Pretending that they don’t know why 72-year-old President Donald Trump doesn’t trust the U.S. intelligence community, the Democratic Party and American press continue to pile on the billionaire real estate tycoon. For the first year-and-half of his presidency, Democrats and press did everything possible to keep the focus riveted on Trump’s alleged ties to the Kremlin, especially Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian meddling and alleged Trump collusion investigation. As more information comes out, it’s clear that Trump and his campaign associates were the target of a carefully orchestrated surveillance campaign by former President Barack Obama’s FBI, Department of Justice [DOJ] and National Security Agency [NSA]. While initially denied by the intel community, enough evidence proves that Obama ordered his FBI, DOJ and NSA to wiretap Trump’s campaign.
Knowing the illegal spying on his campaign, how’s Trump expected to trust the same intel community now investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election? When it comes to the notion of “meddling,” it’s difficult, if not impossible, to say whether any of the so-called interference actually impacted the 2016 vote. If you’re going purely by the numbers, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton won nearly 3 million more popular votes than Trump, losing the Electoral College in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida. If you accept the Russian meddling theory, you’d have to believe that the U.S. vote was affected only in the Midwest and Florida. Yet nine U.S. intel agencies agree that Russia tried to influence the outcome of the U.S. election. Hacking the Democratic National Committee [DNC] and Hillary points to Russian shenanigans.
When Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, exiled in London’s Ecuadorian embassy, dumped Russia’s hacked emails July 6, 2016, all fingers pointed toward Russia, despite Assange’s denials. With the Senate Intelligence Committee concluding July 16 that Russia’s GRU intelligence unit hacked the DNC and Hillary emails, Trump created an uproar, appearing to deny the intel community’s findings. Three days before July 13, Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosentein returned 12 indictments on GRU operatives for hacking the DNC and Hillary campaign officials. Standing by Russian President Vladimir Putin at a joint press conference July 16, Trump looked like he dismissed the U.S. intel community’s findings. When you consider how Trump and his campaign was wiretapped by Obama’s FBI, DOJ and NSA, it’s natural for him to have little trust in the intel community.
Trump walked back his ambiguous support on the intel community yesterday, helping to defuse adverse reactions to his July 16 joint press conference with Putin. Trump insisted that because of his meeting with Putin, Russian no longer targets the U.S. for interference. That’s “simply false. Directly contradicted by DNI Coats, who just sounded the alarm about Russia’s ‘ongoing’ pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy,” said Sen. Mark Warner, top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Warner’s comments about Russia;s attempt to “undermine our democracy,” show how U.S. senators are prone toward hyperbole. If Russia hacked the DNC or Podesta, how does that undermine U.S. democracy. Should the press not know the extent of DNC or Hillary campaign corruption? If Russia didn’t hack, the public would be left in the dark.
Putin told Fox News host Chris Wallace July 16 in a one-hour interview, that everything Assange released to the public was factual about Hillary. That poses a real dilemma for Democrats: Russian hacking brought out the truth about the DNC sabotaging Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and interim DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazille giving Hillary debate questions in advance of the CNN debate. Both former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Brazile were fired from their jobs. If you listen to Warner’s logic, getting out the truth about DNC and Hillary campaign corruption “undermines democracy.” Trump couldn’t understand why so many lawmakers reacted harshly to his press conference with Putin. If you listen to press’s advice, Trump should have humiliated Putin publicly on global TV, driving U.S.-Russian relations further into the Cold War abyss.
After watching his campaign wiretapped by Obama’s FBI, DOJ and NSA, Trump doesn’t have much trust in today’s intel community. Democrats and press want Trump to accept the findings of the intel community when they illegally wiretapped his campaign under Obama’s orders to get Hillary elected. It’s inconceivable that Obama did not give the orders to former FBI Director James Comey, former Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch and former National Security adviser Susan Rice. Rice admitted under oath in the House Intelligence Committee Sept. 7, 2017 that she “unmasked” Trump campaign officials, most likely former National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn and Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions. “We need to be working feverishly here to harden our defenses,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) pleading for bipartisan support. Before Trump sees the FBI, DOJ and NSA cleaned up, don’t hold your breath.
