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Conservative writer David Frum is now beginning to wonder . . . .
Trump’s gravest responsibility is to defend the United States from foreign attack—and he’s done nothing to fulfill it.
The new question is this: What has been—what will be done—to protect American democracy from such attacks in the future? The Russian attack in 2016 worked, yielding dividends beyond Vladimir Putin’s wildest hopes. The Russians hoped to cast a shadow over the Clinton presidency. Instead, they outright elected their preferred candidate. Americans once thought it was a big deal that Alger Hiss rose to serve as acting temporary secretary general of the United Nations. This time, a Russian-backed individual was installed in the Oval Office.
From that position of power, Trump has systematically attempted to shut down investigations of the foreign-espionage operation that operated on his behalf. He fired the director of the FBI to shut it down. His White House coordinated with the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to misdirect the investigation. He mobilized the speaker of the House to thwart bipartisan investigations under broadly respected leadership. He has inspired, supported, and joined a national propaganda campaign against the Mueller investigation.
And all the while, Trump has done nothing—literally nothing—to harden the nation’s voting systems against follow-on Russian operations. On Sunday, he publicly repudiated his own national-security adviser for acknowledging at the Munich Security Conference the most incontrovertible basics of what happened in 2016.
It’s worth thinking about what a patriotic president would have done in Trump’s situation. He would be leading the investigation himself. He would be scouring his own campaign—doing everything in his power to reassure the country that whatever the Russians may or may not have done, his government owed Putin nothing. He would have imposed penalties on Russia for their outrageous acts—rather than protecting Russia from penalties voted by Congress. Above all, he would be leading the demand for changes to election laws and practices, including holding Facebook to account for its negligence.
At every turn, Trump has failed to do what a patriotic president would do—failed to put the national interest first. He has left the 2018 elections as vulnerable as the 2016 elections to Russian intervention on his behalf.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/america-is-under-attack-and-the-president-doesnt-care/553667/
David Frum is just now getting around to asking the same question that The Gadfly has been asking for several weeks now - better late than never presumably, to ask one supposes.
But really -- how deep? How deep does the Russian ratfucking of America's democracy go?
If any one thing is clear, the answers to that question most certainly will not be forthcoming from this administration - not voluntarily least ways.
And that is why Robert Mueller must be allowed to finish his investigation. The American people have a right to be presented with the evidence in that investigation and be offered the opportunity to form their own opinions as to whether or not there was, and perhaps still is, treachery afoot by some of our citizens to sell this nation's democracy down the river in order to curry favor with an incalculably wealthy and ruthless dictator.
Let's find out who the "real" Americans are. Let's find out how deep this ratfucking with the Russians truly goes. Let Robert Mueller finish his investigation and let the American people view the evidence and make their own decision as to what's "fake news" and what is not.
Unadulterated transparency and fairness - nothing less.
----TFG
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