Reality is indeed stranger than fiction.
That’s becoming a common refrain when attempting to make sense of the rather stark juxtaposition between Donald Trump’s pretensions to patriotism on the one hand and, on the other, voluminous evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and Trump’s efforts to undermine America’s traditional alliances while forging friendships with dictators, autocrats and in the case of Kim Jong-Un, outright despots.
Take last month’s G-7 meeting in Canada, for instance, which was over before it started as far as Trump was concerned and which ended up prompting Peter Navarro to condemn Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to actual “hell”.
Here’s how BNP’s Chief Market Economist and Head of US Economics, Paul Mortimer-Lee, described the summit:
The G7 summit bordered on farce, with disagreements, bad temper and name calling. At the same time as US President Trump seemed to be set on making enemies of his friends, he appeared to be trying to make friends with his enemies, calling for Russia to be allowed back into the gathering and jetted off early (after arriving late) for a meeting with Kim Jong Un.
This week’s NATO summit only served to heighten concerns that Trump is actively trying to sabotage U.S. allies. He reportedly threatened to pull America out of the alliance, sending Pentagon officials into what some sources described as “damage control” mode.
Then, in an interview with The Sun, Trump appeared to try and undermine Theresa May by criticizing her Brexit approach as soft and explicitly endorsing Boris Johnson for Prime Minister.
All of this is bizarre in the extreme and lacks anything that even approximates a rational explanation.
Well, in what is perhaps the most spectacular example yet of the above-mentioned surreal juxtaposition between Trump’s surface-level adherence to international norms and the mounting evidence that he is in fact a part of an actual, real-life conspiracy to destroy those norms, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein indicted a dozen Russian intelligence officers for hacking the 2016 presidential election, during which they allegedly stole the names and passwords of Clinton campaign volunteers and the campaign chairman.
That announcement was seemingly timed to coincide with Donald Trump’s historic meeting with Queen Elizabeth.
Just as the visuals of Trump and Melania greeting the Queen were being blasted out across social media, Rosenstein took the podium and detailed the Department of Justice’s allegations against the Russian operatives.
Watch the following videos and try to appreciate how truly shocking it is that these two events happened at virtually the same moment.
For his part, Rosenstein suggested the timing here was not intentional, telling reporters that Trump was well aware of the coming charges.
President Trump was briefed on allegations against the 12 Russians and is "fully aware" of the actions taken by the Justice Department, Deputy AG Rosenstein says. https://t.co/MMOPo1XpSg pic.twitter.com/vgfNERGIBG
— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 13, 2018
Nothing further.
“That announcement was seemingly timed to coincide with Donald Trump’s historic meeting with Queen Elizabeth.”
Any sense here that the real conspiracy is not the ‘Manchurian Candidate’, but those on the other side seeking to undermine a bizarre but legally elected president?
Personally, of course, I have no idea whether Trump is Vlad’s boy or the victim of a Clintonite coup attempt. What I do find laughable is a US official indicting foreigners for interfering in the election. After observing several decades of unbridled US interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states, and directly witnessing the effects of recent violent US-led regime-change efforts in MENA I can’t suppress a wry smile at the utter hypocrisy. Actually, it’s more ‘revulsion’ than a wry smile, but that sounds too histrionic.
“Whataboutism” at its finest.
Let me ask you a question: If I steal a TV from your house, do I get to defend myself by saying “well, sure, I robbed him, but other people have stolen things before.”
Bottom line: Whatever happened and is still happening vis-a-vis U.S. efforts to implement regime change or otherwise influence domestic politics in other countries does not mitigate the circumstances here.
No matter how many times Fox News or Trump or anyone else points to “hypocrisy” it doesn’t change the facts/evidence here and that’s what drives them so crazy.
Maybe Trump will ditch the presidency and fly to Moscow with Putin? That would certainly immortalize both men in American history.
The indictment was for 12 Russians, and 0 Americans. If anything, it backs up trump’s “no collusion” claim. Trump will celebrate.
Trump and Giuliani may celebrate but this is one of 31 indictments, so far…..and many of those indictments were Americans and members of the Trump campaign or his supporters. There will be more indictments and many more will be Americans.