Stone also appeared to know beforehand that Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta’s emails were going to be released through WikiLeaks (“it will soon [be] Podesta’s time in the barrel,” he tweeted on August 21, 2016). In an interview with a right-wing site, Stone again stated that he had interacted with Assange.
For Stone’s contacts with Guccifer 2.0 and Assange to form a basis for impeachment, we would need to know whether Stone was acting on behalf of the campaign or Donald Trump, whether Stone advised Trump or the campaign of these contacts, and whether Stone realized the Russia connection. These and other questions are now in the hands of special counsel Mueller, and Stone himself has raised the possibility that he might be indicted.
Michael Flynn, President Trump’s national security adviser, pleaded guilty in late 2017 to lying to the FBI about whether he discussed sanctions with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The first discussion took place on December 28–29, 2016, and concerned the fact that “‘members of the [Trump] transition team” do not want Russia to escalate,” according to a New York Times timeline of Russian election interference. It was on the twenty-ninth that President Obama ejected thirty-five Russian diplomats and announced that he was imposing sanctions for Russia’s interference in the presidential election. The second discussion was on December 31. Flynn was a member of Trump’s transition team at the time. Kislyak told Flynn that “Russia chose not to retaliate in response to Flynn’s request.” In essence, then, the focus of the discussions was that Trump might look at sanctions differently and that Russia should not overreact. Flynn’s messages were apparently delivered to President Putin, who responded as requested. He announced that Russia would not take retaliatory actions against the United States, a decision hailed by President-elect Trump between the two discussions. “Great move on delay (by V Putin),” he tweeted on December 30. “I always knew he was very smart!”
A series of denials followed. Flynn falsely denied to the FBI that he had discussed sanctions with Kislyak. Members of the incoming Trump administration denied they’d ever spoken among themselves about sanctions. Vice President Mike Pence denied five days before the inauguration that Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak concerned sanctions.
Then came the firings: Six days after President Trump was sworn in, acting attorney general Sally Yates advised the White House of FBI evidence that Flynn was lying, and that his compromised position left him dangerously open to blackmail by the Russian government. Four days later she was fired, and within two weeks Flynn was gone.
Why was the discussion of sanctions something to conceal? Did Flynn know about Russian help during the campaign and the campaign’s efforts to get it? If the lie was intended to cover up a deal with Russia involving election help from Russia in exchange for relief on sanctions, it could lay the foundation for an impeachable offense. Flynn’s actions both during the campaign and after would have to be examined in great detail to determine if collusion occurred.
George Papadopoulos, a foreign affairs adviser to the Trump campaign, pleaded guilty in October 2017 to lying to the FBI about his ties to Russia. Records show that he was in frequent touch with Michael Flynn and Trump campaign chief Steve Bannon regarding his efforts to broker ties with the Russian government. Hearing from a man he later identified as a European professor that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, he transmitted this information to several people in the Trump campaign.
Why did Papadopoulos lie? What was there to conceal? We need to know more about both Papadopoulos’s effort to create ties between the Trump campaign and Russia and how the “dirt on Hillary” information was handled by the campaign, including whether Trump himself was informed.
Carter Page, another foreign affairs adviser to the campaign, met with top officials in Russia and was a target of the Russian government’s spy recruitment effort. Page was already well known to American intelligence for his Russian sympathies—and was praised on Russian state television as a “famous American economist.” US intelligence officials obtained wiretaps on Page, which were approved by the special foreign intelligence surveillance court. When word emerged of alleged contacts between Page and Russian officials, including the president of Rosneft, a state-run oil conglomerate, Page resigned. Trump campaign communications director said of Page, “He’s never been part of our campaign. Period.” Five months earlier, in the same press interview in which he discussed Papadopoulos, Trump acknowledged Page as an “excellent guy.” Page’s interactions with the Russians would need further probing.
The Steele dossier, officially titled “Trump-Russia Dossier,” reported many connections. The one that caught the public imagination was his suggestion that Putin had kompromat on Trump—specifically, that he consorted with prostitutes in Moscow. It also claimed that Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer, had traveled to Prague to arrange for a new liaison to the Russians on election interference after Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort resigned. It alleged that Cohen had discussed trying to destroy evidence of any connection between the Russian agents and the Trump campaign if Clinton won.
If Cohen traveled to Prague and met with Russian officials to coordinate Russian campaign assistance, as the dossier claimed, and if candidate Trump knew of his activities, it would likely support not only impeachment charges, but criminal ones as well. More information needs to be developed about this. It would also seem critical to verify/disprove the kompromat allegation: if President Trump is being blackmailed by Putin, impeachment may be an urgent remedy.
After an investigation by New York–based federal prosecutors, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight federal charges of tax violations and bank fraud. Two of the charges related to hush-money payments Cohen claimed were directed by Trump, which are discussed below. Cohen has since been talking to prosecutors on Mueller’s team.
