People need to realize this point is moot: whether or not Trump is
actively aware, and intentionally operating on behalf of Russia, he has still done
more in two years to advance the agenda of this hostile foreign nation, to the
detriment of the US, than
any other person in recent memory.
We seem hopelessly entangled in answering the question of whether he's
knowingly operating on Russia's behalf and have neglected the fact that
he is actively aiding Russia and harming us egregiously in the process. We have become blind to the
what while we hunt for the
why.
There is no circumstance where Trump ought not be immediately impeached for the things we have witnessed occur in plain sight. If you see someone on the street stabbing people, do you stand by on the sideline and ponder what events in this murderer's life led him to stab people? No, you remove him from the street and put him in a cell to prevent him from harming people, and
then you uncover a motive.
Just consider what we know he has done:
- He advanced a withdrawal from Syria - against all counsel of all relevant experts - to Russia's delight. No explanation for this was ever provided to the American people.
- He has refused to enforce sanctions legally codified into law - and in some cases reversed standing sanctions on Russian companies. No explanation for this was ever provided to the American people.
- He has denounced his own intelligence agencies in a press conference with Putin on election meddling - and publicly endorsed Putin's version of events. No explanation for this was ever provided to the American people.
- He has conducted FIVE completely private meetings and conferences with Putin, and has gone to great lengths to prevent literally anyone, even people in his administration, from learning what was discussed. No explanation for this was ever provided to the American people.
- He has lied countless times about having business interests in Russia, which have been clearly and undeniably proven false in extremely public ways. No explanation for this was ever provided to the American people.
- He pulled out of the INF treaty, which allows Putin to create missiles that can threaten Europe with impunity, whereas before, there would be sanctions and severe penalties for doing so. The US already has all the weaponry that the INF would ban the development of, so this offers us literally nothing, while allowing Russia to develop powerful new weapons to challenge our allies. No explanation for this was ever provided to the American people.
- Trump insults the President of Montenegro, a country I am extremely confident he never knew existed up until that point, for literally no apparent reason... except Putin was furious at them. There's quite literally no possible other justification for this. I dare someone to even try. And of course, no explanation was ever provided to the American people.
- And no list would be complete without his repeated threats to pull out of NATO, over money, a move so catastrophically stupid, so inconceivably cosmically myopic, I truly can't express the profundity of the idiocy. Suffice to say, pulling out of NATO would be like the only guy in a prison yard with a shotgun just throwing it over the fence for absolutely no reason, suddenly giving the people with crude homemade shivs complete power. Again, no explanation beyond the pitiful ramblings of a single real estate con man was ever provided to the American people for this decision.
At
every step, he has handed Russia enormous concessions with no justification. He takes Putin's word - a notorious liar - at face value, always, above all of his own countrymen, and even the people he himself hired to lead his agencies.
And just consider that
very fact alone - the fact that Trump just keeps believing things, coincidentally the things Russia says - over what
everyone in his own administration tell him. The CIA, FBI, and assorted US intelligence agencies are the largest and most equipped
in the world. And Donald Trump just basically
shrugged and said he believed
Vladmir Putin instead - because... he seemed like a nice guy? The absurdity here is self-evident. Putin is the guy
accused of the crime - interfering in our election - and the US president just believes his
word over his own intelligence apparatus.
You cannot be a rational person and justify this. In no rational world is this defensible. This is either treason or
profound and
alarming incompetence and gullibility. There is no world, after Helsinki, where someone could have made the case that Donald Trump ought to keep acting as chief executive of the US.
Now let us also remember, Russia is
nothing compared to the US. The US has infinitely more muscle than Russia. This is why the policy - right up until Trump - has been to deal with them through sanctions and military conflicts where necessary.
They agitate, they hit and run, but Russia is an organized crime state whose economy is nearly collapsed, whose leadership consists of a coalition of loosely allied kleptocrats, oligarchs, and billionaires, all of whom are just as likely to knife each other as their foreign adversaries.
Had Clinton won, she would have continued her policy she advanced at the State Department, and sanctioned Russia until Putin's government imploded from the stress of Putin's brutality and kleptocracy. Which, obviously, is why he pulled out all the stops to ensure Clinton did
not win the election.
The evidence is unambiguous. Trump - for reasons we do not know but ought not really care - betrayed,
is betraying the US to Putin's Russia, each and every day.
So, I ask - why do we
care whether he's a card-carrying Russian agent enthusiastic about the cause, a victim of blackmail, a seeker of quid pro quo, or just a really gullible imbecile?
He is clearly and transparently committing treason right out in the open. He has sacrificed our security and our interests to advance Russia's. Ignorance is not an excuse here. Let the courts sort that out, but this is far and away grossly impeachable behavior, and a level of embarrassing and humiliating subservience the likes of which have never been witnessed from an American leader on the world stage.
And let's not forget - let's
always footnote talk about Trump's treason with the fact that this is
just one of MANYseparate, discrete, and unique massive, impeachable scandals. On
top of pursuing the agenda of a hostile foreign nation, he also committed numerous acts of campaign finance violation, stood behind and refused to condemn nazis and white supremacists, publicly attacked private citizens and the media, condemned
his own agents and agencies for legally investigating him, told nearly ten thousand lies about things ranging from serious to extremely mundane, appointed his own family members to positions far above their capacity (breaking many ethics laws and vetting procedures to do so and get them clearance).
And the list goes on. Seriously, it goes on and on and on and on. I could exhaust myself listing out the oaths Trump has betrayed, the crimes he has committed, the many more crimes he has
probably committed, the constitutional amendments he has attacked or condemned, all of which, in and of themselves, should warrant impeachment or serious scrutiny.
The last President was impeached, by Republicans, for one -
one - count of perjury, about a meaningless sexual exploit. Which was an
actual example of a perjury trap, by the way, wherein the prosecutor gets the defendant on the stand, on the record, for a crime - in this case, the Whitewater investigations into Clinton's real estate dealings, and then questions him about something embarassing but irrelevant and not illegal, compelling the defendant to lie and commit perjury to prevent embarassment.
That's what Republicans thought qualified a previous President for impeachment.
And now we come to Trump, who has a list of genuine impeachable criteria so long I legitimately can't remember all of them in one go. of these things. All of these individual scandals or crimes or gross acts of idiocy demonstrating severely compromised judgment and ability to execute the powers of the office.
And
then you add actual treason on top of it. A violation of America and its interests not only inconceivable in its treachery, but to a far, far,
far weaker adversary.
So what the
fukk is he still doing in the oval?