Russians Infiltrate Republicans

I was born at the height of the Cold War, just a few years after Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy was finally forced out of power. McCarthy used his position as committee chair to make himself a household name by accusing thousands of federal government employees of being communist spies and getting them fired. He kept raising the stakes until he tried to terrorize Army officers on national television and was finally called out by members of his own party.

Growing up I watched black and while movies at school that explained how the FBI watched out for communist spies; those movies showed how secret messages could be passed in hollow coins or using a folded newspaper to slip a note from one person to another as they passed each other on the street. Russian communism was feared by the public due in large part to Republicans ranting about being tough while claiming Democrats were weak. Lyndon Johnson damaged his own legacy by claiming US naval ships were attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin in order to have an excuse to send combat troops to Viet Nam as a way to show his was strong against communists.

In 2011, Maria Butina became founding chair of a new Russian gun rights group called the Right to Bear Arms. In 2013, NRA President David Keene was introduced as an honored guest at the Right to Bear Arms conference in Moscow. In December 2015, Butina’s Russian organization sponsored an NRA delegation, which included Keene and Trump campaign surrogate Sheriff David Clarke, to Moscow where attendees met with influential Russian officials including former deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin who had been under U.S. sanctions since 2014.

In 2016 the NRA doubled the size of its contributions to the National Republican Committee in the 2016 election cycle after connecting with Russian Maria Butina and her benefactors who provided millions of those dollars. Butina is also on record having cozied up to a wide range of Republican elected officials and political operatives. Butina is now in jail accused of espionage for the Russians.

The most prominent homeschooling organization in the U.S., the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) is a bastion of Republican support. The HSLDA has been associating with Russian operatives since at least 2014 when Michael Donnelly, director of global outreach, spoke there participated in a conference held in Russia. Donnelly wrote that he “met with senior leaders of the [Russian] Orthodox Church.” As Donnelly noted on Facebook, “[The] family conference I’m attending today is being held at the Kremlin and says a lot at least on its face about the value of family in Russian government.” One of the events sponsors was a foundation run by sanctioned Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev.

The World Congress of Families (WCF), links sanctioned Russian officials to the broader U.S. religious right. The WCF, is a joint Russian-American project that reportedly receives funding from sanctioned Russian oligarchs like Vladimir Yakunin, who is the former head of Russian Railways and a close Putin confidant. One of the links between the HSLDA, the WCF and hence to sanctioned Russian officials is Alexey Komov. A Russian national and fluent English speaker, Komov is the official Russian representative to the WCF. He also works directly for Konstantin Malofeev, nicknamed “God’s oligarch” for his role in financing religious-right ventures in Russia and abroad. Malofeev is a financial contributor to the WCF also currently under U.S. sanctions for having helped fund separatists in eastern Ukraine.

So much has changed, now it’s the Republicans and their supporting institutions that are playing footsy with Russians.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - January 25, 2019

Impeach Trump - Don't Hold Your Breath

If you’re a Democrat expecting Republicans either in Congress or on the street to turn against Trump anytime soon you should go back to the lessons of Nixon and Watergate. There you’ll find that accusations of wrong doing by the press and Democrats only serve to strengthen their commitment to their guy. We’ve got a long hard road ahead before there’s the slightest chance that Republicans in Congress will turn on Trump and it may never happen if Robert Mueller’s investigation is shutdown as various Republican leaders have repeatedly called for.

Trump like Nixon before him wasn’t loved by leading Republicans, they didn’t trust him to be conservative enough after having been the liberal Republican Dwight Eisenhower’s Vice President. It was the beginning of the Watergate investigation that solidified Nixon’s support among the conservative media and leadership. The more the New York Times, the Washington Post and other media outlets reported on his criminal actions the more strongly Republicans supported Nixon.

We can see this in play today with Trump, Republican leadership held their collective noses when Trump won the nomination and backed tepidly through the general election. As repeated Trump administration scandals have been reported such as former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price’s use of private charters and military aircraft for travel, today’s more powerful conservative media have defended Trump. Congress has generally ignored the unethical behavior including Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin who also used private charters and military aircraft for personal travel at the taxpayer’s expense. The same holds true for recently departed Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt who mis-used taxpayer funds for unnecessary security details, construction of a soundproof phone booth in his office and other violations of agency rules.

Even this week’s outrageous Helsinki Summit remarks in which Trump took the side of former KGB agent and current Russian President Vladimir Putin over every American intelligence agency and his own staff in stating that he had no reason to believe that the Russians had interfered with the 2016 election has only briefly ruffled the feathers of a few Republican Senators and media figures. Only a day later everything was back to normal, none of those Senators said they’ll vote against Trump appointees or support Democrats calls to allow congress to review Trump’s tax returns. By the time you read this I expect that Republicans will be talking about how Trump’s two hour private meeting with Putin was a good thing and somehow improved national security.

Even the revelation that Russian secret agent Maria Butina was arrested and indicted on charges of conspiring against the United States hasn’t affected Trump supporters in his party. Of course that might be because she helped funnel Russian government funds to the National Rifle Association which enabled them to spend millions of dollars on the 2016 election.

I’m sorry to tell you that until there’s not only a dead body, a smoking gun, video recordings and eye witness testimony from Mike Pence we’re going to be stuck with Trump. It’s not enough to just vote in November, you’re going to need to get your parents to vote, your children to vote and your siblings to vote. If you really want to stop this train wreck you’re going to have to commit to donating a few dollars to Beto O’Rourke’s senate campaign or Mike Collier for Lt. Governor. You’re going to have to volunteer for John Rodgers who is running for Texas House in Guadalupe County or Steve Kling for Texas Senate in our area. Nothing will change if we wait for Republicans to do it.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 20, 2018