The continuing travails of President Trump

FOR many reasons, we in the Philippines continue to follow with great interest the problems bedeviling the Donald Trump administration in the United States (US), the latest of which involves his alleged sharing of highly classified information with the Russians.

One reason is that we share with the US a system of government which maintains a balance of power among the three branches – Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. The president in both of our countries has to run the government under the watchful eye of Congress and the courts, which see to it that the laws and established policies of the government are followed. This is to ensure against authoritarian rule.

A second reason is that we share with the US the institution of press freedom. America’s founding fathers thought it wise to allow the press to be free to publish whatever it wants, believing that ultimately, the truth will win out. President Trump has declared a war on the press, calling the work of such respected institutions as the New York Times and the Washington Post as “fake news” and relying heavily on his own tweeting. It has not reached that point of near-total conflict in the Philippines, as our own President Duterte continues to respect the Philippine press along with social media.

A third reason is that the ongoing controversy in the US has to do with the Russians, traditionally the enemy in the global Cold War. President Trump has long expressed his desire to develop closer relations with Russia, to the point where he allegedly shared classified information on Islamic State operations in the Middle East, which had been supplied by Israeli Intelligence. Critics fear that other nations may now have second thoughts about sharing sensitive information with the US.

How much of the controversy facing President Trump is solid, and how much is politics? The Democrats are totally critical of how President Trump has been running his administration – from his move to ban immigrants from some Muslim countries, to his closeness with the Russians, to the claim that the Russians interfered with the US elections. Trump has now retired the chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) James Comey which was in the midst of investigating alleged Russian poll intervention.

When Comey said Trump told him he hoped the FBI would just let go of the case, Trump hinted in a tweet that there may be White House tapes of their conversation, reminding reporters of former President Richard Nixon’s tapes on the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to Nixon’s resignation from office under threat of impeachment.

Here in the Philippines, we have just been through an effort to impeach President Duterte, principally over his alleged involvement with the Davao Death Squad when he was mayor. But that effort has been shot down by the House of Representatives Committee on Justice, which ruled that the impeachment complaint may have been sufficient in form but was insufficient in substance.

So now our full attention, as far as impeachment cases are concerned, is back to President Trump. He is now visiting the Middle East but Special Counsel Mueller is now officially on the job investigating the charge of Russian intervention in the 2016 US election. Wherever his inquiry leads to, we and the rest of the world will continue to follow with the greatest of interest.