The Gold Standard of Witch Hunts

The whiner-in-chief, having presided over an operation with the Russian government to undermine the U.S. electoral process – no, this hasn’t been proven, but it will be – says he is an innocent victim of “the media” and is being treated in a historically unfair way. He is, he contends, the object of a “witch hunt.” Well, why don't we take a look at an actual witch hunt, by which we mean a phony search for a non-existent villain upon whom to blame one’s problems for political gain. In witch-hunt world, this one is the gold standard.

On September 11, 2012, when Hillary Clinton was secretary of State, the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked and burned.  Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed. At first, it was thought the attack was the spontaneous reaction of an angry mob to a video mocking Islam and the Prophet Mohammed. Later, it was determined to have been a “terrorist” attack, meaning a planned action by unidentified Islamic radicals. The government changed its assessment regarding who was responsible after additional facts came to light – a change which Clinton opponents characterized as somehow sinister. “What difference does it make?” Clinton rightly asked when Republicans went into a tizzy over whether it was angry mob or a planned attack by militants – a question those opponents have never answered.

Investigations of the matter over the succeeding months and years were conducted by the following: U.S. State Department Accountability Review Board. the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the House Judiciary Committee, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the House Armed Services Committee, the House Select Committee on Intelligence, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, and the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

That last one, the investigation by the House Select Committee on Benghazi, headed by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), lasted longer than the 9/11 Commission, and congressional investigations into the attack on Pearl Harbor, the assassination of President Kennedy, Watergate, the Iran-contra scandal, the 1983 bombing that killed 241 American service members in Beirut, and the response to Hurricane Katrina. The committee hauled in more than 100 witnesses, subjected Clinton to an 11-hour grilling, and spent some $7 million on the undertaking. This inquiry was after all the ones listed above – none of which uncovered any evidence of wrongdoing by Clinton or issued any conclusions to that effect. Same result for the House Committee. Its astounding conclusion after the expenditure of all that time and treasure: Security at the mission was not as good as it might have been.

But, of course, it was never about getting to the bottom of what happened that night and who, if anyone, in the U.S. government was at fault. It was always about creating a cloud of suspicion over candidate Clinton among folks who the Republicans knew would not pay very close attention to the actual goings-on in the committee or to its conclusions. Where there was smoke, they knew many voters would believe, there was fire. This investigation was 100-percent smoke. Two years and $7 million worth of smoke.

And it worked, exactly the way they believed it would. “Benghazi” became, among the anti-Hillary people, a buzz word which they would invoke as though its meaning were self-evident; no need to explain how, or even if, the events of that night reflected negatively on Clinton. It was enough to simply speak the word and heads would nod in agreement.

In September of 2015, in a moment of candor that many believe cost him a shot at the House speakership, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA, later referred to by Donald Trump is “my Kevin”) owned up to his party’s cynical motive for the committee’s “investigation.” He said this:

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.”

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) characterized McCarthy’s words as a “stunning concession" which, he said, “reveals the truth that Republicans never dared admit in public. The core Republican goal in establishing the Benghazi committee was always to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and never to conduct an evenhanded search for the facts.”

Now that's a witch hunt. Despite what Trump people would prefer to believe, the investigations now under way by a special counsel and two congressional committees are not the result of non-evidence manufactured by political opponents or the media. They are the result of things he himself has said and done, and for which he is going to have to answer. 

That’s not a witch hunt. 

The Russians did it. The only question now is whether Americans did, too.

To be clear -- because Donald Trump continues to do what he can to muddy these waters: The Russian government, using computer technology, interfered with and tried to manipulate the outcome of the 2016 U.S. election. And we know that the purpose of that interference was to impede Hillary Clinton’s chance of winning. These things are not in dispute, having been uncovered and attested to by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, and more than a dozen other agencies of the government of the United States whose job it is to know about such matters and combat them. It has been fully acknowledged by members of both parties in congress and by the Trump-appointed Secretary of Defense. And by Trump himself, notwithstanding his ongoing efforts to obfuscate the issue and blame it all on Democrat sour grapes. The debate with regard to whether this happened is over. That train has left the station.

