Damn, son… Trump finally confirms Russian “meddling” in the election that put him in the White House, but has the unmitigated gall to suggest that it was all Obama’s fault

It’s taken one hell of a long time, but the complete narrative of how Trump came to power is finally starting to come into focus, thanks in large part due to the heroic work of Washington Post reporters, who, just yesterday, brought two more critical pieces of the puzzle to the table. First, they reported that the U.S. intelligence community had evidence prior to the election that Vladimir Putin himself had given the order for Russian operatives to initiate a cyber warfare campaign against the Clinton campaign, with the express purpose of putting Donald Trump in the White House. And, second, they shared a detailed account of how Republican Mitch McConnell, when confronted with this information prior to the election, worked to stop President Obama from making the American people aware. I’d suggest that you read the whole thing, but here, for those of you unwilling to follow the link, how the explosive report begins.

And there’s also video, which I’d highly recommend that you watch… I know some of you might think I’m exaggerating when I say this, but, when I watched it, I had the exact same feeling that I did when I saw the World Trade Center coming down on September 11, 2001. It felt like the floor had literally fallen away beneath me, throwing me into free fall… It’s one thing to experience all of this if real time, reading the individual articles as they come out, over several months time, but it’s another to see it all boiled down into a ten minute video that methodically lays it all out, showing you when Trump was briefed on what was happening, and how, even with this knowledge, he continued to refer to Russian interference as a “hoax.”

If you only watch one thing this weekend, watch this…

So, just to reiterate, our elected officials knew well in advance of the November election that Putin had called for an all out assault against Hillary Clinton in hopes of swaying the election in Trump’s favor, and Obama had suggested a bipartisan response, which the Republicans fought him on… Had Obama thought Trump might actually win, he might have pushed back harder, but, instead, he worked behind the scenes to punish Russia for their interference by way of sanctions, sharing very little with the public about what was happening, for fear that anything he said might be used by the Trump campaign as evidence that he was lying in order to aid the Clinton campaign.

And, judging from Trump’s Twitter feed today, it would appear that the increased scrutiny is beginning to get to him.

Whether intentional or not, the above tweet would seem to confirm that, yes, in the opinion of the President, the Russians did, in fact, meddle in the election. This, I believe, is the first time he’s admitted as much. And I think that’s significant… As for him putting it back on Obama, though, that’s just laughable. Obama, as the Washington Post makes clear, pushed for a bipartisan statement and he was stopped by the Republicans in Congress. And, furthermore, Trump, by this point in the campaign, was privy to the same intelligence briefings that Obama was, so if Obama knew that the Russians were meddling, so did Trump. The only difference was that, while Obama was pushing for sanctions against Russia, and trying to find a way to let the American people know, Trump was calling the stories of Russian interference a “hoax,” and suggesting that the hacking of the DNC could have been done by “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”

According to recent polling, though, in spite of all this evidence, the American people really don’t seem to care about the investigation, wanting Congress to focus instead on things like jobs and health care… Here’s hoping that the Democrats don’t let up, though. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter how it polls with voters. It’s imperative that we pursue this not because it wins elections, but because it’s the right thing to do for the future of not only our country, but humanity.

Make no mistake, folks. We are at war. And it’s not just the Russians that are going to be caught up in Mueller’s net. Trump’s impeachment is just the beginning… We’re living though something that goes incredibly deep, and makes Watergate seem like child’s play… And, mark my words, one day, assuming we survive this, there will be statues to both Comey and Mueller in Washington.

Lastly, just because it pisses me off so much, I wanted to share these two photos that have been floating though social media today.

In the top photo, Obama confronts Putin prior to the election, during a meeting of world leaders in Hangzhou, China. “Accompanied only by interpreters,” the Washington Post reports today, “Obama told Putin that ‘we knew what he was doing and [he] better stop or else,’ according to a senior aide who subsequently spoke with Obama.” In the bottom photo, several months later, Donald Trump entertains Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Putin’s Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak in the White House the day after firing FBI Director James Comey, the man heading the investigation into the Russian hacking of our election. This meeting was not intended to be public. The American press had been kept out. And we would not have known about it, had the Russians not released photos. And, it should be noted that Trump, when this photo was taken, not only knew for certain that the Russians had, to use his own term, “meddled” in the election, but he was also aggressively working to roll back the sanctions imposed by the Obama administration… Given what we’ve come to learn over these past several months, it’s impossible to look at these two photos and not believe that Trump will spend the remainder of his life in prison.

