Posts Tagged ‘SERGEY KISLYAK’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 5, 2025 at 12:10 am
Throughout his Presidency, Republicans continued to support Donald Trump despite a series of actions that would have normally resulted in impeachment.
Forgiven Crime #12: On July 16, 2018, Trump attended a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. There he blamed American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—instead of Putin for Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
“I have President Putin,” said Trump. “He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Helsinki
Forgiven Crime #13: Waging all-out war on the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of the press.
On February 17, 2017, Trump tweeted: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
Seven days later, appearing before the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 24, Trump said: “I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. It’s fake, phony, fake….I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. Let their name be put out there.”
Forgiven Crime #14: Waging all-out war on the independent judiciary
Trump repeatedly attacked Seattle U.S. District Judge James Robart, who halted Trump’s first anti-Islamic travel ban: “Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”
On October 20, 2018, Trump attacked U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar as an “Obama judge.” Tigar had ruled that the administration must consider asylum claims no matter where migrants cross the U.S. border.
The next day, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts told the Associated Press: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”
On Thanksgiving Day, 2018, Trump attacked Roberts—appointed by Republican President George W. Bush—on Twitter: “Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges,’ and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country.”
Forgiven Crime #15: Threatening members of Congress with treason charges for daring to challenge him.
Furious that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) mocked him during a session of the House Intelligence Committee, Trump tweeted: “I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason…..”
“Rep. Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine as the most important part of my call to the Ukrainian President, and read it aloud to Congress and the American people. It bore NO relationship to what I said on the call. Arrest for Treason?”
Adam Schiff
He judged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “every bit as guilty as Liddle’ Adam Schiff for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, and even Treason. I guess that means that they, along with all of those that evilly ‘Colluded’ with them, must all be immediately Impeached!”
Forgiven Crime #16: He lied so often—30,573 times by the end of his first term, according to the Washington Post—that he’s universally distrusted, at home and abroad.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, French President Charles de Gaulle was offered photographs taken by American spy planes of Russian missile emplacements in Cuba. De Gaulle waved them away, saying that, for him, the word of the President of the United States was enough.
Charles de Gaulle and John F. Kennedy
Today, no free world leader would take Trump’s word for anything.
Forgiven Crime #17: On December 22, 2018, Trump shut down the Federal government—because Democrats refused to fund his “border wall” between the United States and Mexico.
An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay.
- For weeks, hundreds of thousands of government workers missed paychecks.
- Increasing numbers of employees of the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA)—which provides security against airline terrorism—began refusing to come to work, claiming to be sick.
- At the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) many air traffic controllers called in “sick.”
- Due to the shortage of air traffic controllers, many planes weren’t able to land safely at places like New York’s LaGuardia Airport.
- Many Federal employees—such as FBI agents—were forced to rely on soup kitchens to feed their families.
This lasted until January 25, 2019, when Trump caved to public pressure.
Forgiven Crime #18: Even while being investigated by Congress for trying to extort Ukraine to investigate his 2020 Presidential rival, Joseph Biden, Trump publicly urged China to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter.
Trump repeatedly denied he had strong-armed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to smear former Vice President Joseph Biden. But on October 3, 2019, on the White House lawn, with TV cameras whirring, Trump said: “China should start an investigation into the Bidens.”
And to drive home the message, Trump warned: “I have a lot of options on China, but if they don’t do what we want, we have tremendous power.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 4, 2025 at 12:11 am
Republicans have a long and shameful history of excusing Donald Trump’s vicious slanders and law-breaking.
Forgiven Crime #6: Republicans refused to condemn Trump’s blatant “bromance” with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Since the end of World War II, no Republican Presidential candidate had repeatedly exchanged fulsome praise with a foreign leader hostile to the United States. Yet that is precisely what happened between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
Thus Putin on Trump: “He is a bright personality, a talented person, no doubt about it. It is not up to us to appraise his positive sides, it is up to the U.S. voters. but, as we can see, he is an absolute leader in the presidential race.”
Vladimir Putin
And Trump on Putin: “It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond. He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country”—a clear attack on then-President Barack Obama.
Donald Trump
Forgiven Crime #7: Republicans supported the treasonous meeting between Trump’s campaign managers and Russian Intelligence agents.
On July 9, 2016, high-ranking members of Trump’s Presidential campaign met with lobbyists tied to Putin. The meeting took place at Trump Tower and the participants included:
- Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.;
- His son-in-law, Jared Kushner;
- His then-campaign manager, Paul Manafort;
- Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with ties to Putin; and
- Rinat Akhmetshin, a former Soviet counterintelligence officer suspected of having ongoing ties to Russian Intelligence.
The purpose of that meeting: To gain access to any “dirt” Russian Intelligence could supply on Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton.
Forgiven Crime #8: Republicans supported Trump’s open—and treasonous—solicitation of Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election.
On July 22, 2016, at a press conference in Doral, Florida, Trump said: “Russia, if you are listening, I hope you are able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing [from Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s computer]. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
“This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent,” Hillary for America policy adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. “That’s not hyperbole, those are just the facts. This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue.”
“I find those kinds of statements to be totally outrageous because you’ve got now a presidential candidate who is, in fact, asking the Russians to engage in American politics,” said former CIA Director Leon Panetta, a Clinton surrogate. “I just think that’s beyond the pale.”
