Many ‘witches’ uncovered by Mueller investigation
So, to recap: On Friday, a Republican deputy attorney general appointed by President Trump himself announced that a federal grand jury convened by a Republican special counsel whom he had appointed had indicted 12 Russian military intelligence agents employed by the Kremlin for conspiracy against the United States, among other crimes. The indictment in United States of America v. Viktor Borisovich Netyksho details how the Russian spy agency monitored the computers and email of dozens of volunteers and employees in Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee throughout 2016. Russian agents implanted hundreds of files containing computer codes to help them steal communications, pilfering many tens of thousands of emails. They then orchestrated the staged release of those emails for the purpose of hurting Clinton’s campaign, by definition in order to elect Trump president.
This was not done out of boredom, or to see whether they could do it. “The object of the conspiracy,” the grand jury states, was “to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.” Spades should be called spades: Donald Trump was the Kremlin’s candidate for president, plain and simple, and it should not be pretended otherwise.
The Russian agents, who had been busily stealing emails for months, began targeting an email account used by Clinton’s personal office and 76 email addresses used by Clinton aides “on or about July 27, 2016.” That happens to be the same day Trump held a press conference to urge Russia to “find” Clinton’s personal emails. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said, in what we are told was a purely coincidental turn of phrase with no particular meaning. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Strangely, the president has actually denied what our intelligence agencies unanimously determined long ago: that it was indeed Russia that had done this hacking. “It’s probably China, or it could be somebody in his bed,” Trump has maintained. Evidently not. Trump’s son, son-in-law and campaign manager all met with Russian representatives in mid-2016, while the massive Russian theft of emails was underway, after the Russians promised them “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. The Trump team then lied about the meeting, which had taken place at Trump Towers, in a fraudulent statement dictated by Trump himself. And speaking of lying, two of Trump’s top aides have already pled guilty to lying to federal law enforcement about — guess what? — meetings with Russian representatives.
Shortly after taking office, the president summoned the FBI director — another Republican — to obtain his agreement to “broom” the Bureau’s investigation into Russian interference by shutting it down. When the director, sworn to uphold the law, declined to agree, Trump fired him because he wouldn’t tank the investigation. The president then met privately in the Oval Office with high-ranking Russian officials, bragged about having gotten rid of the FBI director and assured them that the “pressure” had been lifted.
Now the president refuses to answer questions that the special counsel wants to ask him about his awareness of — or involvement in — a hostile power’s efforts to throw a presidential election to him.
What about this set of facts could possibly suggest that Trump has anything to hide? What might possibly lead one to infer that Trump and company might be guilty of wrongdoing?
The president and his analysts repeat over and over the silly, transparent mantra that there is “no evidence of collusion” and that the Russia investigation is a “witch hunt.” This is the predictable nonsense of the conned and the predictable deceit of the con artist. But this is no witch hunt. And those who have nothing to fear from the truth should want to make sure that Bob Mueller isn’t prevented from laying out the facts for all to see, painful as it may prove to be to see them.