Hello Vladimir; Bye Bye Democracy

In my last Gerry Meandering I said “At some time in the future historians will uncover the actual hold that Putin has over Trump. However, the fact that he has such a hold seems clear.”  My friend Joe Weber, who is a super-smart, long–retired senior Bell Labs engineer and planner – and a student of history – felt this required elaboration and  wrote the following:

One of the witnesses in the impeachment hearings, William J. Taylor, described Trump’s attempts to extort an investigation by Ukraine in order to embarrass a potential political opponent as one that could “not be explained. It was crazy”. Actually, it was not so crazy if Trump was consciously acting on Russia’s behalf. This particular caper helped Russia in two ways -. it weakened Ukraine, and cast doubt on the fact that Russia had interfered in the American elections in 2016.

Let us consider some of the other apparently inexplicable things Trump has done since taking office:

1. Despite the unanimous opinions of the intelligence community, he continues to publicly support Putin’s denials of election interference and assertions that the Ukrainians were involved.
2. He has done everything he can get away with to weaken our relationships with our European allies and NATO, including supporting Brexit.
3. He had to be forced by Congress to impose sanctions on Russia after it invaded Ukraine, has said that perhaps the Crimea should be Russian, and would like to invite Russia to rejoin the G7.
4. He unilaterally and abruptly withdrew from Syria, basically handing control of the country to Russia

I know it’s a difficult concept to get one’s arms around, but how many more otherwise incomprehensible pro-Russian actions must Trump undertake before we conclude that he is either a Russian agent, or at least a docile puppet of Vladimir Putin.

In addition to what Joe wrote, there are many other examples of Trump’s strangely close relationship with Russia. In a May 10^th 2017 private Oval Office meeting Trump told Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrof and Ambassador Sergey Kislyac that he had no problem with the Russian interference in the 2016 election. This was just after he had fired FBI Director Comey them which, he also told them, would relieve him of the pressure of the Russian investigation. On another occasion it is reported that Trump called Putin to ask for guidance on how to handle North Korea. (The transcript of that call has been put in the most secure server so that it cannot be accessed.)

Then there is the fact that so many people with ties to Russia served on the Trump campaign, including Paul Manafort, who Trump had never met, but suddenly appointed chairman of his campaign, Manafort, who is now in jail as a result of the Mueller investigation, had a long history of working with Russian oligarchs in shady ways. His principal client was Oleg Deripaska, a powerful oligarch and close ally of Vladimir Putin.

The appointment of Rex Tillerson, the head of ExxonMobil, as secretary of State also raises some questions. Tillerson may have been the single closest American to Vladimir Putin from both a business and personal standpoint, whereas he and Trump had never previously met. Did Putin influence that appointment?

But, in addition to Trump, another key player’s actions raise similar questions: Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell – the Senate leader. McConnell seems to have abdicated his constitutional role of having the senate serve as part of a system of checks and balances on the presidency. He has, in effect, merged the senate with the presidency – and will not bring up legislation unless he knows that Trump will approve it. His recent statements about impeachment are even more alarming. In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox he said that “everything” he does “during this, I’m coordinating with the White House counsel. There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this,”  This is tantamount to a jury  after it has been seated, announcing that it is coordinating with the defense counsel in the trial and that it has agreed, in advance, to find the defendant not guilty, regardless of the evidence that has yet to be presented.

What could account for McConnell’s unwavering support of Trump? Could he also be under Russian influence? Is there a reason why he has been dubbed “Moscow Mitch”? Let’s look at the record.

In March 2016, when McConnell took the unprecedented step of refusing to hold hearings to confirm Obama’s selection of Merrick Garland to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, Hillary Clinton was quite far ahead of Trump in the polls and Trump was not even ahead in the polls for the Republican nomination. If McConnell had assumed, as most people did at that time, that Hillary would become president, why would he have held open the nomination for the next president to make? Garland was nominated by Obama because, with his centrist positions, he had always enjoyed strong bi-partisan support. If Hillary had won, as expected, with a Democratic controlled senate, she would have been likely to nominate a more left-leaning Supreme Court candidate. So was it just McConnell’s dumb luck that Trump got to make the nomination of a far right justice immediately on taking office? Or did McConnell know that something else was going on that could well change the picture?

In April 2018 Rusal – a Russian-owned company that is one of the world’s leading aluminum producers – announced plans to invest around two hundred million dollars to build the biggest new aluminum plant constructed in the U.S. in decades. Where do you think it is being built? That’s right – in Mitch McConnell’s home state of Kentucky. And who is the largest shareholder in Rusal? It is Oleg Deripaska – Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s long–time principal client. And when did it happen? Just months after the Trump administration lifted sanctions on Deripaska’s companies, despite strong opposition from Democrats and some Republicans in Congress

True, this is all speculation. Indeed all of these things could be genuine coincidences, but just think about it for a moment. Was there ever a time, under any previous president, when so many people with suspicious connections to a foreign country were so involved in a presidential campaign and the consequent administration? Has there ever been a president so deferential to a foreign leader?

Clearly there seems to be more to this than meets the eye. But if our leaders are under the control; of a foreign power, our American democracy is not only threatened, it is on the way out. So let’s hope we can stop it in the next election – and that future historians, when they figure it all out, are not writing treatises on why American democracy failed.