Witches' Coven in the White House?

IF YOU KEEP UP WITH THE CURRENT NEWS, in terms of ongoing Russian investigations, you have doubtless heard President Trump talk about being the victim of a Salem, Massachusetts-style “witch hunt.” 

“Sad!” as he might put it.

In fact, the position taken so far by the President can be summed up with ease: No one working for his campaign or in the White House has ever seen a Russian. Jared can’t speak Russian. If he did meet a Russian—and he didn’t—he wouldn’t know what they were saying. General Michael Flynn is a great American. Paul Manafort was my campaign manager for a only very short time. Like six minutes! I don’t think I’d recognize him if I saw him walking down Pennsylvania Avenue today. Donald Jr. couldn’t have met with any Russians. He is always busy applying thick layers of gel to his hair.

In fact, Trump and his team have repeatedly stressed how transparent they are trying to be. Plate glass could not be more transparent!

TO UNDERSTAND WHEN THE HUNT FOR SORCERY began you need to go back to July 24, 2016, when an interviewer on ABC (fake news) asked if there was any truth to rumors of links between Russians and the Trump campaign. Paul Manafort, still in charge at that time, responded, “That’s absurd. And, you know, there’s no basis to it.” “Pure obfuscation,” he added. 

That same day, on CNN (really fake news!) a similar question was posed to Donald Trump Jr. “I can’t think of bigger lies,” he told Jake Tapper.

We now know—thanks to a trove of Donald Jr.’s recently released emails—that both men, with Jared Kushner thrown in as a double, double, toil and trouble bonus, had already had at least one critical meeting with a Russian lawyer. And that meeting was based on the premise that they would receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton thanks to the fine work of…the Russian government!

(Since I first published this two days ago, a former Russian counterintelligence agent admits he, too, participated in the meeting!)

By the fall of 2016, ABC was reporting that Trump had had significant business ties in Russia and still might. “The level of business amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars—what he received as a result of interaction with Russian businessmen,” Sergei Millian, who heads a U.S.-Russia business group and who once helped market Trump’s U.S. condos in Russia, told ABC. Russian business people “were happy to invest with him, and they were happy to work with Donald Trump. And they were happy to associate—be associated with Donald Trump.”

(We don’t know if there are any current ties, of course, in part because the President won’t release his taxes.)

On September 25, Kellyanne Conway, a Trump aide so transparent you can see right through her, like a ghost, assured the world that no one in the campaign had ever really worked with Carter Page.

“Carter who?” she seems to say.

True: Page may be a fringe player. But Newsweek published a story (how much fake news can there be?), calling him a Trump adviser—partly because Trump had called him a Trump adviser. Sure, Page told reporters. He might have minor business dealings with Russians occasionally. Dollar here. Dollar there. He had no idea why the FBI asked for “a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act” to put him under surveillance.

It could be because there were rumors Page and associates had been offered a 19% stake in Gazprom, Russia’s state oil company, if they could help lift U.S. sanctions. We know Page jetted off to Moscow to give a speech in July 2016. And the reported deal, if sanctions were lifted, might be worth billions. 

Who were Page’s associates? So far: unknown.

Just days after the November election, Hope Hicks, now a White House spokesperson, reassured the nation: “There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity.”

Not even involving General Flynn?

Nyet.

On December 18, Conway again appeared on CBS, appearing like the Wicked Witch in a puff of smoke. Had there been any conversations with Russians? “Those conversations never happened,” she cackled. “I hear people saying it like it’s a fact on television. That is just not only inaccurate and false, but it’s dangerous.”

On January 15, 2017, Vice President Elect Mike Pence was asked whether there had been any links between the campaign and Russians. “Well of course not,” he smiled beatifically. “I think to suggest that is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy.”

SPEAKING OF BIZARRE, the first witch was soon caught practicing incantations. Flynn was fired on Valentine’s Day, putting an end to a torrid President/General bromance. The Washington Times (not fake news, because the paper features laudatory articles about every member of the Trump clan you can name) noted that Press Secretary Sean Spicer had said the President “made the right call at the right time” in firing Flynn as his national security adviser. It was proof of decisive leadership.

Once he realized Flynn lied about meeting with the Russians and about what had been discussed (ending sanctions!) the President simply acted! But it turned out Trump had been warned about Flynn’s questionable actions eighteen days prior.

Okay, maybe Flynn did meet a few Russians now and then. But President Obama gave him a security clearance.

