Enabling a Renegade

Adults in the Room

Last week, we discovered that the President of the United States was using federal money to “leverage” foreign nations for help in his 2020 campaign.  To paraphrase House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, “…you want money to defend yourself against Russia, I need you to do me a favor.  Give me dirt on Joe Biden.”

The evidence of Trump’s conversation really isn’t in dispute.  The White House itself provided a summary of the transcript with him saying it.  They wrote the summary themselves. It will be fascinating to see the actual transcript, currently buried on a super-secret, super-secure computer normally used for America’s highest security operations.  It’s not likely to be more favorable to the President.

And in the past week, we discovered that the Trump Administration is even more deeply involved than simply the President doing his lousy “Godfather” imitation to President Zelensky.  

The three highest ranking Administration members aren’t “the adults in the room”.   Vice President Pence, Attorney General Barr, and Secretary of State Pompeo are all being dragged into the abyss ofBreitbart backed nonsense.  They are focused on re-writing the history of the 2016 election, and looking to somehow rig 2020.

The highest officers in the American Government are spending their time investigating the farthest alt-right conspiracy theories. While they’re doing that, they are trashing international confidence in the United States, and engaging in the kinds of acts that could put their jobs and careers on the block along with the President’s.

Pressuring Ukraine

There are two different alt-right schemes supposedly going on in Ukraine.  The first is the Administration’s attempt to trash former Vice President Joe Biden, the “proximate cause” of the impeachment inquiry.  We know that Trump himself was pushing for damaging information.  And we know that Rudy Giuliani, acting as a surrogate for the President, has been pushing that narrative on the Ukrainian government for months.  

But Vice President Pence has a piece of this story as well.  He met with Zelensky in September, discussing US aid to Ukraine.  He presence was also used as leverage on the new Ukrainian government, with Pence cancelling his planned attendance at the Ukrainian inauguration in May.  Secretary of Energy Rick Perry was sent in his place.

Ukraine is not just a possible source for dirt on Biden.  In the alt-right world, Ukraine is the alternate site for election hacking in 2016.  The story goes, that despite the exhaustive findings of the Mueller Report, the actual hacking came from Ukraine and was backed by the Democratic Party, liberal bête noire George Soros, and, of course, Hillary Clinton.  

Barr’s Revenge

After Mueller indicted fourteen Russian operatives and described down to the street address in St. Petersburg how election interference occurred, the facts seemed set.  But the Trump Administration, led by Giuliani and Attorney General Bill Barr, are determined to re-write the narrative, leaving Russia out.  Russian leader Vladimir Putin told Mr. Trump he wasn’t involved at the Summit in Helsinki, and Trump, Giuliani and Barr are intent on proving him right.

Attorney General Barr is currently in Italy talking to their intelligence leaders.  His goal seems to be to find a “deep-state” conspiracy in US Intelligence to stop the Trump candidacy.  He has already pressured the Australian government for information, and has two other on-going Justice Department investigations looking at the issue.  US Attorney John Durham leads one, analyzing the FBI counter-intelligence investigation of Trump campaign operatives.  Inspector General Michael Horowitz leads another, looking at the same issue.

It’s all about Carter Page, his contacts with known Russian agents, and a FISA warrant. It also involves George Papadopoulos’s drunken conversation with the Australian Ambassador, and the more than one hundred contacts the Trump Campaign had with Russia.  But it’s mostly about the fact that the FBI dared to investigate a campaign for President that was apparently colluding with Russia.  That campaign won the Presidency, and the levers of power that comes with it.

Barr tries to exact revenge for the Trump Campaign. Pence quietly pressures Ukraine to “play along”. What about the State Department?

Enabling Trump

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is a man of acknowledged brilliance and ambition.  He sees himself as the Republican candidate for President in 2024.  But surprisingly, Pompeo was on the call, listening to President Trump pressure Zelensky for cooperation.  

But it makes sense.  Giuliani states that he has had help from the State Department for the two years he “investigated” Ukraine.  He specifically got help from the US Special Envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, as well as the US Embassy in Kyiv.  Volker resigned this week.  

The President of the United States withheld US taxpayer dollars to extort information from Ukraine, information to further his own 2020 campaign.  But he didn’t act alone.  The Vice President and the Secretary of State actively participated in pushing Ukraine.  And the Attorney General is seeking revenge for imagined 2016 affronts.  

Trump isn’t acting alone.  The “adults in the room” are enabling this renegade President.