January 19, 2018--Lock Them Up

Announced Friday was the first in at least three chapters about how Russians influenced the 2016 presidential election. 

This report from the Mueller investigation and the Department of Justice did not contain a "smoking gun."

That means no one from the Trump campaign, including President Trump, was accused (yet) of knowingly playing a direct part in the dozens of efforts to derail Hillary Clinton's campaign while boosting his.

But a smoking gun, in a second or third chapter, will soon be forthcoming.

The second chapter will show the many ways in which Trump's people wittingly were involved, likely including Trump himself. A third chapter, knitting everything together, will reveal how money was the root of all evil that led to this widespread malfeasance--how Russians indirectly and directly laundered oligarchs' ill-gotten gains (including from Putin) through western banks such as Deutsche Bank, which in turn loaned it to the likes of Trump (and the Kushners) to bail out their failing real estate deals.

Expect in these two chapters to hear directly from the perpetrators themselves as perhaps up to a dozen have been cooperating, for months working undercover for the Mueller investigation, wearing a wire, in exchange for not being tried, convicted, and sent to jail.

Thus far, some of this is unintentionally ironic.

For example, we learn how pervasive and effective Russian interference was in the 2016 campaigns and likely continues to be, including as we grind toward the 2018 midterm elections.

Their use of social media and their direct involvement in dirty tricks undoubtedly helped tip the election to Trump. By working strategically how could the Russians not have turned the few thousand votes Trump needed in purple states (which they targeted) such as Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Virginia, Florida, and Pennsylvania to build his winning margin in the Electoral College?

This means (the irony) that the Russian campaign in 2016 was more effective than Hillary's--Trump won with Russian support; she lost for the same reason.

Rattled by the implication that he is an illegitimate president Trump spent the weekend off the golf course (too windy) attacking via tweets those he perceives to be his enemies from Congressman Adam Schiff (who he called a "monster") to his own National Security Advisor, General H.R. McMaster to . . . Oprah, who Trump says is "insecure".

Making what the Russians were up to vivid, Mueller, in this first series of indictments revealed how Russian operatives showed up at campaign events, including in West Palm Beach, FL with a flatbed truck on which there was a simulated jail cell within which there was "incarcerated" an actress dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit pretending to be Hillary Clinton.

Mueller is now moving quickly, wanting to complete as much of his work as possible before Trump attempts to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in an attempt to shut down the investigation.

None of this will work. Friday witnessed the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency.