Dr. Jason Johnson discusses Gen. Flynn’s loyalty during his time with the Trump Administration. Other panel members include Michael Steele, A.B. Stoddard, Kimberly Atkins, and host Nicole Wallace.
Michael Flynn
Dr. Jason Johnson on Political Ramifications of Kremlin Link to Candidate Trump
Dr. Jason Johnson discusses the issue of the Kremlin seeking communication with candidate Trump via the National Rifle Association (NRA). Other panel members include Julia Ainsley and host David Gura.
CNN: Jason Johnson on Sean Spicer and Wiretapping Accusations
On CNN New Day with Poppy Harlow and Chris Cuomo, political science professor Jason Johnson discussed the issues of the day with Washington Post reporter Abby Phillip and CNN Political Analyst David Gregory.
On White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer insisting the President Donald Trump’s wiretapping accusations against former President Barack Obama were well-founded.
On Republican opposition to the American Health Care Act and President Trump’s proposed federal budget
On links between former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and Russia.
Trump’s Game of Russian Roulette Could End in 1 of These 3 Ways
On Saturday morning, President Donald Trump woke up, looked at a few right-wing websites, realized that he was going down and started tweeting blame at former President Barack Obama.
Trump, like most abusive men, can’t get over the fact that his partner’s ex, and America’s previous boyfriend, Barack Obama was pretty good. Moreover, it’s a lot easier to say that the ex is ruining things between Trump and America than to admit it’s been his own muddy shoes on the couch that has the USA scrolling through NCAA prospects.
Amid the political schadenfreude derived from watching the Trump administration burn, however, there is a worrisome feeling that one can’t quite shake. Namely, how does this scandal actually end? And when it does, will that be any good for anybody? No matter how you slice it, the answer seems to be not anytime soon and no.
The Russian timeline with the Trump administration is pretty clear. Last spring the Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta’s emails. Damaging information from the emails were put out through the world’s pawn shop, WikiLeaks. Information came out at just the right time to damage and distract the Clinton campaign when it had momentum.
So where do the almost half dozen members of the Trump campaign who met with Russian agents and ambassadors come in?
Common sense suggests that the Russians either shared the leaked documents or coordinated the leaked information with what the Trump campaign wanted out there. It doesn’t matter how good Russian intelligence is—only the Republicans would know exactly what was the best, most damaging information to drop on Clinton and when. And with the help of Steve Bannon and the Breitbart website, they’d know exactly which far-right sites would pick up and normalize the information.
The intelligence community in the United States knows this, and it has been following Trump and his whole campaign for months. It already took out Michael Flynn; now it has vote-suppressor-in-chief Jeff Sessions, and it’s only a matter of time before Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is busted. The scandal will eventually make its way to Trump, which gives us three possible scenarios.
Scenario 1: Trump Gets Impeached
Congress appoints a special prosecutor, puts together a bipartisan commission on Russian hacking in the 2016 election, and decides that Trump’s behavior and involvement with Russia rise to the level of “treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors.” At this point Trump would be impeached and could be forced to leave the presidency. There are several problems with this scenario, however.
First, a little Schoolhouse Rock civics lesson: A president can be impeached only by a majority vote in the House of Representatives. Then the case goes to trial in the Senate; the president can be removed only by a conviction there. Does anyone actually believe that House Speaker Paul Ryan would ever get around to impeaching Trump, let alone Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell holding a trial? Ryan knows that from now to the 2018 midterms is his window to turn America into an Ayn Rand/Heritage Foundation wet dream, and there’s no way that happens if Trump isn’t in office to distract “working-class whites” with stories of Mexican rapists while Ryan and Congress snatch their health care.
A Donald Trump who got impeached but stayed in power would be a danger to everyone: He’d be even more unhinged than he is now, and we’d still have the same horrible actors in Congress. The economy would tank because of instability, and foreign powers would be even more aggressive, sensing that the U.S. is in absolute chaos. Not a good look all around.
