Faces investigation on possible collusion with Russia
PRESIDENT Donald J. Trump lied. He lied to the American people. He lied to the world. And he is not owning up to it. He is not apologizing about it.
In four rants on Twitter in the early morning of March 4, Trump accused President Barack Obama of a grave impeachable offense, claiming his predecessor wiretapped him in Trump Towers during the 2016 presidential election.
Trump offered no evidence, pretty much like how he lied about his other “conspiracy theories” that Pres. Obama was not born in Hawaii but in Kenya and was therefore not eligible to be president of the United States.
He lied about the 3 million “illegal” voters whom he said made him lose the popular vote to his political opponent, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
He lied about President Obama and his people being the ones orchestrating all the protest rallies against him and his policies, as well as leaks about his administration.
And the list of lies and conspiracy theories went on and on, with Trump labeling people, institutions, media organizations that do not support his narrative and are critical of him and his policies as “fake news.”
Pressed for evidence from the bipartisan intelligence committees in Congress, Trump then fabricated more lies on a global level, implicating one major ally. Trump alleged that the British spies surveilled him on behalf of Obama.
Trump’s administration alleged Pres. Obama bypassed the U.S. intelligence agencies so that there would be no U.S. footprint in the scheming act.
This was an accusation that the British spy agency denied, saying this is against the law and the agreement among the allies sharing intelligence information.
The United States is part of the “Five Eyes,” an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. These are the allies that help us in our fight against terrorism and other threats to our democracy and the security of the Free World.
Trump held on to this false narrative until his own Department of Justice exposed his lies when FBI director James Comey, along with the officials of the National Security Agency, told the bipartisan intelligence committee in Congress that they found no evidence that Obama wiretapped and surveilled then President-elect Trump before, during and after the election. It never happened.
From the testimony of Comey, we also found out that since July 2016, the FBI has actually been investigating if the Trump campaign had been in collusion with Russia to meddle in the U.S. presidential election last year.
There had been numerous reports of Trump’s people’s secret meetings with the Russian envoy and other officials, even visits to Russia. Trump’s national security adviser Mike Flynn was forced to resign after being exposed to have lied about his meetings with the Russian Ambassador. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who he later appointed to be senior adviser, was reportedly with Flynn.
Trump’s surrogate during election who he appointed to be his Justice secretary even lied under oath about his secret meetings with the Russian ambassador.
Questions begged to be answered: Did Russia meddle in our sacred U.S. election to help Trump win? Were there talks about Trump easing sanctions that Obama imposed on Russia for hacking into our computers to spread fake news and propaganda to destroy Hillary Clinton and help Trump win? Could there be other tit-for-tat relationships politically and financially between Trump and Putin?
Whatever your political color may be, this issue goes beyond partisan politics because Russia, an adversary of the United States and the free world, has been strategically taking all of these illegal acts to hack into the cyber accounts of the United States and European countries to interfere in their elections, cause destabilization in the free world – just as how Russian leader Vladimir Putin reportedly wanted to push his own agenda to re-establish the Russian Empire.
During the House Intelligence Committee hearing, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) expertly connected the dots between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
Schiff clearly presented the timeline of events that linked Trump campaign officials, such as former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and former campaign manager Paul Manafort, to Russian government officials.
In his statement, Schiff made the conclusion that these webs of contact between Trump’s camp and Russian officials could be a coincidence — but he said that there’s enough smoke to demand a thorough investigation.
“Is it possible that all of these events and reports are completely unrelated, and nothing more than an entirely unhappy coincidence? Yes, it is possible,” Schiff said. “But it is also possible, maybe more than possible, that they are not coincidental, not disconnected and not unrelated, and that the Russians used the same techniques to corrupt U.S. persons that they have employed in Europe and elsewhere. We simply don’t know, not yet, and we owe it to the country to find out.”
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