This entry was posted in Politics, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

36 Comments

  1. wobblie
    Posted June 25, 2017 at 5:59 am | Permalink

    So far not a single indictment, nearly a year of investigation. Not a single legal act has been taken, in fact not a single arrest has been made. At this point in Watergate, we had the trial of the plumbers going on, we had principles in the cover-up talking to the special prosecutor. At this point tons of accusations, not a single verifiable fact that you could take to a jury and get a conviction. So much smoke and mirrors, meanwhile the Democrats are complicit in the Republican dismantling of the social safety net.

  2. Meta
    Posted June 25, 2017 at 8:00 am | Permalink

    Slate: “Obama got it right on Russia. His job wasn’t to prevent Trump’s win. It was to preserve faith in our elections”

    Did President Obama blow the 2016 election? Should he have spoken up sooner and louder about Russia’s interference? That’s what many Democrats are wondering, particularly after reading the Washington Post’s latest investigative report on Obama’s reticent response to the Russian attack. A former official tells the Post that after the election, Obama’s aides, “mortified” by Donald Trump’s victory, thought to themselves: “Wow, did we mishandle this.”

    There’s plenty to second-guess in Obama’s management of this episode. But the idea that he failed because Trump won is wrong. Obama’s job wasn’t to prevent the election of a particular person, even one as awful as Trump. Obama’s job was to preserve the country. That meant protecting the integrity of our elections and public faith in them, which he did, to the extent possible after Russia had already hacked into the Democratic National Committee and spread misinformation. The next task—exposing the full extent of Russia’s interference, punishing it, and deterring future attacks—is up to Trump. If he fails, the responsibility to hold him accountable falls to Congress. And if Congress fails, the job of electing a new, more patriotic legislature falls to voters.

    According to the U.S. intelligence community’s Jan. 6 assessment, Vladimir Putin’s long-term goal in directing the interference campaign was to “undermine public faith in the US democratic process.” Obama responded accordingly. “We set out from a first-order principle that required us to defend the integrity of the vote,” Obama’s former chief of staff, Denis McDonough, told the Post. Russia’s hacks and leaks were bad, but corruption of voter rolls and election tallies would be far worse. So the Obama administration focused on alerting state officials, fortifying cyberdefenses, and privately threatening Russia with retaliation.

    Read more:
    http://slate.me/2rQgj52

  3. Kim
    Posted June 25, 2017 at 8:37 am | Permalink

    Did you see this?

    “Every Russia story Trump said was a hoax by Democrats: A timeline”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/06/01/every-russia-story-trump-said-was-a-hoax-by-democrats-a-timeline/

  4. Anonymous
    Posted June 25, 2017 at 10:11 am | Permalink

    Adam Schiff said it best…. No, Mr. President. President Obama didn’t want to be perceived as helping Clinton. That was his mistake. Everything since has been yours.

  5. Jcp2
    Posted June 25, 2017 at 11:17 am | Permalink

    Mark’s version: Rich politicians support an unstable president who promises unrealistic goals to his supporters, even to the point of ignoring interference from a foreign power, once our mortal enemy, in our elections, so they can get a tax cut for their supporters.

    My version: White dudes stick together.

  6. Rick Cronn
    Posted June 25, 2017 at 11:22 am | Permalink

    Rump’s convinced almost everyone that everything is noise, so we turn down the volume and ignore it. Goebbels got nothing on these guys.

  7. Posted June 25, 2017 at 11:27 am | Permalink

    What do you mean by that, Jcp2? Do you think, at the heart of this, Russia and Trump came together primarily over their hatred of a black President and a female Secretary of State? Or are you saying that the Republicans in Congress are just sticking with him because he’s white? I mean, it’s a funny comment, but I’m not sure that I agree, seeing as how many standing up for Trump aren’t white men, and many standing against him are. I’m all for interjecting race when it’s appropriate, but I’m not seeing it here. Please help me see what you’re seeing.

  8. Anonymous
    Posted June 25, 2017 at 11:34 am | Permalink

    Adam Schiff keeps bringing the truth.

