REPUBLICANS ARE YOU LISTENING? RUSSIA IS

What has to be the most sensational revelation in the almost two hundred fifty years of the Republic is the report in the New York Times that the FBI instituted a counter intelligence investigation into whether the President of the United States of America was wittingly or unwittingly an agent of a foreign adversarial country, Russia. Not since Benedict Arnold double crossed George Washington by joining the British in the American War of Independence has the query surfaced that the American Government could be compromised by a traitor. The fact that the question is even credible is in of itself astonishing.

The response of Trump, his megaphone Sarah Huckabee Sanders and his echo chamber Fox News and all their friends is not reassuring as it consists of smears of Comey and the Intelligence Establishment, who apparently are all liars and part of the Dark State who are in a conspiracy with Hillary Clinton to unseat Donald Trump. It would have been far more persuasive if they would have countered that such an enquiry would clear the President.

In the light of the escalating chaos of the Trump Presidency and the crescenderjng evidence of his obstruction of justice, violation of campaign laws and probable conspiracy with a foreign adversary, the choice the Republicans have to face is whether their duty lies to their oath of office or to the benefits that a crooked and mendacious leader of their party affords them. 

HOW LONG WILL MCCONNELL ET AL ENABLE THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY AND ALL IT ENTAILS

Mercifully for the Republicans they lost the House so they will no longer have to bear the liability of owning the continuation of the cover up of the Trump criminal enterprise that the likes of Devon Nunes perpetuated. The Republicans enabling of Trump to date already places them in the annals of infamy. They should salvage what is left their integrity and what their Party once stood for. McConnell at the moment is pretending that he is powerless. Although to date he has been a spineless amoral opportunist he can still salvage what is left of his reputation and that of his party. (He could start in an unrelated matter by passing the budgetary motions that he initiated and help put an end to the Trump created border crisis which is being used as an excuse for the latter’s diversionary, vindictive and cruel shutting down of the Government). 

So this recent New York Times apocalypse once again raises the question as to what it will take the Republican legislators to realize their responsibility to their oath and American democracy. It is already proven that Russia comprehensively intervened in the Presidential election in favor of Donald Trump, that fourteen members of the Trump campaign were in contact with their operatives and evidence has now emerged of collusion. Trump’s campaign manager and his deputy have pled guilty to crimes as have his National Security Advisor and personal lawyer. All are cooperating with the Special Counsel. 

 All the while Trump and his clack have threatened and smeared Mueller and his investigation yet the McConnell led GOP have refused to institute legislation to protect both the Special Counsel and his subsequent report. This in the light of the fact that the POTUS fired his last Attorney General because he recused himself from the Russian probe and would not protect him from the Justice Department. The Donald then appointed an acting attorney general who publicly called the Russian investigation “crazy” claiming that it “had gone too far” and offered advice to the WhiteHouse as to how they might investigate their adversaries including Hillary Clinton. For whatever reason Mathew Whitaker has not publicly halted Mueller. 

While Whitaker had no judicial experience Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, William Barr, has. However he shares the same attitude to the Mueller Investigation and supports the further delving into Hillary Clinton and other Trump’s political opponents. He also has gone where even Jeff Sessions wouldn’t by publicly agreeing with Trump’s firing of Comey passing it as “the right call”. 

The very least that the McConnell could do would be is to allow a motion to come to the floor protecting Mueller and his report. McConnell himself is becoming perilously close to being labelled a collaborator with Trump. His wife is one of the few cabinet ministers still to be around and her father has been implicated in some murky scandals involving his shipping company. 

“COLLUSION” IN PLAIN SIGHT OF DAY TOGETHER WITH OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE

Besides the fact that fourteen members of his campaign and administration have had contact with the Russians there are screeds of in your face evidence that Trump is in bed with Putin. This is above and beyond what his personal attorney Cohen and other witnesses have to offer in regard to his dealings with Russia and not even taking into account all the Ukrainian and other oligarch efforts to put money into his campaign. It is still a mystery why eleven Russian supporting Ukrainian oligarchs were invited to his inauguration festivities. (Maybe it was to increase the crowd!)

