Tag Archives: Russian meddling

Tax returns? Remember them?

Forgive me, please, for being repetitive.

I believe it’s time, though, to bring up an old issue: tax returns. Specifically, the tax returns of the president of the United States of America. Yes, I know: I’ve traveled down this road already.

Donald J. Trump’s astonishing performance Monday alongside Vladimir Putin in Helsinki has prompted questions about whether Putin has “something” on Trump, as in some sort of business matter that might embarrass the president.

How might we know for certain? Oh, I’ve got it! Tax returns!

Trump refused to release his tax returns when he declared his presidential candidacy in 2015, flouting a tradition followed by candidates of both major parties dating back to 1976. They all did it voluntarily.

Not so with Trump. Why? His returns were “under and IRS audit,” he said. It’s crap. The Internal Revenue Service said an audit didn’t prevent release of those returns for public review.

But now there are questions arising anew about whether the president’s substantial business empire has been caught up in the “Russia thing” that special counsel Robert Mueller is examining as part of his probe into Russian meddling in our 2016 election.

I’ll ask one more, and it likely won’t be the final time: Why not release the returns and shine the light of accountability on your dealings, Mr. President?

Nice try, Mr. President … but there was no one else

Let’s try to speak with some clarity on this Russian meddling matter and whether the president of the United States actually believes the U.S. intelligence agencies’ assessment of the situation.

Donald Trump said Monday he had no reason to believe the Russians would have attacked our 2016 election system.

Then today he said he had no reason to believe the Russians would not have done it.

Oh, but then he said that maybe “others” did it, too, all while expressing full faith and confidence in the CIA, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies’ belief in their conclusions about Russian meddling.

As The Hill reported: “I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place,” Trump said, reading from a prepared statement in front of reporters at the White House.

But he added: “Could be other people also. A lot of people out there.”

Read my lips, Mr. President: Our spooks say the Russians did it! They did it by themselves. They had no help. There was no “400-pound guy lying on his bed.” The 29-page indictment handed down identifies 12 Russian military officers as the culprits … allegedly.

I have to ask, Mr. President: Do you support our intelligence network fully, or not?

And many of us are still waiting for a full-throated condemnation of Vladimir Putin and his Russian hierarchy for launching their attack on our political system, which the president took an oath to defend.

Trump makes it all better? Hardly

Donald J. Trump today sought to insert a single word in a statement he made standing next to Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

He said Monday that he “saw no reason to believe Russia would” meddle in the 2016 presidential election.

Today? Donald Trump said he “saw no reason to believe Russia would not” meddle.

There you have it. The president misspoke, he said, with an error of omission. He didn’t say “not” in Putin’s presence when he should have said it.

Is this good enough? Does this make it all better now, that the president of the United States really and truly stands behind our intelligence experts’ view that Putin and the Russians attacked our electoral system?

Let me think for a second about that.

Umm. No. It doesn’t make it better.

What we need now is a statement of outrage and condemnation of Russia, of Putin, of the goons who’ve been indicted by a federal grand jury that they conspired to interfere in our election.

Is any of that on the way?

Hmm. Probably not.

Resignations should be forthcoming … but will they?

Jon Huntsman should resign immediately as U.S. ambassador to Russia.

John Kelly, the retired Marine Corps general, should hasten his departure and quit as White House chief of staff.

Dan Coats, the former Republican senator, should quit as director of national intelligence.

John Bolton, newly installed as national security adviser, needs to quit, too.

These individuals all have been tossed under the proverbial bus by the president of the United States. Donald J. Trump managed during that jaw-dropping press conference with Vladimir Putin to castigate the U.S. intelligence agencies that have determined Russia attacked our system of government.

Trump has undermined U.S. diplomacy. He has denigrated our intelligence-gathering process. He has weakened the nation he pledged to defend and to strengthen. He has demonstrated a level of ignorance, arrogance and acquiescence that none of us thought would be possible in the president of the United States.

It is enough for Vladimir Putin, the former KGB boss — the top spook in the Evil Empire — to deny doing what the intelligence agencies said he did. Yep, Donald Trump takes Putin at his word, which is about as credible as anything that flies out of the president’s mouth.

I am not holding my breath for any resignations to be forthcoming.

Maybe, though, there might be some spine-stiffening taking place at this very moment.

Condemnation takes bipartisan tone

How in the world will all this play out?

Donald J. Trump has sided with Russia’s strongman in his denial that he ordered the interference in our 2016 presidential election. The president has cast doubt on the assessments of our own intelligence community that the Russians did meddle, that they did attack our electoral process.

What’s happened since that jaw-dropping presser that Trump had with Vladimir Putin? The Republican leadership in Congress has joined their Democratic colleagues in condemning the president’s unbelievable performance.

As The Hill reported: “I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump told reporters in Helsinki.

GOP Senate candidate Mitt Romney (and 2012 presidential nominee), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan, U.S. Sen. John McCain (and 2008 presidential nominee), Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr all are saying the same thing — more or less: The president delivered an “embarrassing” and “shameful” performance in Helsinki.

What happens now? What will the congressional leadership of the president’s own party do about any of this?

And get a load of this: Dan Coats, the former GOP senator from Indiana who now serves as director of national intelligence, is standing with his intelligence authorities’ belief that Russians are guilty as charged of attacking our democratic process.

My head is spinning. I need to sit down, catch my breath and try to make sense of what has transpired.

So many ‘tipping points’ …

There have been so many instances where you think, yep, this is it … this is where Donald John Trump goes down for the count.

Then he gets up.

