By the time you read this, everything could be horribly out of date. At the pace things are moving, it is hard to see what will happen between now (Tuesday evening), and Sunday. One thing is clear—Impeachment is coming. On Twitter, Trump supporters (or bots) are claiming this is all TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome). It is not, it is about the rule of law, and a president who thinks he is above the law. The question now becomes, will the Republicans grow a backbone and put country over party, or will they be sycophants for a man who, in all honesty, had he not come from a wealthy family would be a failure. He would have likely never gotten through college, and would have failed at every business venture without daddy’s money, as no one would have bailed him out. At this point in his life, without family money he would be living destitute and alone.
Donald Trump has put this nation in danger. This is not political, and for me it never has been political. He is unfit for office. He does not have the intelligence or temperament for the job—he is also nothing more than a two-bit grifter and con man. Becoming president of the United States was just a score for him, and we the people are nothing more than marks for his criminal enterprise.
His most recent transgression, the whistle-blower complaint over something said on a call with Ukraine, is extremely disturbing, but is just one of many national security issues with Trump. A CIA informant within the Russian government had to be extracted because of Trump’s big mouth.
A person directly involved in the discussions said that the removal of the Russian was driven, in part, by concerns that President Donald Trump and his administration repeatedly mishandled classified intelligence and could contribute to exposing the covert source as a spy.
Prior to that, Trump gave classified information to the Russian ambassador and Russian foreign minister.
President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.
The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.
But her emails … Trump has also disclosed the locations of nuclear submarines, and after a failed rocket launch in Iran, Trump tweeted a highly classified photo of the launch site:
President Trump has tweeted what experts say is almost certainly an image from a classified satellite or drone, showing the aftermath of an accident at an Iranian space facility.
Of course some of the most troubling conversations Trump has had with world leaders would be the ones he has had with Vladimir Putin of Russia. We simply have no idea what he has revealed or discussed with the Russian dictator.
President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.
He even could not keep his mouth shut about his beloved, and stupid, border wall.
After Trump bragged about the strength of the wall’s concrete (“So if you think you’re going to cut it with a blowtorch, that doesn’t work because you hit concrete,” he reportedly said), the President started talking about the technology behind the wall sections.
“They’re wired so that we will know if somebody’s trying to break through,” Trump told reporters.
That’s when [Army Chief of Engineers Lt. Gen. Todd] Semonite had to tell Trump, “Sir, there could be some merit in not discussing that.”
When I was a young enlisted man in the U.S. Army I had a security clearance. We had code books for the radios that were classified, we had equipment that was attached to the radios that was classified. When on the East/West German border, I could not take photos of the ops room, or discuss anything I heard in that room. Nor could I take photos of the inside of the tower that overlooked the border. I could not write home about the the things I saw or did while there. If we came in contact with an East German or Soviet patrol on the border, we were not allowed to speak or make any kind of gesture to the soldiers on the other side, we could not take an armored vehicle within 50 meters of the border, and we could not point an automatic crew-served weapon across the border. Disclosing any information that was classified, from confidential up to top secret, would have been a one-way ticket to a court martial.
If I could be responsible enough to not disclose classified information when I was between the ages of 18 and 22, then I strongly feel that the president of the United States of America, at the age of 73, should be able to keep his damn mouth shut. If he can’t, well, he better call his tailor and get fitted for an orange jumpsuit. Because he is not above the law.