If the annals of history eventually report that Donald J. Trump narrowly avoided being removed from office, the reason why he was able to avoid that fate has barely been commented on, despite the fact that it is laying in plain sight.
As usual, at the time Trump took that action, liberals and progressives crowed about how stupid, impulsive, or ignorant Trump was to have taken the step that likely saved his presidency.
What was it?
The release of the ‘transcript’, better referred to as the call notes.
In order to fully appreciate how brilliant Trump was at the time to release the call notes, one has to alter history, and fully play out what would have happened had he not done so.
Without a doubt, those same call notes would have been seen as the smoking gun in this matter. As such, there would have been no way for Trump to pretend that he thought it was a “perfect call”.
Furthermore, if witnesses later testified that they were on the call and could verify its authenticity, it would have been a re-exploding smoking gun supernova.
Trump, a master of media manipulation for many years in New York, knew that this very testimony would have been seen as inescapably damning if it had not been released by the White House, and took action.
It was a characteristically brilliant move. Trump may be out of touch with reality, but it is liberals and progressives who seem unable to shake their own delusion that Trump is a fool. And, as usual, upon White House release of the call notes, liberals and progressives were too busy feeling superior to Trump and underestimating him to see what was occurring right before their eyes.
So what do you suggest? He won’t be removed because there are more than 34 GOP Senators – period!
I disagree. Had things played out differently with the transcript/call notes, Many Republican senators would have panicked. How many? I do not know. You do not know.
You don’t need to venture into alternate realities to see the transcript and call notes as a smoking cannon. If the evidence we already have hasn’t turned them I’m pessimistic that anything will.
I start with the premise that we are seeing a carefully planned attack on our government that began at least as early as 2015 — we know that the Russian operation to acquire the the NRA was in full swing then.
I think the Russians intentionally ensured that Mike Pence was implicated just as deeply as Donald Trump, and perhaps other cabinet officials as well. I think the purpose of that was not — as some have suggested — to stop the removal of Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence from office.
I think the plan from the beginning has been to force as extreme a disruption of our government as they were able to conceive. I think Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence, following orders from Mr. Putin, will do everything in their power to overcome the resistance of the GOP defenders. I expect Mr. Trump to ratchet up the intensity and frequency of his misdeeds until even the GOP defenders in the Senate have had enough.
I think the goal of the operation is to FORCE the removal of Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and most of the Cabinet, so that Nancy Pelosi is elevated to the Presidency. I think the plan is to do that as acrimoniously as possible. I think the Russian assets of the GOP (I think there are many besides Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence) will flog the media with language about “coup”, “Liberal Takeover”, and civil war.
I think the Russians have been flooding the extreme right with military-grade weapons since taking over the NRA in 2015. I think the plan is for those heavily-armed right-wing extremists to wage violent war against the incoming Pelosi administration.
I think the plan is to either bring down the American government altogether or, at a minimum, paralyze it for years.
I think you give them way too much credit. I also think them wanting Pelosi to become President is very counterintuitive. My understanding is that the NRA board is stacked with gun manufacturers. What makes you think Russia has somehow taken over that organization?
@What makes you think Russia has somehow taken over that organization?
The results of an 18-month minority investigation by the Senate Finance Committee, for one. Here’s the first paragraph of the conclusion of the 77-page minority report (emphasis mine):
The implications of this minority report have not been pursued because the GOP majority of the Senate Finance Committee blocked further work.
@ Counter-intuitive:
The organizing paradigm of this so-far successful campaign is to cause as much chaos, destruction, and damage as possible to American institutions, processes, and relationships. The purpose is to reduce America’s influence in the world, especially in the European region of interest to Russia.
The benefit to Russia of a Pelosi presidency is the extreme reaction it would provoke from the right wing and the GOP. The benefit to Russia of a congressional refusal to remove Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence is both the successful and immediate consequences of their collective betrayal and the extreme reaction it would provoke from the left wing and the Democrats.
The Russians do not care who is President. Their goal is chaos, destruction, discord, and paralysis.
They get what, out of this exactly? I’ve never completely understood Putin’s endgame. Does he really think that, especially absent a President that actually likes to do his bidding, that somehow the US will just collapse and let Russia just rebuild the Soviet Union and bloc? I think the chances are basically non-existent that Pelosi becomes President, but if she or anyone else who actually remembers how to stand up for America gets into the White House Putin will quickly learn how badly he underestimates this country’s resilience, especially if our leader points everyone to a common enemy (in this case, him). Ronald Reagan of all people would not have put up with this nonsense. As for the NRA I do vaguely remember now what you refer to, but I’m not sure how a country gets leverage in a country by going through a private interest group.
