Although Donald Trump now claims that everything is a “hoax”, his favorite term to discredit any story that is true, intelligence officials clearly told the president that Russia was paying rewards to Afghan fighters for killing US troops. Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that Trump was briefed and that the National Security Council held a large inter-agency meeting. When the White House denied that Trump had heard anything about this, sources proposed a date for the briefing: February 27. Other Associated Press reports indicate that Trump was shown an earlier version of this intelligence more than a year ago. , and then-national security adviser John Bolton personally reported it in March 2019. Financial documents also support the story, and the name of an Afghan broker has emerged.
In fact, it is obvious that Trump is lying about this is only because of the fact that he is ruling out the the whole story as a “hoax,” despite the fact that its White House officials and Republican politicians do not dispute that these intelligence reports on Russian rewards really exist. However, Trump continues to deny that he was informed, and also absurdly claims, “This is all a false hoax from the fake news media.”
Every time you rate a story a “hoax,” it’s generally a safe bet that’s true. For example, she stated that concerns about the new coronavirus were a “hoax”, and we have now seen 130,000 deaths and nearly 3 million people infected. Throughout the impeachment process, he claimed it was all a “hoax,” despite the White House transcripts making it clear that he had tried to blackmail the Ukrainian president into defaming Joe Biden. And, of course, Trump loved to shout about the “Russian hoax” in reference to extensive interference with the 2016 election and the Trump campaign’s extensive collusion with that conspiracy.
Due to the meat grinder that is our current political situation and Trump’s repetition of “no collusion”, many people, especially in the media, have forgotten that last point: while Special Adviser Robert Mueller did not find actions that could be charged with criminal conspiracy on behalf of Trump, found extensive collusion with that conspiracy, both by Trump himself and by his campaign staff. Like anything else Trump calls a “hoax,” Russia’s collusion story was real, and highly damning.
That matters now, and in fact always did. The current scandal over Russian rewards, which is in the mix with other scandals, such as Trump’s mishandling of the economic crisis and his failure to let the coronavirus invade the country in a deadly and, oh yes, supremacist wave White Stuff – dates back to Trump’s peculiar affection for Russia and its authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin. It is not just that Trump loves Putin and will not hear a bad word about Russia. It is that he has a long history, documented in the Mueller report, of inviting Russia to help him cheat in the election and making it clear that he would use his power to help Putin’s agenda in return.
In April 2019, the Just Security website gathered a comprehensive analysis of the Mueller report and found that it “provides significant evidence that Trump Campaign partners coordinated, cooperated, encouraged or supported Russia’s electoral interference activities / WikiLeaks “
The amount of such activity, which some might call collusion, is staggering. Trump campaign president Paul Manafort shared internal campaign data with a Russian spy. Deputy campaign manager Rick Gates was in the car with Trump when Trump received a call taking him to a WikiLeaks dump, which we now know involves emails stolen by Russian intelligence. Donald Trump Jr. and other campaign staff members gathered at the Trump Tower to discuss what they clearly hoped was an opportunity to deepen the conspiracy. Behind the scenes, Trump Jr. encouraged the Russian conspiracy and tried to establish channels to get more involved.
For their efforts, the Russians got some significant tokens of love from Trump and his campaign in return. Trump rewrote the Republican platform to remove language condemning Russian aggression towards Ukraine. Trump’s first and very short-lived national security adviser, Michael Flynn, got into trouble during his time on the transition team by implicitly promising Russia that the sanctions imposed under Barack Obama, in response to electoral interference, would be lifted. Arguably, Trump’s threat to withdraw military aid from Ukraine was more of the same, as it served not only his interests, but Putin’s as well.
Mueller proved to be a “quid”. There was plenty of evidence of the “quo”. There was simply no direct evidence of the “professional,” but many raised eyebrows and mutual, albeit unspoken, understanding.
Remember that 34 people were charged or convicted or convicted of crimes as a result of Mueller’s investigation. Trump himself clearly committed multiple crimes of obstruction of justice in his efforts to cover up the conspiracy, and his obstruction may successfully hide more evidence of collusion or even open conspiracy.
Chances are, there isn’t an open conspiracy because there didn’t have to be. Trump understood that he was receiving illegal aid from the Russians, and used his public platform repeatedly to indicate to Moscow that they would feel his gratitude for their help. Furthermore, reading the Mueller report, one has the impression that Russian spies discussed the possibility of a more direct conspiracy with the Trump campaign, but when they witnessed what group of incompetent fans they were dealing with, they felt it better to leave Trump and his family out of the loop with the conspiracy against the American people.
It is important to reiterate all of these facts and analyzes because it helps us understand what the hell is going on with this Russian reward story. Trump is grateful for the extensive and illegal help he received from Russia in the 2016 election, and he hopes to get more such help in 2020 (of which he was not exactly shy).
This story suggests that Trump may not be conspiring directly with Putin, but he seems to have a tacit understanding with the Russian president: Putin will provide aid to the Trump campaign and Trump will look the other way when Putin takes steps to undermine Western democracy.
As anyone with a Twitter account and political opinion might tell you, Russia is defending this end of this deal, actively using social media to expose Americans to the same psychic operations that Putin has used against his own people for years.
This context also helps us understand Trump’s behavior. A new report by CNN’s Jim Sciutto paints a picture of Trump’s attitude toward intelligence reports that have unfavorable information about Putin and Russia: he doesn’t want to hear it, and has so intimidated officials that they have given up offering him substantial intelligence on Russia’s activities.
“The president has created an environment that discourages, if not prohibits, the mention of any intelligence that is not favorable to Russia,” an official told Sciutto.
This is not really that mysterious. Trump is grateful for Russia’s help and wants more of it. He understands that the price of such aid is not interfering with Putin’s undemocratic machinations. So he has intimidated intelligence officials to rarely or never broach the subject, and has actively used the powers of his office to help Putin, such as trying to get Russia back to the G7. It does not need to be a conspiracy. But it could be called collusion.
There have already been American deaths related to these Russian rewards. Trump refuses to acknowledge the fact that it was wrong to ignore intelligence in the first place, and even continues to deny that any of that is true. By calling history a “hoax,” Trump is signaling to Putin that he has the back of the Russian leader and that, whatever Putin wants to do globally, Trump will not only look the other way, but will make excuses for him.
There is a lot of talk that Trump was blackmailed or paid by the Russians, and heaven knows that our situation is so crazy that it cannot be completely ruled out. But we don’t need that kind of explanation, either, when the most obvious one is looking us in the face: Trump wants Russia to help him cheat in 2020, just like they helped him cheat in 2016, and he’s willing to do anything. you can make sure that happens. If the price requires the blood of American soldiers, so be it.
