Collusion

Strange challenges as a malevolent foreign power – Russia – has unequivocally attempted to spread disinformation, exacerbate polarization, targeted vulnerable voters with powerful influencers aimed at those vulnerabilities, and hacked sensitive encrypted information all as a part of an effort to secure the election political leaders in nations with democratic systems with favorable leanings towards Russia and Russian ambitions and destabilize its opponents. France, England, Germany, Austria… most of Western Europe… and with reams of physical evidence, the United States of America. There are no federal investigative and intelligence agencies that do not solidly believe that such Russian meddling did take place and is continuing to threaten our mid-term elections as well. Given the recent sanction votes, nearly unanimous in both Houses of Congress, virtually all those elected representatives share that opinion.

The investigation of Special Prosecutor, Robert Mueller, III into more than just “collusion” – add obstruction of justice, general issues of foreign meddling in our elections and money laundering to the mix – has an increasingly worried Donald Trump busy discrediting the investigators and peppering his base (who have sided with Trump at every turn) with false news such that most of the GOP Congressional delegation could never risk their wrath by impeaching their disruptor-in-chief. So let’s forget about all those meetings between Trump campaign officials and trolls offering inside information and help from Russia operatives, even if there might actually be evidence of overt collusion at that level.

Let’s look at the clear and convincing proof that Donald J Trump is currently colluding with the Russians – a continuation of his rather consistent stance – in a rather open and complete denial of the Russian interference. By refusing to enforce Congress’ mandatory sanctions against Russia, Donald Trump is colluding now. By undermining the FBI and the other federal agencies looking into this meddling, Donald Trump is colluding with Russia right now. With his constant tweets in support of Russia, telling the world that he believes Vladimir Putin’s denial of active election interference – despite what has become a tsunami of tangible and very clear and credible evidence to the contrary – Donald Trump is colluding with Russia right now.

But why? Genuine trust of Vladimir Putin’s word by a man whose word, by his own admission (read his book!) should not be trusted? Not exactly. He’s not a trusting man. Given Donald Trump’s sexual proclivities, his business practices with many resulting failures and Russia’s long history of gathering “nasty hard evidence” on their enemies, is there something even more sinister about Trump’s refusal to lead his country in an obvious defense of his nation’s voting system? Is it just hubris: I beat Hillary fair and square? Or a bit of each? But Donald Trump’s aiding and abetting of the Russian assaults on our elections is absolutely a lock-step-with-Russian-denials consistency that most certainly rises to the level of collusion.

Experts, being polite, may still be willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, but…: “‘It is astonishing to me that a president of the United States would take this so lightly or see it purely through the prism of domestic partisanship,’ said Daniel Fried, a career diplomat under presidents of both parties who is now at the Atlantic Council. He said it invariably raised questions about whether Mr. Trump had something to hide. ‘I have no evidence that he’s deliberately pulling his punches because he has to, but I can’t dismiss it. No president has raised those kinds of questions.’” New York Times, February 17^th. I do not think this is innocent.

The leader of the United States, when he’s not actively undermining the investigation rather overtly, just sits on his hands as this nation faces one of the greatest existential threats to its form of government in its history. “The indictment secured by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, underscored the broader conclusion by the American government that Russia is engaged in a virtual war against the United States through 21st-century tools of disinformation and propaganda, a conclusion shared by the president’s own senior advisers and intelligence chiefs. But it is a war being fought on the American side without a commander in chief.

“In 13 months in office, Mr. Trump has made little if any public effort to rally the nation to confront Moscow for its intrusion or to defend democratic institutions against continued disruption. His administration has at times called out Russia or taken action, and even Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, speaking in Germany on Saturday, called evidence of Russian meddling ‘incontrovertible.’ But the administration has been left to respond without the president’s leadership.” Peter Baker writing for the February 17^th New York Times. If not is outright opposition to the entire inquiry and its allegations against a clearly malevolent Russia.

“The nation’s intelligence agency directors, including those appointed by Mr. Trump, unanimously warned in congressional testimony that Russia was already meddling in this year’s midterm elections.

“Mr. Trump’s own aides readily acknowledge the reality that he does not. Besides describing Russian interference as undeniable on Saturday, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, his national security adviser, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, said Mr. Mueller’s charges made clear that Russia had been engaged in a ‘sophisticated form of espionage’ against the United States… ‘With the F.B.I. indictment, the evidence is now really incontrovertible and available in the public domain,’ he said.

“Late Saturday [2/17] night, however, Mr. Trump, contradicted General McMaster, writing on Twitter shortly before midnight that his aide “forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia” and the Democrats.

“In a second late-night tweet, Mr. Trump said that the F.B.I. missed warning signs of the gunman who killed 17 people at a Florida school on Wednesday [2/14] because it was too focused on the Russia investigation. ‘Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter,’ he wrote. ‘This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.’

“Mr. Trump has long viewed reports of Russian intrusion as a threat to his legitimacy, a way for Democrats, the news media or the ‘deep state’ to question his victory in the Electoral College over Hillary Clinton in 2016. When his Justice Department indicted the 13 Russians and three Russian entities on Friday for trying to ‘sow discord in the U.S. political system,’ the president focused on the fact that no evidence was presented that he or his campaign was knowingly involved.” NY Times. And even though these indictments did not address the direct collusion issue hovering about this entire inquiry, Trump’s obsession with that word became the focus of most of his reactive tweets, once again claiming proof of his lack of collusion with anyone in wrongfully influencing the 2016 election.

Bottom line: even if Donald Trump did not “collude” during the 2016 election process – but methinks the Pres doth protest too much – his subsequent actions and inactions seem to provide overwhelming proof that Donald Trump is now the “Colluder-in-Chief.”

I’m Peter Dekom, and we live in exceptionally dangerous times that try our souls and test our commitment to democracy.