The Russian ties to the Trump administration are increasingly disturbing. The Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, seems to have been a Zelig-type character in the Trump campaign, popping up all over the place. Most recently, it turns out he was at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland meeting with top Trump advisors.
Now, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has admitted to talking to Kislyak twice after denying during his confirmation hearing that he spoke to any Russians about the campaign. Democrats pounced, many calling on Sessions to resign. Rep. Keith Ellison, who just lost his bid to become DNC Chair, implied Sessions should be facing jail time.
Democrats need to be careful. At this point, they should be calling for investigations more than consequences. Demanding Sessions resign or be charged with perjury might play well with the base, but it also makes Republicans dig in. Democrats need to reach out to Republican Members of Congress for allies who want to get to the truth, not score political points. A comprehensive and honest investigation will expose more than just Sessions and, if he did something wrong, it will show up in a proper inquiry.
In North Carolina, we need to be reaching out to our Senators and Representatives to ask them to help us get to the truth. Unfortunately, Sen. Richard Burr, Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, worked with the White House to push back on unfavorable stories related to Russia meddling in the campaign. He needs to work hard to prove his neutrality in his investigation. The stakes are not about partisanship; they are about the separation of powers and our system of government.
Conservative commentators like John Podhoretz and David Frum have expressed skepticism that Republicans in Congress will hold Trump accountable. Frum tweeted yesterday, “American institutions are built to withstand an attack from the president alone. But they are not so well-built as to withstand an attack from a conscienceless president enabled by a hyper-partisan Congress.”
I agree. If the Trump administration really has illicit ties to Russia, Democrats need to turn down the partisan rhetoric to get to the bottom of the matter. They need to make it easier, not harder, for Republicans to question the administration. They need to appeal to their sense of patriotism and their oath to defend the constitution.
If Jeff Sessions perjured himself, a proper investigation will prove it. More of the Trump nominees may have ties to Russia. His son-in-law and campaign advisors certainly did. The intelligence community is clearly worried. We need to come together as a nation to find the truth. If it’s just a few bad apples, then we need to get rid of them. If it’s a larger threat, then we clearly need to protect our country from outside interference. Only a unified effort will do that. A partisan fight will fail to protect anybody.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Dear Thomas Mills:
How naive can you possible get? This post has broken any previous record. You write:
“Democrats need to be careful. … Demanding Sessions resign or be charged with perjury … makes Republicans dig in. Democrats need to … reach out to Republican Members of Congress for allies who want to get to the truth…”
Reality check: Republicans will dig in no matter what. They dig their heels in against all evidence that Trump is a psychopathic liar, that his entire administration is beholden to Russian oligarchs, even that Jeff Sessions deliberately lied to them under oath. There is NO SUCH THING as a Republican who “wants to get to the truth.” Hasn’t been for the past eight years at the very least.
“Democrats need to make it easier for Republicans to question the administration … to appeal to their sense of patriotism and their oath to defend the constitution.”
Reality check: Republicans sold their “sense of patriotism” down the river in 1994 when they presented their Contract Against America. They sold the few remnants of it in 2002 and 2003 when they unanimously backed Dick Cheney’s illegal, undeclared war against Iraq. They burned the remaining shreds and tatters of it — the ones that John McCain tried to drape himself in — when he and his girlfriend Lindsey Graham endorsed Donald J. Trump for president, after the draft-dodging coward and pathological liar dismissed Mr. McCain’s heroism because “he was captured.” The very last ashes of it were ground into the dirt when the so-called president took a veteran’s Purple Heart and said “I’ve always wanted one of these” — and not one single Republican in the entire United States stood up to condemn him.
What the hell good do you think it would do for Democrats to “play nice” with these traitors and autocrats? What good did it ever do Mr. Obama, a real president and patriot, to offer them the hand of friendship, only to get a fist and a kick in return? What good has it done to any working American to trust or “ask” a Republican for ANYTHING in the past 40 years?
Good god, man, wake up!
I know I could not believe it when Trump actually kept the Purple Heart . Now Trump is reporting he thinks Obama had his phones tapped at Lago Mar during the campaign – unbelievable. Where & when is it going to stop? It will be a long four years. Hope the country can survive!
Thank you for your comments. You are on spot on.
“Democrats need to reach out to Republican Members of Congress for allies who want to get to the truth, not score political points”
After Democrats find the Republicans who want to get to the truth, they should saddle up their unicorns and ride off together to Xanadu. The Republican Party, according to the Annenberg Foundation, has become a conveyor belt of disinformation. Republicans were able to take over state houses and Congress after 2010 by disseminating, with surgical precision, disinformation tailored to individual voting districts after conducting focus groups to learn which issues were hot buttons for voters. This a nonsense in palatable form intended to deceive voters and turn district.
There are, no doubt, a few, but very few, Republicans who believe in truth, justice, and the American way, but once they are discovered by right wing zealots, they are sent packing after Republican primary elections.