    “Obama Admin feared 2 things: appearing to help HRC & playing into Trump’s rigged narrative. Neither factor outweighed public’s need to know”

    https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff/status/878979004035997696

  9. Jean Henry
    Posted June 25, 2017 at 1:11 pm | Permalink

    It’s interpret JCP’s comment to mean that collusion is business as usual for the old boys network. They act to conserve their power and accrue more. It’s not conscious behavior as they really have no understanding of any other experience.
    Of course we have a system set up to avoid such concentration of power. It was set up that way (by white men trying to secure their own power) because humans have always acted this way in every political system ever. We are facing a test of our democracy. It’s no surprise this comes as the white birth rate declines and our country diversifies racially. fear elected Trump. The Russians helped. They manipulated the left as much as the right.

    I don’t know how we rebuild the integrity of our essential democratic institutions and principles, and faith in government itself, in the midst of (understandable) populist rebellion.
    Maybe blaming the Russians for our vulnerability will help. (And I’m not minimizing what they did.) but we were vulnerable to manipulation. And I don’t see us taking much about that. Cynicism is deep and understandable. Divisiveness too. Not much progress can come from That place.

  10. Posted June 25, 2017 at 3:19 pm | Permalink

    I pray you are right.

  11. Jean Henry
    Posted June 25, 2017 at 7:06 pm | Permalink

    http://www.slate.com/articles/life/history/2017/06/james_mcgill_buchanan_s_terrifying_vision_of_society_is_the_intellectual.html

  12. John Galt
    Posted June 25, 2017 at 8:52 pm | Permalink

    If Obama hadn’t humiliated Trump in front of the White House correspondents dinner, none of this would have happened.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeGpLg0b3DE

  13. EOS
    Posted June 26, 2017 at 1:43 am | Permalink

    So exactly what is the crime that Trump committed that would be an impeachable offense? Meeting with foreign diplomats is not a crime.

    If it was Russia who was responsible for releasing Clinton’s and the DNC emails to WikiLeaks, and I haven’t seen the evidence that it was, why aren’t more people upset at the actual evidence of how the DNC did “meddle” in the election. Why aren’t more upset at how Bernie was destroyed by his own party? If Russia “meddled” it was through releasing true facts.

    Obama wanted to punish Russia for revealing the truth about Clinton’s tactics. Is it correct to destroy diplomatic ties because they revealed the truth? If they had fabricated lies to destroy her it might be different, but she was hung by her own actions. No one has claimed that the emails were not legitimate. There were multiple copies on a number of computers. She just never believed anyone would find out.

    We should reflect on these revelations and take the time now to make sure that future candidates for office have a minuscule of integrity and basic human decency. We should consider how a candidate like Hillary could ever rise to the level that she was even considered a possibility for office. We barely missed a disastrous outcome.

  14. Sad
    Posted June 26, 2017 at 6:09 am | Permalink

    Trump is a mean and unpleasant man no doubt . The Russians were meddling in the election no doubt. But the real crime was the destruction of the Democratic Party.

    May it Rest In Peace.

    http://theweek.com/articles/707539/centrist-democrats-are-now-great-defenders-social-justice-please

  15. Frosted Flakes
    Posted June 26, 2017 at 9:42 am | Permalink

    Isn’t it safe to assume that other governments are always trying to influence foreign elections to their own perceived benefit–given the opportunity? I don’t get why this is surprising news. Is the big surprise that we have evidence that Putin was trying to do something that we already could safely assume he would try to do?

    The production quality and narration techniques reminded me of “ancient aliens” not footage of wtc coming down.

    Strange times.

  16. kjc
    Posted June 26, 2017 at 11:24 am | Permalink

    “We should reflect on these revelations and take the time now to make sure that future candidates for office have a minuscule of integrity and basic human decency.”

    you’ve gotten so much more idiotic, EOS, since Trump.

  17. EOS
    Posted June 26, 2017 at 12:19 pm | Permalink

    @kjc,

    Quite frankly, the rest of the world is thinking the same (more idiotic) about Democrats. Really, there has been enough time to get over the initial surprise by now.

