It really has become an either -or situation…Either T is for the American interests or he is not. The fact that there is an apparent fork in the road is an excrutiating reality we now face. And more so for the R’s.
Either Donald Trump is flat-out an agent of Russian interests—maybe witting, maybe unwitting, from fear of blackmail, in hope of future deals, out of manly respect for Vladimir Putin, out of gratitude for Russia’s help during the election, out of pathetic inability to see beyond his 306 electoral votes. Whatever the exact mixture of motives might be, it doesn’t really matter.
Or he is so profoundly ignorant, insecure, and narcissistic that he did not realize that, at every step, he was advancing the line that Putin hoped he would advance, and the line that the American intelligence, defense, and law-enforcement agencies most dreaded.
But never before have I seen an American president consistently, repeatedly, publicly, and shockingly advance the interests of another country over those of his own government and people.
Just prior to the Helsinki meeting, Jonathan Chait (NY Magazine) wrote an article “Meeting With His Counterpart — Or His Handler? A plausible theory of mind-boggling collusion”.
Chait is sketching out the underlying theme that was realized today in Finland, that yes, T is very beholden to Russia, and will do for them what they want because
a) Long term relationship working with them in laundering money, getting loans for buildings/golf courses (when no one would lend T any money)
b) Beholden to Russia because the Russians have dirt on him (tape?, illegal activities) and a theme that media has been promoting - Putin has Kompromat
c) And the level of T’s patriotism towards Putin, has now gotten to a treasonous level, where people in the intelligence community are letting slip
"In congressional testimony on Russian election interference last year, Brennan hinted that some Americans might have betrayed their country.
This article makes conjectures that Trump may have been deeply embedded with the Russians for a long time. It is a deep read, putting together intelligence, financial motive and the apparent contradictory behavior that T displays - part autocrat/part dummy/part narcissist/part all powerful condemning and disrupting the existing international treaties, relationships which could only be termed as doing Putin’s bididing.
We now have a national crisis on our hands. Who do we trust?..It sure looks like it can never be T, because he is betraying all that America has stood for - NATO, a nation which accepts immigrants, supports free press, free and fair elections, believes in the separation of powers, upholds the laws of the land, supporting this nation’s education system, leads in promoting human rights issues and so many other American ideals.
We have run out of plausible reasons why T acts the way he does unless Putin is in charge. Treason is the next potential indictment up.
The end of the article summaries it best
Shortly before Trump’s inauguration, according to Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman, Israeli intelligence officials gathered at CIA headquarters, where they were told something astonishing: Russia, the agency believed, had “leverages of pressure” over the incoming president. Therefore, the agency advised the Israelis to consider the possibility that Trump might pass their secrets on to Russia. The Israelis dismissed the warning as outlandish. Who could believe that the world’s most powerful country was about to hand its presidency to a Russian dupe? That the United States government had, essentially, fallen?
A few months later, Trump invited Russian diplomats into the Oval Office. He boasted to them that he had fired “nut job” James Comey. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” At the same meeting, Trump passed on to the Russians a highly sensitive intelligence secret Israel had captured from a valuable source inside ISIS. It was the precise danger Israel had been cautioned about.
Like many of the suspicious facts surrounding Trump’s relations with Russia, it was possible to construct a semi-innocent defense. Maybe he just likes to brag about what he knows. Maybe he’s just too doddering to remember what’s a secret. And as often happens, these unwieldy explanations gained general acceptance. It seemed just too crazy to consider the alternative: It was all exactly what it appeared to be.
This is a Haaretz (Israeli paper) and Reuters (US) article with a lot of quotes from Tony Schwart who was a ghostwriter on “Art of the Deal.”
Tony Schwartz, who ghost wrote Trump’s 1987 bestseller, ‘The Art of the Deal,’ says that Trump has likely been an “asset” of the Russian government for at least 30 years.
More tepid conservative posturing about T’s stance towards Russian election meddling, and questioning why T is deferring to Putin. This conservative newspaper does describe how dangerous T’s remarks on Monday are and are a destabilizing factor on the world stage, and for the Intelligence community and Republicans.
But Monday’s Helsinki event will go down as more than Donald being Donald, and protecting his electoral win. It represents a lot more.