Hours later, the Main Intelligence Directorate in Moscow targeted Clinton’s personal office and hit more than 70 other Clinton campaign accounts.
Forgiven Crime #9: On May 9, 2017, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey for investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential race.
There were four reasons for this:
- Comey had refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump. Trump had made the “request” during a private dinner at the White House in January.
- Comey told Trump that he would always be honest with him. But that didn’t satisfy Trump’s demand that the head of the FBI act as his personal secret police chief—as was the case in the former Soviet Union.
- Trump had tried to coerce Comey into dropping the FBI’s investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, for his secret ties to Russia and Turkey. Comey had similarly resisted that demand.
- Comey had recently asked the Justice Department to fund an expanded FBI investigation into well-documented contacts between Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents. The goal of that collaboration: To elect Trump over Hillary Clinton, a longtime foe of Russian President Putin.
James Comey
Forgiven Crime #10: On May 10, 2017. Trump met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office—and gave them highly classified Israeli Intelligence about an Islamic State plot to turn laptops into concealable bombs.
Kislyak is reportedly a top recruiter for Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency. He has been closely linked with Jeff Sessions, then Attorney General, and fired National Security Adviser Mike Flynn.
“I just fired the head of the FBI,” Trump told the two dignitaries. “He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
Then, on May 11, Trump gave away his real reason for firing Comey:
Interviewed on NBC News by reporter Lester Holt, Trump said: “And in fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said ‘you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.'”
Forgiven Crime #11: Blatantly lying about the CIA’s findings in the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
On Thanksgiving Day, 2018, Trump said that the CIA hadn’t concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered it.
This was a lie—the agency had reached such a conclusion, based on a recording provided by the Turkish government and American Intelligence.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 60 MINUTES NEWS MAGAINE, ABC NEWS, ADAM SCHIFF, ADOLF HITLER, ALBERT “THE EXECUTIONER” ANASTASIA, ALTERNET, ALVIN BRAGG, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI), BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BORDER WALL, BUZZFEED, CANADA, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CENSUS BUREAU, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION, CHARLES “LUCKY” LUCIANO, CHARLES DE GAULLE, CHINA, CHRIS CHRISTIE, CHRISTI GRIMM, CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, CIA, CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS, CNN, CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE, CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU, CONVERSATION WITH AN AMERICAN WRITER (POEM), CORONAVIRUS RELIEF MONIES, COVID-19, CROOKS AND LIARS, CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS, DAILY KOS, DAN BOWMAN, DAN SULLIVAN, DANIELLE SASSOON, DAVID BROOKS, DEMOCRATS, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY (DOGE), DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, DIVERSITY EQUITY INCLUSION (DEI), DONALD TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP JUNIOR, DRUDGE RETORT, E. JEAN CARROLL, ELON MUSK, EMIL BOVE, EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, ERIC ADAMS, EXTORTION, FBI, FIRST AMENDMENT, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRIVOLOUS LAWSUITS, GENN FINE, GEORGE FLOYD, GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, GEORGE W. BUSH, GLENN FINE, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE, GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, GULF OF AMERICA, GULF OF MEXICO, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE, HOUSE OVERSIGHT AND REFORM COMMITTEE, HUNTER BIDEN, IMMIGRANTS, IMPEACHMENT, IMPOUNDMENT CONTROL ACT, INSPECTORS GENERAL, INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY, INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS, JACK SMITH, JAKE SULLIVAN, JAKE TAPPER, JAMAL KHASHOGGI, JAMES COMEY, JAMES MCHENRY, JAMES ROBART, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JARED KUSHNER, JEFF SESSIONS, JOHN CORNYN, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN F. KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, JOHN ROBERTS, JOING CHIEFS OF STAFF, JON S. TIGAR, JOSEPH BIDEN, JOSEPH STALIN, Kamala Harris, KELLY LOEFFER, KEVIN CRAMER, LAFAYETTE SQUARE, LAMAR ALEXANDER, LEON PANETTA, LINDSEY GRAHAM, LUXUY JET, MARCO RUBIO, MARK MILLEY, MARTIN GUGINO, MEDIA MATTERS, MEIN KAMPF, MERRICK GARLAND, MEXICO, MICHAEL FLYNN, MICHAEL HAYDEN, MICHAEL K. ATKINSON, MICK MULVANEY, MIKE PENCE, MITCH MCCONNELL, MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NANCY PELOSI, NATALIA VESELNITSKAYA, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NIKKI HALEY, NPR, PAUL MANAFORT, PBS NEWSHOUR, PETE HEGSETH, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, QATAR, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RINAT AKHMETSHIN, ROBERT MUELLER, ROBERT PAYNE, ROD ROSENSTEIN, ROGER STONE, RON DESANTIS, RON JOHNSON, RUSSIA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SERGEY KISLYAK, SERGEY LAVROV, SLATE, ST. JOHN’S CHURCH, STEVE DAINES, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TARIFFS, TED CRUZ, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE JUDICIARY, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ADOLF HITLER (BOOI), THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ADOLF HITLER (BOOK), THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE PENTAGON, THE PRESS, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TREASON, TRUMP TOWER MEETING, TRUTH SOCIAL, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWENTY-SECOND AMENDMENT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, UNITED STATES SENATE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, WHISTLEBLOWER, WHITE HOUSE BUDGET OFFICE, WONKETTE, X, YEVGENEY YEVTUSHENKO
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 3, 2025 at 12:14 am
On February 5, 2020, the Republican-dominated Senate—as expected—absolved President Donald Trump from trying to extort Ukraine into smearing a possible rival for the White House.
Only one Republican—Utah Senator Mitt Romney—had the moral courage to vote for conviction.
But this was not the first time Republicans sought to excuse Trump’s litany of crimes and outrages. Those efforts go back to the 2016 Presidential election.
Forgiven Crime #1: Not demanding that Trump quit the 2016 Presidential race—or demanding that he be indicted—for making a terrorist threat against his own party.
On March 16, 2016, Trump, the front-runner for the Republican Presidential nomination, issued a warning to his fellow Right-wingers: If he didn’t win the GOP nomination at the convention in July, his supporters would literally riot.
“I think we’ll win before getting to the convention. But I can tell you if we didn’t, if we’re 20 votes short or if we’re 100 short and we’re at 1,100 and somebody else is at 500 or 400…I don’t think you can say that we don’t get it automatically. I think you’d have riots.
“I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”
Donald Trump
An NBC reporter summed it up as follows: “As Trump indicated, there is a very real possibility he might lose the nomination if he wins only a plurality of delegates thanks to party rules that allow delegates to support different candidates after the initial ballot.
“In that context, the message to Republicans was clear on [March 16]: ‘Nice convention you got there, shame if something happened to it.’”
Threatening his Republican and Democratic opponents with violence played a major role in Donald Trump’s campaign for President.
Forgiven Crime #2: Supporting his “dog-whistle” call for the assassination of Democratic Nominee Hillary Clinton.
On August 9, 2016, at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, Trump said: “Hillary [Clinton] wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
Democrats—and responsible news media—immediately saw this for the “dog-whistle” signal it was.
“Don’t treat this as a political misstep,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut, who has called for stiffer gun laws, wrote on Twitter. “It’s an assassination threat, seriously upping the possibility of a national tragedy & crisis.”
“Well, let me say if someone else said that outside of the hall, he’d be in the back of a police wagon now, with the Secret Service questioning him,” said Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA).
Hillary Clinton
Threats of violence continued to be made by Trump supporters right up to the day of the election.
- On July 29, Roger Stone, a notorious Right-wing political consultant acting as a Trump strategist, told Breitbart News: “The first thing Trump needs to do is begin talking about [voter fraud] constantly. If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.”
- At a town hall meeting where Trump’s Vice Presidential nominee Mike Pence appeared, a woman named Rhonda said: “For me personally, if Hillary Clinton gets in, I myself am ready for a revolution.”
- In Cincinnati, a Trump supporter threatened to forcibly remove Clinton from the White House if she won the race: “If she’s in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot. That’s how I feel about it,”
- Dan Bowman, a 50-year-old contractor, said of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. “We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed. But that’s what it’s going to take….I would do whatever I can for my country.”
Forgiven Crime #3: Republicans supported Trump’s call for his followers to intimidate Democratic voters at election time.
Trump encouraged his mostly white supporters to sign up online to be “election observers” to stop “Crooked Hillary from rigging this election.” He urged them to act as poll watchers in “other” [non-white] communities to ensure that things are “on the up and up.”
Many of his supporters promised to do so.
“Trump said to watch your precincts. I’m going to go, for sure,” said Steve Webb, a 61-year-old carpenter from Fairfield, Ohio.
“I’ll look for…well, it’s called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American,” he said. “I’m going to go right up behind them. I’ll do everything legally. I want to see if they are accountable. I’m not going to do anything illegal. I’m going to make them a little bit nervous.”
Forgiven Crime #4: Threatening to fire Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who oversaw Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian subversion of the 2016 election.
Forgiven Crime #5: Threatening to fire Independent Counsel Robert Mueller during the summer of 2017, but was talked out of it by aides fearful that it would set off calls for his impeachment.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 2, 2025 at 12:59 am
“One man with courage makes a majority.”
—-Andrew Jackson
Donald Trump—facing four indictments and 91 criminal charges—proved the clear front runner for the 2024 Republican Presidential nomination.
And 77 million Right-wing Americans made him their choice for President on November 5.
Since 2015, Republicans have a shameful history of excusing his outrages and criminality.
A classic example of this occurred on June 9, 2020.
That was when then-President Trump charged that a 75-year-old man who was seriously injured by police officers in Buffalo, New York, was part of a radical leftist “set up.”
The victim, Martin Gugino, was described as a peace activist associated with the Catholic Worker Movement.
On June 4, 2020, during nationwide protests over the police murder of black security guard George Floyd, a curfew was imposed on Buffalo, New York. As police swept through Niagara Square, Gugino walked directly into their path as if attempting to speak with them.
Two officers pushed him and he fell backwards, hitting the back of his head on the pavement and losing consciousness. The line of officers walked past Gugino as he lay on the ground with blood pooling around his head. One officer tried to check on him, but another patrolman told him to move on, and he did.
Martin Gugino falls backward
Enter Trump, who had been severely criticized for sending police and National Guardsmen to remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square so he could stage a photo-op at nearby St. John’s Church.
On June 9 he tweeted: “Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?”
As usual, Trump offered no evidence to back up his slander. And, as usual, Republicans refused to condemn him for his latest outrage.
