Somewhere in a far-flung celestial realm, Richard Nixon is shaking his head in wonderment and tweeting, “Yeah, they were gonna impeach me, but I never did anything nearly as bad as this mendacious jerk.”
True that, Tricky Dick. As scandal-soaked as you were, you didn’t welcome help from communist Russia to win in 1968, and you didn’t solicit collusion with another foreign power to win in 1972. In fact, since you appear to have wi-fi, and you probably have time to spare, you should read the whistleblower’s complaint about the current guy, and the Inspector General’s letter that vets the complaint.
Heck, we all should read these newly-release documents – if only to share this moment of history in the making. Personally, none of what’s happening right now is surprising in the least. Prior to the 2016 election, I wrote/warned repeatedly that Donald Trump would be “a clear and present danger to our national security,” and so he is. The actions described by the intelligence community whistleblower and buttressed by the Trump-appointed Inspector General, virtually speak for themselves.
From the whistleblower:
“the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference in the 2020 U.S. election. This interference includes, among other things, pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the President’s main domestic political rivals…I am also concerned that those actions pose risks to U.S. national security and undermine the U.S. government’s efforts to deter and counter foreign interference in U.S. elections.”
From the Inspector General, who serves as the intelligence community’s watchdog:
Any attempt “by a senior U. S. official to seek foreign assistance to interfere in or influence a Federal election would constitute ‘a serious or flagrant problem (or) abuse,'” according to the federal criminal code, and “would also potentially expose such a U.S. official…to serious national security and counterintelligence risks with respect to foreign intelligence services aware of such alleged conduct.”
It gets worse (or better, if you want Trump thrown out of office). The Inspector General points out in his letter that Trump appears to have violated one of his own executive orders. Here’s what he signed on Sept. 12, 2018 (the italics are mine): “I, Donald J. Trump, president of the United States, finds that the ability of persons located, in whole or in part, outside the United States to interfere in or undermine public confidence in United States elections, including through the unauthorized accessing of election and campaign infrastructure, or the covert distribution of propaganda and disinformation, constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
There’s a lot more to parse in the whistleblower’s complaint. It puts Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in context by detailing the relentless pressure on Ukraine to find dirt on Joe Biden and his son; it describes the White House’s decision to hide the record of the July phone call – to stuff it into an electronic file reserved for “classified” material – because Trump’s aides realized that “they had witnessed the President abuse his office for personal gain.” (What else is in that classified file? Have Trump’s aides made a habit of hiding evidence of other impeachable behavior?)
What’s important to remember is that the Trump regime didn’t want us to know about any of this. They suppressed the whistleblower’s complaint – violating the law that required quick notification to Congress – in the hope that Congress and the free and independent press would move on. But, unfortunately for Trump, this is not Putin’s Russia. As benumbed and exhausted as we are by Trump’s serial offenses, American accountability is not dead. Patriots inside the government – many of whom fed information to the whistleblower – detest Trump’s national security breaches, and they’re leaking to the press with all deliberate speed.
The whistleblower’s complaint and the Inspector General’s letter were released by House Intelligence Committee’s Democratic chairman. In all probability, those documents would never have seen the light of day if Republicans were still running Congress, if the blue wave in the 2018 midterms hadn’t happened. What more evidence do we need that voting is the first step toward holding Trump accountable, in the name of democracy and transparency?
Speaking of transparency, a man once said: “Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it’s hard to get it back in.” Precisely so. Bob Haldeman, who dispensed that wisdom, landed in jail for the failed Watergate coverup. Let us hope that what’s past is prologue.