The appointment of Robert S. Mueller as Special Counsel on May 17, 2017, aroused President Donald Trump’s greatest fears.
But in the end, Mueller did not dare force Trump to testify under oath. Nor did he issue a subpoena to compel Trump’s in-person testimony. The reason: To avoid a “protracted legal fight” that would have delayed the conclusion of the 22-month investigation.
Trump’s supporters claimed that he had been exonerated. In fact, the report did not exonerate him.
Yet even before the release of the long-awaited Mueller report, several deeply-researched and well-written books outlined Russia’s efforts to subvert the 2016 Presidential race. And they cast devastating light on Trump’s loyalty to the United States.
Among these:
- The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of Democracy, by Greg Miller
- House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia, by Craig Unger
- Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump, by Michael Isikoff
- The Plot to Destroy Democracy: How Putin and His Spies Are Undermining America and Dismantling the West, by Malcom W. Nance
According to its blurb on Amazon.com, The Apprentice is “based on interviews with hundreds of people in Trump’s inner circle, current and former government officials, individuals with close ties to the White House, members of the law enforcement and intelligence communities, foreign officials, and confidential documents.”
Among the subjects it covers:
- The Trump Tower meeting, where the Trump campaign sought “dirt” on Hillary Clinton from Russian Intelligence agents;
- The penetration by Russian Intelligence of computer systems used by Democrats;
- How Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, tried to set up a secret back channel to Moscow via Russian diplomatic facilities;
- Trump’s giving Russian officials highly classified secrets supplied by Israeli Intelligence;
- Trump’s clashes with the FBI and CIA.
Miller is a veteran investigative journalist and twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Among his stories: National security adviser Michael Flynn’s discussing ending U.S. sanctions on Russia with Russian officials prior to Trump’s inauguration. The story contributed to Flynn’s ouster.
House of Trump, House of Putin, whose jacket blurb describes Trump’s inauguration as “the culmination of Vladimir Putin’s long mission to undermine Western democracy, a mission that he and his hand-selected group of oligarchs and Mafia kingpins had ensnared Trump in, starting more than twenty years ago with the massive bailout of a string of sensational Trump hotel and casino failures in Atlantic City.
“…Craig Unger methodically traces the deep-rooted alliance between the highest echelons of American political operatives and the biggest players in the frightening underworld of the Russian Mafia. He traces Donald Trump’s sordid ascent from foundering real estate tycoon to leader of the free world….
“Without Trump, Russia would have lacked a key component in its attempts to return to imperial greatness. Without Russia, Trump would not be president.”
As an appendix to the book, Unger writes: “Donald Trump has repeatedly said he has nothing to do with Russia. Below are fifty-nine Trump connections to Russia.”
Russian Roulette, according to its dust jacket, “is a story of political skullduggery unprecedented in American history. It weaves together tales of international intrigue, cyber espionage, and superpower rivalry.
“After U.S.-Russia relations soured, as Vladimir Putin moved to reassert Russian strength on the global stage, Moscow trained its best hackers and trolls on U.S. political targets and exploited WikiLeaks to disseminate information that could affect the 2016 election.
“The Russians were wildly successful and the great break-in of 2016 was no ‘third-rate burglary.’ It was far more sophisticated and sinister—a brazen act of political espionage designed to interfere with American democracy. At the end of the day, Trump, the candidate who pursued business deals in Russia, won….
“This story of high-tech spying and multiple political feuds is told against the backdrop of Trump’s strange relationship with Putin and the curious ties between members of his inner circle—including Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn—and Russia.”
Malcom Nance, the author of The Plot to Destroy Democracy, is an Intelligence and foreign policy analyst and media commentator on terrorism, Intelligence, insurgency and torture.
In his book, he outlines how “Donald Trump was made President of the United States with the assistance of a foreign power.
“[It is] the dramatic story of how blackmail, espionage, assassination, and psychological warfare were used by Vladimir Putin and his spy agencies to steal the 2016 U.S. election—and attempted to bring about the fall of NATO, the European Union, and western democracy….
“Nance has utilized top secret Russian-sourced political and hybrid warfare strategy documents to demonstrate the master plan to undermine American institutions that has been in effect from the Cold War to the present day.
“Based on original research and countless interviews with espionage experts, Nance examines how Putin’s recent hacking accomplished a crucial first step for destabilizing the West for Russia, and why Putin is just the man to do it.”
These books—combined with the findings of the Mueller report—clearly establish the damning conclusion: The man who sat in the Oval Office from 2017 to 2021 and who sits in it now—was an illegitimate usurper, installed by an unholy alliance of American Fascists and Russian Communists.