Among those competing for “Most Cowardly Sycophant of the Year”:
- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) refused to say whether Trump’s tweet was appropriate.
- Texas Senator John Cornyn claimed he had missed it, adding: “A lot of this stuff just goes over my head.”
- Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler refused to answer a question about the President’s tweet as she hopped on an elevator along with an aide in the Capitol.
- Texas Senator Ted Cruz: “I don’t comment on the tweets.”
- Florida Senator Marco Rubio: “I didn’t see it. You’re telling me about it. I don’t read Twitter. I only write on it.”
- Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan said he hadn’t seen it, and then said: “I don’t want to comment right now. I’m on my way to a meeting. I’ll see it when I see it.”
- North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer: “I’ll say this: I worry more about the country itself than I do about what President Trump tweets.”
- Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson said he hadn’t seen the tweet—and didn’t want it read to him: “I would rather not hear it.”
- Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander: “Voters can evaluate that. I’m not going to give a running commentary on the President’s tweets.”
- Montana Senator Steve Daines refused to say whether Trump should have tweeted about the Buffalo incident.
So much for Republican profiles in courage.
On December 18, 2019, the House of Representatives had approved two Articles of Impeachment against Trump for:
Article 1: Abuse of Power: For pressuring the president of Ukraine to assist his re-election campaign by smearing a potential rival for the White House.
Article 2: Obstruction of Congress: For obstructing Congress by blocking testimony of subpoenaed witnesses and refusing to provide documents in response to House subpoenas in the impeachment inquiry.
On July 25, 2019, Trump had “asked” Ukraine President Volodymir Zelensky to do him a “favor”: Find embarrassing “dirt” on former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter.
Hunter had had business dealings in Ukraine. And Joseph Biden might be Trump’s Democratic opponent for the White House in 2020.
To underline the seriousness of his “request,” earlier in July Trump had told Mick Mulvaney, his White House chief of staff, to withhold $400 million in military aid Congress had approved for Ukraine, which was facing an increasingly aggressive Russia
But then a CIA whistleblower filed a complaint about the extortion attempt—and the media and Congress soon learned of it. And ever since, the evidence linking Trump to impeachable offenses had mushroomed.
On January 16, 2020, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) announced that the Trump administration broke the law when it withheld security aid to Ukraine.
Joseph Biden with Barack Obama
As Senate trial proceedings unfolded, the 53-majority Republican Senators:
- Refused to hear from eyewitnesses who could prove that Trump had committed impeachable offenses,
- Refused to provide evidence on Trump’s behalf—but attacked witnesses who had testified against him in the House.
- Attacked Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter, as if they were on trial—instead of having been the targets of Trump’s smear-attempt.
On February 5, 2020, the Republican-dominated Senate—as expected—absolved President Donald Trump from trying to extort Ukraine into smearing a possible rival for the White House.
Only one Republican—Utah Senator Mitt Romney—had the moral courage to vote for conviction.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 7, 2025 at 12:11 am
“U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.”
—The Washington Monthly, March 9, 2020
During his 12-year reign, Adolf Hitler was the target of at least 42 assassination plots. The most famous of these was the one of July 20, 1944.
From 2017 to 2021, Donald Trump was not the target of even one.
In Hitler’s case, the plotters were officers of the German general staff—who believed the Fuhrer was leading Germany into a war it could not hope to win.
Adolf Hitler
In the case of President Donald Trump:
- A non-violent method for removal existed in the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This allows the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to recommend the removal of the President when he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” The Vice President then becomes President.
- No Cabinet members had the courage to invoke this.
- Within the Senate and House of Representatives, Republicans acted as a rubber stamp for his every infamy.
- When he praised North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-Un or attacked Vietnam POW John McCain, they stayed silent.
- When he falsely charged massive voter fraud, Republicans stayed silent or loudly parroted his lies.
- Their most notorious example of ambition-fueled cowardice occurred on February 5, 2020. That was when the Republican-dominated Senate—ignoring the overwhelming evidence against him—acquitted Trump on both impeachment articles: Obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.
- At the Pentagon, American generals stood mute as Trump repeatedly sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—and even gave classified CIA Intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
- And just as high-ranking field marshals in Hitler’s Wehrmacht held their tongues when he insulted them, so, too, did American generals when Trump belittled their intelligence and even patriotism.
- When Trump arbitrarily decided to remove American forces from Syria and Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned in protest in 2018. But then he was simply replaced by Mark Esper.
- Despite the fact that many of these men regularly came into contact with Trump, not one of them apparently plotted his removal.
- Similarly, Trump repeatedly attacked the integrity of the men and women of the FBI—even firing its director, James Comey, for daring to investigate Russia’s subversion of the 2016 election.
- If its agents—steeped in Federal criminal law—built a case for Trump’s indictment and prosecution, it has never come to light.
- Neither did any of his Secret Service agents register the slightest protest, despite his arrogant behavior toward them. He forced them to work without pay during his 35-day government shutdown in 2018.
- And he forced them to accompany him to COVID-infected states—both during the Presidential campaign and afterward. Many of them became stricken with this often fatal disease as a result.
Donald Trump
* * * * *
On November 3, 2020, 81,255,933 Democratic voters elected former Vice President Joseph Biden the 46th President of the United States. Trump, running for a second term, got 74,196,153 votes.
Yet almost two months after the election, Trump refused to concede, insisting that he won—and repeatedly claiming falsely that he was the victim of massive vote fraud.
