<div dir="ltr"><h2 class="gmail-title">Fantasies About Russia Could Doom Opposition to Trump</h2>
<div class="gmail-meta">
<span class="gmail-submitted">By David Swanson<br><a href="http://davidswanson.org/node/5399">http://davidswanson.org/node/5399</a><br></span></div>
<p>To many Democrats for whom killing a million people in Iraq
just didn't rise to the level of an impeachable offense, and who
considered Obama's bombing of eight nations and the creation of the
drone murder program to be praiseworthy, Trump will be impeachable on
Day 1.</p>
<p>Indeed Trump should be impeached on Day 1, but the same Democrats who
found the one nominee who could lose to Trump will find the one
argument for impeachment that can explode in their own faces. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/impeaching-trump_us_5869b806e4b0eb586489f3a4">Here's</a> a "progressive" Democrat:</p>
<blockquote><p>"In his dalliance with Vladimir Putin, Trump’s actions
are skirting treason. ... By undermining further investigation or
sanctions against the Russian manipulation of the 2016 election, Trump
as president would be giving aid and comfort to Russian interference
with American democracy."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There's a bit of a nod there -- in the word "investigations" -- to
the lack of any evidence that Russia manipulated any U.S. election, yet
that manipulation is stated as fact, and a failure to support further
sanctions as punishment for it becomes "aid and comfort." What level of
punishment exactly constitutes the absence of aid and comfort? And how
does that level of punishment compare with the level likely to produce
war or nuclear holocaust? Who knows.</p>
<p>Failure to sufficiently punish a foreign government, even for an
actual proven offense, has never been a high crime and misdemeanor. The
United States is in fact bound by the Hague Convention of 1899, the
Kellogg-Briand Pact, and the United Nations Charter to take any such
dispute to arbitration and to settle it by pacific means. But that would
require producing some evidence rather than mere allegations. Lawless
"punishment" is much easier.</p>
<p>But further evidence can emerge to counter the claim. The lack of
evidence for the claim can weigh ever more heavily on public opinion.
And the dangers of creating further hostility with Russia can enter the
consciousness of additional people.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, we have a man planning to be president later this month
whose business dealings clearly violate the U.S. Constitution in terms
of not only foreign but also <a href="http://www.salon.com/2016/12/21/conflicts-on-top-of-conflicts-another-emoluments-clause-that-should-bar-donald-trump-from-office/">domestic</a>
corruption. That's a perfectly overwhelming case for impeachment and
removal from office that doesn't require opposing a single incident of
mass murder or offending a single Pentagon contractor.</p>
<p>Beyond that, Trump is becoming president after election day
intimidation, the partisan-based removal of voters from the rolls, and
opposition to attempting to count paper ballots where they existed. He's
arriving with the stated policies of unconstitutionally discriminating
against Muslims, murdering families, stealing oil, torturing, and
proliferating nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>In other words, Donald Trump will be from Day 1 an impeachable
president, and Democrats will have already spent months building their
campaign around the one thing that won't work. Imagine what will happen
after all their hearings and press conferences, when their supporters
find out that they aren't even accusing Vladimir Putin of hacking into
election machines, that in fact they are accusing unknown individuals of
hacking into Democrats' emails, and that they are then vaguely
speculating that those individuals could have been sources for
WikiLeaks, thereby informing the U.S. public of what was quite obvious
and ought to have been widely reported for the good of the U.S.
government, namely that the DNC rigged its primary.</p>
<p>By the time the Democrats beat themselves to the floor with this
charade, more facts will likely have come out regarding WikiLeaks'
actual source(s), and more hostility will likely have been stirred up
with Russia. The war hawks have already got Trump talking up nuclear
escalation.</p>
<p>Luckily there is an ace in the hole. There is something else that
Democrats will be eager to hold Trump accountable for. And give Trump a
month and he'll produce it. I'm referring, of course, to that greatest
fear of Our Beloved Founding Fathers, the ultimate high crime and
misdemeanor: the presidential sex scandal.</p></div>