The whole sequence of events relating to the Wikileaks e - mail drop following Trump’s tip off that “something big was about to happen” is damning. Then on cue following Trump’s open call, “Russia if you are listening”,the Russians went to work. His acknowledged attempt to cover up the Trump Tower Meeting with Russian operatives to get dirt on Hillary still has no explanation. The meeting in the Oval Office with the Russian Ambassador and Foreign Minister, where he told him that he had got rid of that “nut job" Comey who had been putting his relationship with Russia under tremendous pressure, on its own, should have raised eyebrows that something major was amiss. To add insult to injury Trump excluded American Press from that meeting while divulging classified information to the Russians.

Then there was that infamous meeting with Putin in Helsinki where he trashed his own intelligence agencies believing Putin’s denial of intervention in his Presidential election when several of the latter’s operatives had been already been indicted by Mueller in a detailed charge giving date and detail of their interference. He then defied convention by meeting privately with the Russian Premier informing no - one of the contents of their meeting. On another occasion after a confab in Hamburg he seized the translator’s notes and instructed that there should be silence about the contents of their discussion.

Trump has allowed Putin’s unlawful grab of Crimea to go virtually unpunished and according to evidence the watering down of the Russian sanctions at the Presidential Nomination Convention was directly at his behest. More recently he unilaterally dropped the sanctions of a Russian oligarch with close ties to Putin. When Steve Mnuchin his Treasury Secretary briefed Congress as to the reasons he was laughed out of court. The POTUS has taken to coughing up ludicrous Russian talking points which amount to revisionist history. These include justifying Putin’s invasion of Crimea on the basis that it belonged to Russia as all the Crimeanians talk Russian. He recently, out of the blue, announced that the USSR invaded Afghanistan because of terrorists.   

All these activities have taken place while he has openly obstructed justice starting with his firing of Comey after pressuring him to drop his investigation of his National Security Advisor whom he knew had lied to the FBI about his meeting with the Russian Ambassador. He admitted on TV that he fired Comey because of “The Russian Thing”. Then what has followed is the almost daily harassing of Mueller and his investigation and Jeff Seasons his former Attorney General whom he publicly admonished for recusing himself from the Russia Investigation and therefore being unable to protect him from it. 

All this and so much more provide, together with evidence of his lying about his business connections with Russia while campaigning, to put it at its lowest, public evidence of his cosy liaison with a foreign adversary.

WHAT INITIATED THE COUNTER INTELLIGENCE INVESTIGATION

What evidence there is in plain sight, which in of itself represents a prima facie case of treachery there has to so much more intelligence available to allow such an unthinkable sensitive intrusion into the Commander in Chief to take the place. It must be remembered that the counter intelligence investigations into "The Russian Thing” started in July 2016 ten months before the firing of Comey. From that period onward the FBI investigators had legal permission to collect highly sensitive information including e mails, phone conversations and whatever else it took to analyze the Russian act of war. While Trump himself was not under investigation it is more than likely information was gathered that might have implicated him as collaborating with the aggressors. So while the counter intelligence investigation was said to have been precipitated following the firing of Comey ten months later that just had to be the cherry on the top.

It was also following the firing of Comey that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as Special Council ostensibly to investigate whether Comey’s firing constituted obstruction of justice. Now Rosenstein was no supporter of Comey whom he in fact believed was unsuited to be FBI Director and had offered a memorandum to that effect. The basis for Rosenstein’s rationale was Comey’s defying of Justice Department convention in discussing Hillary Clinton’s e mail investigation close enough to the election to influence it. Trump tried to get Rosenstein to state that his disillusionment with Comey was because of “The Russia Thing” but he refused. That unlawful pressure on Rosenstein again makes one wonder what Trump’s motive might have been.