So: Since we know with certainty what happened, the only remaining question is what role, if any, did people around Donald Trump, and/or Trump himself, play in it. Did these people, these Americans, help the Russians do what we know with certainty that they did – attack the United States? That’s what’s on the table now – not what happened, but whether Trump and company had a hand in what happened. And that’s what’s being investigated by the FBI and by committees in the House and Senate.  That's what James Comey was investigating when he was fired.

Donald Trump, instead of being outraged by all if this and vowing to get to the bottom of any sins the Russians may have committed, has done everything he can to thwart the inquiry. That Trump has something to hide that involves Russia is a conclusion that has become all but impossible to avoid.

That makes it a good time to review what is known about Trump and Russia. The New York Times recently provided this recap:

THE TRUMP FAMILY BUSINESS There may be no Trump Tower in Moscow or St. Petersburg, but it is not for lack of trying. Mr. Trump and his family have sought to do business in Russia since at least the 1980s. They have also developed extensive commercial and personal relationships with politically connected Russian businessmen. In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. told a real estate conference, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets; say in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo and anywhere in New York,” according to eTurboNews, a travel industry news site. The author James Dodson said that another son, Eric Trump, told him in 2013 that Russians have bankrolled Trump golf courses: “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” Eric Trump denies saying that.

In addition, Donald Trump worked with the Agalarov family, a prominent Russian business group, to host the 2013 edition of his Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. Mr. Trump met more than a dozen of the country’s most prominent oligarchs while he was there, Bloomberg News reported. Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump and is a senior adviser to the president, has also been caught up in the Russia story. During the transition, Mr. Kushner met with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, as well as with the top executive of a Russian government-owned bank.

MICHAEL FLYNN Mr. Flynn, the former national security adviser, had several conversations with Mr. Kislyak during the transition in which they discussed American sanctions against Russia. Mr. Trump fired Mr. Flynn after public disclosure that he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of those talks. In addition, RT, a Russian government-backed news outlet, paid Mr. Flynn $45,000 for giving a speech in December 2015 in Moscow. On the same trip, he sat next to President Vladimir Putin at an RT gala. The Pentagon is investigating whether Mr. Flynn, a retired military intelligence officer, failed to disclose and obtain approval from the State and Defense Departments before taking money from a foreign government.

JEFF SESSIONS Mr. Sessions, the attorney general, said during his Senate confirmation hearing that he did not have any contacts with Russian officials while he was actively campaigning for Mr. Trump. In fact, he met with Mr. Kislyak twice, once in his Senate office and once at the Republican National Convention.

PAUL MANAFORT Mr. Manafort, a former chairman of the Trump campaign, worked as a consultant for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine and for Ukraine’s former president, Viktor Yanukovych, who was backed by the Kremlin. Mr. Manafort has been accused of receiving secret payments from the pro-Russia party. About a decade earlier, Mr. Manafort also worked for Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with close ties to Mr. Putin. The Associated Press obtained a memo he wrote to Mr. Deripaska offering a plan that he said would “greatly benefit the Putin Government.”

CARTER PAGE American officials believe that Mr. Page, a foreign policy adviser, had contacts with Russian intelligence officials during the campaign. He also gave a pro-Russia speech in Moscow in July 2016. Mr. Page was once employed by Merrill Lynch’s Moscow office, where he worked with Gazprom, a government-owned energy giant.

ROGER STONE Mr. Stone, an informal but close Trump adviser, exchanged messages last summer with Guccifer 2.0, a Twitter account widely believed to be a front for Russian intelligence operatives who were involved in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. During the campaign, Mr. Stone seemed to know in advance that WikiLeaks would release emails from the account of John Podesta, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman.

So what?

