Jonathan Rauch has now joined Charlie Savage, David Frum, and Max Boot in pointing out that, regardless of the lies being circulated in the indictments brought by John Durham, the Trump-Russia investigation was not a hoax cooked up by the Clinton campaign. Here's Rauch's conclusion:
The Steele-Clinton-FBI counternarrative is not as loony as #StopTheSteal, but it is a wall of flak thrown up to distract from Trump’s undisputed behavior. If you prefer some term other than “collusion,” you can choose your own. It will not change what is in front of our nose: Trump’s behavior was unprecedented, unpatriotic, sinister, subversive, and obscenely corrupt. That is what we should be talking about.
Among the arguments Rauch made was to tackle the idea being circulated in right wing media that there was something nefarious about taking information to the FBI - like the Steele dossier or the connection researchers found between the Trump Organization and Alpha Bank.
Did Clinton associates and Steele alert the FBI? Yes, but that is what concerned citizens are supposed to do if they have reason to think a hostile foreign power is interfering in our election (as, of course, one was). In fact, as really ought to be obvious, Russia’s efforts to penetrate the Trump campaign should have been reported to the FBI not only by Christopher Steele, Clinton associates, and Australian diplomats, but also, and especially, by the Trump campaign.
It is important to point that out because the entire premise of the narrative being crafted to defend Trump's behavior rests on the idea that it was wrong for people to report their concerns to the FBI. That is how inverted and corrosive this whole story has become.
I was reminded of an interview George Stephonopoulos conducted with Trump back in June 2019. Take a listen to the exchange that begins at about the 2:20 mark in the video below when the former president is asked whether Don, Jr. should have gone to the FBI after being approached by a business associate with the promise of dirt on Clinton from the Russian government.
ONE-ON-ONE: @GStephanopoulos has an exclusive @ABC interview with President Trump, discussing everything from why Trump is unhappy about the latest 2020 polling to ongoing questions about the Special Counsel's Russia investigation. https://t.co/YaQlQ5Pmfp pic.twitter.com/nTRwJvxeH0
— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) June 12, 2019
Here's the relevant exchange:
TRUMP: Okay, let’s put yourself in a position: you’re a congressman, somebody comes up and says, “Hey I have information on your opponent.” Do you call the FBI?
STEPHANOPOULOS: (inaudible) if it’s coming from Russia you do.
TRUMP: I’ll tell you what: I’ve seen a lot of things over my life. I don’t think in my whole life I’ve ever called the FBI. In my whole life. You don’t call the FBI. You throw somebody out of your office, you do whatever you--
STEPHANOPOULOS: Al Gore got a stolen briefing book. He called the FBI.
TRUMP: Well, that’s different. A stolen briefing book. This isn’t a (inaudible). This is somebody who said “We have information on your opponent.” Oh, let me call the FBI. Give me a break, life doesn’t work that way.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The FBI Director says that’s what should happen.
TRUMP: The FBI Director is wrong. Because, frankly, it doesn’t happen like that in life.
As David Clay Johnston wrote in 2016, "No other candidate for the White House this year has anything close to Trump’s record of repeated social and business dealings with mobsters, swindlers, and other crooks." In other words, the former president actually told the truth when he said that "I've seen a lot of things over my life." But he bragged about never calling the FBI, suggesting that "life doesn't work that way."
I suspect that when your life is all about business dealings with mobsters, swindlers, and other crooks, you don't tend to contact the FBI when a foreign adversary tries to interfere in an election. But for the rest of us, that is precisely what we should expect to do.
That's what the Clinton campaign did. No one would be off base in assuming that the campaign's motives were also self-serving. But when you're running for president, protecting this country's elections from foreign interference should be a top-of-mind concern. Getting to the bottom of what Russia did was a critical national security issue. That necessitates the involvement of the FBI.
We've all had to grapple with the fact that, for four years, the man who occupied the White House was a con artist who is currently being investigated for a whole host of crimes, including financial fraud. It all makes a total mockery of his claims about being a "law and order president." But to turn the tables and now suggest that people associated with the Clinton campaign were wrong for going to the FBI with concerns about possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia is not only unconscionable, it further erodes the rule of law in this country.
All true, and of course two other points. First, Trump is trying not just to rally old hatred of the Clinton family as a tried and true target, but also to discredit the FBI investigation. But surely the authorities get all sorts of calls from citizens with motives, and yet they do their job, just as here.
ReplyDeleteSecond, it's the usual conservative strategy of deflecting attention from obvious liabilities by accusing the opposition of just that. (See swift boats.) And didn't Trump try to use his office to order justice with other responsibilities in his favor? See electoral fraud, January 6, Hunter Biden, and sure the Russians.