Trump Schutzpah and Russian Gelt
Donald Trump is a master at fueling his ambition by making the most of his country’s freedom. He excels at skirting the law and making others blame for the crime. When local funds dried up after repeated failures, Trump found dark money readily available after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Wealthy oligarchs turned Trump’s attention to Putin as their next target to expand Trump’s faltering empire.
The wary Putin was elusive, but Trump courted him with a Miss Universe pageant that Putin did not attend. This was followed by a Trump proposal from Moscow that was still in limbo when Trump became president of the United States. By then, Trump’s dealings with oligarchs were so complicated globally that a two-year investigation by special counsel Mueller remained a mess in an archaic US policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.
Russia has no such policy. You don’t need one. Prosecutors there are handpicked by Putin and disappear if they cross paths with him.
US intelligence determined that Russia intervened in Trump’s election and that Putin was unconcerned that Trump would carry out his orders. far from there With his new charge, Trump dismissed US intelligence and invited the Russians into the Oval Office where he bragged with third-country intelligence. The American press was barred from attending that meeting, but the Russian media were welcome, perhaps to plant listening devices in the process. When the alarm went off for such non-compliance with the rules, Trump launched a campaign of terror that surely endeared him to Putin.
Taking a page from the despotic playbook, Trump branded the legitimate media as “fake news,” ignoring fact-checking and sources going into stores before publication. From another page in that same book, Trump tells lies to the touchy-feely. Now under fire, Trump calls for retaliation, sending the highest representatives of the US government to foreign lands to dirty the American justice system.
As a final straw that ultimately sparked the impeachment hearings, Trump withheld money from Ukraine that Congress had appropriated. It was extortion to extract dirt from a political opponent. He arrived at a time when Russia had already annexed Crimea and was invading more Ukraine. The money Trump withheld was intended to help Ukraine fight the Russians.
The United States has a scrupulous legal system. He is so careful about protecting the rights of defendants that Special Counsel Mueller was unable to charge an American who was clearly involved in misconduct.
Any collusion between Trump and Putin to manipulate Ukraine for mutual benefit may be difficult to prove. However, it cannot be removed from the table. It hangs in the air and in the very real realm of possibility.
Trump has the shameless nerve to try anything to get ahead of everyone by any means. From the Oval Office, he’s not even using his own money to send his shadow government figures around the world to smear his own government. The goal is revenge, either against current perceived enemies or against those who have crossed it in the past. The point is to test the strength of his anger.
Putin apparently approves of Trump’s Oval Office way of governing freedom-loving America. He may have provided guidance during impromptu closed meetings to the US media and supervisors tasked with maintaining the protocols that make a complex US government system run smoothly.
With Trump in the Oval Office, the wily Putin has a new use for him. Once he avoided the transparently egotistical Trump, he now has the best American duped.
Trump wants money and he wants to stay in power so it keeps coming. Putin has deep pockets with his country’s lax laws allowing oligarchs to spread their wings around the world with skills they learned during the Soviet occupation of half of Europe.
Together you can rule the world, they may be saying during their secret chats. Those, however, are only secrets for the United States. Putin has records. Trump has none.
Perhaps the Ukraine impeachment investigation will inspire some brave Russians to leak the content of those conversations. Then the US will have to protect the Russian hero with its whistleblower laws.