In June, 2001, President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Slovenia. During the meeting a truly startling exchange occurred.
Putin, a former KGB Intelligence officer, had clearly done his homework on Bush. When he mentioned that one of the sports Bush had played was rugby, Bush was highly impressed.
“I did play rugby,” gushed Bush. “Very good briefing.”
President George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin
But more was to come.
BUSH: Let me say something about what caught my attention, Mr. President, was that your mother gave you a cross which you had blessed in Israel, the Holy Land.
PUTIN: It’s true.
BUSH: That amazes me, that here you were a Communist, KGB operative, and yet you were willing to wear a cross. That speaks volumes to me, Mr. President. May I call you Vladimir?
Putin instantly sensed that Bush judged others—even world leaders—through the lens of his own fundamentalist Christian theology.
Falling back on his KGB training, Putin seized on this apparent point of commonality to build a bond. He told Bush that his dacha had once burned to the ground, and the only item that had been saved was that cross.
“Well, that’s the story of the cross as far as I’m concerned,” said Bush, clearly impressed. “Things are meant to be.”
Afterward, Bush and Putin gave an outdoor news conference.
“Is this a man that America can trust?” Associated Press correspondent Ron Foumier asked Bush.
“Yes,” said Bush. “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue.
“I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country. I wouldn’t have invited him to my ranch if I didn’t trust him.”
In short: Bush got played.
He believed that Putin was trying to lead Russia into a democratic future. He did not admire Putin as a dictator—nor want to be a similarly autocratic “President-for-Life.”
He didn’t constantly praise Putin, nor demonize American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency—when they contradicted what Putin told him.
Nor did he coerce or encourage House and Senate Republicans to defame the integrity of those Intelligence agencies.
From the end of World War II to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was unthinkable for a Republican Presidential candidate to find common cause with a Soviet dictator.
But that utterly changed when Donald Trump won, first, the Republican Presidential nomination and, then, the White House.
Donald Trump
Trump has:
- Repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, both during his Presidential candidacy and since taking office. In fact, Putin remains the only major public figure that Trump has never criticized.
- Repeatedly attacked United States’ membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
- Claimed the United States is paying an unfairly large portion of the monies needed to maintain this alliance—and he wants other members to contribute far more.
- Threatened that, if Russia attacked NATO members, he would decide whether to come to their aid—only after determining whether those nations have “fulfilled their obligations to us.” If he believed that they had not done so, he would tell them: “Congratulations, you will be defending yourself.”
On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Early reports traced the leak to Russian hackers.
“Russia, if you are listening,” Trump said at a press conference in Doral, Florida, “I hope you are able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing—I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Hours later, the Main Intelligence Directorate in Moscow targets Clinton’s personal office and hits more than 70 other Clinton campaign accounts.
This was nothing less than treason—calling upon a foreign power, hostile to the United States, to interfere in its Presidential election.
On December 16, 2016, then-FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. agreed with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the White House.
Trump, however, has steadfastly denied any such role by Russia: “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
Since becoming President, Trump has:
- Fired FBI Director James Comey for pursuing an investigation of “the Russia thing,”
- Told visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, the day after firing Comey: “I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
- Repeatedly attacked his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for not “protecting” him from agents pursuing the Russia investigation.
- Demanded that when he met Putin in Helsinki, Finland, no Americans be in the room with the two of them.
Bush was simply naive. Trump displays the classic hallmarks of an autocratic traitor.
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GERMANY’S NUREMBERG PAST IS AMERICA’S NUREMBERG FUTURE
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 18, 2019 at 12:12 amThose who have seen the classic 1960 movie, “Judgment at Nuremberg,” will remember its pivotal moment.
That’s when Burt Lancaster, as Ernst Janning, the once distinguished German judge, confesses his guilt and that of Nazi Germany in a controlled, yet emotional, outburst.
Addressing the court—presided over by Chief Judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy)—Janning explains the forces that led to the triumph of evil.
It’s not hard to imagine, in the future, an equally conscience-stricken member of the Donald Trump administration, standing before the bar of justice, making a similar statement:
“My counsel would have you believe we were not aware of the ICE concentration camps. Not aware. Where were we?
“Where were we when Trump began shrieking his hate across the country? When Trump called our free press ‘the enemy of the people’?
“Where were we when Trump openly praised Vladimir Putin and attacked those in the FBI, CIA and other Intelligence agencies sworn to protect us?
“Where were we when the victims of Trump’s hatred cried out in the night to us? Were we deaf? Dumb? Blind?
“My counsel says we were not aware of Trump’s treasonous collusion with Vladimir Putin—and his intention to betray American freedoms in exchange for the Presidency. He would give you the excuse we were misled by the lying rhetoric coming out of the White House.
“Does that make us any the less guilty? Maybe we didn’t know the details, but if we didn’t know, it was because we didn’t want to know.”
Consider Trump’s effect on:
Race relations:
Donald Trump
The rule of law:
Trump as liar:
Trump as traitor:
Since 1945, historians have brutally condemned the vicious and destructive reign of Adolf Hitler and those who supported him.
Future historians will condemn just as harshly the equally vicious and destructive reign of Donald Trump—and those who now support him.
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