This is getting silly.
In just over one year, a record by any historical standards, a preponderance of people surrounding either the Donald Trump campaign or his administration have been indicted, sacked, left in disgrace or under investigation for some alleged crime. Many of these, as well-reported and corroborated by the United States intelligence community and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have ties to the Russian government, which has now been wholly implicated several times over with a mountain of evidence in covertly corrupting this nation’s democratic integrity. By any standards, this is an impressive level of incompetence and maleficence. It’s almost as if we elected a shady real estate mogul/game show host or something.
I just want to go on record as saying, before we begin here, that the 170 historians who voted Trump the worst president ever this week are all nuts. He is not even the worst president of my lifetime — this one goes to Dick Nixon, followed closely by Lyndon Johnson, who by the way made their top 10 (“What the fuck?” say the ghosts of nearly 60,000 kids who died because of Johnson’s Viet Nam lies). But there is no doubt this is the worst 13 months of any president ever. I maintain that even William Henry Harrison’s thirty days spent dying of pneumonia was better.
Ignoring Trump’s daily and quite insane Twitter rants, his preternatural lying jag, his overtly knee-jerk racism, the phalanx of women accusing him of sexual harassment and assault, (what he bragged about on an Access Hollywood tape), or his continued dismissing of this “Russian Issue” by never ordering a single investigation or stronger defense mechanisms to combat it or flat-out refusing to rubber stamp stronger sanctions on this cyber terrorism, and, if I may, the obstruction of the case by firing the director of the FBI, we’ll merely concentrate on this growing rogue’s gallery of criminals surrounding him.
Well-known Nazi sympathizer, Henry Ford used to say, “You can tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps.”
Let’s put that theory to the test.
Before he was even inaugurated, the president’s National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was breaking all kinds of laws negotiating with Russians on reducing sanctions while playing around with Turkey. He might have gotten away with it, except he pulled his son into the shenanigans, which forced him to lie to everyone in the White House and then, which got him indicted, lied to the FBI. Trump repeatedly, and still has not altered his stance, praised Flynn — a man who stood on a stage in Cleveland during the RNC Convention and demanded the arrest of the Democratic candidate for president — while sending him cryptic emails to “Be strong.”
During this time, in fact, before all of this, a blathering weirdo investment banker, Carter Page, who was ostensibly working for the Russian government as a business liaison to the U.S. to “loosen up relations” was covertly working as an international advisor to the Trump campaign at the same time he was being closely followed by the FBI for “questionable tactics”. His ties to some of the people around the Trump campaign with strange Russian connections include Trump Campaign Manager (June – September 2016, during the crucial end of primary, convention, and pre-campaign season) Paul Manafort, indicted on 32 counts of money laundering and defrauding the government and his deputy, Rick Gates, indicted on a dozen more counts, along with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had to recuse himself from any investigation of Russian meddling after being loose with the truth twice in front of congress about his discussions behind the scenes with Russia.
Then of course there is George Papadopoulos, the guy no one around Trump seemed to recall, despite photos of them with him, including the president, and who has also pled guilty to lying to the FBI and is now co-operating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who only was hired when Trump stupidly sent FBI Director James Comey packing.
At this juncture I am going to cut Trump slack for his kids and his son-in-law, what can you do there? Especially for Trump, who never saw these people when they were growing up. Trump Jr., though, has been lying to everyone about everything, specifically the infamous Jun 9, 2016 meeting with a ton of nefarious types to get illegally procured (let that read Russian spies hacking into the DNC computers) dirt on the Democratic presidential candidate. Jared Kushner, who has dubious intelligence clearance but yet is allowed to see daily briefings simply because he happens to be sleeping with the boss’s daughter, has also reluctantly disclosed secret meetings with Russian bankers, (let that read gangsters, for it’s important to point out that all Russian banks are mobbed up, which is why we can’t see Donald Trump’s tax returns).
Then there’s campaign advisors like J.D. Gordan and Roger Stone, both of whom had direct connections with Wiki Leaks during the campaign, Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, who has come out this week and showed a measure of pride in secretly paying off a porn star hush money to protect Trump, this Devin Nunes clown who is both co-chair of a Senate investigation on Russia while running defense for the White House by releasing anti-FBI propaganda in the guise of whistle-blowing, the acting CIA Director John Brennan, who was busted for lying to congress about the Central Intelligence Agency spying on congressional computers, Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, who is currently being investigated for giving his son access to cushy kickbacks, a reality TV show contestant, Omarosa Manigault, who was somehow allowed to roam the White House for a year before being fired and then ran back to reality TV to trash her boss, and the Mooch, who after a week as White House communications director was thrown out for being a foul-mouthed lunatic.
I’ve run out of time, so I won’t even go into white supremacist nationalist, Steve Bannon, who steered the Trump campaign to victory in November 2016 and was Chief White House Strategist for the administration’s first seven months before he was fired and then painted his former boss as a lying, stupid treasonous crazy man in a recent NY Times best-seller. Nor can I begin to dissect the oozing scum that is Trump’s current Senior Advisor Stephen Miller, an unabashed racist, whose entire existence is to cleanse the country of every kind of immigrant, illegal or otherwise.
I apologize for missing so many others. I only have so much time and space, but you get the point.
What does that tell you about the man?
Do yourself no favors and “like” this idiot at www.facebook.com/jc.author
James Campion is the Managing Editor of The Reality Check News & Information Desk and the author of “Deep Tank Jersey”, “Fear No Art”, “Trailing Jesus”, “Midnight For Cinderella” and “Y”. “Shout It Out Loud – The Story of KISS’s Destroyer and the Making of an American Icon”
And coming in June, 2018; “Accidently Like a Martyr – The Tortured Art of Warren Zevon”