Scenario 2: Congress Does Nothing
What we see happening now in Congress is what I refer to as “end of empire.” When a domestic political group is more concerned with its power than with the actual sovereignty of the country, then you know the empire is crumbling from within.
The Republican Party cares more about pushing through its policy agenda than about the fact that the nation has been compromised by Russian intelligence, white nationalists and people who literally want to start World War III. But hey, we gotta stop Obamacare, right?
It is possible that Congress does absolutely nothing and continues to scream “Nothing to see here” while every Jason Bourne on the U.S. payroll is handing out Russian receipts like it’s Black Friday. This would erode trust in the U.S. government by all but a few million maniacal right-wing bigots scattered across the nation, and lead to even more aggressive actions by our national security agencies.
How aggressive? Just bear in mind, the spymasters behind this country are more patriotic than partisan (not including FBI Director James Comey). They are more concerned with the future of American sovereignty and democracy than with who happens to run the country at any particular time, and they have concluded that Donald Trump is a threat to the 250-plus years of American government. No one knows how far this could go, but history tells us that a sitting president of the United States has never gone to war with our national security apparatus and come out the victor. That doesn’t bode well for Trump.
Scenario 3: Trump Leaves Office
Despite what the Alex Joneses of the world believe, there is no silent coup against Donald Trump. Obama is too busy play-fighting with Richard Branson and being adored by One Direction-style crowds with every public appearance to be orchestrating some grand plan against Trump. However, there is a potential coup right underneath Trump’s nose that is much more likely to get him out of office and still cause this nation harm.
Come on, don’t these guys look like they’re up to something?
Vice President Mike Pence was not Trump’s first choice. Pence was lied to by former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and likely Trump, and is generally the odd man out. You can just imagine Pence finding out every week that there was a staff party with ice cream cake in the Oval Office and he just happened not to get the email.
Also consider that Paul Ryan is simply a better-looking version of Frank Underwood and he’s never liked Trump. Is it really so hard to imagine a scenario in which, quietly, Pence and Ryan convince Republicans that Trump is so toxic that he poses a threat to their overall agenda? That they would use Russia leaks, a bad 2018 midterm or some other scandal to push for a Pence-Ryan presidency to emerge from the ashes of a failed Trump administration?
The problem, of course, is that Pence is just as dangerous and radical as Trump; he’s just a better politician. Second, Trump is too rich and too powerful and has too much media savvy to go quietly into the night. If he’s not in the White House, then he’s going to cause as much havoc in this country as he can, and the disruption he might cause is more than anyone alive has ever experienced.
So in the end, what does this all mean? It means that the Russian scandal is serious and will likely result in some irreparable damage to the United States. Unfortunately, the result of these scandals might be even worse for the country than what we have now. Sad.
This article originally appeared online at The Root.
The Root: Democrats Must Make Sure Russiagate Isn’t Like 1996’s Chinagate
Name a successful president who takes campaign assistance from a “frenemy” of the United States, pretends not to know what his vice president does and does not know, and radically alters foreign policy towards the nation that helped him get into the White House.
Raise your hand if you thought of Bill Clinton.
As bad as Donald Trump’s #FlynnGhazi and #Russiagate scandals are, Bill Clinton’s re-election in 1996 was marred by shockingly similar collusion with Chinese spies and agents. Unfortunately, Republicans attempts to hold Clinton accountable at the time failed spectacularly due to arrogance, underestimating the White House and forgetting the long game.
Donald Trump is no “Slick Willy” but if today’s Democrats aren’t careful Donald Trump could escape Russiagate just as easily.
The similarities between Russiagate and Chinagate are uncanny given the scandals are almost exactly 20 years apart. February 14, 2017, the New York Times reported that Trump campaign staffers were in regular contact with Russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign. February 13, 1997, Bob Woodward (of Watergate fame) broke a Washington Post story alleging similar malfeasance from Bill Clinton and the Democrats in the 1996 campaign.
A Justice Department investigation into improper political fund-raising activities has uncovered evidence that representatives of the People’s Republic of China sought to direct contributions from foreign sources to the Democratic National Committee before the 1996 presidential campaign, officials familiar with the inquiry said.
