The President-elect takes office, and Washington can only talk about how bad this will end.
“The most dangerous enemies of the Republican government, wrote Alexander Hamilton, — there are mainly because of the desire of foreign States to obtain inappropriate power and influence in our councils. How they can best pander to this, if not by creating your own creatures in the highest authority of the Union?” Hamilton with his published in 1788 warning about “politics and corruption” in some supernatural way, reminds us of today’s Washington, where the enemies of trump imagining that he is a Russian agent of influence, the Kremlin bribed or blackmailing. The new head of state acts entirely in the mode of Nixon, fighting with the media, with the intelligence community, with the establishment and with the “rotten system”, although his place behind the Desk in the oval office he occupies for the first time. Scandal — if you call it that — is already something like Watergate. Can you imagine that trump, like Nixon, will eventually be forced to leave his post?
Ask this question at the time of the inauguration of the new President, it would seem, absurd. However, the Senate intelligence Committee has announced hearings on “the relationship between Russia and the people involved in political campaigns”. The Republican Chairman of that Committee, made a statement, noting that the investigation will be “bipartisan”, and that, if necessary “people to testify are summoned”. And “the Committee will follow the information where it led”. If employees of trump, or his friends did meet with Russian officials to coordinate hacker attacks in the presidential election process in the United States, there is a special word for it: treason. This is the most important of all “particularly serious crimes and offenses” referred to in the Constitution as grounds for impeachment. But people trump deny that such meetings took place. And even if they were, what did you discuss? And if there was discussion of concern from the Senate Committee, know about them trump? What the President knew and when did he know it?
If, if, if. A long series of “if.” Crucially, in Congress, almost non-existent public debate on the impeachment trump — neither in the one nor in the other party. Openly about this possibility say very few, and among them the member of Congress and Democratic party, Maxine waters (Maxine Walters) — as was to be expected. She told cable channel MSNBC that trump is “so tightly embraced with Putin… I don’t believe him, I don’t think he believes the American people. He’s not gonna get away with it. We are all investigating and find out what his true connection”. She makes the following conclusion: “Let’s find out if we do not put the most important in the free world the position of a person who can be held hostage by Putin and Russia.” One senior congressional staffer told me that Democrats in the house of representatives for tactical reasons has asked to keep his mouth shut until the inauguration. They realized that the Republican majority in the legal Committee of the house of representatives does not support hearings, and it was there, put forward the motion to impeach. Not-yet-1974.
A College Professor named Robert kutner (Robert Kuttner) began its own campaign for the impeachment of the President. He is trying to convene an “independent body composed of reputable lawyers and other professional experts, to assemble a dossier on the abuses and violations that provide grounds for impeachment”. This dossier (the word finds today response in Washington) will be passed to the judicial Committee of the house of representatives if, as hoped kutner, will start impeachment hearings. “We need to give him the opportunity to take office, he said, echoing analysts from Congress. — We have to see what his actions give the grounds for impeachment during his presidency. It is necessary to collect evidence… to Republicans in Congress felt the need to distance themselves from trump… this is What happened with Nixon.”
Professor kutner is hoping for the regulations on remuneration of the U.S. Constitution, which States that an official may not receive gifts from foreign States without congressional authorization. “Trump can’t mix your personal interest and presidential duties. He is simply unable to control yourself, and don’t know how to do that.”
The founding fathers believed bribery of foreign countries are so dangerous that the regulations on remuneration are included in the first article of the new Constitution. They meant the scandalous incident with Benjamin Franklin, who received from the French king diamond-encrusted snuff box. Franklin was allowed to retain it only after the approval in the continental Congress.
Trump’s lawyers believe that the provisions on the remuneration payable to him is not applicable. And the tramp, giving an interview after the election, New York Times, said, “the Law is completely on my side, because the President can not be any conflict of interests.” Then he announced that plans to transfer their business in trust. However, to manage them will be his sons, and therefore this is not an anonymous trust, which was used by other presidents. His lawyer sherry Dillon (Sherri Dillon) spoke at a press conference on the issue: “while the President trump will be at his post, will not be concluded no foreign transaction. New deals within the country permissible, but they will be subject to scrutiny”.
But what happens if the foreign diplomats will start to settle in Washington, D.C. trump? What if the banks start to lend his companies money at low interest rates? If the foreign Corporation will be to buy apartments in trump Tower? Trump has rightly said that he in Russia, few commercial interests, but Russian massively invest in new York real estate, and (it recognizes his son Donald Jr.) in a trump company.
Perhaps the opponents of the trump think he made the Constitution the same as Russian prostitutes allegedly made a bed in the presidential Suite of the Ritz Carlton. (Sorry for the maid, if so.) But no one has seen any records of his sexual pleasures. It is quite possible that the incriminating evidence exists. But it is better to apply a different term of the Russian special services provocation or fabricated operation with the aim of introducing the enemy into confusion. In March of last year someone from the us intelligence services had told me about the other alleged recordings of the Kremlin money sent to trump’s assistants on his campaign. The entry allegedly made by the Estonian secret service. The dossier, which was made by a former MI6 man Christopher Steele (Christopher Steele) (many claims there are unsubstantiated), says about the meeting, which, according to its sources, followed by the Estonians. If the Senate intelligence Committee won’t find anything in this pile bread crumbs, Republicans on the judiciary Committee of the house of representatives will not vote on holding impeachment hearings. But if anything comes up, anything is possible. Trump, like Nixon, could then complain of the attempts of Congress to repeal the election results. “If you resign now, Nixon told his Cabinet, when it began increasingly to call to leave the presidency, then America can go the way of parliamentary government in which the Executive branch will remain in power only if they have a vote of confidence from the legislative branch”.
According to supporters of trump, it’s the least I can do opponents. Now the most popular story on the right “information” the website Infowars is: do not kill the CIA trump? “If you are a home — suggests this site — saarikangas and prepare to wait out the storm. Do not trust the media, and try to notice if there has been a coup, and not whether the deposed constitutional government.”
Infowars is a tool host Alex Jones (Alex Jones), who told his listeners that we should expect a military coup. As evidence, he cited a tweet with a call to impose martial law, which wrote the liberal TV presenter Rosie O’donnell (Rosie O’donnell), in the past quarreling with trump. “The first time you heard it from me,’ said Jones. — Ladies and gentlemen, they say openly that they want to cancel the election results. They are preparing… stating that we need to impose a state of emergency and restore order, if trump was a Russian agent…They plan to send 50 million Americans to the camps for reeducation. And these people are serious”.
It’s pretty interesting, but something similar I heard on impeccably liberal reception in Washington on the eve of elections. There were intellectuals from the sphere of national security. “If you elect trump, said one of the guests — it will end in a military coup. Tanks on the lawn of the White house”. Same at the reception I was told another person. The talk in Washington is similar to some kind of hallucinations. Impeachment, no matter how implausible it may seem, it’s not the strangest scenario, which is spoken in this city today, when the 45th President takes the oath.
Paul wood BBC correspondent and researcher of the Fund “New America”.
