Is the Comey Firing Trump’s Open Admission of Collusion with Russia?

A piece in Salon asks a timely question: was Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey an admission that he and/or his campaign colluded with Russia to throw the 2016 presidential election to him.  The piece makes the case that, yes, the Comey firing was an admission of guilt.  The issue then becomes whether or not Americans will demand that investigations continue until the truth is uncovered.  Thankfully, the appointment of a special prosecutor is a step in the right direction although Trump may yet try to sabotage that investigation.  What I find most disturbing is that many Trump voters remain loyal to him - just as early Hitler supporters remained true to Hitler even as he led Germany down the path to horrors and horrific misfortunes for many, including those who rallied to his hate based agenda.  Here are article highlights:

Has the other shoe finally dropped? Is this the beginning of Donald Trump’s attempted coup? I have previously argued, it is fair to call him a fascist. He has repeatedly demonstrated this fact through his words and deeds both during the 2016 presidential election and now while serving as president.

Like the leader of a banana republic or a Mafia boss, Trump has surrounded himself with a small group of advisers and confidantes comprised mainly of his family members. He has contempt for journalists and the concept of a free press. He leads a cult of personality, marketing himself as an autocratic who will protect and defend his “forgotten Americans” against all threats foreign and domestic. Trump has no respect for the standing norms of American democracy. He and his supporters evidently believe that the rule of law does not apply to him. Authoritarians are paranoid by definition. To that end, they ruthlessly consolidate power and eliminate any threats to their power.

In keeping with this script, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey . . . . . Comey’s firing was also endorsed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a man who has no credibility after having been caught repeatedly lying about his own contacts with representatives of the Russian government.

Comey’s dismissal comes one day after Trump appeared to threaten former acting Attorney General Sally Yates before she gave testimony to the Senate about Vladimir Putin’s efforts to subvert American democracy and the dangers posed by likely Russian operative and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Trump’s dismissal of Comey came on the same day it was announced that a federal grand jury is investigating Flynn and his associates regarding their financial connections to Russian interests.

The president’s decision to fire Comey is an enormous abuse of presidential authority. To all appearances, Trump is removing a threat posed by the person who is leading the investigation of his administration’s (and his campaign’s) possibly treasonous connections with Russia.

I spoke with historian Timothy Snyder about what Trump’s election means for America. (He is the author of the new book “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.”) During that conversation, Snyder warned that the American people have less than a year to resist the creeping tide of authoritarianism embodied by Donald Trump’s regime.

Snyder also predicted: Donald Trump will stage his own version of Adolf Hitler’s Reichstag fire — a manufactured crisis or some other type of political or social upheaval — to enact a state of emergency or otherwise consolidate his power by subverting America’s political institutions. Is Trump’s firing of Comey the next step in this direction? . . . His “very first thought” on hearing the Comey news, Snyder wrote, “was that this was a far more open admission of collusion with Russia than even a confession would be.”

I asked Snyder how the American people should respond. “Realize that the presumption now must be that this man is covering up a meaningful relationship with a foreign power that helped get him elected,” he wrote. “Read the press. Pay for it. Support investigative journalists. Demand an independent investigation. Urge multiple institutions to investigate. Continue resisting in all other areas.”

Former U.S. counterintelligence operative Naveed Jamali, author of the new book “How to Catch a Russian Spy,” has also been trying to warn the American people about the threat to democracy posed by Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.  n total, Trump’s firing of Comey, his hostility to an independent judiciary, his authoritarian behavior and his evident attempts to control or contain the investigation into his connections to Russia add up to a constitutional crisis.

Unfortunately, Trump is being aided and abetted in his irresponsible, and perhaps even criminal behavior, by a Republican Party that, to this point, values power and partisan politics over loyalty to country and true patriotism. Trump’s supporters among the American people are deeply devoted to their leader, even if that means siding with Putin’s Russia and spitting in the face of American democracy. They are authoritarian lemmings.

History is watching. The American people now have to choose if they will be bystanders or agents in their own destiny. I am deeply saddened that so many Americans seem ready and willing to choose the first option.

Sally Yates' Testimony Was Very Bad News for the Trump White House

Being at work, I did not get to watch all of the coverage of the testimony of former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former of national intelligence, James Clapper, but from what I did get to see at the office on the kitchen television, two things were very clear: (i) Republican Senators tried to focus on everything other than the main purpose of the hearing, namely possible Trump?Russia collusion to subvert the 2016 presidential campaign, and (ii) there is much more that the public needs to know which could well lead to serious consequences for the Trump/Pence White House.  The third reflection is that the hearings were far less boring that some thought they would be or as inconsequential as Der Trumpenführer and his sycophants would have  people believe would be the case.  An article at Mother Jones sums up the trashing the White House took in the course of the hearings and the damage done to Trump's efforts to lie and dissemble.  Here are excerpts:

The much-anticipated Senate hearing on Monday afternoon with former acting attorney general Sally Yates and former director of national intelligence James Clapper confirmed an important point: the Russia story still poses tremendous trouble for President Donald Trump and his crew. 

