How Michael Cohen May Take Trump Down

As many commentators have said over and over again, no one should be surprised as Donald Trump is exposed as morally and legally deficient.  He's always been who he is and just as he operated his real estate business by skirting the law and consorting with crime figures and shady Russians, he did the same throughout his campaign and into his regime.  Anyone who claims shock as revelations unfold is either a liar or a fool.  We have the equivalent of a crime boss who is the embodiment of the seven deadly sins in the White House and evangelical Christians and closeted white supremacist (some, not so closeted) put him there.  And what about Mike Pence, the allegedly "devout Christian" who happily signed onto the toxic and morally bankrupt regime?   A column by former Republican,  Jennifer Rubin, in the Washington Post looks at what Michael Cohen's cooperation with federal authorities could reveal, none of it good for Trump and his knuckle dragging supporters.  Here are highlights:

Trump was right to be panicked back in April, and since then we’ve all learned of more damaging facts that Cohen may substantiate. Cohen is at the intersection of at least three possibly disastrous legal stories.

First, Cohen was involved in the payment of hush money to silence multiple women with whom Trump allegedly had extra-marital affairs. The political fallout will depend on how many women and the circumstances of those payments. The criminal liability here concerns violation of campaign-finance rules as part of a deliberate attempt to conceal large amounts of money from voters. Blaming Cohen exclusively will be hard for Trump to pull off, given the tape we already have heard. If there is other evidence documenting Trump’s involvement, his legal problem worsens.

Second, Cohen has been Trump’s “fixer” and dealmaker for years. He was at the center of the failed Trump Tower project in Russia and likely would have been privy to other Russia-related transactions, if any, over years. Trump has insisted the special counsel not go into his personal finances. The chances that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his team are doing just that and will continue digging with Cohen as a guide has gone up dramatically.

Third, Cohen may have plenty of other information relating to Trump campaign contacts with Russia and to Trump’s own efforts to conceal them and disable the investigation. Goodness knows what recordings, documents and firsthand recollections he may have. What, for example, does he know about the Trump Tower meeting in June 2016? What, if anything, does he know about contacts that members of the Trump team had with Russia during the campaign and/or the transition? Given that the White House counsel Donald McGahn, who is not Trump’s personal lawyer, has spent 30 hours or more with the special counsel, it is not as if Cohen would be the only witness to possible impropriety. Cohen and McGahn may bolster one another’s accounts.

Cohen matters because he may have critical information relating to all three of these evolving stories. Moreover, he cannot be written off as someone peripherally related to Trump. He cannot be written off as a coffee boy or as someone who went in and out of Trump’s orbit in a matter of weeks. In short, Cohen’s plea is a crushing blow because he is the first cooperating witness that could implicate Trump directly in all three matters — the women and campaign money, Trump’s business dealings, and the Trump campaign’s Russia connections.

Constitutional scholar Larry Tribe tells me, “Whether or not called an unindicted co-conspirator, that’s what the sitting president IS as of close of business today, Aug. 21, 2018, a day that will live in legal infamy.” He explains, “That’s the import of two of Michael Cohen’s guilty pleas on charges of making knowingly illegal campaign contributions at Trump’s behest in the form of hush money to keep his sex scandals quiet as the election date approached.” He adds that with the conviction of Trump’s campaign chair, Paul Manafort, on eight counts, “the only possible conclusion is that this criminal administration is coming unglued.”

Buckle up. Trump now goes from the frying pan into the fire.

Collusion - a/k/a Conspiracy - Is a Crime

Donald Trump and his sycophants are running about claiming that collusion is not a crime.  Like much of what comes out of Trump's mouth - and those of his enablers -  the claim under analysis is untrue. Indeed, collusion is simply another term for conspiracy and numerous federal statutes confirm that, if Trump and his campaign are guilty of what is claimed, then crimes did indeed occur and Trump is guilty of crimes.  A piece in The Atlantic by former Republican David Frum, lays out why saying "collusion is not a crime" is simply untrue and lying.  Indeed, Trump is a national security threat (as is Mike Pence, in my opinion since he was Trump's lackey throughout the 2016 presidential campaign).  Here are article excerpts:

It’s a crime for a U.S. presidential campaign knowingly to receive—or even solicit—anything of value from any foreign entity. It’s a crime for anyone, campaign or not, to knowingly receive stolen data. In fact, receiving stolen data triggers a complex nexus of crimes, both state and federal. Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and other top Trump aides met with a lawyer who identified herself as an agent of the Russian government offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

Lying to Congress is a crime, albeit one seldom prosecuted. Trump Jr. was under oath when he testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 17, 2017, that he did not tell his father about the Trump Tower meeting with the lawyer. “I wouldn’t have wasted his time with it,” he said. Should that testimony prove untrue, the younger Trump could also face perjury charges.

Money laundering is a crime. Tax evasion is a crime. Obstruction of justice is a crime. Lying to federal investigators is a crime.

It’s true, as Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani keeps insisting, that you will not find the word collusion in the federal criminal code. You will not find the word hacking there either. But that does not mean that hacking is legal, only that lawyers speak differently from other people.

