The U.S. Justice Department’s special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in last year’s U.S. presidential election has resulted in a grand jury bringing indictments against two operatives in President Donald Trump election campaign. They are former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his aide Rick Gates. Both have pleaded innocent and are under house arrest. George Papadopolous has admitting guilt in lying to the FBI, and he is cooperating with Mueller’s investigation.
Contrary to President Trump’s constant allegations that Mueller’s investigation is “a hoax and a witch hunt,” court documents establish that there was Russian interference. That is what U.S. intelligence agencies have been saying all along since last year and that it was for the purpose of influencing the election so that Donald Trump would defeat Hilary Clinton. These documents indicate that in April, 2016, Russian government representatives told Papadopolous that they had “thousands of emails” of Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in which they could provide “dirt” on her. The grand jury’s court documents also show that Papadopolous tried to set up meetings for such purposes between Russian officials and Trump political campaign operatives.
This is just the beginning of Mueller’s revelations from his investigation. Trump campaigned with a slogan “drain the swamp,” meaning remove establishment members of Congress from office who were allegedly corrupted and thus preventing good governing from happening. This could go down just the opposite, that the swamp is President Donald Trump and some of his presidential campaign associates and that Mueller will drain that swamp.
President Trump’s constant criticism of this investigation makes him look like he himself is guilty of collusion with Russians. If he truly is for America, would he not want Mueller to pursue this investigation since this alleged Russian involvement threatens our very democracy?
One of President Trump’s tactics is constant diversion from this investigation. His main diversion is to accuse Hilary Clinton of having broken laws concerning her use of a private server for emails. But the FBI investigated that last year and found her innocent of wrongdoing. And she has admitted that it was a foolish decision she made. Plus, Trump constantly demeans Mrs. Clinton by calling her “Crooked Hilary.” I think such behavior further suggests that it’s Trump who is crooked.
Billionaire real estate contractor and mogul Donald Trump constantly brags about his ability to make good business deals. He even wrote a book about it, The Art of the Deal. Adolf Hitler states (I don’t know if this is in his Mein Kampf), “The art of leadership … consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention.” That’s what Trump does by diverting peoples’ attention from Mueller’s investigation to “Crooked Hilary.”
[During last year’s presidential campaign, USA TODAY and The Washington Post published articles, respectively, comparing the political strategies of Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump: “There’s a Little ‘Mein Kampf’ in Trump’s ‘Art of the Deal’” (published 3/31/16); “The Theory of Political Leadership that Donald Trump Shares with Adolf Hitler” (published 7/25/16).]
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