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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDonald Trump has his own 'birther' crisis
By Jonathan Capehart January 11 at 12:11 PM
The political world is abuzz over stories in The Post and elsewhere over allegations that Russian intelligence services have compromising material and information on Trumps personal life and finances In typical fashion, the tweeter in chief, President-elect Donald Trump, blasted the reports as FAKE NEWS A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT! The irony here is real thick.
Trump engaged in a multi-year effort to delegitimize a sitting president with demonstrably false allegations about his citizenship. Talk about fake news. Not only that, he rode the hatred and anger that gave life to that racist birther lie to the pinnacle of American political prominence. And along the way, far too many Republicans opted to play along to reap the electoral benefits instead of calling it out for the destructive game it was.
So, here we are, days away from Trump taking the oath of office, and he must confront very disturbing real news. The possibility that Russia would have damaging information about Trump would be worthy of Tom Clancy or a James Bond film were it not for Russian interference in Novembers election, Trumps pooh-poohing of intelligence confirming this fact and his consistent and persistent praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump even applauded the autocrat as a better leader than President Obama. Im old enough to remember a time when the primacy of the U.S. president was always championed aboard and never diminished in contrast to his communist counterpart.
When I interviewed Evan McMullin for my Cape Up podcast, the former CIA operative and independent candidate for president declared Trump a Putin agent. Malcolm Nance, author of the timely The Plot to Hack America: How Putins Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election told me last July, Trump requesting Russia to specifically conduct a hack on a political opponent, as far as Im concerned that skirts title 18 of the US code section 2384 seditious speech. But Im not a lawyer. Neither am I, but that certainly sounds like a quack.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/01/11/donald-trump-has-his-own-birther-crisis/?utm_term=.2155c411394a&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1
Eliot Rosewater
(31,112 posts)and would result instantly in the end of their career, they couldnt even get jobs on "K" street.
But this is about a republican and of all republicans, Donald Trump, so not only will it not harm him with his voters but if true that he had them urinate on a bed once slept in by the Obama's, this will make him even more popular with his base.
In the diplomatic world we have a serious problem, though. We as a nation are now seen as completely unreliable and dangerous with nuclear weapons.
Bad things will happen and they wont come from where we expect them to come from.