This toxic lie was feverishly embraced by millions of Right-wingers, and cast a shadow of illegitimacy over the Biden administration.
This refusal to acknowledge the outcome initially denied Biden access to the money, information-sharing and machinery traditionally accorded the President-elect. Trump himself was the beneficiary of such assistance in 2016, after his win over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Only on November 23, 2020 was Biden acknowledged as the winner by the General Services Administration, as the Trump administration finally began the formal transition process.
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic raged across the country. More than 400,000 Americans died by the time Trump left office. Hospitals were filled to capacity, and millions faced starvation and/or eviction.
Yet Trump remained obsessed with his loss, and did nothing to coordinate the Federal response to the pandemic.
Trump’s refusal to accept reality posed an unprecedented danger to democracy: No presidential candidate had ever refused to concede defeat once all the votes were counted and legal challenges resolved.
By refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, Trump took on the classic mantle of a dictator.
Right-wing Virginia State Senator Amanda Chase urged Trump to declare martial law and allow the military to “oversee” another election. So did disgraced ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, whom Trump pardoned for lying to the FBI about private talks he had with a Russian official.
Reports have surfaced that Trump considered doing so.
History has recorded an active German resistance movement against Adolf Hitler. And posterity has honored its members, many of whom died heroically for standing firm against a brutal tyrant.
To its eternal shame, the same cannot be said of America during the reign of Donald Trump.
Even more shameful: On November 5, 2024, having lived through four years of Trump’s lies, egomania and lawbreaking, 77 million Americans re-elected him as President.
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In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 6, 2025 at 12:05 am
On July 20, 1944, Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
He had served with the Wehrmacht in Poland (1939), France (1940) and the Soviet Union (1941).
While serving in Tunisa, he was seriously wounded on April 7, 1943, when Allied fighters strafed his vehicle. He lost his left eye, right hand and two fingers of his left hand after surgery.
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg
Nevertheless, he now acted as the prime mover for the conspiracy among a growing number of German high command officers to arrest or assassinate Germany’s Fuehrer.
For most of these officers, the motive was craven: The “happy time” of German victories was over. Germany was losing the war it had unleashed on the world in 1939—and now they feared the worst.
This was especially true now that the numerically superior forces of the Soviet Union had gone onto the offensive.
For Stauffenberg, there was another reason: His disgust at the horrors he had seen committed by his fellow Wehrmacht soldiers upon defenseless POW’s and civilians in Russia.
Thus, Stauffenberg—more than many Germans–knew firsthand the vengeance his country could expect if the “Thousand-Year Reich” fell.
Something must be done, he believed, to prove to the world that not all Germans—even members of the Wehrmacht—were criminals.
Most of the conspirators wanted to arrest Hitler and surrender to British and American forces—well before the much-feared Russians gained a toehold in Germany.
Stauffenberg didn’t want to arrest Hitler; he wanted to kill him. A live Hitler might eventually be rescued by his Nazi colleagues.
But Hitler was a closely-guarded target. He was surrounded by fanatical bodyguards who were expert marksmen. He often wore a bulletproof vest and a cap lined with three pounds of laminated steel.
Adolf Hitler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D
But his single greatest protection—he claimed—was an instinct for danger. He would suddenly change his schedule—to drop in where he was least expected. Or suddenly depart an event where he was expected to stay a long time.
That instinct had repeatedly saved his life.
A series of assassination attempts had been made against Hitler. All of them involved time-bombs. And all of the would-be assassins were members of the German General Staff.
In one case, a bomb secretly stashed aboard Hitler’s plane failed to explode. In another, an officer who had a bomb strapped to himself unexpectedly found his scheduled meeting with Hitler called off. He had to rush into a bathroom to defuse the bomb before it exploded.
Stauffenberg intended to carry his bomb—hidden in a briefcase—into a “Hitler conference” room packed with military officers. Rigged with a time-fuse, it would be left there while he found an excuse to leave.
After the explosion, he would phone one of his fellow conspirators with the news.
Stauffenberg intended to direct the new government that would replace that of the Nazis—and open peace talks with the British and Americans.
With Hitler dead, the coup—“Operation Valkyrie”—would be on.
Anti-Nazi conspirators would seize control of key posts of the government. The British and Americans would then be informed of Germany’s willingness to surrender. Provided, of course, that the vengeance-seeking Russians did not have a say in its postwar future.
The Wehrmacht and Schutzstaffel (SS) had killed millions of Russians. Many had died in combat. Others had been murdered as captives. Still more had been allowed to die by starvation and exposure to the notorious Russian winter.
So the Germans—both Nazi and anti-Nazi—knew what they could expect if soldiers of the Soviet Union reached German soil.
On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg appeared at Hitler’s well-guarded military headquarters in East Prussia. Like all his other outposts, Hitler had named it—appropriately enough—“Wolf’s Lair.”
“Wolf’s Lair”
Stauffenberg entered the large, concrete building while the conference was in session. He placed his yellow briefcase next to Hitler—who was standing with his generals at a heavy oaken table. Then he excused himself to take an “urgent” phone call.
After Stauffenberg left the room, Colonel Heinz Brandt, standing next to Hitler, found the briefcase blocking his legs. So he moved it—to the other side of the heavy oaken support, partially shielding Hitler from the blast..