You can’t blame us, Trump & Co. exclaimed. Obama did it! It was his fault. Or maybe gremlins!

A blizzard of what Trump would call “fake news” followed. Flynn had taken $67,000 from three Russian entities. He had lied when filling out Pentagon disclosure forms. He received stacks of cash from the Turkish government while working for the campaign, which he failed to mention. Even Fox News (the President’s safe spot when he grows sad) admitted the total came to $530,000.

Politico (back to fake news) next reported that Flynn’s Turkish pals had…drum roll…ties to Russia!

On February 19, Reince Priebus, promised Fox there was no truth to a story in The New York Times (the fakest news since reports of the Cardiff Giant): “I can assure you and I have been approved to say this—that the top levels of the intelligence community have assured me that that story is not only inaccurate, but it’s grossly overstated and it was wrong.”

What the Times had just reported was that Flynn, Manafort, Page and Roger Stone, all involved in the campaign, had had contacts with Russians. (We now know that the first three did.) Then fake news folks in the United Kingdom jumped into the story, The Telegraph noting on March 31, that Flynn, through a lawyer, was saying he “certainly has a story to tell,” if prosecutors would offer immunity.

EVEN THE BIGGEST DIMWIT could tell you if Flynn hoped to gain immunity he had to have dirt on people higher up the chain of command. 

The President comes readily to mind.

The next day, Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters, “No, Press Secretary Sean Spicer is not in the Witness Protection program.” Okay, ha, ha, that’s a fake news joke.

No, all allegations about the Trump team and Russia, Sanders said, were “a non-story because to the best of our knowledge, no contacts took place, so it’s hard to make a comment on something that never happened.”

Four days later, Spicer escaped from the White House basement where the President had banished him and told a press gathering Sanders was right. “Well, again, there are no connections to find out about. That’s the problem. You can’t disprove something that doesn’t exist.” 

See: still no witches here! 

Okay, except Flynn.

On March 1, Attorney General Jeff Sessions remembered he might have met with Russians once, or twice, or, I do declare, who can recall with all the pressure I’m under these days, during the 2016 campaign. He then recused himself from further involvement in any Russian investigation.

On April 6, the fakest newspaper in America, The New York Times, reported again that Jared Kushner also remembered meeting with some Russians, but he wasn’t exactly sure where, maybe while walking his dog. 

He amended security clearance forms to so indicate.

On May 8, President Trump let rip in another angry, early morning tweet: “The Russian-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?” The next day he fired FBI director James Comey, hoping to answer that question himself. The White House insisted the President “acted based on the clear recommendations” of two men, the attorney general and deputy attorney general. (Wait, wasn’t Sessions supposed to recuse himself from anything to do with the Russian investigation?)

White House officials insisted Comey had lost control of the FBI. Ms. Conway told Anderson Cooper that same evening: “This had nothing to do with Russia, as much as somebody must be getting $50 every time the word is said, I’m convinced, on TV. This has nothing to do with Russia.”

Nada.

On the morning of May 10, Ms. Sanders once again assured reporters Trump fired Comey only because of letters he received, saying Comey had lost the confidence of rank-and-file agents at the Bureau.

Less than twenty-four hours later, in an interview with Lester Holt of NBC Trump explained the rationale for the firing. Did it have anything to do with recommendations by A. G. Sessions or Deputy A. G. Rod Rosenstein? Holt wondered. “Oh, I was going to fire regardless of recommendation,” Trump replied. “I was going to fire Comey, knowing there was no good time to do it. And, in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.’” 

So, yeah. 

Comey was fired because of the Russian investigation.

SUDDENLY, IT LOOKED LIKE THERE MIGHT be real witches about and these witches were adept at obstructing justice.

On May 17, Time magazine reported (more fake news?) that U.S. intelligence experts had been hard at work trying to understand the depth of Russian efforts to undermine the U.S. election process.

For months, American spy hunters had scrambled to uncover details of Russia's influence operation against the 2016 presidential election. In offices in both D.C. and suburban Virginia, they had created massive wall charts to track the different players in Russia's multipronged scheme. 

The story was big, and still growing, and if investigators uncovered one witch, and then a second, they’d have to begin asking whether or not they were dealing with an entire coven in the White House.

How did U.S. counterintelligence first get wind of the Russian effort to undermine the Hillary Clinton campaign? 

Time explained:

Like many a good spy tale, the story of how the U.S. learned its democracy could be hacked started with loose lips. In May 2016, a Russian military intelligence officer bragged to a colleague that his organization, known as the GRU, was getting ready to pay Clinton back for what President Vladimir Putin believed was an influence operation she had run against him five years earlier as Secretary of State. The GRU, he said, was going to cause chaos in the upcoming U.S. election.

