President Richard Nixon saying Adios after his resignation speech
August 9, 1974
In what is already shaping up to be an encore of the Watergate scandal that brought down the presidency of Richard Milhous Nixon (otherwise known as Tricky Dicky), Donald Trump seems to have finally cornered himself into a cul-de-sac that may end up costing him his presidency. He has already proven himself to be, at least regarding politics, as dumb as can be expected from somebody with no experience as public office, and has also shown that he has learned absolutely nothing from the history lessons provided by the downfall of Richard Nixon.
It all comes down to a recent news story published by The Washington Post, which by the way is the same newspaper that published the revelations given by Deep throat which eventually pilfered the Nixon administration down to the core. As a presidential candidate, Trump had already taken aim at The Washington Post, trying to discredit the newspaper as one more source of fake news repeating a propaganda salvo first used against CNN.
The ordeal of President Trump started with his firing of FBI director James Comey on May 10th 2017 (which, by the way, was Mother's Day in Mexico), precisely at a time when Comey was requesting more funds to expand his investigations into the Russian involvement in the presidential elections. The firing of Comey came after a meeting between the FBI director and President Trump on Friday March 24th, a meeting that was listed on the president's public schedule, raising eyebrows in people who already had suspicions that Donald Trump was trying to hide something and the firing of the FBI director was actually part of a major cover up. The Trump's firing of the FBI director immediately drew a striking resemblance to the firing of Archibald Cox during the infamous Saturday Night Massacre, the special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal who was becoming much more than a nuisance to President Nixon presumably because he was “getting warmer” closing in on President Nixon himself not just as the chief instigator of what amounted to a felony but also as the brain behind a cover up using the power of the US presidency to carry out the cover up.
With the firing of the FBI director, things were already bad enough for President Trump, mindful of the fact that President Nixon was also a Republican. But then he issued what could end up being considered by historians as his dumbest “tweet” yet. He actually threatened James Comey two days later in a Twitter outburst, writing on May 12th: “James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press”. This is the tweet that may bring his downfall:
It doesn't require an expert criminal investigator with a PhD in sociopathic behavior to conclude that this tweet was nothing less than a dire warning telling James Comey to keep himself from opening his mouth or else in case Congressional investigators try to dig deep into the real motives behind the firing of the FBI director. It is nothing less than a blackmail message, understandable in those who work inside a mafia, but... in a US president?
The warning sent by President Trump to James Comey via Twitter implies the possible existence of the recordings of all conversations carried out inside the White House without the knowledge or consent of those being recorded with the exception of the President himself who is the only one who has the authority inside the White House to order such recordings to be carried out. But this is essentially the same fatal mistake of President Nixon that provided the ammo for his downfall! How could Donald Trump, with widespread suspicions of a Russian connection that enabled Trump to become the President of the USA, be so dumb as to repeat exactly the same mistake that cost Richard Nixon his presidency?
With Donald Trump contradicting James Comey on the true reasons behind his firing and what was discussed between them in the White House the day James Comey went there on March 24th, many members of Congress concluded that the best way to discover who is telling the truth and who is lying -perhaps the only way- is by simply listening to the recorded conversation between Comey and President Trump, if such a recording exists. There were already calls on Capitol Hill for Donald Trump to hand over to Congress such recordings, a request that was ignored by President Trump just as President Nixon kept ignoring the request from Congress to hand over the White House tapes. Chuck Schumer, Senate minority leader, insisted to CNN that if Trump indeed had any recordings, he should hand them over immediately, a non-binding request that was simply ignored by President Trump.
The threatening tweet following the firing of the FBI director is just one half of the story. The other half, a true bombshell, came Monday May 15th when The Washington Post published a news story revealing that President Trump had provided highly classified information to none other than the Russians themselves, specifically to the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak during a meeting held last week, intelligence deemed so secret that it was not even shared with USA allies such as Great Britain.
Leaking classified information to a foreign government is generally considered to be an act of treason, so much so that if some CIA employee or NSA employee incurs in such crime the discloser will most certainly land in jail just as Bradley Manning did with a sentence of 35 years in jail, and even if the leaker is not a US citizen or a US resident like Julian Assange he will still be hunted down and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And in some cases, such disclosures usually carry the death penalty as in the case of the Rosenbergs. In the case of “the little people”, the leaking of highly classified materials is considered to be a vile act of treason, and is called as such, but in the never before heard of case were the main culprit is none other than the US president himself, it is called... gosh!, There is no word in the English dictionary to describe such gruesome act.
Deliberate mishandling or leaking of classified information with known antagonists of the USA is inexcusable, and any public official who incurs in such crimes must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. At least that's what then presidential candidate Donald Trump himself meant while referring to Hillary Clinton when he delivered a major address on National Security in Philadelphia on Wednesday September 7 2016 at the Union League of Philadelphia, declaring the former Secretary of State “unfit for office” due to her mishandling of classified information. And this was done repeatedly, not just once. If this is so, and if Donald Trump is to be judged by his own words (his words, not mine!), then he is unfit for office and he should resign immediately. Trump, who called Hillary "crooked Hillary" (she may now be gloating calling him “dumb Trump”) made the noose to hang himself.
The Washington Post quoted a US official as saying that the information revealed by President Trump to the Russian government contained “more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared even with our own allies”. According to such official, the intelligence carried one of the highest levels of classification used by US intelligence agencies. It is possible that the intelligence services of Israel were compromised as well as some of the sources of sensitive information for the Mossad. It is even possible that the lives of some Israeli operatives or their allies could have been placed in peril as a result of what Donald Trump did.