At 12:42 p.m. on July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg’s briefcase bomb erupted.
Brandt died, as did two other officers and a stenographer.
Hitler not only survived, but the plotters failed to seize the key broadcast facilities of the Reich.
This allowed Hitler to make a late-night speech to the nation, revealing the failed plot and assuring Germans that he was still alive. And he swore to flush out the “traitorous swine” who had tried to kill him.
Mass arrests quickly followed.
Among the first victims discovered and executed was the conspiracy’s leader, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Standing before a makeshift firing squad at midnight, he cried: “Long live our sacred Germany!”
At least 7,000 persons were arrested by the Gestapo. Of these, 4,980 were executed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 5, 2025 at 12:09 am
“When Fascism comes to America, it will be called anti-Fascism.”
–Huey Long, Louisiana Governor/Senator
In the Twilight Zone episode, “No Time Like the Past,” Paul Driscoll (Dana Andrews), a scientist in early 1960s America, uses a time machine to visit Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II.
He’s rented a motel room overlooking the balcony from where the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler will soon make a speech. And he’s eager to watch that speech—through the lens of a telescopic-sighted rifle.
Just as he’s about to pull the trigger, there’s a knock at his door—by the maid. Driscoll hustles her out as soon as possible, then once again picks up his rifle. He—and viewers—can once again see Hitler through the cross-hairs of his weapon.
Paul Driscoll prepares to shoot Adolf Hitler
But instead of the anticipated shot, there’s another knock at his door—his time by the black-uniformed secret police, the SS. Driscoll knows the game is up, and disappears into the present just as the thugs break down his door.
And the audience is left to ponder how different the world would have been if Driscoll—or someone in Nazi Germany—had succeeded in assassinating the man whose wars would wipe out the lives of 50 million men, women and children around the globe.
One 2016 Republican candidate for President dared to invoke the menace of Nazi Germany in warning of the dangers of a Donald Trump Presidency. And to argue that Americans could prevent that past from returning.
In November, 2015, John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, was peddling a message of creating jobs, balancing the Federal budget and disdain for Washington, D.C.
John Kasich
But he remained far behind in the polls, dropping 50% in support in just one month—from September to October. Meanwhile, Trump, the New York billionaire developer, was being backed by 25% of Republican primary voters.
So, with nothing to lose, Kasich decided to take off the gloves. He invoked the “N” word for Republicans: Nazi.
He authorized the creation of a TV ad that opened with ominous music—and the face of a snarling Donald Trump.
“I would like anyone who is listening to consider some thoughts that I’ve paraphrased from the words of German pastor Martin Niemoeller.”
The voice belonged to Tom Moe, a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force—and a former Vietnam prisoner-of-war.
“You might not care if Donald Trump says Muslims must register with the government, because you’re not one,” continued Moe.
“And you might not care if Donald Trump says he’s going to round up all the Hispanic immigrants, because you’re not one.
Donald Trump
“And you might not care if Donald Trump says it’s OK to rough up black protesters, because you’re not one.
“And you might not care if Donald Trump wants to suppress journalists, because you’re not one.
“But think about this:
“If he keeps going, and he actually becomes President, he might just get around to you. And you’d better hope that there’s someone left to help you.”
Martin Niemoeller (1892–1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who had commanded a U-boat during World War 1. He became a bitter public foe of Adolf Hitler.
A staunch anti-Communist, he had initially supported the Nazis as Germany’s only hope of salvation against the Soviet Union.
But when the Nazis made the church subordinate to State authority, Niemoeller created the Pastors’ Emergency League to defend religious freedom.
For his opposition to the Third Reich, Niemoeller spent seven years in concentration camps.
With the collapse of the Reich in 1945, he was freed—and elected President of the Protestant church in Hesse and Nassau in 1947. During the 1960s, he was president of the World Council of Churches.
He is best remembered for his powerful condemnation of the failure of Germans to protest the increasing oppression of the Nazis:
First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Socialists, but I was not a Socialist, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.
Neither “Adolf Hitler” nor “Nazi Party” was mentioned during the one-minute Kasich video. But a furious Trump threatened to sue Kasich if he could find anything “not truthful” within the ad.
Apparently he couldn’t find anything “not truthful,” because he never sued.
So threatened the man who had called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and accused President Barack Obama of being a Muslim and an illegal alien.
The Kasich ad was the darkest attack made against Trump by any candidate–-Republican or Democrat. And it raised a disturbing question:
If Donald Trump proved to be America’s Adolf Hitler, would there be an American Claus von Stauffenberg?
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg was the German army officer who, on July 20, 1944, tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 27, 2025 at 12:05 am
The appointment of Robert S. Mueller as Special Counsel on May 17, 2017, aroused unprecedented hopes and fears.
Foes of President Donald Trump hoped that Mueller would unearth evidence of criminality—if not treason—blatant enough to guarantee his impeachment.
Supporters of Trump—starting with the President—feared that this would be the case. When Attorney General Jeff Sessions told Trump that a Special Counsel had been appointed, the President exclaimed, “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.”
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 was an illegitimate usurper, installed by an unholy alliance of American Fascists and Russian Communists.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 24, 2025 at 12:10 am
Imagine: It’s the height of World War II—and news breaks that President Franklin D. Roosevelt has secretly sent rare medicines to an ailing Adolf Hitler.
