Spending too much time in the toxic world of Donald Trump can leave one mentally drained. And this shutdown may be the most exhausting challenge of all. It has now become the longest running shutdown ever – causing so much harm to innocent people….for no coherent reason….. with no end in sight.
Now in addition to this dismal. dismaying situation. there is the bombshell report from The New York Times (NYT) yesterday that the FBI had opened an investigation on Trump in May, 2017 to determine whether he had become an agent or unwitting asset of the Russians.
This action by the FBI to question whether a sitting President might be a national security risk is incredibly damaging to Trump. The news caused a huge reaction from a few retired intelligence officers last evening. They immediately asserted that the FBI would have been neglecting their duty if they had not acted on the evidence of Trump’s explicit promotion of Russian policy over that of the U.S. And they also pointed out that the FBI probably had even more evidence than has been made public to support their rationale for opening an investigation.
On the right. Sarah Sanders and Rudy Giuliani. responded with the per usual attacks on the FBI and the assertion that FBI agents and the entire Justice Department belonged to the deep state and were simply out to get Trump. Think about it. The White House spokesperson and the President’s attorney both chose to challenge the actions of the FBI and the Justice Department outright calling their investigation a set up against Trump.
If the comments made by these two Trump aides are to be believed, the Justice Department and the FBI have morphed into simply anti-Trump institutions. and are willing to lie about his behavior. With this strategy, the Trump people can dismiss all of the FBI’s findings – including the Mueller report outright – calling them a conspiracy.
And this leaves the U.S. in a huge predicament. The President and the pro -Trump Congress can simply ignore or attack any counterintelligence evidence which shows Trump in compromised positions with the Russians. And either Americans can believe the President’s denials or they can support the findings of the FBI and the Mueller report.
There is no middle ground here. And this either – or conundrum will at some point bring the country to the much talked about constitutional crisis ,,,, sooner now rather than later.. Below is the NYT’s article reporting on the FBI investigation on Trump.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/us/politics/fbi-trump-russia-inquiry.html