Barry Hastings: Where in hell are we Americans going?

By Barry Hastings

“It is sad, to paraphrase the Tweeter in Chief himself, that Washington is now a city of avoidance, denial and deception.” Thus wrote E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post Writers Group a couple of weeks ago. To his list, may I be allowed to add the words “Prevarication” and “obfuscation?”

Our President is a man who attempts to deal with crises by creating new ones, and most of his attempts come with no proof of the charges made, and near zero believability. He’s lost all credibility, both here and abroad, in 60 days of stunning disinformation, misinformation, and outright lies. Outside of his pal Vladimir, very few people believe a word he speaks (or tweets).

And speaking of Putin, every day brings fresh evidence, rumor, or news of a (formerly) secret relationship between Trump, the rest of the Trumps, Flynn, Manafort, and what seems a whole host of Trump campaign and administration officials, including our U.S. Attorney General, and the new Secretary of State. It has gotten so bad (from the Donald’s point of view), a poll in early March found Americans trust their favorite news source (newspapers, Public Broadcasting, etc.), over Trump’s frantic claims, by a margin of sixty-seven (67) per cent, to twenty-nine (29) per cent.

Who the hell can guess what people overseas think of the (dangerous) clown occupying our chief executive’s office? From the number of anti-Trump rallies, at home and abroad… he scares the crap out of them. I can only add, “he scares the crap out of moi, as well.”

At the very moment he was telling the nation how much he, “loves the First Amendment,” and how, “nobody loves the First Amendment better than me,” he’s also telling us we have a “very dishonest media.” Actually, Trump’s relationship to truth is much akin to two trains passing on a very dark, foggy night. I’ve studied American history for nigh on 70 years, and no one (not even Dick Nixon) has surpassed him in the “department of dishonesty.” Looking back on the George Dubya Bush administration, he, Cheney, Bumsfeld, and Toothsome Smile seem “boy (and girl) scoutish” in comparison.

So, let’s see how much Donald Trump loves the First Amendment. Let’s see, in fact, how much he loves our country. The opening here, is adapted from a recent column by Nicholas Kristof entitled, Connecting Trump’s Dots to Russia. Kristof opens his article (and I quote his first paragraph), “I enjoyed the show “House of Cards” but always felt that it went a bit too far, that its plot wasn’t plausible. After seven weeks of President Trump, I owe “House of Cards” an apology. Nothing seems impossible any more.”

He continues for a couple of paragraphs to explain his reasons, including what he calls, “the most towering suspicion of all: that Trump’s team colluded in some way with Russia to interfere with the U.S. (2016) election. This is the central issue we must remain focused on.”

Kristof goes on to take note there are lot of dots, and, “The challenge is how to connect them.” He warns everyone to avoid descending into the conspiratorial mind-set that led some Republicans (including a shooter) to assume Mrs. Clinton was a soon-to-be-indicted criminal, or to conjure her young sex-slaves working out of a D.C. Pizza shop. He believes Jeff Sessions has been too closely focused on, and more attention should be paid the role of Paul Manafort, Trump adviser and one­time campaign manager.

Here (below), he claims, are the ten crucial dots:

1. President Trump and his aides have repeatedly and falsely denied ties to Russia. USA Today counted at least 20 denials. In fact we know there were contacts by at least half a dozen people in the Trump circle with Russian officials.
2. There’s no obvious reason for all these contacts. When Vice President-elect Pence was asked Jan. 15 if there had been contacts between the Trump campaign and Kremlin officials, he answered: “Of course not. Why would there be?” We don’t know either, Mr. Vice President.
3. There were unexplained communications between a Trump organization computer server and Russia’s Alfa Bank, which has ties to President Vladimir Putin. These included 2,700 “look-up” messages to initiate communications, and some investigators found all this deeply suspicious. Others thought there might be some innocent explanation, such as spam. We still don’t know.
4. “Repeated” and “constant” contacts between Trump officials and Russian intelligence, as reported by the New York Times and CNN, are underscored by intercepts of communications involving Russian officials, and by both the British and Dutch governments, monitoring meetings in Europe between Russians and members of the Trump team.
5. A highly regarded Russia expert, formerly with British MI6, Christopher Steele, produced a now famous dossier alleging the Russians made compromising videos of Trump in 2013, and that members of the Trump team colluded with the Kremlin to interfere with the 2016 U.S. election. The dossier also quoted a Russian national as saying a deal had been arranged “with the full knowledge and support of Trump,” and that in exchange, Trump would sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign (U.S. spy chief James Clapper said he saw no evidence of such collusion, but favors an investigation to get to the bottom of the issue.
6. Trump has expressed a bewilderingly benign view of Russia, and appointed many officials friendly toward Moscow. He did not make an issue of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine during the campaign.