Posting this WSJ article in full because there is a paywall.
WSJ Politics Capital Journal
Trump Leaves GOP, Intelligence Community and Allies in the Hot Seat
President didn’t challenge Putin on interference in the 2016 presidential election, the annexation of Crimea or other contentious issues
By Gerald F. Seib
July 16, 2018 4:18 p.m. ET
It was possible that Vladimir Putin would be the man in a tough spot after his summit meeting Monday with President Donald Trump.
Instead, most of the squirming is being done not by the Russian leader, but by Republicans in Congress, by the American intelligence community and by overseas allies.
All of them were left in limbo by Mr. Trump’s decision not to challenge Mr. Putin publicly about any of the toughest issues between Washington and Moscow: Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its interference in eastern Ukraine, the poisoning of Russian exiles in London or Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
At least at the postsummit press conference, Mr. Putin escaped the meeting in Helsinki with the U.S. president appearing to accept his denials of official Russian interference in American politics, and without having been called out by his counterpart on any of those other deeds.
In one indicator of how that went down back in Russia, as Mr. Putin flew home a headline on the website of RT, the Russian television network, blared: “I wanted Trump to win—Putin.”
But for Mr. Trump’s potential friends, the equation was different. Most Republicans want a tougher line on Russia than the president offered. The intelligence community has said repeatedly—including in a statement issued just hours after the close of the summit—that it believes Russia meddled in the 2016 election, while the nation’s top intelligence official, Trump appointee Dan Coats, said just last week the Russians are preparing to do so again.
Allies such as Angela Merkel of Germany and Emmanuel Macron of France having been publicly skewered by Mr. Trump, now doubtless will wonder why Mr. Putin got no such rebuke—and whether the president will have their back as they seek to continue economic sanctions and otherwise confront Mr. Putin over Russia’s interference in Ukraine.
There are, of course, others who will find no problem in how Mr. Trump chose to handle the summit and the public presentation of it. Though Trump voters are only marginally more favorable toward Mr. Putin and Russia than are other Americans—just 19% of Trump voters told Wall Street Journal/NBC News pollsters this spring they saw Russia as an ally, compared with 16% of Americans generally—Trump voters also have shown consistently that they are inclined to trust the president’s handling of Russia. “
Republicans should defend the president,” said John Feehery, a former top Republican staffer in the House. “I watched the press conference and I found it to be about what I expected it to be, typical Trump. It wasn’t treasonous. It wasn’t embarrassing.”
More Republicans expressed open disagreement with the president’s approach, though. The most vociferous, not surprisingly, was Sen. John McCain, the most outspoken of GOP critics, who issued a blistering statement that called Mr. Trump’s press conference “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.” Mr. Trump, he added, had “abased himself…before a tyrant.”
Former House Speaker and Trump supporter Newt Gingrich called the president’s handling of the day “the most serious mistake of his presidency.”
Others in the GOP were more measured. House Speaker Paul Ryan, as is his wont, disagreed with what the president said without being confrontational. Whereas Mr. Trump said he didn’t see “any reason” Russia would have interfered in the election, Mr. Ryan said in his statement: “There is no question that Russia interfered in our election…”
It’s hard to know exactly why Mr. Trump chooses to take such a sharply different tack. It is clear that he thinks any talk of Russian intervention to damage Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign has the effect of undermining the legitimacy of his victory. He also wants Russia’s help on denuclearizing North Korea and shrinking Iran’s presence in Syria. It also may be that he’s simply fond of the Russian leader.
In any case, it’s similarly unclear whether either fellow Republicans or those in the intelligence and law-enforcement communities will do anything after the summit to respond to Mr. Trump’s approach on Russia.
As a political matter, it seems likely the fire from other Republicans will be limited in scope and duration. Doug Heye, a longtime GOP congressional and campaign operative, predicts “hand-wringing statements, but nothing serious or widespread.”
The primary-season defeat of South Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Sanford, who had broken with Mr. Trump, in particular “shows that making criticism of Trump personal in nature will backfire electorally,” Mr. Heye said.
Mr. Heye does think, though, that Republican senators such as Florida’s Marco Rubio and Nebraska’s Ben Sasse have shown that it is possible to push back on Mr. Trump on substantive matters rather than on personal terms. That raises the question of whether there may be moves in Congress to force Mr. Trump into a tougher position—or at least to ensure he keeps in place economic sanctions on Moscow.
