Though he tried desperately to pretend the report issued Friday by American intelligence agencies regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election was no big deal, Donald Trump is now fully aware that the world knows how he won the race for the White House.
On CNN last night, former CIA case officer Bob Baer discussed the unclassified summary issued by the CIA regarding the Russian hacking of Democratic servers with host Don Lemon and correspondent Jim Sciutto, and Baer wasted no time declaring that Trump has now been exposed as the recipient of a gift from Russian President Vladimir Putin:
“Trump understands the implications of this. Russians may have helped him to win the presidency. I can’t read it any other way, and you’re right, the intelligence community is not going to assess how much effect this Russian covert action had on the elections. They can’t. CIA doesn’t have the ability, neither does the FBI. But, I think, this report undermines the legitimacy of the Trump presidency. He knows it, that’s why talking about the Chinese and Iranians and all these people. He’s trying to deflect the implications, but I think it’s devastating for him.”
Sciutto noted that Trump’s statements on Twitter following release of the report indicate he’s trying desperately to change the narrative:
“But interesting, just in the last few minutes we saw Donald Trump tweet again, this time taking aim, in effect blaming the Democratic Party for this. Saying gross negligence by the Democratic National Committee allowed hacking to take place. The Republican National Committee had a strong defense. This is spin.”
A minute later, Sciutto somberly remarked:
“I think, Don, we have to stop expecting an honest conversation about this from the president-elect. Because, his point of view appears to be that it is unfairly undermining his victory.”
It is indeed undermining his “victory,” but there’s nothing unfair about it. Given repeated chances to blame Putin and Russia, Trump has adamantly rejected such criticism. There needs to be an exhaustive investigation by Congress, and if it can be proven Trump knew the Russians were aiding him, he should be impeached, removed from office, charged with treason, and tossed into prison for the remainder of his life.
Donald Trump is an illegitimate president. No one should accept him as anything more than a bought and paid for puppet of Vladimir Putin.
This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org