The National Rifle Association may also figure in the Russian interference matter. Donald Trump Jr. met with a top Russian oligarch, Alexander Torshin, at an NRA convention in May, 2016. Reportedly close to Putin, Torshin was suspected by Spanish authorities of involvement with Russian organized crime syndicates. He was also close to Maria Butina, the subject of the July 2018 indictment in the Russian election interference investigation for allegedly being an unregistered Russian agent. Press reports suggest that Torshin may have used Butina to funnel millions of dollars to the National Rifle Association money for use in supporting the Trump campaign.
More needs to be uncovered about this matter. But, if the Trump campaign was aware of the Russian campaign contribution and nonetheless accepted support from the NRA, it could spell trouble for the Trump campaign, and, depending on his personal knowledge, for President Trump himself—not to mention the NRA.
Grounds for Impeachment
As we have seen, the first question about Trump’s conduct is whether under the Constitution a president may be impeached for actions taken before he or she is sworn into office. In other words, may President Trump be impeached for conspiring with Russia during his campaign for the presidency?
As noted above, George Mason was clear about the matter at the Constitutional Convention. Professor Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz, in To End a Presidency, support and explain Mason’s position: “Without an impeachment process, presidents could obtain office corruptly and then enjoy the poisonous fruit of their own electoral treachery. Democracy itself might be destroyed.”
Under Mason’s doctrine, if Trump conspired, colluded, or collaborated with the Russian government to obtain its help in damaging his opponent and advancing his candidacy to win the election, he could be subject to impeachment for it. Events occurring before taking office may create a basis for removal from office when those events are related to the fraudulent or corrupt acquisition of office. Collusion with Russia to secure the presidency would fit this requirement. Moreover, aspects of the possible Russian collusion have migrated into the Trump presidency. We see it in the president’s inexplicable support for Russia, his cover-up of Russian conne
ctions with his campaign, and his attacks on the Mueller investigation into them.
Is there sufficient information available to impeach Trump for colluding/ conspiring with Russia?
The information currently available shows an intense desire on the part of the Trump campaign and people associated with it to secure Russian aid in the election. We know the willingness and intent to receive information in the instance of the Trump Tower meeting, also a likely violation of federal campaign finance law. We know of the specific request by candidate Trump for Russian help in finding the Hillary Clinton emails, made at his July 27, 2016, press conference. The same day, there was a Russian response: an attempt by GRU hackers to access Hillary Clinton emails, followed by a WikiLeaks announcement of their forthcoming release. (Hacked DNC emails had been released by WikiLeaks July 22.)
But there are some critical missing elements. We do not know for certain that Donald Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting beforehand, and we do not know whether Russia’s actions in trying to hack Clinton on the same day that Trump called for it was in response to Trump’s appeal or if the WikiLeaks announcement was in response to the June 9 meeting.
We also know of Trump’s personal encouragement of hacking, in the Clinton and Podesta examples, and of the response as well—the continued release of emails by WikiLeaks. We know that Trump confidant Roger Stone was in contact with Russian spies and encouraged them to continue their work. But did he know they were Russian? Or spies? Was he acting on behalf of the campaign? Did Trump know about the contacts and approve?
The large number of contacts between the Russian government and the Trump campaign is certainly troublesome, and the lies about these contacts suggest that there is something to hide. The continued cover-up of Russia’s involvement in the election carries the assault on our democracy into Trump’s presidency. Further troubling are the concerns raised by Trump’s policies that mirror Putin’s objectives, such as Trump’s attacks on NATO.
While Mueller is pursuing whether some of the actions of Trump and his campaign related to Russia are indictable, the question for us is if they are impeachable. The only way to ascertain this is by serious investigation. It needn’t occur in the context of an impeachment inquiry, but it is imperative to determine whether there is just a lot of smoke or if there is fire, too. Not only national but international security may depend on it.
Some Historical Perspective on Foreign Collusion: The Nixon Precedent
If Donald Trump colluded with Russia to get elected, it would not be the first time in American history that a presidential candidate covertly worked with a foreign power to affect the outcome of an election. It happened with President Richard Nixon. The issue of treachery should have been part of the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment proceedings against him, and he should have been charged with betraying his country, but there was not a hint of that subject in the proceedings. The facts just weren’t known then. Nixon biographer John A. Farrell put together the elusive pieces of the puzzle and wrote about the matter in Politico in 2014 and later in his Richard Nixon: The Life.
In late October 1968, just before the presidential election, President Lyndon Johnson called a bombing halt in Vietnam to allow peace talks to take place in Paris. The time was propitious for a settlement of the war, since the Russians were pushing for it, too. Nixon, the Republican candidate, got wind of the peace efforts and became frightened that a peace treaty would help his Democratic opponent win the election. He wanted to sabotage, or as he put it, “monkey wrench” the peace talks, according to notes taken by his top aide, H. R. Haldeman.
