I usually like what Charles Krauthammer has to say. Unlike so many other pundits, Krauthammer is intelligent, insightful, and fact-based in his opinions. His latest view, however, seems way off base to me. Krauthammer now says that the Trump defense in the Russia/Trump collusion hysteria has collapsed with the release of the emails between Donald Trump, Jr. and a British publicist. Because the President's son was clearly glad to attend a meeting with a Russian lawyer who supposedly had dirt on Hillary Clinton, the President (or so Krauthammer says) can no longer say the entire story is a Democrat ploy to explain Hillary's shocking loss.
We can discuss Krauthammer's position, but I think he misses the main point. The investigations involve a supposed Trump/Russia collusion, not a Trump,Jr./Russia collusion. In other words, there is nothing here that ties the President to any of this. Indeed, it is uniformly reported that President Trump knew nothing of any of this. Further, nothing that was done by Don, Jr. was criminal or even close to it. All he did was go to a meeting that was a total bust. Nothing came from it unlike the collusion between the Hillary campaign and the Ukrainian government to try to take down Trump. So what do we have:
1. The 2016 primaries were rigged. Hillary Clinton and the DNC worked together to make sure that she won and Bernie Sanders lost. This made a mockery of our free elections. No action has been taken and none is contemplated in response.
2. The Democrats hired Fusion GPS which had a former British spy create a phony "dossier" about Donald Trump including supposed acts Trump did in Moscow. It is well established that this dossier is completely false. The dossier, however, made its way to the FBI and later to the media. The former investigated and the later published. No action has been taken and none is contemplated in response.
3. Someone hacked the DNC email accounts early in the Spring of 2016. No one from the US intelligence agencies has been able to investigate the DNC computers, but we are still told that the main intelligence agencies think (based in part upon what the DNC tells them) that the hacker was working for the Russians. This material was leaked through Wikileaks. It is because of this hack that we know just how closely the DNC worked with Clinton to defeat Sanders (like feeding Hillary debate questions ahead of time). There was also a phishing attack on the email account of John Podesta, the head of Hillary's campaign. Podesta fell for the attack. No one knows who did that hack, not even the myriad of US intelligence agencies. Podesta's emails were also released to the public during the campaign. President Obama and the government were fully aware of all of this from the Spring of 2016 onwards. Obama took no action to stop it other than to tell Russian president Putin at one point to "cut it out". That was all.
4. Months after the DNC and Podesta were hacked, Donald Trump, Jr. got invited to meet with a Russian lawyer to hear dirt on Hillary. He readily agreed to the meeting. It turned out that the word about what the Russian lawyer knew was false; she wanted to talk about the Magnitsky Act which has nothing to do with the election. President Trump was unaware of the meeting. If you're a member of the mainstream media, this email exchange by the President's son is likely an impeachable offense by the President even though he was not involved with it in any way.
5. To date, there have been two instances of actual collusion found between American presidential candidates/campaigns and the Russians. First, while Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton approved the sale of a huge chunk of America's known uranium deposits to a Russian-government-related company at roughly the same time that the partner of that company made multi-million dollar contributions to the Clinton Foundation. The contribution was made to the Canadian arm of the Clinton Foundation because contributions in that country were not made public. Second, John Podesta, the head of the Clinton campaign, received something like thirty-five million dollars in "investments" in a company with which he was involved from a Russian government related enterprise. Somehow, Podesta managed to overlook this 35 million when filing his disclosure reports with the government. No action has been taken on either bit of collusion.
We can discuss Krauthammer's position, but I think he misses the main point. The investigations involve a supposed Trump/Russia collusion, not a Trump,Jr./Russia collusion. In other words, there is nothing here that ties the President to any of this. Indeed, it is uniformly reported that President Trump knew nothing of any of this. Further, nothing that was done by Don, Jr. was criminal or even close to it. All he did was go to a meeting that was a total bust. Nothing came from it unlike the collusion between the Hillary campaign and the Ukrainian government to try to take down Trump. So what do we have:
1. The 2016 primaries were rigged. Hillary Clinton and the DNC worked together to make sure that she won and Bernie Sanders lost. This made a mockery of our free elections. No action has been taken and none is contemplated in response.
2. The Democrats hired Fusion GPS which had a former British spy create a phony "dossier" about Donald Trump including supposed acts Trump did in Moscow. It is well established that this dossier is completely false. The dossier, however, made its way to the FBI and later to the media. The former investigated and the later published. No action has been taken and none is contemplated in response.
3. Someone hacked the DNC email accounts early in the Spring of 2016. No one from the US intelligence agencies has been able to investigate the DNC computers, but we are still told that the main intelligence agencies think (based in part upon what the DNC tells them) that the hacker was working for the Russians. This material was leaked through Wikileaks. It is because of this hack that we know just how closely the DNC worked with Clinton to defeat Sanders (like feeding Hillary debate questions ahead of time). There was also a phishing attack on the email account of John Podesta, the head of Hillary's campaign. Podesta fell for the attack. No one knows who did that hack, not even the myriad of US intelligence agencies. Podesta's emails were also released to the public during the campaign. President Obama and the government were fully aware of all of this from the Spring of 2016 onwards. Obama took no action to stop it other than to tell Russian president Putin at one point to "cut it out". That was all.
4. Months after the DNC and Podesta were hacked, Donald Trump, Jr. got invited to meet with a Russian lawyer to hear dirt on Hillary. He readily agreed to the meeting. It turned out that the word about what the Russian lawyer knew was false; she wanted to talk about the Magnitsky Act which has nothing to do with the election. President Trump was unaware of the meeting. If you're a member of the mainstream media, this email exchange by the President's son is likely an impeachable offense by the President even though he was not involved with it in any way.
5. To date, there have been two instances of actual collusion found between American presidential candidates/campaigns and the Russians. First, while Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton approved the sale of a huge chunk of America's known uranium deposits to a Russian-government-related company at roughly the same time that the partner of that company made multi-million dollar contributions to the Clinton Foundation. The contribution was made to the Canadian arm of the Clinton Foundation because contributions in that country were not made public. Second, John Podesta, the head of the Clinton campaign, received something like thirty-five million dollars in "investments" in a company with which he was involved from a Russian government related enterprise. Somehow, Podesta managed to overlook this 35 million when filing his disclosure reports with the government. No action has been taken on either bit of collusion.
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