By Robert P. Bomboy
In an
incisive column March 9 for the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof, who
has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for outstanding journalism, laid out a path of
evidence connecting President Donald Trump and his associates with Russian
efforts to disrupt last November's elections.
Rather than
my trying to paraphrase and boil down Kristolf's reporting, for those who may
not have seen Thursday's Times, I am quoting directly his 10 major
points:
1. President Trump and his aides have repeatedly and falsely
denied ties to Russia. The newspaper USA Today counted at least 20 denials. In fact, we now know that there were contacts by at
least a half-dozen people in the Trump circle with senior Russian officials.
2. There's no obvious reason for all these contacts. When Vice
President Mike Pence was asked on January 15 if there
had been contacts between the Trump campaign and Kremlin officials, he answered: "Of course not. Why would there be?" We don't know either.
3.
There were unexplained communications between
a Trump Organization computer server and Russia’s Alfa Bank, which has ties to
President Vladimir Putin. These included 2,700 “'look-up' messages to initiate
communications, and some investigators found all this deeply suspicious. Others
thought there might be an innocent explanation, such as spam. We still don’t
know.
4.
Repeated and constant contacts between Trump officials and Russian
intelligence, as reported by the New York Times and CNN, are underscored by intercepts of
communications involving Russian officials, and by the British and Dutch
governments monitoring meetings in Europe between Russians and members of the
Trump team.
5.
A well-regarded Russia expert Christopher
Steele, formerly with [Britian's Foreign Intelligence Service] MI6, produced a now-famous dossier alleging that Russia made compromising
videos of Trump in 2013, and that members of the Trump team colluded with the
Kremlin to interfere with the U.S. election. The dossier quoted a Russian as
saying that a deal had been arranged “with the full knowledge and support of
Trump” and that in exchange for Russian help, “the Trump team agreed to
sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue.” James Clapper,
the American former national intelligence director, says he saw no evidence of such collusion but
favors an investigation to get to the bottom of it.
6.
Trump has expressed a bewilderingly benign view of Russia and appointed
officials also friendly to Moscow. He did not make an issue of Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine during the campaign.
7.
A Trump associate, Roger Stone, appeared to have had advance knowledge of
Russia’s disclosures, through WikiLeaks, of Hillary Clinton campaign emails. As
early as last August, two months before her campaign chairman John Podesta’s
emails were released, Stone tweeted: “Trust me, it will soon [be] Podesta’s
time in the barrel.” In October, six days before a [public] dump of Clinton
campaign emails, Stone tweeted: “HillaryClinton is done.” #Wikileaks.
8.
[Attorney General Jeff] Sessions seems a red herring, in that he wasn’t a
secret conduit to the Kremlin. The more interesting dot is [Paul]Manafort, whom
investigators have focused on because of his longstanding ties to Russia.
9.
“We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia,” Donald Trump Jr. was quoted as
saying in 2008. Russia may have gained leverage over Trump through loans to his
organization or other business dealings. The way to ease these suspicions would
be to examine Trump’s tax returns: Any government investigation that doesn’t obtain
Trump’s tax returns simply isn’t a thorough investigation.
10.
Even many Republicans acknowledge, as President George W. Bush put it: “ We all need answers.” The House
and Senate Intelligence Committees mostly operate behind closed doors, while we
yearn for transparency. What is desperately needed is an independent inquiry
modeled on the 9/11 Commission.
More and more evidence is appearing. I
agree with Nicholas Kristof: We need a bipartisan independent
inquiry modeled on the 9/11 Commission that
would bring out all the cards and put them on the table.
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