The kernel of truth in the “collusion is not a crime” defense is this: If the Trump campaign avoided tripping over federal election law and computer fraud in the course of a hypothetical collaboration with the Russian GRU, then it is very possible it did not violate any criminal statutes. I wrote about such a possibility here last May. But the predicate for that possibility is that there be no direct contact between the Trump campaign and the Russian state . . .
 But Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s second indictment of Russians claimed that voter analytic data was stolen by Russian hackers from Democratic servers. If those analytics were shared by the Russians with the Trump campaign, that would be a straightforward crime, just as much as the Watergate burglary of the Democratic National Committee in 1972.

The crucial context for assessing the claim that “collusion is not a crime” is the way the Trump-Russia story has emerged into the light, denial after denial collapsing into dust.

Trump, his campaign, and the White House have denied the campaign had Russia contacts. The campaign met with Russian agents.  They denied that the meeting discussed stolen email. The meeting discussed stolen email.

They denied that the Russian intervention was intended to help elect Trump. At the Helsinki summit of the two leaders, Vladimir Putin said, plainly, that he had wished to see Trump elected.

Only this year, and only thanks to the Mueller investigation, have Americans begun to learn the full industrial scale of the Russian intrusion into the 2016 election. Only last month, and again only thanks to the Mueller investigation, was it confirmed that the hackers of the Democratic Party were indeed agents of the Russian state—a truth that Trump still will not unequivocally accept.

Yet there is one way in which the “collusion is not a crime” talking point actually directs attention in the right direction. The Trump presidency’s connections to Russia are a national-security issue first, a criminal-justice issue only second.

Donald Trump owes his presidency at least in considerable part to the illegal assistance of the Russian state: hacking, data theft, prohibited election advertising. This compromised president has in office launched himself against U.S. alliances and trade arrangements built by administrations of both parties over the past three-quarters of a century. The president describes the European Union as a “foe,” quarrels with Canada and Germany, and enters into agreements with Putin that he seems not to have shared even with his own secretary of state and national-security adviser. He blabs vital secrets to the Russian foreign minister, resists holding Russia to account for nerve-agent attacks on British soil, and refuses to implement sanctions voted almost unanimously by Congress.

Meanwhile, the single data point that supposedly proves how tough he is on Russia—the provision of lethal aid to Ukraine—may actually prove something very different. Ukraine halted its cooperation with the Mueller probe ahead of the sale, to “avoid irritating the top American officials.”

It was—or should have been—obvious to anyone paying attention on voting day 2016 that Donald Trump was not an honest businessman. What has come further and further into the light since Election Day is something much more dangerous even than dishonesty.

Facebook Identifies Likely Russian Political Influence Campaign in Midterm Elections

American intelligence officials stated that Vladimir Putin
personally controlled the 2016 cyber-attacks.

Given Donald Trump's refusal to (i) admit the role of Russian efforts in his squeaker of a win in 2016, and (ii) his refusal to launch any significant effort to block future cyber-attacks, it isn't surprising that Facebook has announced that it has identified yet another active political campaign by likely Russian agents in the run up to the 2018 midterm elections.  Should Democrats win control of Congress, Putin's asset, Donald Trump, could at minimum face troublesome hearings and subpoenas, or even articles of impeachment. Hence the effort to reprise the 2016 cyber-attack. While Facebook released the information, one has to wonder why Facebook hasn't clamped down on the ability of foreign interest to purchase and moderate political efforts aimed at American elections.  The New York Times looks at this development.  Here are story highlights:

Facebook said on Tuesday that it had identified a political influence campaign that was potentially built to disrupt the midterm elections, with the company detecting and removing 32 pages and fake accounts that had engaged in activity around divisive social issues.

The company did not definitively link the campaign to Russia. But Facebook officials said some of the tools and techniques used by the accounts were similar to those used by the Internet Research Agency, the Kremlin-linked group that was at the center of an indictment this year alleging interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Facebook said it had discovered coordinated activity around issues like a sequel to last year’s deadly “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Activity was also detected around #AbolishICE, a left-wing campaign on social media that seeks to end the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

The jolting disclosure, delivered to lawmakers in private briefings on Capitol Hill this week and in a public Facebook post on Tuesday, underscored how behind-the-scenes interference in the November elections had begun.

In recent weeks, there have been reports of other meddling, including a Daily Beast report that the office of Claire McCaskill of Missouri, one of the Senate’s most vulnerable Democrats up for re-election this fall, was unsuccessfully targeted by Russian hackers last year, which Ms. McCaskill confirmed. American intelligence officials have indicated that at least one other unnamed Democratic senator up for re-election has been targeted.

Officials at Facebook, which is based in Silicon Valley, said they were working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other intelligence agencies on their discovery of the influence campaign.

Earlier on Tuesday, Mr. Trump declared again on Twitter that there had been “No Collusion” between his campaign and the Russians, and asserted that, in any case, “collusion is not a crime.”

Lawmakers from both parties quickly set aside questions of who had perpetrated the influence campaign and said Facebook’s disclosure only clarified what they had feared since the extent of Russian involvement in 2016 became clear more than a year ago: that social media companies would be unable to keep up with the pace and scope of malicious efforts to abuse their platforms.

Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said he would make the disclosure a central part of a previously scheduled hearing on Wednesday, when lawmakers plan to press outside experts on the pervasiveness of foreign influence on social media networks like Facebook.

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the committee, praised Facebook on Tuesday for bringing the activity out into the public, but asked for its cooperation in updating laws to prevent influence campaigns.

“Today’s disclosure is further evidence that the Kremlin continues to exploit platforms like Facebook to sow division and spread disinformation,” he said.