@What does Russia get out of this:
Did you listen to or read the testimony of Fiona Hill or any of the other witnesses? They addressed this at length in their private and public testimony.
Some highlights:
– As the US becomes more isolationist, Russia can expand its influence at its borders.
– As the US betrays its allies, those alliances weaken. A weak or non-existent NATO is a huge win for Russia.
– Russia is currently at war with Ukraine. The US has long been the principal defender of Ukraine with bipartisan support for that role. Politicizing US support for Ukraine weakens that support.
The list goes on and on. I’m surprised that you ask this question since so many credible experts have spent so much time emphasizing this in the last month.
@ How a country gets leverage from a private interest group:
The NRA is not a run-of-the-mill private interest group. It is among the most potent political forces in the US, especially regarding gun control. Russia has used the NRA to flood government officials with campaign contributions, many of them apparently illegal.
Again, this was all heavily publicized during the trial of Ms. Butina. Mark Bail wrote about this at some length here, as I recall (BTW, where are you Mark? I miss your insight into this and know you followed it closely at one time).
The NRA is singlehandedly responsible for the veritable flood of military-grade weapons and the various ammunition and accessories they require. Nearly all of those go to the extreme right.
The Russian money invested in the NRA is paying off handsomely.
Most, if not all of this also requires a willing President, and maybe a willing Congress. They will get a very rude awakening when that changes.
@willing President and Congress:
Agreed.
You asked what Russia gets out of this. We agree that this takes a willing President and Congress.
I think we’re saying pretty much the same thing — Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and at least some of the GOP leadership behave like Russian assets doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin.
Maybe, but I remain skeptical of elaborate conspiracies of this nature.
Trump did not win because of Russian espionage. Trump won because he appealed to a certain key segment of voters more than his opponent,and this would have been the case even without Russian influence of the NRA. Trump can do this because his one actual skill is to appeal to the “Own The Libs” people very effectively through silly tweets and offhand comments that cause a mad furor on the left, and hand-wringing think pieces to appear in the Atlantic, but have no effect on anything at all other to further coarsen the tone of political discourse. At the moment, these folks punch far above their weight in American Presidential politics, and so we have 2016.
Likewise, the country is not becoming more isolationist because of Russian propaganda; the country is simply becoming more isolationist. As I recall, a significant portion of the “progressive” activists in 2016 very loudly opposed the Democratic nominee specifically because she was avowedly not isolationist.
The Russian state did not cause any of these things; it is just– gleefully– along for the ride. Nor is the President some kind of Manchurian Candidate or political genius playing 4th dimensional chess– he is just an idiot who cares about nothing more than having had someone on TV say how great he is within the last 10 minutes.
@ silly tweets and offhand comments that … have no effect on anything at all:
Tell it to the Kurds. Tell it to the Ukranians. Tell it to the family, friends, and loved ones of the children torn from their parents and imprisoned in cages.
I think you’re in denial about what this administration is doing and what it means for each of us.
@Trump did not win because of Russian espionage:
Again, I think you’re in denial about how effective the Russian disinformation campaign was in the 2016 campaign.
I’d like to remind you that we already have evidence that the Trump campaign was feeding internal polling data to the Russians during the campaign while welcoming whatever the Russians offered.
We already have the evidence in hand that the various disinformation campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media directly correlates with that polling data.
Criminal conspiracies DO exist, that’s why we have things like RICO laws.
Do you think it’s just coincidence that all roads lead to Vladimir Putin? How many other candidates have so many indicted and convicted felons in their campaign organization and administration? How do you explain the reality that literally ALL of those actors have close ties to Russian organized crime and Vladimir Putin? How do you explain the enormous number of ties between this criminal organization and Dmitry Firtash?
Mr. Firtash was made wealthy by Vladimir Putin. His power comes from Mr. Putin, and Mr. Putin calls the shots of what he does. That’s been in the public record for years now. Do you think the multitude of ties between Mr. Firtash and, for example, Rudy Giuliani, Lev Parnas, and Igor Frumin are coincidental?
All roads lead to Vladimir Putin, and most of them do so by way of Dmitry Firtash. Why is that?