The very next day, during a press conference with the President of Columbia, President Trump fumed for the hundredth time that he was the victim of “the greatest witch hunt” in U.S. history.

There were no witches! None. 

None and none!

On May 31, the fake news folks at Vox joined the fake fray. Vox reported that “Federal investigators are fixated on a mysterious December meeting between senior White House adviser Jared Kushner and Russian banker Sergey Gorkov.” Kushner now remembered that, what do you know, he did meet with Gorkov, but they only talked about…he wasn’t sure…maybe gardening. 

Gorkov just happened to run a state-owned Russian bank under U.S. sanction.

That same day, PBS (publicly funded fake news!) wondered why Kushner wanted to create a back channel to Russia, using…um…Russian diplomatic facilities, where U.S. intelligence agencies might not intrude. Critics, PBS noted, questioned why any private citizen would “try to set up covert communications with a hostile power like Russia, particularly after U.S. intelligence agencies accused Moscow of trying to interfere in the 2016 election to help Trump.”

Seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies said the Russians interfered. The President kept insisting they didn’t.

The story of meddling dragged on all through June. Trump and his team kept insisting it was all fake news. Ms. Sanders complained that this “Russian-Trump hoax” thing had been going on “for the better part of a year, with no evidence of anything.”

THEN, ON JULY 8, The New York Times (fake, faker, fakest) reported that Donald Trump Jr. had taken part in a secret meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016. Also attending were Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort. 

Well, what do you know! Suddenly, both Jr. and Jared remembered, hey, we did attend such a meeting.

When first asked to comment, Donald Jr. assured the Times the meeting was all about Russian adoption policy. 

The paper followed up the next day, adding detail. The lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, had promised to provide dirt on the Clinton campaign and aid Jr.’s father. Young Donald now remembered part of the exchange. “After pleasantries were exchanged,” he told reporters, “the woman indicated that individuals connected to Russia” had damaging information on the Democratic nominee.

Jr. and the others listened for “only” 20 or 30 minutes. Then Jr. decided it was all a “waste of time.” And, so, the trio of witches hopped their brooms and flew away. For months none dared mention the meeting. And if they had met, but they didn’t, it wouldn’t be illegal, because they never got any actual information. In fact, it turned out, they only thought they would—get information—from a representative of a foreign power—a power clearly unfriendly to the United States—which would mean helping an unfriendly power directly interfere in a U.S. election.

Reporters for the Times (still fake) contacted Donald Jr. a third time and asked for comment on a story they planned to run July 11. They were going to publish emails that would blow a Manhattan-sized hole in the narrative that the Russian-Trump connection was a hoax, a witch hunt.

Donald Jr. asked the Times to delay while he puzzled over what he would say. Out of concern for the veracity of the reporting, the Times agreed to hold the story an hour. Fifty minutes later Jr. dumped the incriminating emails on Twitter, in the name, he claimed, of transparency.

Hours later, the President, who seems to be holed up deep in the bowels of the White House, evading reporters, managed to take time out of his busy schedule and tweet: “My son is a high quality person and I applaud his transparency.”

Then, on July 12, Christopher Wray, Trump’s nominee to head the FBI, was interviewed by a Congressional panel. He was asked three times, if the Russian investigation was really a “witch hunt.”

Like Peter, before the cock crowed, Wray thrice denied President Trump’s foundational premise.

Finally, that evening, McClatchy  revealed what appeared to be another possible page in the White House Book of Spells. The digital operations of the Trump campaign, once headed up by Kushner, were now part of a metastasizing investigation.

Trump son-in-law Kushner…the only current White House aide known to be deemed a “person of interest” in the Justice Department investigation, appears to be under the microscope in several respects. His real estate finances and December meetings with Russia’s ambassador and the head of a sanctioned, state-controlled bank are also being examined.

According to McClathy, Mike Carpenter, a former senior Pentagon official, who worked on Russia affairs, made it clear he suspected collaboration between the campaign and Russian cyber operatives. “There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States.” 

SLOWLY BUT SURELY, THE WITCH HUNTERS were closing in on the hideout of the coven. The address: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

***

(As mentioned: we now know, thanks to the reporting of NBC, that a second Russian attended the meeting. Maybe Jr. forgot all about him. Maybe the guy hid under a table during the whole conference.)