TREASON EXAMPLE #11: Only then can you can understand the sheer treachery of President Donald Trump in sending COVID test machines to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
That revelation was first reported on October 3, 2024, by CNN and The Washington Post in reviews of War, a forthcoming book by legendary Watergate journalist Bob Woodward. The book appeared in bookstores on October 15.
Bob Woodward
The machines were sent to Putin for his personal use, since he was reportedly anxious about falling ill with the virus, according to Woodward’s book.
This has led Vanity Fair to raise a disturbing question: “Did Trump send Putin COVID tests from his Presidential stash while Americans got defective imports?”
According to the magazine’s October 8 edition: “At a time when desperate Americans waited in miles-long lines to get COVID tests in perilously short supply, and public health experts were sounding the alarm that the critical shortage was tanking America’s pandemic response, Donald Trump claimed the US had a bountiful supply: “Anybody who wants a test gets a test.”
Trump instantly denied that he had sent COVID tests to Putin, calling Woodward “a total sleazebag,” “an angry, little man,” “a truly demented and deranged man,” and “a boring person with no personality.”
“President Trump gave him absolutely no access for this trash book that either belongs in the bargain bin of the fiction section of a discount bookstore or used as toilet tissue,” said Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign’s communications director, in a statement.
This despite the fact that Trump had given Woodward total access for three other books: Fear: Trump in the White House; Rage; and Peril.
In fact, it was to Woodward that Trump had confided, on February 7, 2020, that COVID-19 was far more deadly than he would soon begin telling Americans generally:
“It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch. The touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed….It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flues.”
One person who did confirm the book’s accuracy was—Vladimir Putin.
“As for the tests, when the pandemic began, countries did not have enough equipment. And many countries then exchanged such gestures of support and sent each other shipments of various equipment they had,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters.
“There was a shortage of various medical equipment. And of course in the beginning all the countries tried to swap some aid.” Peskov told NBC News.
“We sent [artificial lung ventilators] to the States, the Americans sent us several samples of those testing systems as at that time there were very few of them. Many countries did this.”
Vice President Kamala Harris attacked Trump’s decision: “That is just the most recent, stark example of who Donald Trump is,” she told talk show host Howard Stern.
People were “scrambling to get these [COVID-19 test] kits,” Harris said. “And this guy who is president of the United States is sending them to Russia, to a murderous dictator, for his personal use?”
President Joe Biden showed similar outrage: “Those tests to tell you whether you had COVID were in short supply, so he called his good friend, Putin, not a joke, to make sure he had the tests. What’s wrong with this guy?”
According to the book, Trump sent the secret shipment of testing equipment to Putin at the height of the pandemic in 2020. Meanwhile, the United States faced a crippling shortage of testing kits.
“I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me. They don’t care about me,” Putin warned Trump, according to the book.
“I don’t care. Fine,” Trump responded.
On the Howard Stern show, Harris offered her own take on Trump’s motivation: “He admires strong men, and he gets played by them because he thinks that they’re his friends, and they are manipulating him full time and manipulating him by flattery and with favor.
“Remember, people were dying by the hundreds, everybody was scrambling to get these kits….and this guy, who was President of the United States, is sending them to Russia to a murderous dictator for his personal use.”
Trump has defended his stance toward Putin, maintaining that had he still been in office Russia would not have invaded Ukraine in 2022.
And the relationship appears to have continued even after Trump left the White House. Woodward, reports that the former president may have spoken with Putin as many as seven times since 2021.
If true, this could constitute a violation of the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from conducting negotiations with foreign leaders.
Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov denied that Trump and Putin had spoken by phone several times since Trump left office: “No, that’s not true,” he told Russian outlet RBC.
Woodward rose to fame for his role in uncovering the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon’s presidency in 1974. He has since written several best-selling books based on access to high-level sources.
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In Bureaucracy, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 23, 2025 at 12:12 am
Since the end of World War II, Republicans have falsely accused Democrats of being Communists—or, as they’ve put it: “Comsymps,” “pinkos,” “fellow travelers.”
Yet it is President Donald Trump who has done more to weaken the United States to the advantage of Russia than any Democrat.
TREASON EXAMPLE #5: On January 20, 2017—the day Donald J. Trump became the 45th President of the United States—Michael Flynn took office as the nation’s 25th National Security Adviser.
On February 13, The Washington Post reported that Acting Attorney General Sally Yates had warned Trump in late January that Flynn had lied about his contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December, 2016.
During those exchanges, Flynn had talked about removing the sanctions placed on Russia by the outgoing Obama administration.
Michael Flynn
Flynn was forced to resign that same day—after only 24 days as National Security Adviser.
On December 1, 2017, Flynn appeared in federal court to formalize a deal with Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III. He pleaded guilty to a felony count of “willfully and knowingly” making “false, fictitious and fraudulent statements” to the FBI.
On November 25, 2020, Trump pardoned him, tweeting: “It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon.”
TREASON EXAMPLE #6: On May 9, 2017, President Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey for investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential race.
There were four reasons for this:
- Comey refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump. Trump had made the “request” during a private dinner at the White House in January.
- Comey told Trump that he would always be honest with him. But Trump wanted the head of the FBI to act as his personal secret police chief—as was the case in the former Soviet Union.
- Trump had tried to coerce Comey into dropping the FBI’s investigation into Michael Flynn, for his secret ties to Russia and Turkey. Comey had similarly resisted that demand.
