The Trump-Russia Facts Lead To Only One Reasonable Conclusion

The Trump-Russia Facts Lead To Only One Reasonable Conclusion
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-patterson-trump-russia-collusion_us_5b72400be4b0bdd0620c350f

This fact is incontrovertible: By word and deed, on the world stage Donald Trump has become an invaluable asset to Russia.
The question is whether America’s president is also a Russian asset — specifically, whether Trump’s bewildering affinity for President Vladimir Putin is simply a matter of ego and admiration or whether Putin possesses information that empowers him to influence Trump’s conduct.

This question has the gravest implications for our foreign policy, national security, electoral integrity and rule of law. If the answer is damning, Trump must quash special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation not simply to protect himself but also to conceal that, in matters critical to Russia, his actions as president are circumscribed by Putin’s wishes.

Such a scenario remains difficult to accept. But a mass of publicly available evidence regarding Trump’s behavior over 30-plus years suggests that Putin is positioned to function as Trump’s handler. This history makes it imperative to protect Mueller’s inquiry until it finds the truth.

The most obvious potential leverage between Trump and Russia is the most contemporary: that Trump’s campaign accepted Russian help to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, perhaps in exchange for a promise of sanctions relief. Disclosure of such an arrangement would likely doom Trump’s presidency, rendering him susceptible to Russian pressure. Indeed, the bare public revelation that Trump knowingly accepted Russian assistance — even without an explicit quid pro quo — would be unacceptable to Trump: As a political and psychological matter, he clearly would do anything to avoid the delegitimization of his victory.

Either way, Putin holds secrets that Trump is desperate to conceal — giving the Russian an invaluable source of leverage over America’s president. But there is compelling evidence that Russia’s electoral help in 2016 is the culmination, not the genesis, of Trump’s enthrallment by the Kremlin.