After listening to the testimony, or more accurately, the lack thereof, from Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Assistant AG Rod Rosenstein, NSA Director Mike Rogers and National Intelligence Director Dan Coats on Wednesday, June 7th, there is an unwitting, unprecedented, and unnerving thread implied from their non-answers. And that is; they don’t have to account for anything. They don’t have to explain anything. Even though there is no “executive privilege” that prevents them from answering the oversight committee’s questions, they tacitly told the American people “Go screw yourselves. We don’t work for you. We work for the guy in the White House, and anything to do with Russia is none of your damned business." So they give the impression they owe no allegiance to anyone…except for Trump. They must protect Trump at all costs. Why?
From now on, it's Trump first.
At this point, with a lack of any concrete information or even any useful tidbits, one must extrapolate the reason for those refusals from what we do know. Here is the rundown on Trump and his associates’ inexplicable actions, false statements involving the Russians, and Russian efforts to subvert our election:
· Mike Flynn is fired after lying about his discussions with Sergey Kislyak about sanctions against Russia. He also was paid $43,000 by Russia Today TV in spring 2016 for a speaking engagement in Moscow and is seated right next to Putin, even leading the standing ovation for Putin. He conveniently forgot to mention that when vetted. Trump still defends him.
· Jeff Sessions lied to Congress during his Senate confirmation hearings to become Attorney General about his two, and now possibly three, unreported meetings with Kislyak before the election. He just forgot about those meetings.
· Jared Kushner fails to mention a dozen secret meetings with Kislyak on his high-security clearance SF86 form, as well as with sanctioned Russian bank president and KGB college graduate Sergey Gorkov in November and December 2016. Kushner's lawyers claim he just forgot. He even went to extraordinary lengths in December to establish a secret line of communication between the Trump administration and Russia, using secure facilities at the Russian Embassy.
· Roger Stone, who admits contacting Guccifer 2.0, identified by US and European intelligence agencies as the go-between to the Russian military’s GRU and WikiLeaks, and aided in the release of the DNC hacked emails. He says there's nothing wrong with that.
· Carter Page, identified by Trump as a key member of his foreign policy team who was discovered in transcripts between Russian intelligence agents as an unwitting dupe for them, admits on MSNBC that he met with Kislyak during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Trump claims he barely knows Page.
· Paul Manafort, who made millions helping pro-Russian Ukrainian officials for almost 10 years, and who was instrumental in having the only item changed in the Republican platform at the Convention - denying aid to Ukrainian forces fighting the Russians - is made Trump's campaign chairman and appears with him on stage at many rallies. Trump later claims he hardly knows him.
· Rex Tillerson, former head of Exxon/Mobil who personally received the Russian's highest civilian award, the Order of Friendship medal from Vladimir Putin, and who was working on a $500 billion oil deal in the Arctic above Siberia until the Obama sanctions against Russia for taking Crimea away from Ukraine stops it, is made Secretary of State by Trump. Until December 6, 2016, Trump had never met or talked with Tillerson at all. Why did he choose Tillerson?
· The Congressional investigation into Russian meddling in the election has expanded to include Michael Cohen, personal attorney and close confidant to Trump. Cohen told ABC News that House and Senate investigators have requested “information and testimony” about any contacts he had with Russians officials.
· When Trump held his very first foreign policy speech April 27, 2016, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington DC, unbidden, he went up to Sergey Kislyak and greeted him warmly, indicating he had met him previously. He greeted no other ambassador in that manner. Also in attendance, Jeff Sessions.
In just the last month alone, there are these additional Russia-related items:
May 9, 2017, Trump fires FBI Director James Comey. Trump goes on TV later that week and tells Lester Holt of NBC News that he fired him because of “this Russia thing.” It is then revealed he brags to Ambassador Kislyak and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who meet with him in the Oval Office that Comey is “a real nut job” and “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
May 18, 2017, it is revealed by former CIA Director John Brennan that Trump’s advisers, including Michael Flynn, contacted Russian officials at least 18 times in phone calls and emails between April and November 2016.
May 18, 2017, it is revealed by former CIA Director John Brennan that Trump’s advisers, including Michael Flynn, contacted Russian officials at least 18 times in phone calls and emails between April and November 2016.
May 22, 2017, it is reported that Trump called Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and NSA Director Michael Rogers to request that they deny in public any evidence of collusion between his campaign and the Russian government during the 2016 election.
May 31, 2017, President Vladimir Putin acknowledges that some “patriotic” Russian individuals may have engaged in hacking but insisted Russia as a country has never done it.
