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Yes, collusion with a foreign adversary is a bad thing
SCOTT PIEPHO
Cases and Controversies
Published: July 21, 2017
I spent last week out of town and for the most part away from media. When I left, the conservative critique of the Russia scandal was the lack of evidence of collusion. When I got back, the dominant story was that collusion is perfectly normal.
I hope no one injured their back moving those goalposts.
The talking points changed after release of an email chain showing that Donald Trump Jr. met with Russian operatives for the purpose of gaining access to hacked emails from Hillary Clinton. The promised information was offered as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump” according to the initial emails.
The move from “no proof of collusion” to “collusion, schmollusion” is the latest shift that the president’s apologists have had to make as the denials, untruths and omissions from the president’s advisors about their contact with Russians have been proven to be false and the stories in the FAKE NEWS media have been proven not to be FAKE.
So now, people in my business are groaning over the fact that we have to explain why colluding with a hostile government to try to win an election would be bad.
Seriously.
Occasionally a reader asks why I don’t move off of the various Trump scandals. Honestly, I try. This week I would much rather delve into the Cruz Amendment to the Senate health care bill or discuss the ominous calving of a Delaware-sized slab of the Larson Ice Shelf.
But when confronting a fundamental cleavage consisting of those who are concerned that the president may be in league with an expansionistic, kleptocratic authoritarian and those who say that everything is fine, it feels irresponsible not to use this platform to note what could be an existential threat to our democracy.
So here goes. When someone supports a campaign, they generally want something for their trouble. The more valuable the thing given, the more the giver generally wants.
Set aside the very real concerns about wealthy Americans or corporation supporting campaigns. It should be, and until this moment has been, understood that a contribution is unacceptable when the benefactor represents a foreign power. An interested foreign power’s goals are rightly presumed to be at odds with the best interests of our country.
Both the requirement that the president be a natural born citizen (which once upon a time caught the current president’s interest) and the ban on emoluments from foreign governments (not so interested) constitutionalize this concern.
Furthermore, a credible case has been made that the Hillary emails would constitute a thing of value for a campaign, meaning that soliciting those emails from foreign contributors would constitute a violation of campaign finance laws. That risk would make Donald Trump Jr. a target for blackmail.
The fact that we are having this discussion throws every decision the White House makes about Russia policy into doubt.
For example, when he’s not claiming that President Barack Obama failed to respond to Russian hacking, President Trump is trying to undo one of his predecessor’s responses. He’s attempting to give back, without any return concessions, the two diplomatic compounds that President Obama ordered seized after the hacking was revealed.
Also, Democrats are inquiring into why the Department of Justice recently settled a major money laundering case involving the Russian firm Prevezon, according to a number of news outlets including The Hill. Prevezon is represented by Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer with whom the younger Trump met.
Veselnitskaya is also Russia’s lobbyist in their efforts to overturn the 2009 Magnitsky Act, named after a Russian lawyer who died in police custody after he was framed for a $230 million tax fraud in which Prevezon has been implicated. According to NPR, the act froze assets of and banned from the U.S. a number of Russian businessmen and high-ranking officials.
In retaliation for the act, Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended American adoption of Russian babies. Recall that Trump Jr.’s initial story about the meeting was that they were discussing Russian adoption.
Perhaps the president has a valid reason for giving back the compounds and maybe the Prevezon settlement was the best his Justice Department could manage. And maybe in the future, he’ll have equally good reasons to want to repeal the Magnitsky Act.
But since people in and close to his campaign actively courted Russian help, the administration has lost credibility regarding policy toward Russia. To put it in lawyer terms, the contacts with Russians create the appearance of impropriety.
This isn’t difficult and shouldn’t be controversial. But if we have to explain the danger of colluding with a foreign adversary, there it is.