Josh Marshall at TPM:
We’re far past the point where it matters whether President Trump is a ignorant and destructive fool or operates as some sort of agent of the Russian Federation. The upshot appears to be the same. The Washington Post reports that President Trump has tasked the Pentagon with analyzing withdrawing US troops from Germany.
While Trump’s actions are soothingly characterized as “routine” by (his) Pentagon spokesmen, our European Allies are deeply skeptical given his recent miserable and overtly hostile performance at the G-7:
Word of the assessment has alarmed European officials, who are scrambling to determine whether Trump actually intends to reposition U.S. forces or whether it is merely a negotiating tactic ahead of a NATO summit in Brussels, where Trump is again likely to criticize U.S. allies for what he deems insufficient defense spending.
Vladimir Putin’s main goal in conspiring with the Trump campaign to steal the U.S. election was to weaken the NATO Alliance and advance the sphere of Russian influence. Yesterday we learned from the New York Times much more about the “other” Russian collusion scandal, the manipulation by Russia of public opinion in Great Britain to support the “Brexit” vote by Britons to leave the European Union:
In 2016, Vladimir Putin reaped two of his greatest foreign policy triumphs in quick succession. The United Kingdom voted narrowly to exit the European Union, advancing a longstanding Russian goal of splitting Western allies that have long been united against it. Later that year, the United States voted even more narrowly to elect Donald Trump president.
On Friday evening, the New York Times revealed new detail about Russian involvement in the Brexit vote. The more we learn, the more clearly the pattern of behavior in the two countries becomes similar...
In Britain, Billionaire Arron Banks effectively bankrolled the “Brexit” referendum. Over the past three weeks he was exposed by The Guardian and the New York Times as fairly colluding with the Russians on the initiative:
Initially, he copped to having one meeting with Russian officials. After the Guardian obtained secret documents blowing up this claim, he admitted there were actually three meetings. Now the Times has even more information, and Banks concedes the number of covert meetings has grown to four.
At the secret meetings with Russians, Banks was dangled the prospect of lucrative gold and mining deals. In the course of speaking with the Times, Banks changed his story: “In interviews earlier this week, Mr. Banks initially said he knew nothing about the [mining] project. Then he later said he remembered hearing about it from the investment banker but did not pursue it.”
Why, oh why, does that have a familiar ring? Oops—well this might explain it:
There is a Trump connection, as the Sunday Times reports that Banks admitted that, months after the Brexit referendum, “he handed over phone numbers for members of Trump’s transition team to Russian officials” — though it’s not yet clear whose info he handed over, or what became of it.
What the British story illustrates more than anything is the incredible ease by which so-called “populists” in any country are co-opted with Russian money. Thus far Putin’s increasingly obvious ability to blackmail Trump over Trump’s acceptance of over 100 million dollars in dirty Russian loans to prop up his failing businesses during the Financial Crisis has had the practical effect of eliminating the U.S. from any relevant participation in the G-7, relegating the U.S. to second-class status in the eyes of its longstanding European Allies. Now Putin appears to be proceeding on a more direct level, with his Puppet-in-chief ordering the Pentagon to ”assess” its ability to reduce or eliminate the military deterrent to Russian aggression in the form of real, live U.S. troops stationed in Germany:
This is in advance of the NATO summit next month which will be followed shortly after by a summit with Vladimir Putin. The German troop presence news comes after we learned that in April Trump tried to persuade President Macron of France to leave the European Union.
Few, it seems, have ever pointed out the singularly odd circumstance of how a sleazy New York City real estate developer like Trump-- with no experience in government, no experience in foreign affairs (except perhaps with prostitutes) , and no experience in public service—has somehow, miraculously concluded that his entire Administration’s entire foreign policy should focus on satisfying Russian economic, military and geopolitical strategic interests:
Trump apparently ‘joked’ about pulling the US out of NATO with the Prime Minister of Sweden. More strikingly, he told G-7 members in Canada earlier this month that “NATO is as bad as NAFTA.”
When are our supposedly patriotic, flag-waving Republican politicians in control of the U.S. Congress going to do something about this Administration’s ongoing efforts to do turn this country’s foreign policy over to the Russian Federation?
I guess, never:
[T]the role of Russia, the efforts to liquidate NATO and the continuing and aggressive courtship of Putin show it is part of some broader agenda. Someone, eventually, will have to place some check on Trump’s power. For the moment, the entire cadre of political appointees in the administration and the leadership of Congress appears entirely inert and passive, if not outright supportive.
Apparently that tax cut for millionaires was just too important to them.