by Robert P. Bomboy
By Robert P. Bomboy
My wife and I were riveted to our seats when Robert Mueller, the special counsel, laid out the high points of his 448-page report showing that the principals in Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign — including Trump himself — knew that a foreign power was intervening in our election and welcomed it, built Russian invasion into their strategy, and used it.
Looking at it, summing it up, Mueller declared that Trump was not cleared of obstructing justice, nor was he completely exonerated, as Trump has so often declared; he said that Trump had been untruthful in some of his responses under oath; and he called Trump’s encouragement of stolen WikiLeaks “problematic,” to say the least.
As Mueller’s report on his 22-month investigation reveals, Trump and his devilish associates did everything in their power to corrupt our democracy – running for president, and becoming president, and greedily filling their pockets at the same time, and even to this day.
Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman in the spring and summer of 2016, used his paramount position for five months to abet what the Russians were doing to us, made millions, and sweated desperately to get out from under his mountainous debts to Russian and Ukrainian billionaires, who had notoriously evil ways of collecting.
Mike Flynn, the former army general, racked up a $500,000 bribe as a secret agent of the Turks, even in the short time that he was Trump’s national security adviser. And the deeper they dig under the mud, the more foreign agents they uncover, all sucking up the juiciest of bribes.
Trump himself, with the big lie in his mouth, wriggled and dodged even while he was a candidate, trying to make millions and millions building a Trump Tower in Moscow and licking the boots of Vladimir Putin.
Lie, lies, lies. More than 10,000 lies that we know of from Donald Trump. More lies, by far, than truth.
Lies about the millions that Trump could suck from the Trump Tower he craved in Moscow. Lies about the intercourse that he and his scalawags had with the Russians.
Lies about the unwarranted firing of FBI director James Comey, who wouldn’t play ball with Trump, and lies about the orders Trump gave to fire Mueller and obstruct his investigation into one of the most serious foreign attacks our democracy has ever suffered.
“Lies,” charged Congressman Adam Schiff, chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, “lies about secret negotiations with the Russians over sanctions and lies about Wikileaks. Lies about polling data, and lies about hush money payments. Lies about meetings in the Seychelles Islands to set up secret back channels of illicit communications. Lies about a suspicious secret meeting in New York’s Trump Tower. Lies to the FBI, lies to the Special Counsel, and lies to our committee. The story of the 2016 presidential election is a story about disloyalty to country, about greed, and about lies.”
Adam Schiff is not one of the Democrats running for president, but perhaps he ought to be. He is strong. He is cool and calm, but he’s determined. He cuts right to the heart of the matter, and he knows where this is going.
Robert P. Bomboy has written for more than 60 national magazines and is the author of six books, including the novel “Smart Boys Swimming in the River Styx.” He taught for more than 30 years in colleges and universities, and he has been a Ford Foundation Fellow at the University of Chicago and in Washington, D.C.
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