The Russian Riddle

Senator Bernie Sanders and Ohio Governor Kasich were in a CNN town hall event with some time ago. While being critical of President Donald Trump, the Governor was trying to give him the benefit of a new president on a learning curve for the mistakes he has been making since becoming the president. The Senator did not agree and his disagreement was most emphatic.

Senator Sanders stated categorically that there was something "strange" about President Trump that had nothing to do with a new president on a learning curve. He asked the Governor and the viewers to ask themselves how a President of the United States could adore the Russian President Vladimir Putin as his hero or have an opinion about Russia that Trump has. He also asked how a US president could call media fake and liars and dismiss it the way Trump has and still be a normal president of the United States.

President Trump has continued to adore Vladimir Putin and Russia even when investigations by the FBI and the Congress were revealing that members of his campaign staff were in direct contact with the Russians during the election. In fact, early in January before President Trump's inauguration, the US intelligence communities had jointly informed Congress that "Moscow interfered to help Donald Trump win."

Testimonies in the Senate by former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Russian interference did not clear the President either. Since those testimonies, more damaging leaks of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence have led to the appointment of a Special Counsel that would investigate the whole Russian saga that could lead to the demand to impeach the President - and even worse.

The President has remained nonchalant with these developments like all these simply did not bother him. He played out these developments as lies that the media manufactured as he had said it does and would. While all these were happening, he had received the Russian Foreign Minister at the White House with the Russian Ambassador. There was nothing unusual or wrong in meeting the Russian Foreign Minister but what he did at the meeting cannot be explained as either normal or logical - and perhaps not even legal.

He dismissed the US media from covering the meeting. He also did not allow any foreign media, except the Russian, to cover it! It was not just unbelievable but weird. News of the meeting and pictures of it came in the US media courtesy the Russians!  

If this was not weird enough, the US President shared classified intelligence with the Russian Foreign Minister that was passed to the United States by Israel without clearing it with the latter. And, according to what was leaked in the US media about the meeting, Trump had boasted to the Russian Foreign Minister that he had sacked the FBI Director James Comey to stop the FBI from finding Russian involvement in the presidential election.

The Senator was therefore right to dismiss Governor Kasich's attempt to defend President Trump on the learning curve. Trump had threatened to lock Hillary Clinton for jeopardising the country's security with her email based on evidence that was at best benign. And now the President is facing accusations of passing intelligence to the Russians that notwithstanding what the President thinks of it, is his country's sworn enemy.

What had started as the Russian Riddle looking at the extent to which they had interfered in the presidential election is now unfolding as a scary story for President Donald Trump and those close to him on the campaign trail, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner. The part of the riddle exposed so far is really the plot for a master spy thriller. Trump's love for Russia and the Russian leader is inexplicable. And his firing of James Comey and conversation with two other intelligence chiefs to "slow down" the Russian investigations are all together building the plot towards a conclusion that could make a master spy thriller look pale by comparison. The Russian Riddle could end by an impeachment if it is proven conclusively that Trump had intentionally tried to stop the investigations.

If the investigations reveal that members of the Trump campaign had accepted money from the Russians during the campaign or thereafter to defeat Hillary Clinton and further Russia's interests, there could be people close to the President who could go to jail. General Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and Carter Page look likely candidates for such sentences.

And the latest name to come into the dangerous fray of Russian connections is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law. Jared Kushner is being investigated for meetings with a Russian banker with a known background of working for the KGB. He met the banker at the urging of the controversial Russian Ambassador in Washington who has emerged as a central figure in the Russian Riddle.

The developments in the case of connections between the Trump campaign/administration and the Russians are no longer under the control of President Trump. His ability of the past to dismiss news/developments not favourable to him as lies manufactured by the media is not working with the Russian Riddle. The media that he had trashed at will and apparently successfully is now paying him back in full for the insults and the abuses he had hurled at them.

In fact, even the Manchester terrorist attack took second place to the media's interests in one breaking news after another about President Donald Trump and the Russians. The appointment of the Special Counsel and the manner of his appointment was the first sign of a crack in his world of alternative facts where he accepted those things of politics and governance that he wanted and dismissed those that went against him as lies manufactured by the crooked media.

That President Donald Trump is losing his control over the Russian Riddle was underlined when he appointed a private legal counsel to protect him. And at the time of filing this article, the Russian Riddle exposed two most dangerous angles thus far: first, Jared Kushner had sought to set up with the help of the Russian Ambassador a private back channel to the Kremlin by passing US intelligence; and second, the Senate Intelligence Committee has asked for the details of all communications of the Trump campaign from the start in 2015 until it ended its work following the election of President Trump.

The critical and crucial question of the FBI and Senate investigations on the Russian Riddle would now focus primarily on how much President Donald Trump was aware of it. In case he knew of all that have been revealed about his associates including his son-in-law, he would be in very deep trouble making any nightmare consequences possible. As for his associates in contact with the Russians, they may be facing the "lock her up" demand that they had cheered when President Trump had raised it during the campaign about Hillary Clinton.

The writer is a former Ambassador.

serajul7@gmail.com