gracchusdixit

It is now clear beyond any reasonable doubt that the Russians and Vladimir Putin intervened in the 2016 presidential election, not merely to discredit and destabilize our democratic institutions, but specifically to ensure that Donald Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton and become our next president.  We have learned that the Russians hacked the servers of both the Democratic and Republican National Committees.  They chose solely to leak agitprop damaging to the Democrats, using Wikileaks as their compliant mouthpiece.  We do not yet know whether Russian intervention went further, extending to the manipulation of electronic voting records in the crucial swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.  When the audits initiated by the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, are completed, we may have an answer—or not.  What we do know is that the Department of Homeland Security was sufficiently worried several weeks before the election to warn the states against the vulnerabilities of their vote-tallying mechanisms and to offer its help in protecting those mechanisms.  Shamefully few states accepted that offer.

In response to all this, Donald Trump and his campaign staff have dismissed the conclusions of our intelligence agencies and have belittled those agencies for past mistakes.  Trump himself blamed the intervention on China or “some guy in New Jersey” rather than the obvious culprit, which is the Russian government.  There are three possible reasons for this dismissive and irresponsible reaction.

One is that Trump is so insecure that he feels compelled to repudiate any person or fact that threatens his fragile ego.  If he were to admit to the possibility that the election was stolen, he would of course become a “loser,” which may be the most insulting word in his limited and crude vocabulary.

Another is that Trump and his children intend to continue doing business with the Russians and believe that any admission of Russian wrongdoing would undermine their chances of getting richer than they already are.

Still another is that Trump and his campaign actively colluded with the Russians to undercut Hillary Clinton and to rig the election, a prospect that is not only terrifying but ironic, since Trump on the stump never tired of claiming that the election was indeed going to be rigged—against him.

All these potential explanations for Trump’s response are dismal, but the second and the third are worse than dismal; they are positively sinister.  If Trump or his children intend to continue doing business with Russia while he sits in the White House, he will be violating the constitution and will be impeachable the moment he takes the oath of office.  If he and his campaign actually colluded with the Russians, they have already committed treason, and Trump is open to remedies far worse than impeachment.  Is it even remotely plausible that either of these  possibilities might be true?

The answer, unfortunately, is yes.

The Trump family has already admitted to extensive business dealings with Russia.  At least one Russian oligarch—a gangster in all but name, who is a member of Putin’s inner circle—has invested heavily in a variety of Trump projects.  Trump’s former campaign manager collected millions for consulting and lobbying in behalf of Ukraine’s ousted president, a Putin  lackey and protégé.  Trump’s national security adviser-to-be was a contributor to Russia’s state-owned television network, RT, which is little more than a propaganda arm of the Kremlin.  And Trump’s likely nominee for Secretary of State is the CEO of ExxonMobil, who has a long and deep relationship with Putin; he and his company stand to gain enormously if the foreign policy of the United States turns in a Russia-friendly direction.

In a court of law, these facts would be considered “circumstantial evidence,” insufficient to produce a guilty verdict.  In the court of public opinion, they should at the very least make us profoundly suspicious.

President Barack Obama has initiated a investigation into the role Vladimir Putin’s Russia played in manipulating our election.  Democrats and at least three Republicans have called for a parallel investigation in the Senate.  These steps are all well and good, and they may help to avert similar catastrophes in the future.  But they come too late to correct the current catastrophe.

We are left to confront the fact that our democracy has few constitutional or legal weapons to defend itself against an unprecedented attack on its most fundamental institution, namely, free, fair, and honest elections.  Given what we already know, the 2016 presidential election should, by any rational calculus, be nullified, and we should be starting all over again, from scratch.  That we have no mechanism for contemplating, let alone acting upon, such a step is our greatest weakness.  Having successfully exploited that weakness once, it is all but certain that Russia—or some other hostile power—will do so again.

Whatever comes of this, one thing is now certain:  the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s presidency is forfeit.  He can bluster and bully all he wants, he can wreak as much social and economic damage on the country as his time in office allows, but he can never claim to be the democratically elected President of the United States.