Tons of Collusion! “102 contacts and 28 meetings between the Trump Campaign/Transition team and Russians” (+ Russia–Trump Timeline)
I was on the verge of titling this “Let’s Be Honest — Fox News Viewers Are Idiots,” or perhaps “Let’s Be Honest — Trump Supporters Are Idiots,” but I thought I better take the high road and not do that. Happily, I think the new title is better and I didn’t offend anyone.
I think the figure in the headline (via Brian Krassenstein) needs updated, as I think some new contacts were revealed this week, but hey, once you get over 100, what’s the difference?
But let’s step back for a second. Collusion is not a crime. Conspiracy is the crime some of Trump’s associates and campaign team, and Trump himself, could be charged with. A core point of the whole Mueller investigation was to determine if collusion (probably in the form of conspiracy) occurred between Trump campaign team members and Russian state agents, and collusion could be reason enough to impeach Trump, but clear evidence of conspiracy is what’s needed for Mueller to charge Trump with a crime (something many think wouldn’t happen anyway due to weak, misunderstood, off-hand Department of Justice guidelines from the Nixon era). Collusion has already been confirmed, whether it gets publicized in a final report or not. Anyone telling you otherwise is trying to brainwash you or is a full-blown idiot.
The Trump Campaign Chairman (not a small role) fed polling data to Russian agents. Additionally, one of Donald Trump’s longest friends, someone who had been pushing him to run for president perhaps longer than anyone else and was constantly on the phone with him during the presidential campaign, Roger Stone, was apparently in communication with Wikileaks (a Russia-backed information warfare organization) about influential campaign leaks and trolling. Whether or not Mueller’s team can identify specific conversations between Stone and Trump about the Wikileaks interference, it’s completely clear Trump had a sense of what was happening and what was to come. He publicly invited Wikileaks hacking of his opponent (Hillary Clinton) and he indicated at one point that some damaging info was coming and that he loved Wikileaks. That’s conspiracy in plain sight, only hidden by the fact that it was completely absurd and illegal, so only an idiot would be highlighting his own connection to it all (i.e., only Donald Trump and Roger Stone). Even many top Trump and Stone allies were basically like, “What the hell are you doing?#8221; (Those allies being Sam Nunberg, Steve Bannon, and Chris Christie, for example.)
I’ll run through a quick timeline for more clarity, but let’s take a further step backward first.
As you can see in this deep dive, it’s well known Trump properties have been laundering money for Russians for decades. Or check out this piece, which details the Russian–Trump connection from 1987–2014.
To understand where that all led, check out Malcolm Nance’s books The Plot to Hack America and The Plot to Destroy Democracy.
As a summary of all of those, consider this: A lousy business man was in deep debt and headed toward yet another bankruptcy (the 7th?). With a horrible business record in the United States, banks and rich friends wouldn’t loan him money. They knew his reputation for not paying people or even banks back, and for not paying workers. Somehow, though, the real estate brander survived and even skated through the Great Recession. One of his sons indicated at some point that they were getting their money from Russians. Another son indicated that they loved Russians, as Russians had been great supporters of the family business. Vladimir Putin, no doubt fully aware that he had this businessman under his thumb, put in millions of dollars to reach more than 120 million Americans in Facebook campaigns alone — and that’s considered by experts to be an underestimate since it just covered what they were able to catch and identify. Everyone came to understand that those Russian ads favored this businessman, Donald Trump of course. Once elected, Trump knew that Russian oligarchs saved his ass in business, that Putin supported his run for office, and that Putin may well have tipped the scales for Trump (remember that Clinton had ~3 million more votes but Trump won the electoral college by ~44,292 votes).
How would Trump respond? Well, naturally, with few to no morals and heavily indebted to Putin and his friends, he has parroted basically every Russian talking point he has ever received from his Russian “friends.” He has talked about pulling the US out of NATO (which makes no sense from the USA’s point of view), has attacked NATO and basically attacked all US allies (which makes no sense from the USA’s point of view), has guided the US toward Putin’s preferences in Syria, has lifted sanctions on the companies of Putin oligarch friend Oleg Deripaska (the top oligarch connected to Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, who it’s worth noting is in prison for the next several years at least). Trump has also tried to pull the US out of the UN’s Paris climate accords (which all countries in the world agreed to) and let himself (and the US) be played by North Korea at the guidance of Putin — both of which are useful as well as comedic gold to Putin. Oh yeah, and Trump has taken Putin’s word over the word of all US national security agencies about 2016 Russian hacking. If this was a movie, I’d turn it off for being so ridiculously unbelievable.
Who’s side is Trump on? I’m sorry, but I’ll use the phrase again — you have to be an idiot if you don’t know by now. He’s on the side of himself. He doesn’t care about the US or average Americans, just himself. It couldn’t be more obvious if he was a Hollywood villain. He does better personally if the collusion or conspiracy between him and Russia isn’t revealed or is downplayed. The US suffers, but Trump does better. Trump is in it all for himself, no one else, and he has the White House and all of its powers thanks to Putin, so he’s happy to pay Putin back. He doesn’t care that doing so hurts the United States, puts a cancer on our democracy, and drastically weakens our position abroad.
Whether or not anyone has a tape recording of Trump telling someone he’s going to do the bidding of Russia in the White House as a thanks for the help Russia provided (and certain campaign members clearly knew about), it’s obvious he’s doing exactly that. Also, his former lawyer/fixer has made it superbly clear — these guys, like other criminal mobsters, talk in code in order to not leave such a direct agreement. They say something, the other side repeats it, they’re all on the same page, and the collusion is obvious. This has happened repeatedly, with Trump and Putin (and their corrupt or ignorant foot soldiers) repeating each other’s talking points word for word. One of the most annoying things about watching the commentary on these topics has been when people say, “There’s no explanation for it. It makes no sense.” It makes complete sense — they’re partners. Yes, there is almost no explanation other than that, but that explanation is clear and valid. Trump and Putin formed an alliance and Putin is the top dog in the deal. No, Russia and the US didn’t form an alliance — the criminal Russian mafia (headed by Putin) and the criminal Trump World mafia formed an alliance, at the expense of the United States.