Exactly how much did President Trump reveal to the Russian government envoys?
Right now, no one knows for sure. All we have right now is the word of the US President, which by the way is not worth much these days. Without an exact transcript of the confidential meeting between Trump and the Russians or the conversation recordings of the meeting, there is no way of knowing for sure.
With the FBI and Congress hot on the trail of the Russian connection, how could Donald Trump be so dumb as to meet with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak in a meeting that was closed to the US news media? Common sense would indicate that as President of the USA he should have avoided any contact of any sort with any Russian official at least while the ruckus over the Trump firing of the FBI director settles down, if it settles down at all. That meeting was already a very dumb move on a man who claims to be wiser and smarter than the rest of mankind, or to use a better term, plain asinine. But handing over highly classified information to the Russian government?
As if the revelations of The Washington Post were not enough, on Wednesday May 16th The New York Times came up with another bombshell: President Trump personally asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting that took place in February, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting. This was not a misdemeanor on the part of Donald Trump, it was a blatant attempt to obstruct justice, a legal offense which can land the offender in jail, the same mistake also done by President Nixon. Why was Donald Trump so worried? What was he trying to hide? A conclusion that can be drawn from this revelation is that President Trump fired James Comey because he was not obeying the President's request to drop the investigation of Michael T. Flynn who himself was seeking immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony at Congress, a request that was denied. (A little known fact is that President Obama actually fired Michael Flynn in 2014, and it was Trump as President who later named him National Adviser, casting serious doubts on Trump's claim of being more than able to "choose the best people for my administration". Excuse me?) As usual, Donald Trump is denying everything, just as Richard Nixon did in his time, in spite of the fact that in the end all of Nixon's denials didn't help him to dodge the impeachment trial that was being set up for him.
Considering the seriousness of it all, Congress has the legal power not to request but to order directly Donald Trump by means of a subpoena the handing over of all conversations that could have taken place inside the White House ever since that fateful day when he took office. And if he refuses to do so, then Congress has the legal authority to initiate impeachment procedures that could end up not just in the removal of Donald Trump from his presidency but in criminal charges levied against him that could eventually land him in jail, especially if he comes up some fairy tale alleging that all those files of “tapes of our conversations” were somehow accidentally erased, something that nobody will believe and upon which an independent special prosecutor can hammer on until Donald Trump is turn into shreds. And even in the case the suggestion made by Trump himself to the debunked FBI director by tweeting Comey better hope that there are no tapes of their conversations before he starts talking to the press is false, Trump is still hanging in the nose, because his bluff will turn into another set of sordid questions such as: Why did Trump threaten James Comey with something that did not even exist? Was that an act of sheer desperation? Why so?
It all comes down to this: either recordings of the conversations carried out at the White House since Trump became President exist, or they do not exist. Trump will eventually be forced to take a position on this by telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth unless he wants to take a gamble on committing perjury, yet another legal offense besides all the other ones he could have committed. If such recordings do exist, they will become the Holy Grail of all those who want to impeach Donald Trump and land him in prison for the rest of his life, and if the recordings exist Trump will have to hand them over to Congress whether he likes it or not. And if they do not exist, he will then expose himself as a blackmailer who resorts to intimidation in order to obstruct justice, yet another legal offense. Either way, he has hanged himself. Perhaps, in the end, Trump could resign as President giving back power to the Washington insiders while he takes his last flight on the presidential US helicopter (or perhaps the Trump helicopter as a last gesture to save the US taxpayers some money), letting Mike Pence take over so that President Pence (gee, doesn't that sound great?) can grant him a a full, free, and absolute presidential pardon “for all offenses against the United States which he, Donald Trump, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 2017, through the day he called it quits”.
A growing list of Republicans are beginning to realize the Donald Trump is becoming much more than a liability for the Republican party and their careers as politicians. As a matter of fact, Trump is already a liability to all his look-alikes in the rest of the world like the “Dutch Donald Trump” Geert Wilders who lost his election bid, or the “French Donald Trump” Marine Le Pen who lost by a landslide. Many politicians around the world are now trying to distance themselves from all of what Donald Trump represents; and in the USA, if it all comes down to subpoenas and an unavoidable impeachment, perhaps there will be enough Republican Congressmen who will turn their backs on Trump providing the required number of votes needed to put an end to the Trump era, in case he refuses to call it quits by simply resigning and going back to something less demanding such as hosting The Apprentice or perhaps fleeing to some other country willing to harbor him instead of living in the USA the rest of his life in shame.
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Caveat: This blog entry is no April Fool's Day joke!
If Donald Trump is indeed forced by circumstance to hand over his resignation and even go into seclusion in another country to avoid being repudiated by most Americans, the only word of advice he can get from this side of the world (Mexico) is: Please, Señor Trump, don't come down to Mexico for your retirement! Perhaps some other place like the Fiji island, or Swaziland, or even the North Pole. But certainly not Mexico, where Donald Trump is not welcome. As it is, we have enough problems down here in Mexico, and we don't need one more going by the family name of Trump. And we haven't forgotten the Trump obsession with his crazy border wall to separate Mexico and the USA forever and have Mexicans pay for his demented whim, nor will Trump be forgiven by Mexicans for a very long time, perhaps only after a thousand years have gone by.
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