Finding suspicious activity was harder this time around, Facebook said. Unlike many of the alleged Russian trolls in 2016, who paid for Facebook ads in rubles and occasionally used Russian internet protocol addresses, these accounts used advanced security techniques to avoid detection. For instance, they disguised their internet traffic using virtual private networks and internet phone services, and used third parties to buy ads for them.

“These bad actors have been more careful to cover their tracks, in part due to the actions we’ve taken to prevent abuse over the past year,” Mr. Gleicher said.

Like the 2016 Russian interference campaign, the recently detected campaign sought to amplify divisive social issues, including through organizing real-world events. On Capitol Hill and in congressional races across the country, the #AbolishICE campaign has divided Democrats and provided Republicans with fodder to paint Democratic candidates as extremists who want open borders. The issue, Republicans hope, could help drive a wedge between liberal Democrats and the moderate voters the party needs to retake control in Washington. Mr. Trump has gone as far as encouraging Democratic candidates to embrace the campaign. The American midterms, though, are a major test for the company [Facebook], which is trying to show that it can handle its role as a global arbiter of conversation and commerce — even with interference by others.

Earlier in July, Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, warned that Russian interference remains an active threat to November’s elections.  “The warning lights are blinking red again,” he said.

Sadly, many - including some local "friends" seem to have learned nothing from 2016 and continue to fall for blatantly fake news and even re-post it.  Seemly, their racial bigotry and selfish motivations outweigh common sense.

Russian Hackers Target Vulnerable Democrat Senator in 2018 Midterms

Senator Claire McCaskill - targeted by Russian hackers in lead up to 2018 midterms.

Some wonder whether we will ever lean what was discussed during Donald Trump's tete a tete  with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.  Based on new stories about Russian efforts to undermine Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, it seems a safe bet that Trump wasn't laying down the law to Putin about ceasing Russian interference in American elections. Trump's detractors might even conjecture that the two discussed what Russia might do to keep Congress under Republican control and thereby allow Trump to avoid Democrat chaired hearings and hard hitting Congressional subpoenas.  Perhaps even articles of impeachment,  As the Washington Post reports, Russian hackers have targeted Missouri Democrat, Senator Claire McCaskill in an apparent attempt to throw that seat in the U.S. Senate to McCaskill's Republican challenger.  The good news, is that the attempt failed.  The bad news is that the effort will likely persist and one can just imagine the Russia bot generated fake news that McCaskill will face.  That Trump and Congressional Republicans are doing nothing to stop these efforts - Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell at best have their thumbs up their butts, although I suspect McConnell is applauding if not abetting the Russian effort - borders on treasonous.  Here are highlights from the Post piece:

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, one of the most vulnerable Democrats running for reelection this year, was targeted by Russian government hackers who sought but failed to compromise her Senate computer network.

“Russia continues to engage in cyber warfare against our democracy,” McCaskill said in a press release Thursday evening. “While this attack was not successful, it is outrageous that they think they can get away with this. I will not be intimidated. I’ve said it before and I will say it again, Putin is a thug and a bully.”

The hackers, who belong to Russia’s military spy agency GRU, targeted two other candidates running in the midterms, according to a Microsoft executive, Tom Burt, who spoke at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado last week. He did not identify the candidates. None were compromised, he said.

McCaskill, who is the ranking Democrat on the homeland security committee and also sits on the armed services panel, has been critical of President Trump’s statements that appear to discount the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia used information warfare in an attempt to influence the 2016 election.

Just two weeks ago, the Justice Department announced the indictments of 12 GRU officers charged with hacking Democratic Party email networks and releasing stolen material in an effort to affect the election.

Top U.S. intelligence officials, including Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, have warned that they expected the Russians to try again this year.

“Russia has been the most aggressive foreign actor — no question,” Coats said in recent remarks at the Hudson Institute. “And they continue their efforts to undermine our democracy.”

Microsoft discovered “a fake Microsoft domain” or website that the hackers had created to which spearphish victims were directed.  “We took down that domain, and working with the government actually were able to avoid anybody being infected by that particular attack,” he said.

McCaskill is expected to face Josh Hawley, Missouri’s attorney general and the leading GOP contender for the Senate seat, in November.

What I find most disturbing is that far too many Republican voters are willing to overlook possible treason and election interference as longs a the benefited candidates hates blacks, gays and Hispanics as much as they do.  And yes, many of these Republicans are evangelical Christians. I have long argued that they constitute a threat to constitutional government and now, they are willing to support a Russian backed de facto putsch. (For Fox News viewers, a putsch is a secretly plotted and suddenly executed attempt to overthrow a government.)

Making the Case: Without Russia, Trump Wouldn’t Have Won

A piece in the Washington Post makes an argument that might drive the malignant narcissist in the White House to have an aneurysm or heart attack were it to come to his attention (I won't speculate if that would be a good thing or a bad thing - readers can draw their own conclusions).  The thrust of the column?  The bottom line is that but for the actions of Russian hackers and Russian derived fake news, Donald Trump would not be in the White House. For an individual who can never admit his own failings and whose ego is insatiable, the premise of the article goes to his apparent core as an egomaniac and insufferable liar and braggart.  Yet, if you read the full piece it is hard to refute - notwithstanding GOP talking points, lies and attacks on "sour grapes" Democrats - that it is probably correct in its conclusion.  But for Putin/Russia, Clinton would now be in the White House and the ongoing national nightmare would not be happening.  Here are column highlights:

President Trump is willing, under duress, to briefly and begrudgingly admit that Russian “meddling” took place in 2016 before reverting to calling it a “big hoax.” But he always maintains that the plot against America had no impact; he describes it as a “Democrat excuse for losing the ’16 Election.” Faithfully echoing the president, other Republicans, such as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), say it’s “clear” that the Russian interference “didn’t have a material effect on our elections.” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders even claims that the U.S. intelligence community reached that conclusion.