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WILL HANTAVIRUS BE THE NEXT COVID FOR TRUMP?
In Business, Entertainment, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 18, 2026 at 12:16 amWith the world bracing for a hantavirus outbreak, it’s well to remember the last time a pandemic erupted—in 2020.
On November 8, 1963—57 years before COVID-19 invaded the United States—Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” offered a prophecy of future disaster for the country.
“The Old Man in the Cave” is set in a post-apocalyptic rural town in 1974, 10 years after a nuclear war has devastated the United States.
A nuclear explosion
The townspeople have discovered a supply of canned food. However, they are waiting for Mr. Goldsmith [John Anderson], their leader, to return with a message from the mysterious and unseen “Old Man in the Cave.” Then they will learn whether the food is contaminated with radiation.
When Goldsmith returns, he informs them that the old man has declared the food is contaminated and that it should be destroyed.
Shortly thereafter, three soldiers led by Major French [James Coburn] enter the town and clash with Goldsmith as they try to establish their authority.
French is clearly a precursor of Donald Trump: Demanding instant obedience and threatening death to anyone who disobeys him, he claims he will organize the region to rebuild society..
Donald Trump
French attacks the townspeople’s belief in the seemingly infallible “Old Man in the Cave.” He tells them they have survived these past 10 years—but they haven’t lived.
Fifty-seven years later, Donald Trump will furiously attack not COVID-19 but the medical advice of his own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—especially that provided by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top expert on infectious disease.
He will disdain the wearing of masks and social distancing, and attack those Democratic governors who impose stay-at-home orders to contain the virus. He will offer a series of rosy predictions—none of which come true—that the virus will soon end.
His “cures” include ingesting Clorox bleach and/or having UV light shined up one’s anus.
COVID-19 virus
And French holds himself out as the man who can deliver them a wonderful new future.
Fifty-seven years later, Donald Trump will similarly declare: “I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves. Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”
French tempts the townspeople to eat the food Goldsmith warned was contaminated. There is a wild orgy of gluttony as they greedily consume it.
Only Goldsmith refuses to partake in the food orgy.
The townspeople turn on Goldsmith and threaten him with death unless he reveals the identity of the “Old Man in the Cave.” Goldsmith finally takes the assembly to the cave to reveal his source: A computer.
French incites the townspeople to stone the computer with rocks and canned goods until it explodes. Then French leads the people into celebrating their new-found freedom from “tyranny”.
Fifty-seven years later, Trump will similarly incite his followers to attack the United States Capitol building to halt the legal transfer of Presidential power from himself to Joe Biden.
But as Goldsmith had insisted, the “Old Man” was correct: The canned goods were contaminated with radiation. All the townspeople—including French and the soldiers—die, their bodies left lying throughout the streets.
Trump will similarly tempt millions of Americans to ignore the deaths of tens of thousands of their fellow citizens from COVID-19 and the overwhelming of the nation’s hospitals. The result will be a vast increase in deaths.
Many of the businesses Trump hoped to keep open—to ensure his own re-election—will be shuttered.
Only one man survives—Goldsmith, who has refused to eat the forbidden food and somberly walks out of the now-dead town.
As always in a “Twilight Zone” episode, it is Rod Serling who gets the final word:
“Mr. Goldsmith, survivor. An eyewitness to man’s imperfection. An observer of the very human trait of greed. And a chronicler of the last chapter—the one reading ‘suicide’. Not a prediction of what is to be, just a projection of what could be. This has been The Twilight Zone.”
Rod Serling
Except that Serling was wrong: “The Old Man in the Cave” has proven an uncanny prediction of what did happen in America.
* * * * *
The chief lesson to be learned from the COVID-19 epidemic is that catastrophe inevitably results when natural disaster collides with an evil and incompetent administration.
And the man who stands most responsible for the deaths of 400,000 Americans in 2020 is Donald Trump, then the 45th President of the United States.
Under his tyrannical rule, the United States suffered not simply from a lethal virus but a combination of denial, lies, Republican subservience, chaos, extortion, propaganda as news, quackery as medicine, premature demands to “re-open the country,” ignoring the danger and—finally—resignation (“Learn to live with the virus”).
Even after three vaccines were produced, millions of Americans—almost all of them Right-wing Trump supporters—refused to protect themselves and the families and friends they claimed to love.
All of which bodes ill for Americans if hantavirus makes a similar attack on the United States under a second Trump administration.
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