by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
News broke last Friday of yet another scandal involving the Trump administration, this one fueled by allegations so outrageous that they could potentially bring down the beleaguered government of Donald Trump. The New York Times claimed to have proof that the Russian government had placed bounties on the lives of American service men and women serving in Afghanistan, and that Donald Trump, the President of the United States of America, had known about the bounties that Russia offered to Taliban radicals for at least the past few months - and done nothing about it.
Trump, for his part, claimed ignorance of the matter and took off to play golf at one of his personal resorts. For a distractor, he also tweeted a video clip of one of his supporters yelling "white power" at Black Lives Matter demonstrators from the comfort of a golf cart.
But Donald Trump and his enablers in the White House quickly learned that this latest scandal, the one involving Russian bounties on the lives of members of the American military, was going to be harder to evade than some others had been.
The internet immediately caught fire with memes about supposed favors that Trump has done for Russia's Vladimir Putin over the years and the fact that many see Trump as somehow beholden to the Russian leader and reluctant to do anything that would anger him. There was a lot of focus on Trump's recent attempt to bring Putin back into the group of world leaders once known as the G-8, but now called the G-7 after the group expelled Putin from its membership. The United States was due to host the next gathering of the group, and Trump was insisting that Putin be invited.
Now critics were quick to point out that Trump wanted to elevate Putin back into that global leadership group even though he (Trump) knew - or should have known - that Putin was paying hard cash to members of the Taliban to murder Americans in uniform.
But Trump was steadfast in his claims that neither he nor Vice President Mike Pence had been briefed on the matter by American intelligence agencies.
That denial, however, raises other questions - like if our American intelligence system is so dysfunctional that it fails to tell the President about a credible threat from Russia against the lives of American military members, what is being done to fix the system? So far there have been no official concerns expressed against intelligence agencies over Trump's claim that they failed to brief him on the matter. Why not?
Or, whether Trump knew about the problem before the story broke or not, what has be done since Friday to get at the truth and to bring heat on Russia for this egregious act of potential harm to members of our military? Trump is the commander-in-chief, after all. Trump's main response so far has been to claim that the entire matter might simply be a "hoax," no doubt on the order of the coronavirus "hoax" from a couple of months ago.
Trump seemed to think that he could disappear on the golf course for awhile and this story would quietly go away - as he had hoped a few months earlier that the positive coronavirus cases would disappear. But that wishful thinking was not to prevail, then or now, and instead things seem to be getting worse. Some news reports indicated that that Russia has actually paid out bounties for some American deaths in recent months, and today the Associated Press ran a story that claims Trump was briefed on the matter by his former National Security Adviser, John Bolton, in March of 2019 - a full year earlier than was originally thought.
And the spreading sludge gets wider and deeper, and still Trump denies having any knowledge of the matter before the original story broke last Friday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is demanding that the entire House of Representatives be briefed on the matter by the Trump administration, and Trump has responded by having a private session with some Republican members of the House. Today he will bend a bit further to the political pressure and meet with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and the Democratic Chairs of eight relevant House committees.
It's all very one-drip-at-a-time, but with the likelihood that the floodgates are about to open whether Trump is ready for a rush of bad news or not. Ignoring threats to the lives of American military men and women is something that cannot be covered-up or tolerated. Trump has a scandal of the first water on his hands - and it is not going to just go away.
Trump has been protecting and advocating for the interests of Russia's Putin for more than three years. Perhaps were are on the verge of finally learning why.
Citizen Journalist
News broke last Friday of yet another scandal involving the Trump administration, this one fueled by allegations so outrageous that they could potentially bring down the beleaguered government of Donald Trump. The New York Times claimed to have proof that the Russian government had placed bounties on the lives of American service men and women serving in Afghanistan, and that Donald Trump, the President of the United States of America, had known about the bounties that Russia offered to Taliban radicals for at least the past few months - and done nothing about it.
Trump, for his part, claimed ignorance of the matter and took off to play golf at one of his personal resorts. For a distractor, he also tweeted a video clip of one of his supporters yelling "white power" at Black Lives Matter demonstrators from the comfort of a golf cart.
But Donald Trump and his enablers in the White House quickly learned that this latest scandal, the one involving Russian bounties on the lives of members of the American military, was going to be harder to evade than some others had been.
The internet immediately caught fire with memes about supposed favors that Trump has done for Russia's Vladimir Putin over the years and the fact that many see Trump as somehow beholden to the Russian leader and reluctant to do anything that would anger him. There was a lot of focus on Trump's recent attempt to bring Putin back into the group of world leaders once known as the G-8, but now called the G-7 after the group expelled Putin from its membership. The United States was due to host the next gathering of the group, and Trump was insisting that Putin be invited.
Now critics were quick to point out that Trump wanted to elevate Putin back into that global leadership group even though he (Trump) knew - or should have known - that Putin was paying hard cash to members of the Taliban to murder Americans in uniform.
But Trump was steadfast in his claims that neither he nor Vice President Mike Pence had been briefed on the matter by American intelligence agencies.
That denial, however, raises other questions - like if our American intelligence system is so dysfunctional that it fails to tell the President about a credible threat from Russia against the lives of American military members, what is being done to fix the system? So far there have been no official concerns expressed against intelligence agencies over Trump's claim that they failed to brief him on the matter. Why not?
Or, whether Trump knew about the problem before the story broke or not, what has be done since Friday to get at the truth and to bring heat on Russia for this egregious act of potential harm to members of our military? Trump is the commander-in-chief, after all. Trump's main response so far has been to claim that the entire matter might simply be a "hoax," no doubt on the order of the coronavirus "hoax" from a couple of months ago.
Trump seemed to think that he could disappear on the golf course for awhile and this story would quietly go away - as he had hoped a few months earlier that the positive coronavirus cases would disappear. But that wishful thinking was not to prevail, then or now, and instead things seem to be getting worse. Some news reports indicated that that Russia has actually paid out bounties for some American deaths in recent months, and today the Associated Press ran a story that claims Trump was briefed on the matter by his former National Security Adviser, John Bolton, in March of 2019 - a full year earlier than was originally thought.
And the spreading sludge gets wider and deeper, and still Trump denies having any knowledge of the matter before the original story broke last Friday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is demanding that the entire House of Representatives be briefed on the matter by the Trump administration, and Trump has responded by having a private session with some Republican members of the House. Today he will bend a bit further to the political pressure and meet with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and the Democratic Chairs of eight relevant House committees.
It's all very one-drip-at-a-time, but with the likelihood that the floodgates are about to open whether Trump is ready for a rush of bad news or not. Ignoring threats to the lives of American military men and women is something that cannot be covered-up or tolerated. Trump has a scandal of the first water on his hands - and it is not going to just go away.
Trump has been protecting and advocating for the interests of Russia's Putin for more than three years. Perhaps were are on the verge of finally learning why.
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