7. Close Trump associate Roger Stone seemed to have advance notice of of Russia’s disclosure through WikiLeaks of Mrs. Clinton¹ s campaign e-mails. Two months before John Podesta’s e-mails were released, Stone Tweeted, “Trust me, it will soon (be) Podesta’s time in the barrell.” Six days before a dump of Clinton campaign Emails, Stone tweeted, “Hillary Clinton is done. #WikiLeaks.”
8. Sessions appears to be a red herring, in that he wasn’t a conduit to the Kremlin. The more interesting dot is Paul Manafort. Investigators have focused on him because of his longstanding ties to Russia.
9. Donald Trump Jr., in a film clip of 2008 (I’ve seen it within a month) said, “We (Trump businesses) see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” Putin may have gained leverage over Trump through loans to his businesses, other business dealings, or perhaps, something more nefarious (video). One way to end the business-related fear, is to see his income tax returns. (As Kristof points out, an investigation of Trump without having his tax returns is really no investigation at all.)
10. Many Republicans acknowledge, as G.W. Bush put it, “We all need answers.” What’s
    really needed, is an inquiry modeled on the 9/11 investigation, (or on the Watergate
    hearings).

Kristof ends his effort saying he tells friends he doesn’t think there was a clear-cut quid pro quo, but something less transactional and more ambiguous. He believes Putin didn’t believe Trump could win, and that his intent was to hurt Clinton politically. But he does believe the Trump organization engaged in activities which, if known, would have proven a campaign-ending blow. The reason he believes this is Trump’s furious denunciation of the press, and Barack Obama, to the point he often seems mentally unhinged. “Journalists have learned over time that when a leader goes berserk and unleashes tirade and threats at investigators, that’s when you’re getting close.”

Real food for the thinking citizen here, plus some clarification (thinning of the political fog) for the common person.

Now, some things you can use in the struggle to put this all together — good luck!

Our minority president is an obsessive and compulsive prevaricator. “Alternative Facts” are his ammunition in an everyday battle with the truth. As Leonard Pitts Jr. , of the Tribune Content Agency, wrote in late January (this year), “Every president tells the occasional political untruth. But this guy is different. He lies constantly. He lies about relatively unimportant things. He lies when the truth can be easily verified. It’s been obvious since long before he took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2017. Still, it’s disheartening to realize that the oath, and the awesome responsibility that comes with it, have not changed him in the least. He still lies as prolifically as ever.”

At the time he wrote this, Pitts was writing of the fight Trump picked with the intel community, saying they were like, “the Nazis in Germany,” then blaming the media for reporting his words. He also noted renewal of Trump’s claim, “massive voter fraud,” cost him the victory he desired in the popular 2016 voting, despite a complete lack of evidence to support his claim. In fact, the National Association of Secretaries of State (a solidly Republican organization) scoffed, saying, “there is absolutely no evidence to support the claim.”

Pitts closed his brief with a pertinent query. “If we cannot trust these (Trump) people to tell us the truth on minor matters that can be easily checked, what confidence can we have they’ll be square with us on substantive matters where the truth is not just a ‘google-search’ away?”

At about the same time Mr. Pitts was writing, Michael Hayden, former director of both CIA, and NSA, wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post claiming the nation needs, “Independent intel agencies, not compliant ones.” We all know the world of spooks is a murky world, indeed, but Hayden claims, “It’s hard to imagine a more turbulent transition than the current one, which has been marred by assertions the administration has tried to both politicize and marginalize intelligence gathering.”

Hayden readily admits no occupant of the White House likes having intel agencies, whether the NSA, CIA, or DIA, deliver bad news under-cutting the President’s preferred policies or political positions. “But,” he continued, “I can’t remember another White House so quick to demean or dismiss those agencies’ judgements, or so willing to discredit the agencies as dishonest or incompetent.”

He went on, “We’ve seen presidential tweets with (the word) “intelligence” in accusatory quotation marks, a kind of “dog-whistle” equating intel assessments with news reporting the President condemns as fake. In addition to lumping intel gathering with the (so-called) “dishonest main-stream media” he abhors, the President has compared his intel services with Russians, Nazis and WikiLeaks, according to Hayden, and other intelligence professionals.