So everything points to the fact that the Counter Intelligence Investigation was put into place on the basis of what Trump was saying and doing in plain sight of day added to ten months of intelligence. It has been reported that allies also provided intelligence to the FBI as to what the Russians were up to. There was also The Steele Document, which was uncorroborated intelligence gleaned by a former British MI5 operative initially for Trump’s opponents in the Republican Primary and then by the Clinton Campaign, none of which has been disproved and has proved uncannily accurate in several key areas. 

It would be in the interests of Republican Lindsey Graham to ponder all these facts as he shoots off his mouth that the FBI went rogue. He was one of the ninety - eight Senators who voted for Russian sanctions. He might reflect why his newest best friend Trump lifted the sanctions, by executive instruction, of Derepaska. He could also mull why not one Republican Congressman who was briefed by Steve Mnuchin did not contradict Nancy Pelosi’s assessment of Mnuchin’s explanatory briefing being the worst she has ever heard. 

It is one thing that Fox and Trump’s other friends claim that the investigation was malice but for elected Republicans to argue that is another. 

WHAT GOVERNS A COUNTER INTELLIGENCE INVESTIGATION

Counter Intelligence is conducted by the FBI and is specialized activity which endeavors to obtain information on what enemies of the State are plotting or putting into effect. It has been argued by some former intelligence operatives that to mount such an operation into a President must have been a tough and scary decision ans could only have been taken after much soul searching. For those who believe that any old body within the FBI can initiate one they need to visit the government web site and see the lengthy regulations and oversight that such an action takes. To quote Chuck Rosenberg who was a long serving employee in the Justice Department who worked on high profile terrorism, espionage and public corruption cases, “The FBI acts scrupulously within the rules, consistent with the Constitution and the laws of this nation with rigorous oversight. Those rules ensure that civil liberties are respected and protected, particularly where American citizens are concerned”. 

Lindsey Graham is now Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that has oversight capabilities why doesn’t he bring in the head of the FBI and make sure that they are following their mandate? He runs a risk in so doing as he might not like the answers he gets. Lindsey Graham needs reminding that he initially claimed that if Trump axed Jeff Sessions that would be the end of his Presidency. How does he now feel that in addition to all Trump's interference in the probe, General Mathis has now left the Cabinet following Trump’s inexplicable withdrawal of troops from Syria, a policy supported by Graham as if his life depended on it?

AT THE END OF THE DAY

No - one is above the law and Trump’s public behavior towards the Russians, especially in the light of the fact that it is incontrovertible that they intervened in the US Presidential election in his favor, is highly irregular. Putin has publicly admitted that he wanted him to win. Yet Trump’s  negation of the unanimous finding of governmental agencies of comprehensive and prolonged Russian interference and that he believes President Putin’s “strong denial” is treacherous in and of itself. 

In spite of all that has transpired to this day Trump openly indulges in activity that makes him appear to be an unquestioning supporter of the Russian regime by echoing talking points on their expansionist activities and removing sanctions from an oligarch who was implicated in the Russian intervention in the Presidential election. 

Trump being a witting or unwitting asset of the Russians has been the elephant in the room throughout the campaign and his Presidency. A reality that he has not only not dispelled he has willfully reinforced. Bearing in the mind that the FBI CounterIntelligence Agency is the receiver of massive amounts of classified material and had been investigating “The Russian Thing” for ten months prior to Comey's dismissal, so that it does not come as a surprise that they had found enough material that warranted them initiating an investigation into the POTUS. 

If Trump and his supporters are convinced that this will turn up nothing they should eagerly await the Mueller findings. In the meantime they should be protecting Mueller and his investigation so that the country could learn the truth. Nancy Pelosi has withstood the anger of the more militant Democrats in refusing to initiate impeachment proceedings against Trump pending the Special Counsel’s report. If she can suspend judgement so should the Republicans. 

Mitch McConnell should in the wake of two years of threats against Mueller stop pretending that he has no reason to believe that a need for a motion to shield him and the investigation has no credible basis.

Republicans are you listening........