Not quite. Here is the intelligence community’s assessment, partially declassified in January 2017: “We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election. The US Intelligence Community is charged with monitoring and assessing the intentions, capabilities, and actions of foreign actors; it does not analyze US political processes or US public opinion.” When then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo claimed last fall that “the intelligence community's assessment is that the Russian meddling that took place did not affect the outcome of the election,” his own agency rebuked him.

[O]utside experts who have examined the Kremlin campaign — which included stealing and sharing Democratic Party emails, spreading propaganda online and hacking state voter rolls — have concluded that it did affect an extremely close election decided by fewer than 80,000 votes in three states. Clint Watts, a former FBI agent, writes in his recent book, “Messing with the Enemy,” that “Russia absolutely influenced the U.S. presidential election,” especially in Michigan and Wisconsin, where Trump’s winning margin was less than 1 percent in each state. [W]e know its propaganda reached 126 million people via Facebook alone. A BuzzFeed analysis found that fake news stories on Facebook generated more social engagement in the last three months of the campaign than did legitimate articles: The “20 top-performing false election stories from hoax sites and hyperpartisan blogs generated 8,711,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook.” Almost all of this “fake news” was either started or spread by Russian bots, . . . Elsewhere on social media, tens of thousands of Russian bots spread pro-Trump messages on Twitter, which has already notified about 1.4 million users that they interacted with Russian accounts. The Russian disinformation, propagating hashtags such as #Hillary4Prison and #MAGA, reflected what the Trump campaign was saying. Russia also hacked voting systems in at least 39 states, and while there is no evidence that vote tallies were changed, Russians may have used the stolen data to target their social media or shared the results with the Trump campaign. The Senate Intelligence Committee found that “in a small number of states” the Russians may have been able to “alter or delete voter registration data,” potentially disenfranchising Clinton voters. And then there was the crucial impact of the Russian hacks of Democratic documents disseminated primarily by WikiLeaks.

The first tranche of stolen documents — more than 19,000 emails and 8,000 attachments — was strategically released on July 22, 2016, three days before the Democratic convention. The second tranche of stolen documents was released on Oct. 7, just 29 minutes after The Post reported on the “Access Hollywood” videotape in which Trump is heard boasting about grabbing women by the genitals. A third release of stolen emails, on Oct. 11, revealed that Democratic operative Donna Brazile, while working at CNN, had provided debate questions to Clinton during the primaries and that senior Democratic operatives, who were themselves Catholics, had exchanged emails disparaging Republicans who cherry-picked their faith for political gain. This fueled Trump’s narrative that the election was “rigged” and that the “Clinton team” was, as he said, “viciously attacking Catholics and Evangelicals.” The latter charge, unfair as it was, proved especially important in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — swing states with lots of Catholic voters. Now, by contrast, Trump and his apologists pretend that the Russian intervention — including the WikiLeaks revelations — was no big deal. That beggars belief. Even if the Russians had failed, they still attacked our democracy. Yet they didn’t fail: Trump won. Watts concludes: “Without the Russian influence effort, I believe Trump would not have even been within striking distance of Clinton on Election Day.” That is the inconvenient truth the Putin Republicans won’t admit.

We are truly living a real life version of a spy thriller where the White House has been co-opted by a hostile foreign power.

Are Republicans Covering for Trump, or for Themselves?

As a former Republican, I find it disturbing that the GOP now seems fine with covering up Donald Trump's possible collusion with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election due to the flawed Electoral College. In the House of Representatives, Devin Nunes has acted as if he is on Putin's payroll. Other Republicans such as Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell continually look the other way with a wink and a nod as new disturbing information and indictments come from the Mueller investigation. Are they simply covering for Trump, or does the possible treason go deeper?  As a column in the New York Times argues, perhaps Trump is not the only Republican beholden to Russia and/or Russian money, some of which may have been funneled through the National Rifle Association.  The irony, of course, is that most Republicans and the NRA posture and boast of being "patriotic" and supporting "real Americans," yet questions now grow as to their allegiance to Russia.  Here are column excerpts:

Of all the interlocking mysteries of the Trump-Russia scandal, one that I’ve found particularly perplexing is the utter servility of congressional Republicans before a president many of them hate and believe to be compromised by a foreign power.

Yes, I know they’re thrilled about tax cuts and judges. Given how Russia has become a patron of the right globally over the last decade, some Republicans might welcome its intervention into our politics, believing that the Democrats are greater enemies of the Republic. And some are just cowards, afraid of mean tweets or base blowback.