Nixon personally directed that a “back channel” to the South Vietnamese government be used. That channel was Anna Chennault, a fixture on the Washington scene and a top Republican fund-raiser who had been married to a US general stationed in China during World War II. As instructed, she contacted South Vietnam’s US ambassador and told him to “hold on. We are gonna win.” She was urging the South Vietnamese not to sign any peace agreement because Nixon was going to win the election and give South Vietnam a better deal than it could get under President Johnson. The plan worked. Several days later, South Vietnam announced it was boycotting the Paris peace talks. The peace initiative was dead, and Nixon won the presidency.
President Johnson knew of Chennault’s phone conversation because the FBI monitored it. He called it “treason” in a private talk with Republican senator Everett Dirksen, who agreed with him. President Johnson did not make the matter public, and Nixon’s direct role was unknown until Farrell found Haldeman’s notes a few years ago. The Chennault phone call may have postponed the end of the Vietnam War for five years. During that time, 20,000 American soldiers died, as did large numbers of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians, untold numbers were injured, and great destruction and devastation continued to take place.
We should not have to wait fifty years to learn whether Trump conspired with Russia—and we will not have to if a serious and thorough inquiry on that question is undertaken. If it turns out that there was no conspiracy—just a great deal of evocative suggestions of one—so much the better. If a conspiracy occurred, though, we need to know it so that we can protect the country by removing the president from office.
Abuse of Power by Separating Children from Parents
After assuming office, as part of his anti-immigration policy, President Trump initiated a policy to reduce the influx of people, including refugees, from the Central American countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras (the “Northern Triangle”). Their journey is often a treacherous one through Mexico, with serious dangers encountered along the way. While some cross the US border simply to seek economic opportunity, many, often single mothers, come with their children fleeing serious violence by gangs or others in their home countries. Some apply for asylum once they reach the United States and seek refugee status.
From July to November 2017, the Trump administration began testing in a limited geographical area a new approach: separating children and parents at the border. This was a shock and awe operation: seize the children and thus terrify and traumatize parents who would get word back to the Northern Triangle that children would be forcibly taken away if they tried to enter the United States with their parents.
Whatever the results of that pilot effort, it was clear that by May 2018, a large-scale program of child separation had been put into place across the Southwest border of the United States, under which children were taken from their parents by Department of Homeland Security personnel and placed in the custody of the State Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. There was no room for discretion or compassion of any kind. Infants and toddlers, disabled and sick children were also taken, sometimes under false pretenses and sometimes by force. Many parents were not given an opportunity to say good-bye. Many didn’t understand what was happening: there were acute language difficulties because many didn’t speak Spanish, but only indigenous languages. Many were told untruths about what was happening. Worst of all, in many cases the parents were not given any information about how to find their child or children, nor did the federal government take appropriate information from the separated children to identify them or their parents to ensure reunification. And hundreds of parents were deported without their children, ensuring great difficulties in reunification. In some cases, the taking of children was used as a threat to force parents to give up their asylum claim.
According to a DHS report of June 16, 2018, 2,342 children were separated from adults on the border between May 5 and June 9 alone. Lawsuits were brought to stop the program and secure reunification—one by the attorneys general of seventeen states and the District of Columbia. That suit claimed the Trump administration “made clear that the purpose of separating families is not to protect children, but rather to create a public spectacle designed to deter potential immigrants from coming to the United States.”
The impetus for this program was President Trump’s personal frustration with the in
creased influx over the Southwest border, and he was the one who issued orders to the attorney general and the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to address the problem. One of those directives dealt with ending the so-called catch and release program, which had allowed the release of families with children after they turned themselves over to or were apprehended by federal authorities.
After a huge public outcry excoriating the separation policy, President Trump referred to the policy in a May 26, 2018, tweet as a “horrible law.” He signed an executive order on June 20, 2018, purporting to end it. No provision, however, was made to reunite families. It took an order from a federal court to force the president and his administration to start the process. Under court supervision, many families were reunified, though not all. Months after the order, more than 500 children were still not reunited with their families, quite possibly because, as reported by the New York Times, more than 300 parents were deported without their children. Locating them has been an exceedingly difficult task that has fallen to private organizations. In addition to the language barriers, some parents live in very remote areas in the Northern Triangle and are very poor, without phones or Internet.
Abundant evidence of the harm inflicted by this separation policy has been gathered. Press reports based on interviews with parents who were reunited with their children after weeks of separation show various kinds of serious psychological trauma to the children. Experts have stated that the harm could be long-lasting, even permanent. If serious damage was apparent in the children who were reunited after only weeks of separation, think of the damage still being done to those children who have not yet been reunited.
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