A short time ago, Trump accused former President Obama of tapping his phones in the Trump Tower. “It was a claim so outrageous,” Hayden said, “Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper denied it the next day, as did FBI Director James Comey.”

Not content with stirring-up that nest of wasps, Trump next accused, and blamed, the intel community, along with the media, for the downfall of Michael Flynn, tweeting, “Information is being illegally given to the N.Y. Times and Washington Post by the intelligence community (NSA and FBI?)” Hayden answers the charge with a statement, and a query: “As former director of both NSA and CIA, I know leaks are a real problem endangering national security. But why would the administration reflexively and punitively blame its own services for the leaks, since we don’t even know who is responsible?”

Next Trump tweeted, “The leaks will stop because now we have our own people in.” Hayden says, “It was a choice of words that created more than a small shudder among professionals, who prefer to work in the background for our presidents, Democrat or Republican.” The leaks have not stopped, despite his people being in.

Hayden closed his opinion piece, saying, “Trump likely doesn’t know or appreciate the immense size of our National Security apparatus — Seventeen separate agencies, staffed by at least one-hundred thousand workers, from analysts, to programmers, to case officers.” Trump’s first appointee from that mass was Mike Flynn. It was not a good start, since Flynn had previously been forced to resign as chief of the Defense Intel Agency. (A fact Trump surely knew, or should have known.)

On another intelligence front, Trump’s designated Director of National Security is former Indiana congressman and Senator Dan Coats (cleared the intel committee, but not yet the entire Senate. When passed by the Senate he’ll oversee the work of all 17 intel agencies). Mr. Coats got an interesting insight into the man he’ll serve. He’s already had to confront Steve Bannon, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Those two attempted bring in a filthy rich New York private equity billionaire to run an in-house review of the whole national intel community. The guy (named Feinberg) has zero background in the work.

It was a plan Mr. Coats, and other senior intel personnel recognized, as an attempt to challenge, maybe even co-opt their authority, while reducing the flow of information to the White House contradicting Trump’s seriously flawed world view.

Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) said, “Coats is taking on the office (DNS) at, “a particularly difficult time, given the current relationship between between Trump, his White House staff, and the intelligence community.” Collins said she knows Coats well, and is, “confident Coats would know how to handle Trump and his staff.” She said, “Coats does not fight his battles on newspaper front pages, but works quietly and effectively.” She noted, “He (Coats) is persistent and unafraid. Having nothing to lose, he was prepared to retire immediately,” should the billionaire Feinberg be brought in. “They need him,” Collins said.

Feinberg is since looking for a spot in the DOD. At his confirmation hearing, Mr. Coats told Senators he, “would push forward with the intel community’s own inquiry into the Russian election meddling, and cooperate completely with House and Senate intel investigators.” At a Feb. 16 press conference, Trump told reporters, “It would be unnecessary to bring Mr. Feinberg into the picture, as I think we’ll be able to straighten it out very early on its own.”

In a recent article entitled Fresh Worries for President’s Weary Defenders, by Glenn Thrush, the writer reflected (at some length) on a vast flood of presidential tweets about his (many) critics suggesting his campaign staff colluded with the Russians. The writer noted reaction from FBI’s James Comey, “had systematically dismantled Trump’s entire rant.” It was, wrote Thrush, “An unprecedented public take-down of a sitting president.” Even Trump’s little agent in the House of Representatives (who sneaks into the White House at night to inform on his House intel committee colleagues and pass along interesting developments), intel committee chair, Devin Nunes, admitted a, “A gray cloud of suspicion now hangs over the White House,” by end of the daylong session.

Thrush cut to the quick of the matter, writing, “It’s the obsessiveness and ferocity of Trump’s Twitter pushback against the Russian allegations, often untethered from reality, that’s making an uncertain situation worse.” Now it seems more and more of Trump’s (shaky) allies in congress (House and Senate), are wondering if his “need to tweet” will overcome his instinct for self-preservation; and that for himself, and for the party now so closely bound to him.

Even though former Acting CIA Director Mike Morrell said, “There’s lots of smoke, but there is no current evidence yet of Trump/Russian collusion,” the President, a tireless tweeter and do-it-yourself political operator with boundless (but mis-placed) self-confidence in his ability to shape the news, according to Thrush, seems determined to “hug his Russian hand-grenade.” The author says Trump’s tweets have shifted, “from puckish to paranoid.”

Well, I have to admit, I’ve been saying Trump is mentally ill for at least a couple of months now.