With the dismissal of Former FBI Director James Comey, the smell from the Trump Russia swamp is becoming more and more malodorous. Something stinks in Washington D.C. At first, President Trump and his supporters wanted us to believe that the reason he unceremoniously fired James Comey was because of his actions regarding the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server. Most people never believed this rationale. Trump has since said that the Russia investigation was on his mind when he was thinking of letting Comey go. However, that is not the subject of this essay. The subject is the plausibility that Trump and his campaign colluded with the Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Let us consider what we already know. We know that Trump is a liar and that liars lie. He moved into the realm of politics with birther madness. He claimed for years that President Obama was not born in the United States of America. He said that he had hired investigators who had found information about President Obama’s birth. We have seen neither an investigator nor any information that they uncovered. The list of his lies is long, too long for this essay.
We know that several US intelligence agencies reported the following: “We assess with high confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election, the consistent goals of which were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.”
No one expected Trump to win, but the goal was to “undermine public faith” in the democratic process. We know that nearly every day during the campaign, Trump stood up before his cheering crowds and talked about how the political system was “rigged.” He refused to say whether or not he would accept the results of the election. Saying this, Trump was helping Putin to reach his goal.
Now the question is whether or not there is some smoking gun that shows us that Trump and the Russians coordinated their efforts. This is what investigations will tell us. We do know that there are many people close to the Trump campaign who had contact with the Russians that they did not share with the general public. Witness: General Michael Flynn and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
It is possible that Trump’s declarations of a “rigged” system was coincidental to Putin’s goals. It is possible that the Russians found Trump to be simply a useful idiot. Yet, it is also possible that there is collusion on some level. This is dangerous for the country.
So, where do we go from here? We need an independent investigation by a bi-partisan commission. A special prosecutor is problematic because that person would be appointed by the officials in the Justice Department. Both the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, have lost credibility because of their involvement in firing Comey. Congressional leadership cannot be trusted.
Mitch McConnell has proved to be a partisan political hack and a thief who stole a Supreme Court seat and then exploded the filibuster rules of the Senate to seat Neal Gorsuch. House Speaker Paul Ryan cannot be trusted because he was a participant in the 2009 inauguration night conspiracy where Republican leaders of Congress colluded not to work with President Obama on ANYTHING, even though the nation was facing a financial crisis at the time. These acts weakened our democracy and helped to make Trump possible.
We lose our democratic republic inch by inch. This is why we have to be vigilant. We cannot afford to continue to send people to Congress whose primary concerns are tax cuts for the rich and winning the next election so that they can have tax cuts for the rich.
Going forward, We the People ought to pay very close attention and understand that we are the check on the power of Trump, the Republicans and the Russians. It is our responsibility to drain the Trump Russia Swamp in November 2018.
Valerie Elverton Dixon is founder of JustPeaceTheory.com and author of “Just Peace Theory Book One: Spiritual Morality, Radical Love, and the Public Conversation.”
Our system really is rigged. It’s rigged by the Electoral College which increases the voting power of rural Americans. It’s rigged by millions of dollars from special interests. It’s rigged by restrictions on voting and by gerrymandering and by obstacles put in the way of smaller parties.
None of this is Putin’s fault. Americans did it all by themselves.
I find it strange that even after this election there are still people who think we can show the rest of the world a better way to democracy.