As for the intelligence community, the question is whether more dissent, or even resignations, are possible after the rift exposed on Monday.
Last night’s Washington Post article, links and names GOP Operative/Consultant Paul Erickson with members of this group.
“sought to organize a meeting between then-candidate Donald Trump and Alexander Torshin, Butina’s Russian colleague and a former Russian senator, at a May 2016 NRA convention.”
Butina is accused of trying to cultivate relationships with American politicians to establish “back channel” lines of communication and seeking to infiltrate U.S. political groups, including an unnamed “gun rights organization,” to advance Russia’s agenda. Descriptions in court papers match published reports about Butina’s interactions with the NRA.
The case, which is not part of the special counsel investigation into Russian interference, lays out the strongest allegations to date of American involvement in Russia’s influence operations.
Butina was allegedly assisted in her efforts by a U.S. political operative who helped introduce her to influential political figures. That person was not charged and is not named in court papers, but the description matches that of Paul Erickson, a GOP consultant who sought to organize a meeting between then-candidate Donald Trump and Alexander Torshin, Butina’s Russian colleague and a former Russian senator, at a May 2016 NRA convention.
Born in Eastern Europe, George Soros has been a proponent for a liberal democratic society and someone that the Conservatives despise. As a very successful businessman, he has supported Liberal candidates and causes.
But here’s an eye-opening reveal about his inner most thoughts about the state of liberal democracies and the changing political changes - namely more autocracy.
It is an embattled cause these days. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has reverted to autocracy, and Poland and Hungary are moving in the same direction. With the rise of Donald Trump in the United States, where Soros is a major donor to Democratic candidates and progressive groups, and the growing strength of right-wing populist parties in Western Europe, Soros’s vision of liberal democracy is under threat in its longtime strongholds. Nationalism and tribalism are resurgent, barriers are being raised and borders reinforced and Soros is confronting the possibility that the goal to which he has devoted most of his wealth and the last chapter of his life will end in failure. Not only that: He also finds himself in the unsettling position of being the designated villain of this anti-globalization backlash, his Judaism and career in finance rendering him a made-to-order phantasm for reactionaries worldwide. “I’m standing for principles whether I win or lose,” Soros told me this spring. But, he went on, “unfortunately, I’m losing too much in too many places right now.”
He said that he had been “very afraid” that Trump would “blow up the world rather than suffer a setback to his narcissism” but was pleased that the president’s ego had instead led him to reach out to North Korea. “I think the danger of nuclear war has been greatly reduced, and that’s a big relief.” In his annual state-of-the-world speech in Davos this year, Soros said Trump “would like to establish a mafia state, but he can’t, because the Constitution, other institutions and a vibrant civil society won’t allow it.” He also characterized Trump as a “purely temporary phenomenon that will disappear in 2020, or even sooner,” and predicted a Democratic landslide in the 2018 midterm elections. Five months on, he was sticking by those predictions. “For every Trump follower who follows Trump through thick and thin, there is more than one Trump enemy who will be more intent, more determined,” Soros told me. He is doing his part to shorten the Trump era: In advance of the midterm elections, Soros has so far contributed at least $15 million to support Democratic candidates and causes.
Trump is just making his on the record statements that he was pushed to make because of the amount of blow back that came from what he said. He ALREADY showed everyone that his words mean nothing- unless you are his base and you like his words or they reinforce the deep hatred his base has for the left and anything remotely liberal. What this entire fiasco has shown us is that conservative media has been weaponized over decades (thanks to their hero Reagan who changed laws that allow people like Hannity to be part of a “news” station) and that conservatives would rather elect and be ruled by a dictator then “suffer through” another liberal. Its mind bending when you consider how perfect this storm was/is.
What I found most shocking was that Putin referred to both Russia and the U.S. as “democracies” in the same answer and not only did Trump not respond, I haven’t seen any one in the press discussing it either. This is Putin’s end game, to make the U.S. and Russia appear to be the same and, perhaps, actually getting us to that point. Undermining our trust in elections, in our institutions, encouraging the kind of oligarchy and corruption that they have there to spread here.