The last vestige of a scoundrel

Giving life to “thou doth protest too much,” President Trump insists at every turn that there was no collusion between his campaign and the Russians. Hours after the Nunes memo was approved for release under the veil of the need for transparency, the president claimed that the memo totally vindicates him.

Nothing in the memo, however, addresses whether Trump and his team colluded with Russia. Rather, the memo goes only to the issue of whether the FBI and Justice Department made adequate disclosures to the FISA court in surveilling Carter Page. Contrary to Trump’s vindication assertions, we know, to a certainty, that senior members of his team sought to collude with Russia.  

{mosads}On June 3, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. received an email from Rob Goldstone asking if he would meet with a “Russian government attorney” about incriminating information Russia had on Hillary Clinton. Goldstone added that this was “part of Russia and its government support for Mr. Trump.” Donald Jr. lunged at the invitation, writing, “if it’s what you say I love it.” A scant six days later, on June 9, the Russian attorney flew to the United States to meet with Donald Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, all involved in the campaign at the highest level.

When asked, Donald Trump Jr. first claimed he never met with the Russians on behalf of the campaign. When news of the June 9 meeting subsequently surfaced, he claimed the meeting primarily concerned Russian adoptions. A month later, when the New York Times reported on the Goldstone emails, the story changed again. Donald Jr. conceded that the June 9 meeting occurred for the purpose of obtaining incriminating information about Hillary from Russia, but the meeting proved to be useless because the Russians really didn’t have the goods on her.  

Taken at his word, Donald Jr., Kushner and Manafort were ready, willing and able to collude, but the Russians couldn’t bring enough dirt to the table. Of course, with his changing stories, family loyalty and his own possible jail time in the balance, Donald Jr. has no veracity on the subject of whether the sought-after collusion ended at that point. But, as Steve Bannon reportedly said, it is inconceivable that neither Donald Jr., Manafort nor Kushner reported the meeting to Trump Sr.

The fog of suspicious facts thickens. We also know that, after the June 9 meeting, there were a series of communications between Donald Jr. and WikiLeaks, which is known to have close ties with Russia and believed to be an agent for Russian intelligence. In fall 2016, at WikiLeaks’ request to Donald Jr., the candidate himself tweeted praise for WikiLeaks and urged those who were interested to click on a link to apparent disclosures made by WikiLeaks. On Oct. 10, Trump proclaimed, “I love WikiLeaks.”  

During the campaign, Trump openly asked Russia for help: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you are able to find the 30,000 [Clinton] emails that are missing.” Trump has publicly attacked members of his cabinet, senators and congressmen of both parties, executive branch leaders he appointed, federal judges and leaders of key nations with which we are allies. All the while, he consistently praises Vladimir Putin, whose apparent ties to organized crime and notorious silencing of critics has been repeatedly and widely reported.  

Additionally, we know that there several other high-level contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia. Those include trips to Russia by Carter Page, discussions between Russians and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Russians and Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, and Russians and Kushner, to name a few.

Trump has refused to believe the unanimous consensus of our intelligence agencies that Russia improperly interfered in the election. Despite the recent warning by CIA Director Mike Pompeo that he expects Russia to try to interfere with the 2018 midterm elections, Trump refuses to sanction Russia pursuant to a rare bipartisan law Congress passed in response to Russia’s interference in our last national election. To quote Lewis Carroll: “Curiouser and curiouser!”

In addition to collusion, there is the shroud of obstruction. After firing FBI Director James Comey for essentially failing to give a loyalty pledge, Trump brazenly told the Russian ambassador that he had taken care of the Comey problem. While traveling on Air Force One, the president helped craft a false statement asserting that the June 9 meeting between a Russian attorney, his son and others concerned the adoption of Russian children. If this isn’t obstruction of justice, it’s certainly flirting with it.

Both George Papadopoulos, the Trump campaign’s foreign policy adviser, and Flynn have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about their contact with Russia. Manafort and his former business partner, Rick Gates, have been indicted for crimes including conspiracy against the United States.

If I were the president’s lawyer, I would be concerned. Where there is smoke, there often is fire. The smoke of both collusion and obstruction is in the air. We don’t know just how big those fires will become. That is the job of special counsel Robert Mueller.

Apparently, though, Trump and his cronies have concluded that the best strategy is to obfuscate the real issues through contrived memos that have no bearing on what matters most — that is, the possible criminal, and perhaps even treasonous, acts of the president and several of his senior advisors, and the role of Russia in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In law school, we would have called this strategy the last vestige of a scoundrel.

Gary A. Garfield is the retired chairman, president and CEO of Bridgestone Americas Inc. He practiced law for 29 years and was the general counsel and chief compliance officer before leading the company.