Dead man lying
SATURDAY, MAY 13, 2017 12:00 PM EDT
Dead man lying
Unyielding dishonesty and belligerence have landed Trump one investigation away from impeachment
LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV
We’ve reached a magical time in the great story unfolding before us, the time when everybody knows that Trump is guilty, but the verdict is not yet in. I remember exactly how it happened in the Watergate story, when everybody knew Nixon was guilty of ordering the break-in at the DNC headquarters at the Watergate hotel and office complex and supervised the cover-up, but evidence sufficient to prove his guilt wasn’t yet available. Guilty men lie, and lie repeatedly. Their early lies beget later lies; their little lies beget bigger lies; their implausible lies beget extraordinary lies; they tell more and more outrageous lies as their day of reckoning closes in. It was true of Nixon and now it’s true of Trump. The lies multiply, they become ever more far-fetched, and finally the day arrives when lying doesn’t work anymore. We’re there with Trump. He lies practically every time he takes a breath, but his lies aren’t working anymore. He’s choking from lack of oxygen. He’s a dead man lying.
There are amazing similarities in the way the two scandals unfolded. Watergate began with the break-in and wiretapping of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in an attempt to gather intelligence on the McGovern campaign for president. Russiagate began with the hacking of the Democratic National Committee server in an attempt to gather intelligence on the Clinton campaign for president. The object of the break-ins, both physical and cyber, was to disrupt the Democratic Party and gain advantage for the Republican candidate in the election campaign. Both scandals began to unravel fairly quickly. The second time the Nixon plumbers broke into the Watergate they were discovered and the administration’s crimes began to be uncovered. The Russian hacking of the DNC was discovered when Wikileaks published Clinton’s emails and the Trump campaign began using the product of this crime to their advantage.
Then came the step-by-step uncovering of the facts behind the break-ins. In the Watergate case, it involved people on the Nixon re-election committee planning and executing the break-in and cover-up. In the Trump-Russia case, it involves Trump’s people using the ill-gotten information hacked by Russians against his opponent, Hillary Clinton. It took months and then years to reveal the crimes and the cover-up of Watergate. One Nixon campaign worker after another was turned and subsequently cooperated with the Watergate investigation. John Mitchell, the former attorney general turned Nixon campaign chairman, was implicated. Evidence was revealed of campaign money being laundered and used to pay the Watergate burglars to carry out the wiretapping of the Democrats, and of more money used to buy their silence. Then the investigation reached into the Nixon administration and the Nixon White House itself, and people working directly for Nixon were implicated in the crime and cover-up. In order to continue the cover-up, Nixon had to begin firing his own people. He fired John Dean. He fired John Erlichman and H.R. Haldeman. He fired Chuck Colson. Eventually, the man under investigation fired the man investigating him. He fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox in a bald-faced attempt to bring an end to the Watergate investigation.
In the Russiagate case, one Trump campaign worker after another has been revealed to have had contacts with the Russians running the attacks on the Democratic party. There was Roger Stone. There was Carter Page. There was Paul Manafort. As their Russia contacts were revealed, each of them was fired — Stone, Page, Manafort. Then the investigation reached into the Trump White House. First, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was found to have had multiple contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Then it was revealed that he had discussed relaxing the Obama administration’s Russian sanctions with Kislyak. Flynn was fired. Then Sally Yates, the acting Attorney General who discovered Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak, thought wrongly that the White House didn’t know about them and warned the White House counsel about Flynn being compromised by the Russians. Yates was fired.
more
http://www.salon.com/2017/05/13/dead-man-lying/
= new reply since forum marked as read