But that doesn’t explain why, for example, Speaker Paul Ryan, a Russia hawk who is retiring in January, allowed his party to torpedo the House Intelligence Committee investigation into Russian interference in the election. Ryan, after all, knows full well who and what Donald Trump is. In a secretly recorded June 2016 conversation about Ukraine, obtained by The Washington Post, the House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy, said, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.” Far from disagreeing, Ryan said, “What’s said in the family stays in the family.” If he were patriotic — or even if he just wanted to set himself up for a comeback should Trump implode — he would have stood up for the rule of law in the Russia inquiry. It’s hard to see what he got in return for choosing not to.

This week, however, a new possibility came into focus. Perhaps, rather than covering for Trump, some Republicans are covering for themselves.

Last Friday, Robert Mueller, the special counsel, indicted 12 members of Russian military intelligence for their interference in the 2016 election. The indictment claims that in August 2016, Guccifer 2.0, a fictitious online persona adopted by the Russian hackers, “received a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress.” The Russian conspirators obliged, sending “the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate’s opponent.” Congress has, so far, done nothing discernible to find out who this candidate might be.

Then, on Monday, we learned of the arrest of Maria Butina, who is accused of being a Russian agent who infiltrated the National Rifle Association, the most important outside organization in the Republican firmament. Legal filings in the case outline a plan to use the N.R.A. to push the Republican Party in a more pro-Russian direction.

If the N.R.A. as an organization turns out to be compromised, it would shake conservative politics to its foundation. And this is no longer a far-fetched possibility. “I serve on both the Intelligence Committee and the Finance Committee,” Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, told me. “So I have a chance to really look at this through the periscope of both committees. And what I have wondered about for some time is this whole issue of whether the N.R.A. is getting subverted as a Russian asset.” 

This is not a question that Republicans are eager to answer. Before Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee abruptly closed their investigation into Russian election interference, committee Democrats wanted to interview both Butina and Erickson. Their Republican colleagues refused. It is not surprising that Republicans would want to protect the N.R.A. According to an audit obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics, the N.R.A.’s overall spending increased by more than $100 million in 2016. “The explosion in spending came as the N.R.A. poured unprecedented amounts of money into efforts to deliver Donald Trump the White House and help Republicans hold both houses of Congress,” the center wrote.

McClatchy has reported that the F.B.I. is investigating whether Torshin illegally funneled money to the N.R.A. to help Trump. Wyden has also been trying to trace foreign money flowing into the N.R.A., but has found little cooperation from the organization, his Republican colleagues or the Treasury Department.

On Monday, a few hours after news broke of Butina’s arrest, the Treasury Department announced a new rule sparing some tax-exempt groups, including the N.R.A., from having to report their large donors to the I.R.S. Wyden called the move “truly grotesque,” saying it would “make it easier for Russian dark money” to flow into American politics. You might ask who benefits. The answer is: not just Trump.

Making the Case that Trump is Guilty of Treason

While Donald Trump is making the ridiculous claim that he "misspoke" during his joint news conference with his apparent handler, Vladimir Putin, his actions since January, 2017, and before, underscore  that there is a basis for saying that Trump is guilty of treason and should suffer all of the legal consequences.  The same may hold for a number of his GOP enablers depending on their levels of knowledge - Mitch McConnell immediately comes to mind.  A piece in the Boston Globe lays out the argument - an argument that should have true American patriots demanding that Congressional Republicans cease their complicity in Trump's misdeeds.  Here are excerpts:

Following the 2016 presidential election, a specter of treason was hovering over Donald Trump because of his response to the mounting evidence that the Russians had intervened to help elect him.

As the president-elect entered the White House, he summarily rejected the conclusion of US intelligence agencies that Russia had engaged in cyberwarfare against the US elections. He worked to block investigations into Russia’s actions. Trump advisers and associates had extensive political and business dealings with the Russian government before and during the 2016 presidential campaign. While there has not been any direct evidence that [Trump] the president-elect was involved in the Russian government’s actions, circumstances suggested that individuals or groups close to [Trump] the president could have aided or known about the Russian meddling.

According to the law, the federal crime of treason is committed by a person “owing allegiance to the United States who . . . adheres to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort.” Misprision (abetting) of treason is committed if a person “having knowledge of the commission of treason conceals and does not disclose” the crime. Today the evidence of Russian cyberattacks against the US democratic process is overwhelming. On July 13, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, a Trump appointee and former Republican senator, stated that “the warning lights are blinking red again,” as they were before the 9/11 attacks, and that “the digital infrastructure that serves this country is literally under attack.” This high-level warning came on the same day Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced that 12 Russian agents had been indicted for hacking Democratic officials in the 2016 elections by a federal grand jury convened by special counsel Robert Mueller. The Russian attacks began the day after Trump had openly encouraged Russia to hack the e-mails of his opponent. In response to the indictments of Russian agents last week, Trump declined to condemn the cyberattacks, nor did he indicate that he would to defend the country against them. Instead, the White House claimed that the Russian indictments exonerated the president because no Americans were accused of collusion. In the special counsel’s probe, however, four Trump campaign officials have already been charged with criminal conduct relating to the Russian cyberoffensive. Trump’s pre-summit comments implied that he would not use the tools of diplomacy, law, or military technology to defend the United States against continuing Russian cyberattacks. If true, this would be tantamount to giving aid and comfort to an enemy. Three points are being advanced to dismiss using the treason argument.

First, American liberals claim that charging Trump with treason will only play into the hands of his base, which believes that Trump is the victim of a conspiracy by the “deep state” to derail his presidency. This is shortsighted. Trump’s actions are a reflection of weakness in the face of grave threats to US security, the opposite of what one would have expected from a champion of “America First” like Ronald Reagan.

