Donald Trump is a master at fueling his ambition by making the most of his country’s freedom. Noted for circumventing the law and making others blame the crime When local funds dried up after repeated failures, Trump found dark money available after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Wealthy oligarchs turned Trump’s attention to Putin as his next goal to expand Trump’s faltering empire.
The wary Putin was elusive, but Trump courted him with a Miss Universe pageant that Putin did not attend. That was followed by a Trump proposal in Moscow that was still in limbo when Trump became president of the United States. By then, Trump’s dealings with the oligarchs were so complicated globally that a two-year investigation by special counsel Mueller remained a mess in archaic US policy not to prosecute a sitting president.
Russia has no such policy. You don’t need one. Prosecutors there are chosen by Putin and disappear if they come across him.
US intelligence determined that Russia participated in Trump’s election and Putin was not concerned that Trump would carry out his orders. Far from there. With his new position, Trump dismissed American intelligence and invited the Russians to the Oval Office where he boasted of having intelligence from a third country. The American press was excluded from that meeting, but the Russian media were welcomed, perhaps to place listening devices in the process. When the alarm was raised about such a breach of the rules, Trump launched a campaign of terror that surely made him want for Putin.
Taking a page from the despot’s playbook, Trump labeled legitimate media “fake news,” ignoring fact-checking and in-store stocking prior to publication. From another page in that same book, Trump’s drums lie in the touchy. Now under fire, Trump calls for retaliation, sending the highest representatives of the United States government to foreign lands to dirty the American justice system.
To cap it off ultimately sparking impeachment hearings, Trump withheld money from Ukraine that Congress had allocated. It was a raid to remove land from a political opponent. It came at a time when Russia had already annexed Crimea and was further invading Ukraine. The money Trump withheld was intended to help Ukraine fight the Russians.
The United States has a scrupulous legal system. He is so careful about protecting the rights of defendants that Special Counsel Mueller was unable to pinpoint an American who was clearly involved in misconduct.
Any collusion between Trump and Putin to manipulate Ukraine for mutual benefit can be difficult to prove. However, it cannot be removed from the table. Hang in the air and in the realm of possibility.
Trump has the brazen gall to try anything to get ahead of everyone by any means. From the Oval Office, he is not even using his own money to send his shadow government figures around the world to smear his own government. The goal is revenge, either against current perceived enemies or against those in the past who crossed paths with him. The point is to test the strength of your anger.
Putin apparently approves of Trump’s Oval Office mode of government of ruling the freedom-loving United States. You may have provided guidance during closed impromptu meetings to the US media and supervisors charged with maintaining the protocols that keep a complex US government system running smoothly.
With Trump in the Oval Office, the canny Putin has a new use for him. Once he rejected Trump, who was clearly selfish, now he has the ultimate American deception.
Trump wants money and he wants to stay in power so it keeps coming. Putin has a lot of money with his country’s lax laws that allow the oligarchs to spread their wings around the world with the skills they learned during the Soviet occupation of half of Europe.
Together they can rule the world, they may be saying during their secret talks. However, those are only secrets for the United States. Putin has records. Trump has none.
Perhaps Ukraine’s impeachment investigation will inspire some courageous Russian to leak the content of those conversations. So America will have to protect the Russian hero with its whistle-blowing laws.
