was no -- no reporting in that intelligence community assessment about political collusion. We did not -- I did not have any evidence, did not know about the investigation.”
“You didn't even know that the FBI was conducting an investigation?” host Jake Tapper asked Clapper.
“I did not, and even more importantly, did not know the content or the status of that investigation,” Clapper replied.
“And there's all kinds of reasons why that's so, but this -- these are sensitive. We try to keep them as compartmented as possible. And, importantly, these invariably involve U.S. persons. And so we try to be very deferential to that," Clapper said.
“So, my statements should not be considered exculpatory, as -- to use a legal term.”
Finally, Clapper’s additional comments to Jake Tapper last night were anything but complimentary to Trump: “I think in many ways our institutions are under assault both externally -- and that's the big news here is the Russian interference in our election system -- and I think as well our institutions are under assault internally,"
And this patent falsehood about Clapper exculpating Trump, when Clapper says he never meant that, is a mirror image of the lies told in March, when ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, was investigating Trump's absurd allegations of being wiretapped by Barack Obama. Here's an excerpt from a conversation Schiff had with Chuck Todd on the subject:
And I hope that we can put an end to this wild goose chase because what the president said was just patently false. And the wrecking ball it created now has banged into our British allies and our German allies, it’s continuing to grow in terms of damage, and he needs to put an end to this.
I suspect what’s really at root here, Chuck, is this is just how the president does business. Now maybe this is the way he conducted his real estate business with half-truths and sometimes no-truths, and a lot of bluster. That, in my opinion, is no way to run a business. But it’s an even worse way to run a country.
It’s dangerous to us, it’s already alienating allies, and as George Will so correctly pointed out, when there is a crisis over North Korea or Iran or whatnot, and every president has one in their term, we need to be able to believe our president and he’s making it very, very difficult.
Trump is very much like the boy who cried wolf in that if he ever does tell the truth about anything, which is unlikely, he probably won't be believed. At this point one thing is certain, if/when Schiff gets Trump on a witness stand Schiff will clean Trump's clock, if Schiff's handling of the wiretapping debacle is any indication. The Trump-Russia issue is like a pan of popcorn now exploding in all directions and who knows when a hearing might be convened and witnesses called to testify, but read this piece from the New York Times which described how Adam Schiff handled that matter back on March 20th:
As attack dogs go, Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, is more labradoodle than Doberman, his partisanship disguised by a thick fur of intense preparation, modulated locution and gentle accusations.
So in a hearing on Monday [March 20, 2017] of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Mr. Schiff, a doe-eyed former federal prosecutor, politely probed James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, and carefully laid out the history of the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russian officials. It was a performance that showed how an avalanche of information can leverage the limited power of the minority party to damage a president.
“His public style of questioning is very similar to his nonpublic style of interacting with colleagues,” said Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina and another former prosecutor who as chairman of the committee investigating the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, was known for his pointed, even excitable style. “The courtroom is different from a committee hearing room in almost every way, but Adam has managed to make the transition well.”
Interestingly, Trey Gowdy is purportedly being considered by Trump as the replacement for James Comey. I wonder if Trump is aware of how much Gowdy admires Adam Schiff?
Adam Schiff, just for your information, was a United States attorney in Los Angeles, where he convicted the first F.B.I. agent indicted for espionage in an old-style Cold War case involving a honey trap named Svetlana.
Maybe history will record Mr. Schiff as convicting the first U.S. President indicted for treason. Wouldn't that be lovely?
The Trump-Russia issue is only getting hotter with each passing day. Dan Rather made a comment on his Facebook page this weekend, "I see the swellings of civic engagement and action. I hear the voices of those who demand that this subversion of our national ideals shall not stand. I have covered social movements of the past, and never have seen one where so much power and numbers lie on the side of the opposition."
We must never lose sight of what Rather said here, that we, the opposition, have the power and the numbers. We, the Democrats, have been gaslighting ourselves that we don't have as much power as we do and that the Republicans are going to continue to get away with murder. Dan Rather just gave us a heads up. The Republicans may be controlling the House and the Senate, but we are controlling the horizontal and the vertical, if we'll just believe we are. The spotlight is glaring down on Russia. Let's shift our focus and believe that we can bring Trump and his fellow swamp denizens down and to justice. The first step to winning is believing that you can, and si se puede, yes we can.