The second argument is that the United States has a history of meddling in foreign politics. This is true. But it does not diminish the need to respond decisively to the grave threat to US national security when a foreign power disrupts our democratic process. Trump continues to dismiss the intervention, encouraging its continuation by doing nothing to defend the country against it. Third, it’s worthwhile to try to improve relations with an adversary. True enough, but not at the expense of US national security. [Trump's] The president’s hostility to the US investigation of Russian cyberattacks, his failure to impose a cost on Russia for the attacks, his denigration of US alliances, and his eagerness to have “an extraordinary relationship” with the Russian leader all point toward giving aid and comfort to an enemy.

The Ugly American: Trump Lies, Protocol Breaches and Possible Treason

Trump barging in front of Elizabeth II

Years ago when I traveled abroad regularly for business, one of things that often made me cringe were American tourists, a certain percentage of which seem to always display rudeness, boorishness, and a basic contempt for their foreign hosts.  The epitome was when I was in the line to enter the Louvre in Paris and a group of decidedly overweight Mid-Westerners were loudly and continually bitching that the the menu at the McDonald's on the Champs Elysee wasn't just like the one in the backwater they came from.  I made an effort to hide my nationality, hoping I might pass as English, Canadian or even French with luck.  Now, we have Donald Trump, the boor-in-chief proving a nonstop embarrassment to Americans as he engages in constantly lies, snubs Queen Elizabeth - the Brits are faulting her for even meeting with Trump - and trashes the Western order in general.  Deliciously, as Trump's was being greeted by huge protests in London, Robert Mueller drop 12 more indictments of Russian nationals linking Putin's intelligence service to the hacks of the DNC and Clinton email servers.  While no Americans were among those indicted - not yet, anyway - the evidence is building that collusion with a foreign enemy regime did occur.  Trump true to form continues to scream the entire Mueller investigation is a "witch hunt" - a witch hunt that is catching more and more witches. A piece in New York Magazine looks at this bombshell.  Here are highlights: 

On July 27, 2016, Donald Trump denied Russia was the likely culprit in the email hacks, but also announced, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think that you’ll be rewarded mightily by our press.”

In what is possibly an astonishing coincidence, but probably not, that very night, according to the new indictments from the Department of Justice, Russian hackers “attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third-party provider and used by Clinton’s personal office. At or about the same time, they also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton campaign.” Trump asked Russia to hack his opponent, and Russia did “[f]or the first time,” as the indictment says.

Today’s latest, and almost certainly not last, indictments in the Russia scandal concern 12 Russian intelligence figures. . . . The danger for Trump is the implication of collusion scattered throughout the indictments.

The indictment charges that the conspirators “received a request for stolen materials from a candidate for the U.S. Congress,” and “sent the candidate stolen documents.” The Wall Street Journal reported a year ago that “Guccifer 2.0,” one of the Russian hackers, communicated with Florida-based Republican operative Aaron Nevins. Nevins is not named in this indictment, but the revelation that a candidate also communicated with Russian hackers indicates yet another point of contact in a conspiracy that went beyond Trump’s campaign.

The most direct path to the Trump campaign indicated in this indictment runs through Roger Stone. The Republican dirty trickster officially left the Trump campaign in 2015, but remained in regular contact with Trump throughout the campaign.

Stone admittedly engaged in direct communication with one of the indicted Russian agents. The indictment cites Stone’s contact with Guccifer 2.0:

That certainly looks like acting as an accessory to a crime. Stone promises he will “never roll on Trump,” unlike John Dean, who fingered President Nixon for crimes during Watergate. The promise and the analogy both suggest that Stone has evidence of culpability between Trump and Russia.

[The prosecution is building its case step by step, and the absence of formal charges against an individual in any one indictment hardly indicates they are in the clear. President

Little wonder Trump wants to meet with Putin totally alone: he wants no witnesses as he asks his handler what to do as the noose slowly but steadily tightens around him.

America's Top Spies Challenge Trump's Lies on Russia Election Interference

One of Donald Trump's most persistent lies has been that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 presidential election.  Why so?  Personally, I suspect it is because he knows that the interference took place and that he and his campaign collude with and participated in the effort.  Otherwise, why deny what everyone other than Trump's Kool-Aid drinking base can see?  John McCain has stated that it happened.  So has George W. Bush, not the brightest bulb on the shelf, as have countless others, including the heads of America's intelligence agencies - its top spies, if you will - who testified before Congress yesterday about the ongoing Russian efforts. Efforts that will likely seek to sway the 2018 midterms and cause more distrust in America's electoral process.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the testimony by Trump's own agency heads that directly contradicts Trump's continued lies.  Here are article excerpts:

On Tuesday, the top intelligence officials in the United States briefed senators on their annual assessments of the threats facing the country in the year ahead. Although most of these principals were Trump appointees, their testimony reflected the consensus of what some Trump supporters would probably tar as the “deep state,” the shadowy world of Washington bureaucrats and spooks operating at a remove from the public.

The headline concern of their report was something that exasperates the president: the role of Russian meddling in U.S. politics, whether in the form of direct attempts to interfere with the electoral system or the proliferation of Kremlin-sponsored social media bots and "news" websites.