The Republicans are at war with America, with the American people and with the truth. The sole purpose of the disinformation campaigns is to score political points. It has worked for them. The Republicans have super-majorities in states where they won narrowly or where they lost the popular vote, states like North Carolina. They did so by deploying gerrymandering, disinformation and enormous amounts of dark money. It is a mistake to call them Patriots. Patriotism, like religion, is a ruse that draws the yokels into the fold.
The last great national epiphany happened during the Iran-Contra hearings thirty years ago. Great statesmen from both sides of the aisle stood up for the country’s highest ideals. We watched the televised debates and saw an America we had hoped existed. It was a spiritual reaffirmation of our beliefs about ourselves. The majestic Republicans from the Northeast raised the appropriate concerns about the Republican President’s overreach and unchecked Executive power. They felt the weight of history and met the crisis of that day with integrity and courage. Those noble, decent eloquent men are history now, and they do not exist in the Republican Party of today.
Today’s Republicans are warriors on behalf of vast wealth, lovers of money and haters of people, haters of government and the people who need help. Today’s Republicans are cynics and misanthropes. They inspire hatred and mistrust, suspicion and antipathy. Today’s Republicans are technocrats who deploy social network technology as a means of destroying the common welfare and they use language as a device to con losers and to take advantage of suckers. Today’s Republicans have easily adjusted to the reality of Trump’s America. They are in lock-step with the alt-right and ready to complete construction on Authoritarian, White Supremacy, ready for tall walls and exclusion of brown people. They are ready to pollute our streams, foul our air, kill the uninsured and drop bombs on Muslims.
They snap their heels when their hero – the lying, cheating, thieving, sexual predator strides on stage. They will cover his crimes even if it means encouraging the ambitions of a Russian war criminal, even if it means that our nation will become subservient to a lesser nation.
Reaching out to Republicans will be useless. They have hijacked America and they are taking the country on a joy ride. The truth? Republicans don’t need no stinking truth.
I totally agree with you Jay but there is another truth. All of the Repuvlicans that I know, and they are in large numbers in my area, refuse to watch any news but Fox and some refuse to even watch that. That means that most of them act as ostriches with their heads in the sand. They do not want to know anything about what is going on because then they do not have to think about what is right or wrong.
Several of us were talking one evening about Trump making fun of the disabled reporter. Another friend did not know about it because
she does not watch any news and she did not believe us when we told,her about it. The ones that do know what is going on just love because they are finally back in total control and power. I will never forget watching them the day after the election. They were
having a party and just filled with glee. They were literally grinning from ear to ear and acting like the first graders that I taught for 33 years. The most gleeful was McConnell. I though he was going to literally turn wrong side out.
Burr and Tillis are AWOL. They will not be a part of any investigation into any shenanigans that can be even remotely associated to or with any Republican. If Sessions is removed it will be by his hand or Trump’s and Sessions seems to have more clout than Flynn at this point. Butterfield is the only one I’ve heard speak out on this specifically and I’m not truly convinced of his sincerity. Might I point out however that if this had been Hillary or any Democrat, the Republicans would be carrying crosses around to crucify her at the first opportunity. The sun would have been obliterated. The rivers would have run red. But since it’s Jeff Sessions, he’ll just recuse himself and that’s ok. The fact he lied under oath to Congress was a minor misunderstanding.
Those of you old enough will no doubt remember when Nikita Khruschev gave his 1960 speech in front of the UN. The Premier stated that, “…the US will be taken over and not a shot will be fired.” 56 years later, I see that prediction coming to fruition. America has lost the ability to manufacture. Americans has lost the jobs that produce. We haven’t lost our vision of empire however and the ‘want to’ of being the world’s police force and peacekeeper. In the process however, we turned our heads and gaze away from what happened to the Roman Empire, the British Empire, the Soviets and every other once globally dominant hegemon. They aren’t any longer.
We enabled others and have thus foresaken ourselves in the process. We were the enablers of a world economy of which we were not a grand part of. Just to be clear, some were a part of it. But it did enable the nation. Only a small part; 1% or so. Of course, 49% or so of those that voted this past election chose to perpetuate this policy.
So too shall it come to pass, we will reap what we sew.
Uh, the 1% didn’t ENABLE the world economy. They CONQUERED it. Profits have been privatized and trade deficit liabilities are left for the 99% to deal with. We still hold subservient the nations that we “helped” with the Marshall Plan, except of course for THEIR 1%.
All nations must subordinate their economies to ours, or the local 1% will face the consequences that await all those who resist the central bank system of world control.
Yes Chris. They conquered; we ENABLED them to do it.
a minor quibble, in the last paragraph the wors is sowed, not sew. Look it up please
Yes it is and I certainly know the difference. Please forgive my occasional faux pas.
Speaking of minor errors, I think the word you meant to use was “word” and not “wors”. Keyboards just don’t want to cooperate sometimes do they?