- Comey had recently asked the Justice Department to fund an expanded FBI investigation into well-documented contacts between Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents. The goal of that collaboration: To elect Trump over Hillary Clinton, a longtime foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
James Comey
TREASON EXAMPLE #7: On May 10, 2017, Trump met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office—and gave them highly classified Israeli Intelligence about an Islamic State plot to turn laptops into concealable bombs.
Kislyak is reportedly a top recruiter for Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency. He has been closely linked with Jeff Sessions, then Attorney General, and fired National Security Adviser Mike Flynn.
“I just fired the head of the FBI,” Trump told the two dignitaries. “He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
TREASON EXAMPLE #8: On July 16, 2018, Trump attended a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
There he blamed American Intelligence agencies—the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—as partners in a conspiracy: “You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server, why haven’t they taken the server? Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee?
“I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin in Helsinki
TREASON EXAMPLE #9: On June 9, 2018, Trump called for Russia to be readmitted to the G7.
“I think it would be an asset to have Russia back in,” he said during an impromptu press conference at the summit.
“I think it would be good for the world. I think it would be good for Russia. I think it would be good for the United States. I think it would be good for all of the countries of the current G7. I think the G8 would be better.”
Russia was ousted from the group in 2014 after Putin annexed Crimea—the first violation of a European country’s borders since World War II.
“Today crystallizes precisely why Putin was so eager to see Trump elected,” said former Obama National Security Council spokesman Ned Price.
“For Putin, this is return on his investment, and it’s safe to say that his investment has paid off beyond even his wildest dreams,” he said in a statement to CNN.
TREASON EXAMPLE #10: In early 2020, members of the elite SEAL Team Six raided a Taliban outpost and recovered roughly $500,000 in American cash. The recovered funds led the American intelligence community to believe that the government of Vladimir Putin had offered money to Taliban militants to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan.
Additional confirmation came from the interrogations of captured militants and criminals.
As early as January, the SEALS in Afghanistan alerted their superiors of this danger.
Trump claimed he wasn’t briefed on these Intelligence assessments. He made his denial through White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany: The information had not been “verified.”
This despite the fact that every morning he received the President’s Daily Briefing, a top-secret document containing highly classified Intelligence analysis.
In fact, the Intelligence assessment had been under discussion within the Trump administration since at least March.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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REPUBLICANS: 50 WAYS TO BE A COWARD-PART FOUR (OF SEVEN)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 5, 2025 at 12:10 amThroughout his Presidency, Republicans continued to support Donald Trump despite a series of actions that would have normally resulted in impeachment.
Forgiven Crime #12: On July 16, 2018, Trump attended a press conference in Helsinki, Finland, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. There he blamed American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—instead of Putin for Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
“I have President Putin,” said Trump. “He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Helsinki
Forgiven Crime #13: Waging all-out war on the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of the press.
On February 17, 2017, Trump tweeted: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
Seven days later, appearing before the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 24, Trump said: “I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. It’s fake, phony, fake….I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. Let their name be put out there.”
Forgiven Crime #14: Waging all-out war on the independent judiciary
Trump repeatedly attacked Seattle U.S. District Judge James Robart, who halted Trump’s first anti-Islamic travel ban: “Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”
On October 20, 2018, Trump attacked U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar as an “Obama judge.” Tigar had ruled that the administration must consider asylum claims no matter where migrants cross the U.S. border.
The next day, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts told the Associated Press: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”
On Thanksgiving Day, 2018, Trump attacked Roberts—appointed by Republican President George W. Bush—on Twitter: “Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges,’ and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country.”
Forgiven Crime #15: Threatening members of Congress with treason charges for daring to challenge him.
Furious that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) mocked him during a session of the House Intelligence Committee, Trump tweeted: “I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason…..”
“Rep. Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine as the most important part of my call to the Ukrainian President, and read it aloud to Congress and the American people. It bore NO relationship to what I said on the call. Arrest for Treason?”
Adam Schiff
He judged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “every bit as guilty as Liddle’ Adam Schiff for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, and even Treason. I guess that means that they, along with all of those that evilly ‘Colluded’ with them, must all be immediately Impeached!”
Forgiven Crime #16: He lied so often—30,573 times by the end of his first term, according to the Washington Post—that he’s universally distrusted, at home and abroad.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, French President Charles de Gaulle was offered photographs taken by American spy planes of Russian missile emplacements in Cuba. De Gaulle waved them away, saying that, for him, the word of the President of the United States was enough.
Charles de Gaulle and John F. Kennedy
Today, no free world leader would take Trump’s word for anything.
Forgiven Crime #17: On December 22, 2018, Trump shut down the Federal government—because Democrats refused to fund his “border wall” between the United States and Mexico.
An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay.
This lasted until January 25, 2019, when Trump caved to public pressure.
Forgiven Crime #18: Even while being investigated by Congress for trying to extort Ukraine to investigate his 2020 Presidential rival, Joseph Biden, Trump publicly urged China to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter.
Trump repeatedly denied he had strong-armed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to smear former Vice President Joseph Biden. But on October 3, 2019, on the White House lawn, with TV cameras whirring, Trump said: “China should start an investigation into the Bidens.”
And to drive home the message, Trump warned: “I have a lot of options on China, but if they don’t do what we want, we have tremendous power.”
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