“Russian hackers are already scanning American electoral systems, intelligence officials have said, and using bot armies to promote partisan causes on social media,” wrote Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times. “Russia also appears eager to spread information — real and fake — that deepens political divisions, including purported evidence that ties Mr. Trump to Russia, and its efforts to influence the 2016 election.” “Trump has shown no interest in investigating what actually happened two years ago and bolstering America’s defenses against it happening again.”  But for his top spies, it's deadly serious.

“Frankly, the United States is under attack,” said Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats to the Senate Intelligence Committee. “Under attack by entities that are using cyber to penetrate virtually every major action that takes place in the United States.” He added that “there should be no doubt that Russia perceives its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 U.S. midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations.”

That verdict, my colleagues noted, “was echoed by all five other intelligence agency heads present at the hearing, including CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who two weeks ago stated publicly he had 'every expectation' that Russia will try to influence the coming elections.”

In a report released in conjunction with the hearing, Coats cast Russia as a leading destabilizing actor in the West. “Moscow seeks to create wedges that reduce trust and confidence in democratic processes, degrade democratization efforts, weaken U.S. partnerships with European allies, undermine Western sanctions, encourage anti-US political views, and counter efforts to bring Ukraine and other former Soviet states into European institutions,” the report read. Trump's opponents in the Senate took the opportunity to pounce. “Make no mistake: This threat did not begin in 2016, and it certainly didn’t end with the election,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.). “What we are seeing is a continuous assault by Russia to target and undermine our democratic institutions, and they are going to keep coming at us.”

“Despite all of this, the president inconceivably continues to deny the threat posed by Russia,” he continued.  

Likewise, the intelligence community's threat assessment suggests sharp divergences from Trump's agenda. For one, it concluded that the nuclear deal signed with Tehran is largely working. “Iran’s implementation of the [nuclear deal] has extended the amount of time Iran would need to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon from a few months to about one year, provided Iran continues to adhere to the deal’s major provisions,” the report noted. It added that the agreement has “also enhanced the transparency of Iran’s nuclear activities.”

Then there's the question of climate change. Much as the Pentagon has in recent years, the threat assessment warned that rising global temperatures are “likely to fuel economic and social discontent — and possibly upheaval.” Rising seas, scarcer resources and collapsing ecosystems, it said, will “raise the risk of humanitarian disasters, conflict, water and food shortages, population migration, labor shortfalls, price shocks, and power outages.”

The warnings are ones that Trump, who is seemingly fixated on restoring American primacy in the world, theoretically ought to heed. But if we have learned anything over the past year, it's how unlikely he is to listen.

The word treason is bandied about too lightly at times, but in the case of Trump's refusal to address the threat that even his own appointees have confirm does raise the question of whether the word applies to Trump, who seemingly is only too happy to have Russia continue its attacks on America's constitutional system - something Trump swore to uphold and protect.  His continued failure to admit and address the Russian efforts must be called what it is in fact. 

Russiagate: Will the Crime Be Worse Than the Cover-Up?

With the Russiagate investigation much of the media attention has focused on the obstruction of justice issues that swirl around the firing of former FBI director James Comey.  Perhaps the inclination is natural given the fact that the original crime in Watergate was a "third rate burglary" and it was the cover up that took down Richard Nixon.  In Russiagate, the obstruction of justice efforts by Trump/his campaign  and his Republican accomplices - think Devin Nunes - are concening, but the actual underlying crime or crimes far out weigh the crime that Richard Nixon foolishly tried to cover up after the fact.  A somewhat lengthy piece in The Daily Beast looks at what is known to date and puts together a telling time line for the possible - in my view, very likely - crimes that took place during 2016.  Here are article highlights:

Recall the Watergate cliché that the cover-up is worse than the crime. That may have been true then. While it was never established that President Nixon knew in advance about the break-in at the Watergate complex, he was forced to resign after proof emerged that he used the CIA to obstruct the FBI investigation.

In the Russia scandal, special counsel Robert Mueller has credible proof of obstruction of justice—i.e., the cover-up. But in a highly politicized climate, where “memos” and insults are weapons of distraction, that won’t likely be enough. 

The fragmentary and often disconnected nature of those reports obscures the reasonable supposition that Mueller is well on his way to detailing conspiracy, wire fraud, illegal foreign campaign contributions, or all three. During Watergate, the special prosecutor had most of the evidence that doomed Nixon at least nine months before his August 9, 1974 resignation. Mueller, too, likely has the goods already, even without “smoking gun” tapes.

One tip-off was in Michael Flynn’s December 1 “allocution”—his signed submission to the court as part of his guilty plea to making false statements to the FBI on January 24, 2017. It received almost no media attention but suggested the nature of the criminal conspiracy that would likely be at the heart of Mueller’s prosecution.

Flynn didn’t just vaguely admit he lied. The law doesn’t allow that. He admitted in writing that his lie “had a material impact” on the FBI’s probe “into the existence of any links or coordination between individuals associated with the [Trump] Campaign and Russia’s efforts to intervene in the 2016 election.”

The conspiracy case--the heart of Mueller’s efforts-- almost certainly boils down to an old-fashioned quid pro quo. Flynn’s “quid”—the substance of his recorded conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak— was lifting the sanctions that President Obama imposed on Russia in late 2016 and the earlier sanctions related to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. The “quo” was collusion (“conspiracy” in legal terms) with Russians to harm Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, which Flynn effectively admitted was “material” to his lies after the election. Anyone associated with this deal is in deep legal trouble.

