First, let’s start with one simple definition of espionage. According to federal law, specifically the espionage act, whoever copies anything connected with national defense, with the intent of either giving any advantage to any foreign nation or injure the US, is guilty of espionage. Also according to the espionage act, two or more people conspiring to violate espionage laws are also guilty of espionage.
So why on earth aren’t we, as a nation, discussing espionage in Trump’s latest scandal??
What we know, so far, is that Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort met with someone Trump Jr. believed was a foreign agent. They did this specifically to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. Or as Junior puts it, “opposition research.” But what kind of research were they talking about? I think we all know that Trump wasn’t exactly trying to find out if Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedein were secretly lovers, or if Bill Clinton has another side piece. We all know the main scandal of last year was Hillary Clinton’s emails, or more specifically, her email server. And as we all remember from last year, the main issue was whether or not Hillary Clinton had emails relating to national security on her private email server. In other words, as Secretary of State, there were insinuations that she had information relating to the national defense on her private server. Any foreign nation that has information regarding Clinton’s emails committed espionage to get that information.
And here is where Junior may be guilty of espionage, and admitted it through a series of tweets, of all things. He wanted information damaging to Hillary Clinton, was promised damaging information, and said that he loved it. He flat out admitted that he wanted damaging information on Clinton. There is no way this was about anything other than her emails, emails that relate to national security. Junior wanted a Russian agent to give this information, hopefully in time to have a national scandal for his daddy to win the election. He hoped that Russians would get this information. Hell, Daddy Trump even asked the Russians to get information regarding these emails live on national TV during one of the debates! Daddy Trump even mentioned the missing emails within a week of Junior’s meeting. Clearly, the current administration wanted Russian agents to obtain highly classified information regarding our national security from Clinton’s emails server.
At this meeting, from what we know, the Russian attorney specifically brought up the sanctions and how Russia could benefit from a Trump administration – namely, easing of sanctions in exchange for a resumption of American adoptions in Russia.
How is this not conspiracy to commit espionage? All of the elements are met, or at least close enough to being met that this must be discussed. Someone tried to copy information related to our national security – namely, Clinton’s emails that allegedly had classified information related to our defenses around the world. The Trumps conspired to get this, and conspired to do this to benefit Russia.
And why is no one addressing the fact that the Trumps, and the entire administration, should be investigated for espionage? I have been looking on the internet for articles on the possibility that any of the Trumps have committed espionage, and can find only a handful. Am I just missing something? The Trumps wanted Russian agents, or people they believed to be Russian agents, to get national security information from the former secretary of state. I have thought for months that Trump, or someone very close to him, is a Russian agent, and felt that that was too tin-foil hat to be real, but now I’m re-evaluating that.
And don’t get me started on the Logan Act violation that Junior may have admitted to….
Sorry for the ranting nature of this diary.