  18. Jean Henry
    Posted June 26, 2017 at 2:32 pm | Permalink

    EOS– The rest of YOUR world—in the States. The wider WORLD (and not just Europe) very much get that Trump is a buffoon and incompetent. Other than the Russian government, they don;t seem to think we’re mad. Hell, the Queen of England just took a public stance against Trump’s bigotry and dis-invited him, without ever saying his name. Very Queenly. I was in Mexico recently and they were all laughing at the absurdity of Trump and his wall, even though they will suffer greatly from his programs. They think it’s funny to see that the mighty giant US has fallen, and is susceptible to the same voter manipulation, lies, deception and corruption as the rest of the world.

    By contrast, Obama was loved globally.

    Please tell me what you mean when you say ‘the rest of the world is laughing at the Dems?’ How do you define ‘the rest of the world?’

    I find your choice of words interesting as it so clearly demonstrates your myopic perspective.

  19. Frosted Flakes
    Posted June 26, 2017 at 3:29 pm | Permalink

    So, dems are not “more idiotic” after the election because Trump is stupid?

  20. EOS
    Posted June 26, 2017 at 5:10 pm | Permalink

    You’re right. When I mentioned the rest of the world I didn’t mean to include a handful of global elitists – just everyone else. The last election proves that we aren’t susceptible to the same voter manipulation, lies, deception and corruption – Hillary was defeated.

  21. stupid hick
    Posted June 26, 2017 at 6:27 pm | Permalink

    EOS, do you still believe Clinton was running a pedophile ring out of a DC pizza shop? Just trying to map the current boundaries of your reality.

  22. EOS
    Posted June 26, 2017 at 6:30 pm | Permalink

    No, I never believed that.

  23. Jcp2
    Posted June 27, 2017 at 2:05 pm | Permalink

    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2017/06/can_the_democrats_win_again.html

    “For the two analyses I focused on, one looked at the most salient issues in the election for Obama and Trump voters in particular and those were what John Sides, who did the analysis, referred to as identity and culture issues: basically, how people felt about immigration, how they felt about Muslims and how they felt about black people. So those who voted Obama in 2012 and then Trump in 2016 felt most negatively about those three groups. Those were highly salient issues for them.”

    “Most of these people voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, but a substantial minority voted for Barack Obama. My thinking there is that when you have a more ordinary ideological contest, these voters have to make a choice about what they value more. Do they value their government assistance and a strong government hand in the economy? Or do they value their cultural identity resentments?”

  24. Iron Lung Larson
    Posted June 27, 2017 at 4:08 pm | Permalink

    EOS did believe that she was having people killed or at least was happy to promote the idea.

  25. Jean Henry
    Posted June 28, 2017 at 6:54 am | Permalink

    No EOS, not elitists. Everyone, except the Russians. We are the laughing stock of the world now. You are preternaturally inclined to inflate the numbers of people who share your world view. You represent a tiny fraction of the country and world. Enjoy your last hurrah. It’s been a doosie so far.

    http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/26/534442273/majority-of-global-poll-respondents-find-trump-arrogant-dangerous

  26. EOS
    Posted June 28, 2017 at 7:26 am | Permalink

    Jean,

    You are twisting the argument a bit. My saying the rest of the world thinks the Democrat protesters are idiotic does not preclude the fact that they think Trump is arrogant and dangerous as well. False dichotomy. An America first philosophy has the sycophants on the other end of the gravy train terrified. Imagine NATO members paying their fair share?
    Imagine trade policies that don’t disfavor the U.S.? Imagine a president who responds quickly when lines are crossed?

    But the Democrats response to date will hinder future elections.

    http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/02/13/dirty-secret-smart-democrats-know-but-wont-admit-about-trump.html

  27. Jean Henry
    Posted June 29, 2017 at 8:30 am | Permalink

    Nice attempt at a pivot EOS, but you are wrong. Obama had a 66% favorability rating abroad and we were at war for the entirety of both his terms. He embodies the Dem perspective you deride. (Most of us suspect why) As for protests of Trump, those are happening globally as well. Even the Queen of England has taken a stand. There is zero evidence that people globally find resistance to Trump silly. In fact this pew study also shows that out capacity for dissent is one the the most admired US qualities.
    http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/26/u-s-image-suffers-as-publics-around-world-question-trumps-leadership/

  28. Iron Lung Larson
    Posted June 29, 2017 at 9:08 am | Permalink

    “Trump is an idiot” – EOS

  29. Jean Henry
    Posted June 29, 2017 at 9:44 am | Permalink

    In EOS’ universe, people working in Juarez for $20/week and living in compounds of pallets and cinder blocks bought one by one, are among ‘a handful of global elites’ who think America is a joke post-Trump.