The conspiracy started with Russians violating the federal computer crime statute, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, by hacking into the computers at the Democratic National Committee and stealing emails that were then distributed publicly by Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks—both linked to Russians— in ways that hurt Clinton. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Russia also tried to penetrate the voting systems of 21 states.

These actions would also violate the federal criminal statute that bars foreign nationals from offering anything of value in a presidential campaign. Every party to such illegal acts is criminally liable.

There are also potential violations of the federal wire fraud statute. The evidence of a scheme to defraud? We know that Russia’s “active measures” included creating thousands of fictitious Twitter and Facebook accounts to generate fake news targeted to suppress the Clinton vote. Campaign officials are criminally liable if Mueller and his team prove an overlap between the illegal Russian fake news posts and the Trump campaign’s routine micro-targeted negative messages--a painstaking but manageable set of data comparisons.

In addition, the special counsel is examining whether a Russian politician with connections to organized crime, Alexander Torshin, routed an illegal campaign contribution to Trump through the NRA, which is relatively easy to trace.

Conspiracy is a much broader crime than is generally understood. The guidelines for judges who instruct juries say that the prosecution need only prove that there was “a mutual understanding, either spoken or unspoken, [Emphasis added] between two or more people to cooperate with each other to accomplish an unlawful act.”

It doesn’t matter whether the “mutual understanding” was before, during or after the crime was committed. “It is not necessary that a defendant be fully informed of all the details of the conspiracy, or all of its participants,” the model jury instructions continue. “You need not find that the alleged members of the conspiracy met together and entered into any express or formal agreement.”

Under the so-called “doctrine of willful blindness,” reinforced by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in a majority opinion in 2011, juries are instructed to “consider whether the defendant deliberately closed his eyes to what would otherwise be obvious to him.”

Don Jr.’s excitement over receiving Russian dirt on Clinton, Jared Kushner’s interactions with Cambridge Analytica and thus with Wikileaks, and Trump’s knowledge of these or other ties to Russians and his use of that knowledge in the campaign, all suggest such “awareness.”

Two other legal concepts are relevant. Much of the obstruction case—from Trump interfering with the FBI probe to re-writing his son’s statement aboard Air Force One after revelations about Don Jr.’s meeting with the Russians--revolves around the president’s concern that he had something to hide, also known as “consciousness of guilt.” He also might be charged as “an accessory after the fact,” which requires only that the defendant “receives, relieves, comforts or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension.”  

Now consider just a bit of what has emerged about “mutual understanding,” “willful blindness,” “awareness,” “assists” and “consciousness of guilt” in the Trump-Russia case, which is in turn a fraction of what Mueller knows. As in any criminal case, the timeline is critical:

April 26, 2016: George Papadopoulos, whom Trump named as one of his “top five” foreign policy advisers, learns that the Russians had possession of the DNC emails. He passes word of this to others in the campaign. Because of a “mutual understanding,” no one calls the FBI.

Mid-May: Papadopoulos tells an Australian diplomat in London that the Russians have compromising emails on Clinton. The diplomat properly informs his superiors, who--unlike Trump campaign officials--recognizes his legal responsibilities under American law to notify U.S. authorities.  

June 9: At a meeting at Trump Tower previewed for the campaign as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” Donald Trump Jr. listens as well-connected Russians offer damaging information about Clinton. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort both say they left early, suggesting “awareness” of, or “willful blindness” to, crimes that were underway. Again, no one contacts the FBI.

Mid-June: Kushner—assuming control of the campaign’s digital operations— hires Cambridge Analytica, which coordinates with Wikileaks, suggesting a possible “mutual understanding” of what Wikileaks will do.

July 14: At the Republican National Convention, the Trump campaign deletes a plank in the party platform that condemns Russia for invading Ukraine, and rejects a proposal for increased sanctions, bolstering the case for the quid pro quo that is the crux of the case.

July 22: On the eve of the Democratic Convention, Wikileaks releases damaging Democratic emails received from the Russians, implicating Wikileaks in the criminal conspiracy.

July 27: In a speech, Trump says, "By the way, if they [Russians] hacked, they probably have her 33,000 emails. I hope they do.” Trump later said he was joking but it reinforces his “awareness” of an unlawful act.

August 21: Roger Stone, a longtime friend and adviser to Trump, shows knowledge of the conspiracy by tweeting, "Trust me, it will soon be Podesta's time in the barrel. 

October 7: Within hours of the release of the Access Hollywood tape, which dealt a serious blow to the Trump campaign, Wikileaks releases the first in a series of 60,000 emails belonging to Podesta. Wikileaks effectively acts as an arm of the Trump campaign in a “mutual understanding” to deflect attention away from the sex scandal.

December 29: Deputy National Security Adviser-designate K.T. McFarland emails a colleague about the aftermath of outgoing President Obama’s implementation of sanctions: “If there is a tit-for-tat escalation, Trump will have difficulty improving relations with Russia, which has just thrown USA election to him.”

Even without knowing any of what Mueller has learned from the many witnesses he has secretly brought before the grand jury, this timeline—and the jury instructions that would accompany it at trial— already offer a strong roadmap for prosecutors. The conspiracy charges that arise from it will likely send some of Trump’s friends and relatives to jail. And they won’t look so good for the president, either, if presented next year at his impeachment trial in the Senate.