Many Republicans and other Trump worshippers, once the fact of Russian interference in the election became unavoidable, shifted to questioning its importance. What’s the big deal if the Russians got involved in some election mischief here. Who cares if Trump and his people have financial ties to the Russian government? Is Russia so bad? Isn't this just a distraction from all the important things Trump is trying to do?

Well, again, to be clear: This event was an attack on the sovereignty of the United States of America, just as surely as if it had been done with bombs and bullets. It took aim at the very heartbeat of America, the thing that makes it what it is and the thing we have depended on for 200-plus years to provide us with the kind of life we want: the free election of the people who represent us in government. It was an attack on our country by a foreign and hostile country. If American citizens helped them do that, it’s a very big problem. (Trump enthusiasts who shrug their shoulders at all of this need to ask themselves a simple question: What if all of the above were true of Barrack Obama or Hillary Clinton?)

For an interesting take on what Russia is all about -- the Russia that Trump’s hard core would have us believe is essentially harmless – check out Joe Scarborough on the subject.

How to Fire an FBI Chief

As luck would have it, Flyoverland was in the room when it all went down...

Trump: I want that sonofabitch fired. I’ve had it with his Russia thing. If he gets any closer on Russia, which it looks like he’s about to do, it’s really gonna hit the fan. You can stick a fork in us. Plus the insubordinate bastard refuses to back me up on the Obama wire-tapping.

Aide: Well, sir, there’s really no way he could back you up on the wiretapping. After all, we all know what a crock it actually is.

Trump: Who is this man?

Other aide: Jenkins, sir.

Trump: Take him out and shoot him.

Other aide: Yes, sir.

Trump: Now, Sessions, I need you to cook up a reason for the firing. We don’t want people thinking it has anything to do with Russia.

Sessions: Absolutely, sir. And here’s what I think is a great idea. Just delicious, really. What we do is, we say it was because of what he did to Hillary. I mean, think about it. The irony. It’s perfect. The Dems won’t be able to say a word.

Trump: Ooh. Sa-weet! You little devil you!

Aide: I don’t think anybody’s going to believe that. Even our hard-core people aren’t that dumb.

Trump: Oh, they’re that dumb. Believe me. Remember when I said I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any votes? No, I think it’s genius. Absolutely beautiful. Not only will our base believe it, everyone will believe it. After all, it’s perfectly plausible.

Other Aide: Damn right, Mr. President.

Trump: Beautiful. Now, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll have the new guy, Frankentein or whatever his name is, say it was his idea, and that I’m just following his recommendation. Everyone will believe that, right?

Another Aide: Damn right, Mr. President. After all, they are incredibly dumb and believe all the ridiculous things you say. But, still, maybe we should have a fallback position on that one.

Trump: Okay, if they question that, I’ll say I started thinking about firing him back when I was elected. By the greatest margin in history, by the way. Because of his handling of the Clinton thing.

Another Aide: But, sir, you praised him to the skies for that.

Trump: Who cares? (sarcastically) Remember? 5th Avenue? Shooting people? Folks have forgotten all about that praising Comey thing. After all, it was months ago. I’ll just say I never said any of that. I do it all the time. And people always believe me. Believe me.

Sessions: Alrighty, then. We’re agreed. So, let’s give it a whirl. We did this because of Comey’s outrageous mistreatment of Clinton. It was Rosenstein’s idea. It had absolutely nothing to do with Russia. And, for good measure, we can throw in that the FBI rank-and-file is completely on board – in fact, had been calling for Comey’s head. All one-hundred percent believable.

Trump: I love it. There’s no way anyone would have any reason to doubt any of that. In fact, everyone will think it’s a beautiful explanation. They will say that I courageously did the right thing, and they’ll thank me! After all, the people are incredibly stupid and believe the things that I say.

Another aide: Sir, while I know you have unbounded faith in the stupidity of the American people, and I admire you for it, you can’t really think anyone’s going to believe this one. I mean, it’s too much. It’s such an obvious whopper!

Trump: Who is this man?

Yet Another Aide: Jones, sir.

Trump: Take him out and shoot him.