Yates recounted a disturbing tale. She recalled that on January 26, she requested and received a meeting with Don McGahn, Trump's White House counsel. At the time, Vice President Mike Pence and other White House officials were saying that ret. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump's national security adviser, had not spoken the month before with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, about the sanctions then-President Barack Obama had imposed on the Russians as punishment for Moscow's meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. Yates' Justice Department had evidence—presumably intercepts of Flynn's communications with Kislyak—that showed this assertion was flat-out false. 

At that meeting, Yates shared two pressing concerns with McGahn: that Flynn had lied to the vice president and that Flynn could now be blackmailed by the Russians because they knew he had lied about his conversations with Kislyak. As Yates told the members of the Senate subcommittee on crime and terrorism, "To state the obvious: you don't want your national security adviser compromised by the Russians." She and McGahn also discussed whether Flynn had violated any laws. 

The next day, McGahn asked Yates to return to the White House, and they had another discussion. According to Yates, McGahn asked whether it would interfere with the FBI's ongoing investigation of Flynn if the White House took action regarding this matter. No, Yates said she told him. The FBI had already interviewed Flynn. And Yates explained to the senators that she had assumed that the White House would not sit on the information she presented McGahn and do nothing. 

But that's what the White House did. . . . . He [Flynn] remained in the job, hiring staff for the National Security Council and participating in key policy decision-making.

On February 9, the Washington Post revealed that Flynn had indeed spoken with Kislyak about the sanctions. And still the Trump White House backed him up. . . . . Trump displayed no concern about Flynn's misconduct.

The conclusion from Yates' testimony was clear: Trump didn't dump Flynn until the Kislyak matter became a public scandal and embarrassment. The Justice Department warning—hey, your national security adviser could be compromised by the foreign government that just intervened in the American presidential campaign—appeared to have had no impact on Trump's actions regarding Flynn. Imagine what Republicans would say if a President Hillary Clinton retained as national security adviser a person who could be blackmailed by Moscow. 

The subcommittee's hearing was also inconvenient for Trump and his supporters on another key topic: it destroyed one of their favorite talking points. 

Trump on March 20 tweeted, "James Clapper and others stated that there is no evidence Potus colluded with Russia. The story is FAKE NEWS and everyone knows it!"

At Monday's hearing, Clapper pulled this rug out from under the White House and its comrades. He noted that it was standard policy for the FBI not to share with him details about ongoing counterintelligence investigations. And he said he had not been aware of the FBI's investigation of contacts between Trump associates and Russia that FBI director James Comey revealed weeks ago at a House intelligence committee hearing. Consequently, when Clapper told Todd that he was not familiar with any evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, he was speaking accurately. But he essentially told the Senate subcommittee that he was not in a position to know for certain. This piece of spin should now be buried. Trump can no longer hide behind this one Clapper statement. 

Clapper also dropped another piece of information disquieting for the Trump camp. Last month, the Guardian reported that British intelligence in late 2015 collected intelligence on suspicious interactions between Trump associates and known or suspected Russian agents and passed this information to to the United States "as part of a routine exchange of information." Asked about this report, Clapper said it was "accurate." He added, "The specifics are quite sensitive." This may well have been the first public confirmation from an intelligence community leader that US intelligence agencies have possessed secret information about ties between Trump's circle and Moscow.

So this hearing indicated that the Trump White House protected a national security adviser who lied and who could be compromised by Moscow, that Trump can no longer cite Clapper to claim there was no collusion, and that US intelligence had sensitive information on interactions between Trump associates and possible Russian agents as early as late 2015. Still, most of the Republicans on the panel focused on leaks and "unmasking"—not the main issues at hand.

[T]his hearing demonstrated that serious inquiry can expand the public knowledge of the Trump-Russia scandal—and that there remains much more to examine and unearth. 

Russia Probe Looms Large Over Trump

With even Senate Republicans saying that the House Republican's hastily passed version of Trumpcare is dead on arrival in the Senate, Der Trumpenführer's efforts to change the subject from Russiagate will likely hit a brick wall this week.  Today former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates head to the Senate to testify and odds are that what they have to say will not be helpful to Trump and his likely co-conspirators who worked with Russian intelligence to throw the 2016 presidential election.  Add to this a newly unearthed 2014 interview with Eric Trump in which he said Russia was funding the Trump golf courses and it should make for a fun week for those who find Der Trumpenführer detestable.  I continue to hope that the Senate hearings and/or the FBI's review of Trump financial accounts reveal some true fire under all the Russiagate smoke.  If the nation is lucky, both Trump and Pence will be implicated.   A piece in Politico looks at what to expect on the Russiagate probe and the apparent death of the House version of Trumpcare.  Here are excerpts:

President Donald Trump’s health care victory lap is already grinding to a halt.

