Yesterday, the Washington Post published what it deemed are the most important lines in the intelligence community’s report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Significantly, those lines affirm what I inferred from testimony the community’s leaders presented at a congressional hearing on Thursday. I bulleted those inferences in yesterday’s commentary, “Trump Is Trump, and Intelligence Is Intelligence, and Never the Twain Shall Meet,” January 6, 2017.
Here are three of those lines:
We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.
(Washington Post, January 6, 2017)
There’s no denying the success of that campaign – no matter how many tweets Trump publishes to the contrary.
More to the point, his continued, Manchurian-like deflection of blame from Putin’s Russia, while imputing it Democrats, constitutes one of many seeds already germinating for impeachment proceedings. And he has yet to be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States.
Speaker Paul Ryan is leading a chorus of Republican leaders in singing Trump’s praises. But their resentment over his bull-in-a-China-shop run to the White House is palpable.
Therefore, don’t be surprised if they seize the first opportunity to impeach and replace him with Vice President-elect Mike Pence — who Republicans and Democrats alike consider far more fit to serve as president … for a litany of well-documented reasons. And, given Trump’s Nixonian inclination to punish his enemies, to say nothing of his Clintonian inclination to enrich himself, he is bound to provide all kinds of opportunities for them to do so.
(“WTF! President-elect Donald J. Trump?! America. What. Have. You. Done.” The iPINIONS Journal, November 10, 2016)
Mind you, Trump would be lucky if his presidency ends with impeachment. After all, he insinuated throughout his presidential campaign that Hillary’s would end with a “Second Amendment remedy” if she were elected.
In any event, one cannot overstate the significance of Democrats and Republicans venting near unanimous support for the findings in this report, as well as for the categorical imperative of retaliating against Russia. Hence Trump really is “an island” — albeit one that can affect lives, for good or ill, on every continent of the world.
Stay tuned, folks.
Related commentaries:
Trump is Trump, and intelligence is…
WTF! President-elect Donald J. Trump?!
Second Amendment…
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