Troy, thanx for your gracious response. I was in my own warped way trying to introduce a frivolous note into an extremely fraught subject. To the gentleman who became even more distraught over my comment. prayers that you don’t suffer a stroke or some such
I am working on one of those hybrid laptop/tablet computers sitting on my lap. It is erratic and gets credit for some of the scrambling.
People have commented before on the name Sportysmom (or Smartysmom), apparently offended by it. Sporty was my pony, a Connemara with a very high IQ who was my best buddy and my babysitter. He is, sadly for me, no longer with us. For whatever that’s worth.
The great legacy we have from the present political victors is the legitimatizing of overt rage directed at anyone and everyone. To all of you furious folks out there, is it your intent to support Bannon, Trump & Co.?
Mr. Mills, this seems to me to be one of the more politically naive pieces of yours that I have read. However, at the first sign of republican willingness to do anything but march in political lock-step, I will turn cartwheels of joy.
I think that the only hope is that enough of the electorate will be paying attention and caring when the mid-terms come around, but I suspect it will take as big an economic disaster as the one that ended the last republican reign for enough people to notice, if our more-or-less dumbed down electorate will notice even then
I am much more curious to see whether the republicans will finally dare to get rid of medicare and social security, and if they do, whether even that will get the Trumpets attention. Oh, and if they do end both programs, I am betting that they will continue the payroll tax which was originally paying for those programs but has now apparently been decoupled by renaming them.
Having lived through the Nixon resignation as a young adult, I recall its gradual progress which was frustrating to most Democrats. But the persistence paid off, and Nixon eventually left office when told by Sen. Barry Goldwater that he was certain to be impeached by the House and that 2/3 of the Senate appeared to favor a guilty verdict. A similar process may unfold here if we support a logical, unemotional approach. I strongly suspect that the evidence will ultimately implicate Trump himself.
The MIC Deep State do not trust Trump to keep the gravy train rolling. So he is going to be impeached if he refuses to “play ball” in Syria and the Ukraine. Much like Nixon, the man will be removed, but the real problem of the Imperial Presidency itself will remain fully intact.
Ordinarily, what you just said would be dismissed as black helicopter fodder but in fact, you may be right. While the Dems succeeded in getting their establishment candidate the nomination, the Reps failed to secure a nomination for their favorites (preferably Bush or Kasich, Rubio if absolutely necessary). That’s why McCain and Graham are constantly harassing Trump. The elites got knocked down for a bit by the populist furies but are now regrouping to restore “the natural order of things”.
Of course the President is being manipulated by a foreign power.
But why limit the inquiry to Russia?
Interesting points, but I don’t want either the GOP or the DEMS in Congress doing this. I want non-partisan, independent investigation. As long as it has any political involvement, too many people will point to that as an excuse to discredit the results. If less criticism from the Dems will result in an independent investigation, then they should take your advice. Given Sen. Burr’s conduct up to now, I seriously doubt it would.
He has already said that he does not plan to run again. Twice 20 women from my area made an
appointment with him to discuss health care and women”s issues. When the twenty arrived at his office
he stood them up and his aide did not even come out and talk to them. During the two weeks recess in DC
he did not come home because he did not want to have to talk to any of his constituents! Disgusting
and he is an arrogant asshole!!!!!
Good one – I love it.
I’ll tell you what’s increasingly disturbing. Watching the Democratic Party do everything in its power to keep Cold War Hysteria and “Red-Baiting” at a fever pitch to keep the idea of WWIII alive.
We couldn’t get any damn media traction on Reagan’s people negotiating to delay the release of the Iranian hostages, we couldn’t get any traction in the media on the guys that negotiated to delay the end of the Vietnam War – but THIS the media is frickin’ all over. Why?
I guess it does allow them to pretend that the manipulations of the voting machines are being directed from outside the country.
The business of election manipulation was the specialty of Karl Rove. A key witness against him in the 2004 Ohio trial died in a small plane crash right before he was to testify. Several university-affiliated investigations have demonstrated machines so easy to hack it has to be by design.
And you want to blame the Russians for that?
“Money-laundering, loan sharking, vice, narcotics, bribery of public officials and extortion” – sounds exactly like the list of crimes that every major bank in the world has been found guilty of since the collapse/extortion-trigger.
I know for a fact that our elections have been grossly manipulated since the coup d’état in 2000, as any standard statistical analysis of polls over time will readily demonstrate. I would encourage you to study the information presented on BradBlog.com to start.
Please note that this time period of demonstrable manipulation significantly predates the period when we began to try and blame the Russians for “hacking the elections”.
One of the people who was going to demonstrate in a court of law that our elections are manipulated in a standard “man-in-the-middle” arrangement (because he himself was part of the operation) died the day before he was supposed to testify.
Nobody has yet been held accountable, and mainstream media never considered these facts to be important.
Capeche?