  30. EOS
    Posted June 29, 2017 at 11:30 am | Permalink

    I didn’t say anything about Obama. I was talking about people like Mark who suggest Trump is about to be impeached every other week or so. Or the women who put on pointy pink hats and marched in Washington to preserve their right to kill their offspring if they considered them an inconvenience. Or those that riot in the streets and destroy businesses because they didn’t like the outcome of the election. Or the media persons who can’t stop droning on about Russia trying to hack computers and somehow is tied to collusion with Trump to stel an election. I fully support the right to rational dissent but making up shit and getting outraged about it is pathological.

    I did say Trump is an idiot. That’s the first quote Larson got right in ten years. But Trump has surprised me and made a number of decisions in the past few months that I fully support.

    I don’t know why anyone would wonder about my reasons for deriding the Democratic Party. I’ve been writing about just that on this blog for the past ten years. It’s ideological. I feel government is best which governs least. I feel the greatest freedoms are realized when individuals take responsibility for satisfying their own needs. And I never saw a government program that was able to fix the problem it was created to fix. Every program just grows bigger and sucks more tax dollars.

  31. kjc
    Posted June 29, 2017 at 12:28 pm | Permalink

    blah blah. jean handed you your ass. sit down.

  32. EOS
    Posted June 29, 2017 at 1:25 pm | Permalink

    Right. Meanwhile, according to Maxine Waters, 700,000,000,000 people will be harmed if Senate Republicans repeal and replace Obamacare.

  33. Jean Henry
    Posted June 29, 2017 at 11:38 pm | Permalink

    Discourse with EOS is like pushing against a curtain.
    Complaining about ideological narratives– pot/kettle.
    And thanks, kjc. Appreciated.

  34. Jean Henry
    Posted June 30, 2017 at 2:03 am | Permalink

    “Right. Meanwhile, according to Maxine Waters, 700,000,000,000 people will be harmed if Senate Republicans repeal and replace Obamacare.”

    Waters was referring to the 700 billion DOLLARS in tax cuts that are the real purpose behind the Senate Health Care bill.

    The actual statement: “Take, for example, the state of Kentucky. Almost one-third of those people in that state are covered by Medicaid, and so they’re talking about eliminating 700 billion in the Trumpcare bill.”

    Of course if you only read the far right inflammatory media you would not know that.That EOS statement, like most of the others, is cribbed verbatim from right wing fake news sites. Someone writes this crap and the rest repeat it without thinking critically.

    EOS is a parrot.

  35. EOS
    Posted June 30, 2017 at 4:05 am | Permalink

    So you are saying that Mark’s blog is far right inflammatory media? Which right wing media sources do you follow? Most of your criticisms are more applicable to yourself.

  36. Jean Henry
    Posted June 30, 2017 at 9:37 am | Permalink

    I googled “waters 700 billion” and got 1000’s of hits– all right wing media sources. Many with the exact same copy. When I listened to the actual interview with waters the meaning was clear. And her own site clarified the mis-representation of her meaning.

    Your research appears to be even thinner than mine on this topic.

    As for what right wing sites I look at regularly, I check out info wars, breitbart and fox every morning– really gets me up and out of bed. I also read forbes, wsj, national review, foreign policy regularly. I wouldn’t call those right wing though. They are conservative to moderate.

    I look forward to the day when you express a position about current events not taken straight off the right wing news feed. I regularly check your assertions and find you are parroting some recent article rather than thinking for yourself.

    In general, right or left, the most ideological all seem most inclined to declare themselves independent thinkers and everyone else ”Sheeple.” In not an independent thinker. I’m an informed thinker. I listen to what others have to say. I read against the grain of my beliefs.

    If you consider yourself a skeptic but reserve your skepticism for beliefs contrary to your own, that’s confirmation bias not independent thought.

    You EOS are a true believer, and so ideological.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Connect

BUY LOCAL... or shop at Amazon through this link Banner Initiative Orson Welles