The Palm Beach Post

Trump’s talent for evasion keeps Russia story on shelf

- He writes for the Washington Post.

E.J. Dionne Jr.

In the outpouring of commentary on President Trump’s first 100 days in office, his greatest single achievemen­t is almost never mentioned, which is itself a sign of what a major triumph it is: We are not talking much about whether Russia colluded with Trump’s campaign to help elect him.

Our distractio­n was not inevitable. Recall that just a little over a month ago, FBI Director James Comey told the House Intelligen­ce Committee that the bureau was investigat­ing possible cooperatio­n between Trump’s team and Russia’s hacking and disinforma­tion campaign to undercut Hillary Clinton. As The New York Times wrote, Comey’s testimony “created a treacherou­s political moment for Mr. Trump.” Yet the president slipped by.

In mid-February, the administra­tion should have come under sustained inquiry when Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, was forced to resign because he misled White House officials about the nature of his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S.

Flynn, who had led the Republican National Convention in “Lock her up!” chants against Clinton, turned out to have received $65,000 from companies linked to Russia, and $600,000 to lobby for the Turkish government, even as he was advising Trump. And the man who paid Flynn to work for Turkey had business ties to Russia.

The episode raised a slew of questions, not the least being what Vice President Mike Pence, whom we presume was vetting administra­tion appointees, knew about Flynn’s activities. As for Trump, he believes in “extreme vetting” for immigrants, but apparently not for members of his administra­tion.

The Flynn story is obviously heating up again, but let’s pause to ponder how Trump’s genius at evasion, diversion and prevaricat­ion helped him to keep the Russia story at bay. It should disturb us more than it seems to that the 100th day of Trump’s presidency on Saturday will also mark the beginning of the ninth week since Trump sent out his March 4 tweet-to-endall-tweets charging that “Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory.”

There was no evidence then for that accusation and none now because the evidence doesn’t exist. Thoughtful souls, saw something terribly off about Trump swinging so wildly and with such indifferen­ce to verifiable fact.

But guess what? Trump’s gambit worked.

And there is this core Trump principle: A lie is as good as the truth as long as you can get your base to believe it.

Fortunatel­y, as John Adams taught us, facts are stubborn things, and the Russia story cannot be suppressed forever. Indeed, there was progress on Tuesday when — in a display of bipartisan­ship that is truly astounding at this moment — Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Elijah Cummings, D-Md., of the House Oversight Committee jointly asserted that Flynn may have violated the law by not fully disclosing his Russian business dealings when seeking a security clearance.

Given the substantiv­e emptiness of Trump’s presidency so far, his greatest achievemen­t is that he is still standing there, making pronouncem­ents as if he means them and moving noisily but without any clear plan from one thing to the next. Every day he can postpone his reckoning with Russia is a victory.

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