June 1, 2017, the Wall Street Journal reports that from the earliest days of the Trump administration, they attempted to have the State Dept. lift sanctions against Russia. These are the very sanctions put in place from Russian tampering with our election. The White House does not deny it.
June 5, 2017, an NSA report, dated May 5, is leaked to Intercept, an online news site, by Reality Winner, an NSA contractor in Georgia, who is then arrested by the FBI. The report provides details of a 2016 Russian military intelligence cyberattack on a US voting software supplier. A US official confirmed to CNN that The Intercept's document is a genuine, classified NSA document. The FBI does not arrest people for releasing fake documents, only real ones.
June 9, 2017, the Trump administration says they are considering easing some punishments the Obama administration levied against Russia for election interference abuses, even returning two compounds that were closed in December because they were being used by Russian intelligence. The Trump administration asks for nothing in return.
You notice these instances never involve the Brazilians, the North Koreans, or the ambassador from Sri Lanka. It is always the Russians. Always. But hey, maybe they are ALL just coincidences.
It appears the Russians hold some kind of sway or power over Trump, something so damaging, that our highest intelligence and law enforcement officials; Rogers, Coats, Rosenstein, and McCabe, are willing to cover up for and protect Trump. They refused to answer any questions in any way, even so far as refusing to just answer yes or no to simple procedural questions about the investigation or what Trump asked of them. These are our TOP INTELLIGENCE PEOPLE. The people who were overseeing our security and matters related to intelligence gathering for the US. Yet on their watch, our election was hacked…even Trump admitted it at his first post-election press conference on December 11th.
Two of our most incompetent "intelligence" officers - McCabe (L) and Rogers (R)
McCabe and Rogers failed at their one and only job at the time. They failed to prevent Russian hacking of US computers - and that most likely aided Trump. Trump publicly asked the Russians to do it so why does he still insist the whole Russian hacking story is fake news? It is more and more likely that the Christopher Steele dossier is valid and fully factual. What must the Russians have on Trump that our intelligence and justice officials are willing to risk their integrity, their public perception and their loyalty to this country? How harmful must this information be? It appears if this information was revealed, it would be so damaging that our Constitutional Republic would be brought to an end. Is it the alleged hookers and pee tape? Is it the billions of dollars Trump owes to Russian-controlled banks? So much money that it could cause massive damage to the US economy now that Trump is president? Are there illegal deals the Russians can prove that Trump is involved in, like money laundering through the Bank of Cyprus, where our new Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Jr. was Vice President?
The subterfuge and “shiny metal object” distractions Trump’s surrogates throw up is reminiscent to what was palmed off on Americans immediately after the assassination of JFK. What had happened in Dallas was initially considered so potentially detrimental that a lie had to be created to prevent the US from launching a war against the Soviet Union - a war that would leave at least 100 million people (40 million of which would have been American) dead from a nuclear exchange. This is what Lyndon Johnson used as leverage against Earl Warren to force him to form the committee to gather information on the assassination but find Oswald guilty at all costs. Americans must be deflected from thinking the Soviets were in any way involved. So it seemed strange that the Dallas Police immediately began saying Oswald was a communist. (He wasn’t, he was a Marxist.) And the FBI revealed they knew of his ties to Russia as he had just returned from defecting to the Soviet Union. But the Warren Commission whitewashed everything down to claiming that while Oswald was a communist sympathizer, he was a lone nut who just wanted his place in the sun, so he killed Kennedy but wouldn’t admit to it. Two days later Jack Ruby just happened to be in the right place at the right time to silence him. See, it’s all just coincidence.
One further point that needs to be made. Trump’s lawyer, Marc Kasowitz was the lead attorney for the Russian state-owned bank sanctioned by the US - and that same bank’s CEO is the one who met with Jared Kushner during and after the campaign that Jared failed to disclose on his security clearance application. Defending Russia's illegal activities and Trump and his family's treasonous actions seem to be Kasowitz’ only business.
Throughout all this, Trump has downplayed Russian tampering while exhibiting diminished mental acuity, moral ineptitude, complete fabrications, vicious acrimony, and a disdain for common decency. Yet his supporters and intelligence officers like McCabe and Rogers don’t give a damn about it. Russia can meddle anytime they like. Our highest ranking intelligence people condone the interference and give Trump a pass on it. This is now just the way the presidency works. It's the end of our Constitutional Republic.
If this goes on unchecked, then we are no longer a free people. We are now pawns of a hostile foreign power, and Trump, Mike Flynn, Jared Kushner, Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, J.D. Gordon, Mike Rogers, Dan Coats, Rod Rosenstein and Daniel McCabe are all traitors to this nation.
It’s hard not to come to that conclusion.
It’s hard not to come to that conclusion.
