By Steven Jonas
"Trump-Russia" covers a variety of possible crimes
(in the criminal law sense) and possible high crimes and misdemeanors (in the
impeachment sense) of which President Trump and a variety of people around him
are being investigated. Unlike many of
my fellow left-wingers, I have thought pretty much from the beginning that
where there was smoke there was fire, whether about "collusion" (possibly a
crime, if with a foreign power to influence an election), "obstruction of
justice" (a crime), money laundering (certain types are crimes), tax evasion (a
crime), bribery/pay-offs (crimes or ethical violations), and who knows what
else.
Why
did I believe that there is "something there" and still do? Well there are the bits and pieces of
evidence of acts of commission, such as the famous "Don Jr. meeting;" the
continuing re-do's by Jared Kushner on his security form; Kushner's attempt to
set up a "back channel" for direct communication with the Russians during Transition
(!); the lying by Attorney General (!!!) Sessions before Congress; the guilty
pleas by Flynn and Papadopoulos (they wouldn't have pleaded guilty to the FBI for
lying if they were not lying about something there, no?); the "Manafort Thing,"
just Manafort (a certified
crook/money-launderer
was for a time Trump's campaign manager), and etc.
As
for other evidence of, say, obstruction of justice, Trump himself did say on
national television that the fired former FBI Director James Comey "because of
Russia." And he had to be talked out of trying
to fire Bob Mueller
by his far right-wing White House Counsel, presumably because that would be
seen as obstruction of justice. (Far
right-wing, you say? Well yes. McGahn has
the principal responsibility for picking all the far right-wingers who are
being appointed to seats on the Federal bench and for implementing much of Steve
Bannon's favorite: "deconstruction of the administrative state:" the massive deregulation
that is going on under Trump. I always
wondered where all these Trump moves were coming from in detail. Now we know.)
And Trump is still thinking about it, actually trying to figure out a
way to do it --- like getting rid of the Deputy Attorney General and putting
someone in his place who would do it.
But why, if there is nothing to hide?
And
then there was "it's Trump, and we know that he's a crook." I remember in June, 1972, when I saw a p. 1
headline (but below the fold) in The New York Times that there had been a
break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate
complex in Washing, D.C. I had followed
President Nixon since he ran his first red-baiting campaign in 1946 against a
totally unsuspecting Cong. Jerry Voorhis.
The first thing that crossed my mind upon seeing that headline was
"Nixon's behind this." So, it was only
natural that when I first started hearing reports of what has become
"Trump/Russia," I said to myself: "Trump's behind this."
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