The day the story broke, unlike Trump, President Bill Clinton kept his cool. His first comments on the Washington Post story were to call for an investigation.
“This is a serious set of questions raised here, and the first I knew about any of it was last evening,” Clinton told reporters. “They obviously have to be thoroughly investigated and I do not want to speculate or accuse anyone of anything. I know nothing about it other than what I heard last night.
“But obviously it would be a very serious matter for the United States if any country were to attempt to funnel funds to one of our parties for any reason whatever,” Clinton added.
Clinton appeared to let Republicans have their way and hearings on campaign finance were headed up by Law & Order actor, Senator Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) and Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) in the House. While Republicans beat their chests and stunted in public hearings, Clinton privately covered his tracks and paid back his Chinese benefactors.
First, the DNC gave back over $2.4 million in questionable contributions before the Congressional investigations were completed in 1998. Then, from 1997 to 1999, Clinton quietly lifted the ban on American companies selling satellite and nuclear technology to China, a move that helped the Chinese military jump ahead almost 20 years. Calls by the FBI to appoint an independent counsel to investigate Chinagate were blocked by Attorney General Janet Reno.
Over the course of two years and several investigations Republicans uncovered a cast of unscrupulous Chinese Bond villains to splash over the airwaves.
- John Huang: a businessman who raised over $3 million for the Democrats in the 1996 election, much of it from Chinese government-run businesses. He was rewarded with an unusually high security clearance and a position in the Commerce Department.
- Johnny Chung: a businessman in 1996 who took $366,000 directly from the head of Chinese Military Intelligence and funneled it to the DNC and the John Kerry Senate campaign.
- Charlie Trie: a restaurateur from Arkansas looking to cash in on his friendship with Bill Clinton took over $1 million from Chinese government-fronted companies and sent over $200,000 to the DNC.
You could easily switch Rex Tillerson, Paul Manafort or even General Michael Flynn for any of this trio. Vice President Al Gore, like Mike Pence today, claimed to know nothing despite being at ground zero for much of the scandal. In 1996, Gore swore he thought he was attending a “community outreach luncheon” at the Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles. Yet somehow the DNC raised $65,000 from a bunch of monks who had taken a vow of poverty. In 1997, after being caught lying to the FBI Gore used the “iced tea” defense. He claimed that he drank so much iced tea that he was always in the bathroom when illegal fundraisers were being discussed at the White House.
In the wake of such damning evidence and overwhelming public support for the investigations, why were the only indictments of fundraisers not in the White House? Why did Chinagate backfire and propel Democrats to unprecedented wins in the 1998 midterms? Because Republicans were more interested in smearing Clinton than protecting national security. Because Bill Clinton is a better politician than Donald Trump. Because Bill Clinton wasn’t at war with his own national security agencies. And ultimately because Republicans promised a knockout and delivered a nosebleed. However there are lessons for today’s Democrats in the Republican failures from 20 years ago.
Democrats should be calling for an independent investigation into Russia’s influence on the Trump campaign and should use that as a litmus test for any future confirmation hearings. Also, Democrats need to get behind this story. The NSA and CIA are strategically leaking information to weaken what is seen as a compromised presidency. All Democrats have to do is capitalize on the information. Democrats don’t need to sell any wolf tickets, they’re being handed out for free. Trump has only been in office a month and Russiagate is a national security issue, not a springboard for 2018 and 2020. It’s much easier to motivate calls to Congress when voters think they’re protecting America against corruption instead of setting up Corey Booker or Elizabeth Warren for Iowa.
Donald Trump doesn’t have the political capital, nor the loyalty within the national security apparatus to cover himself the way that Clinton did. It is also unlikely that he will get impeached. Nevertheless Democrats, with some long-game planning can hamstring his administration and translate their patriotic acts into local elections across the nation in 2017. Let this play out, strike when necessary and let Trump hang himself. Russiagate is open but Democrats would be wise not to rush through just yet.
This article originally appeared online at The Root.