He denigrates a Vietnam War hero such as Sen. John McCain. He mocks a disabled New York Times reporter. He brags about grabbing women by their private parts. He disparages a Gold Star family that happens to worship the Islamic faith.

He survived all of those so-called “tipping points” en route to the presidency of the United States.

Today, though, provided the world a fresh glimpse of the Donald Trump many of us feared would present himself. He denigrated the U.S. intelligence network’s belief that Russian goons attacked our 2016 election system, they attacked our very democratic system of government.

He did so in the presence of the man U.S. spooks say ordered it: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The president of the United States, for the first time in many historians’ memory, has relegated defense of our democratic system to second place behind fealty to the leader of a hostile foreign power.

Who in the world ever thought they would see such an event, or hear the president say what he said today in casting doubt on our intelligence experts’ view that Russia sought to influence the outcome of a presidential election?

We have crossed a new threshold in this country. We now are treading on treacherous ground.

If only the so-called “patriots” within the Republican Party — the president’s own party — would stand up and say: Enough is bloody enough!

Yes, it was ‘disgraceful’

“Disgraceful and detrimental to our democratic principles.”

Yep, that about sums it up.

Donald Trump today disgraced himself and the presidency and the country he was elected to lead. He stood with Vladimir Putin and accepted the Russian president’s denial of meddling in our 2016 election. He also then denigrated the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that the Russians did, in fact, attack our electoral process.

The statement above comes from Mitt Romney, the Republican Party’s 2012 presidential nominee. He isn’t alone in criticizing the president. Indeed, one might be able to hear a growing drumbeat of recrimination coming from within the GOP against the party’s titular leader.

This isn’t how to “make America great again.” Nor is it in any way a strategy to “put America first.”

‘Peace for our time,’ 2.0?

Eighty years ago, a British prime minister stood before the world after meeting with Adolf Hitler and declared there would be “peace for our time.”

Neville Chamberlain’s prediction in 1938, of course, proved to be tragically flawed. World war broke out in September 1939. He was run out of office and has been labeled the world’s most shameful appeaser.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe today we witnessed a reprise of that moment with Donald J. Trump’s appeasement of Vladimir Putin. Yes, I am going to equate those two hideous examples of weakness.

The president of the United States of America today stood before the world and actually accepted the word of a former KGB spy over the exhaustive work of our intelligence community that the Russians attacked our electoral process in 2016.

Putin said there is “no evidence” of interference. Trump — if you can believe — then denigrated the work of our CIA, the director of national intelligence, the National Security Agency, the FBI, the Department of Justice, which all have said the Russians launched a full-scale attack on our electoral system.

How in the world is history going to judge this shameful exhibition of weakness, of appeasement? The two leaders met today in Helsinki behind closed doors. They faced the international media and then we all heard back here at home our commander in chief give tragically short shrift to this attack on our system of government.

I won’t go as far as former CIA Director John Brennan, who declared Trump’s performance an act of “treason.” I am, however, inching closer to that conclusion.

We have just witnessed a disgraceful display of weakness by the leader of the world’s strongest nation.

Move over, Prime Minister Chamberlain. You’ve got company in the diplomatic hall of shame.

Mueller is not ‘harming the country’

Donald J. Trump does not get it.

He keeps yapping about the “rigged witch hunt,” which is how he describes the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian meddling in our 2016 election.

He said over the weekend that the Mueller probe is harmful to the country.

Oh … my.

No, Mr. President. The harm to the country has come from the Russians who hacked into the Democrats’ election system. The harm was done by goons who sought to influence the election outcome. The harm occurred — and is occurring at this moment — by the discord that continues to tear at the fabric of our electoral process.

The president is going to meet very soon with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. He promises to bring up the meddling matter with him. Putin’s response likely won’t be reported fully; Putin and Trump will meet privately, just the two of ’em in the room. Nor will we likely know to what extent Trump calls Putin out on the meddling.

With all this as prologue, we keep hearing from the president about the evils of a “rigged witch hunt” that so far has produced multiple indictments, several guilty pleas, witnesses cooperating with the special counsel.

That is not a “rigged witch hunt,” let alone a probe that harms the United States of America. It will strengthen the nation once it’s completed — irrespective of what Robert Mueller concludes.

The harm is being done by those who have corrupted our election system. If only the president could acknowledge the obvious.

Dear Mr. POTUS: Show Vlad the indictment

Dear Mr. President:

I know for a fact that you won’t listen to a blogger from way out here in Flyover Country, although I have moved closer to Dallas in recent weeks.

But that meeting you’ve got planned Monday with Vladimir Putin shouldn’t take place. The Justice Department — run by your appointees — has delivered a 29-page indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers; I like calling them “goons,” because that’s what they are … allegedly.

But if you’re going to go proceed with that Putin meeting, you need to take a copy of the indictment, slip it into a manila folder and then hand it to him. Then you need to tell him to answer for the contents of the folder.

Take my word for this, Mr. President: Putin will know what the indictment says. He’ll have read it many times. He’ll know it inside and out.

But you need to hold this killer accountable for the actions of his military brass. It appears clear that if they are guilty of what’s been alleged in the criminal complaint that they acted on Putin’s orders. He’s the top military man in Russia, just as you are the commander in chief in this country.

Are you going to do what you swore to do when you became president, which is protect the United States of America against its adversaries? Or are you going to continue to roll over and accept Putin’s denials that he attacked our electoral system?

You once accused the system of being “rigged” when the media were reporting that your Democratic foe was likely to win the 2016 election. Well, the election (allegedly) might have been “rigged” after all.

But not in the way you thought it would.