After the White House's biggest legislative victory yet with the House’s narrow passage Thursday of the American Health Care Act, momentum will slow as the Senate settles in to rework the bill — potentially from scratch. The White House is also heading for a political buzzsaw as Russia’s election interference takes center stage in congressional hearings.

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates heads to Capitol Hill on Monday to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador and her efforts to warn the Trump administration about Flynn’s changing story. The ex-adviser was already in the headlines after The Washington Post and Associated Press reported Friday that Flynn had been warned by transition officials about speaking to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Meanwhile, the health care bill that the White House spent the weekend celebrating appears destined for the trash can on the other side of the Capitol. . . . Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a moderate who is emerging as a powerful voice in the health care fight, told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. "The Senate is starting from scratch. We're going to draft our own bill. And I'm convinced that we're going to take the time to do it right.”

Even so, Trump took to Twitter on Sunday to encourage senators along: “Republican Senators will not let the American people down! ObamaCare premiums and deductibles are way up - it was a lie and it is dead!”

House Speaker Paul Ryan’s spokeswoman AshLee Strong declared on Twitter on Saturday that AHCA had been scored twice by the nonpartisan CBO, ignoring the fact that the version the House passed was never assessed. The White House, meanwhile, said there was no point scoring the bill at all.

The health care victory lap also will be hard to sustain given the headlines about Russia’s interference in the presidential election and possible contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian operatives. At the same time that the latest Flynn news was emerging on Friday night, news broke that a hacking operation linked to Russia had targeted moderate French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, an attack similar to the sustained campaign against Hillary Clinton. Macron was elected president nonetheless on Sunday.

With Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper appearing before senators Monday, the White House is bracing for new questions about its least favorite story.  Senators on Sunday were already being pressed on the Russia issue.

The cancer that is Trump/Pence needs to be fully exposed and hopefully imprisonment, not just impeachment is the final outcome.  Nothing is more delicious is to contemplate Trump convicted of treason and locked away for the remainder of his life. 

Trump Fires Acting Attorney General Who Defied Him

It is becoming increasingly clear that with Donald Trump, as with Adolph Hitler and later Richard Nixon, anyone who challenges the legality or propriety of his actions will be fired.  The latest example is the firing of Sally Q. Yates, acting Attorney General, who had the backbone to question the legality of Der Fuhrer's anti-Muslim immigration executive order. With he ever petulant and narcissistic Trump, it is always about his whims and wants - the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law be damned.  Of course, none of what is happening should be a surprise who did not have their head up their ass during the 2016 presidential campaign and/or wasn't blinded by Trump's calls to racism and misogyny.  The New York Times looks at the latest temper tantrum of Der Fuhrer.  Here are excerpts:

President Trump fired his acting attorney general on Monday night, removing her as the nation’s top law enforcement officer after she defiantly refused to defend his executive order closing the nation’s borders to refugees and people from predominantly Muslim countries.

In an escalating crisis for his 10-day-old administration, the president declared in a statement that Sally Q. Yates, who had served as deputy attorney general under President Barack Obama, had betrayed the administration by announcing that Justice Department lawyers would not defend Mr. Trump’s order against legal challenges.

The president replaced Ms. Yates with Dana J. Boente, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, saying that he would serve as attorney general until Congress acts to confirm Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. In his first act in his new role, Mr. Boente announced that he was rescinding Ms. Yates’s order.

Monday’s events have transformed the confirmation of Mr. Sessions into a referendum on Mr. Trump’s immigration order. Action in the Senate could come as early as Tuesday.

Ms. Yates’s order was a remarkable rebuke by a government official to a sitting president, and it recalled the so-called Saturday Night Massacre in 1973, when President Richard M. Nixon fired his attorney general and deputy attorney general for refusing to dismiss the special prosecutor in the Watergate case.

At 9:15 p.m., Ms. Yates received a hand-delivered letter at the Justice Department that informed her that she was fired. Signed by John DeStefano, one of Mr. Trump’s White House aides, the letter informed Ms. Yates that “the president has removed you from the office of Deputy Attorney General of the United States.”

Two minutes later, the White House officials lashed out at Ms. Yates in a statement issued by Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary.

Former Justice Department officials said the president’s action would send a deep shudder through an agency that was already on edge as officials anticipated an ideological overhaul once Mr. Session takes over. One former senior official said that department lawyers would be unnerved by the firing.

Democrats, meanwhile, hailed Ms. Yates as a principled defender of what she thought was right.

The 1973 “Saturday Night Massacre” led to a constitutional crisis that ended when Robert H. Bork, the solicitor general, acceded to Mr. Nixon’s order and fired Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor.

Ms. Yates, a career prosecutor, is different because she is a holdover from the Obama administration. She agreed to Mr. Trump’s request to stay on as acting attorney general until Mr. Sessions is confirmed to be attorney general.

It should be becoming obvious to anyone who cares about the rule of law and the future of American democracy that Trump needs to be removed from office by any means necessary.