Donald Trump, Jr. had a meeting with a Russian lawyer under the pretense that there could be some dirt on Hillary Clinton. This was June of 2016. A Russian pop star through his publicist, Rob Goldstone, arranged the meeting. Goldstone said this information was highly sensitive and part of the Russian government’s efforts to help his father win the 2016 election. Off goes the collusion alarm by the news media. This is bad. Trump, Jr. should have known better, but a pop star, who has been described as an ‘Enrique Iglesias wannabe,’ that can only get gigs at the shopping mall his father owns outside of Moscow being a player in this supposed international plot sounds a bit far-fetched. The meeting turned out to be a waste of time, with no information on Clinton being divulged. In fact, the 2016 campaign was never discussed. Still, it seems as if the Trump team was pondering colluding with the Russians from the email chain. They also cannot say there’s zero evidence with regards to this story anymore. At the same time, this isn’t actual evidence of collusion, as Ed noted—maybe its more “collusion curious” to quote CBS News’ John Dickerson.
As the news media debates, hyperventilates, and postulates collusion, even throwing out treason accusations, let’s circle back to Keith Olbermann, who went on an unhinged rant in May, pleading with foreign intelligence services, including the Russians, to leak whatever damaging information they have on President Trump. It was part of his nauseating “The Resistance” YouTube show for GQ.
“We, the citizens of the United States of America, are the victims of a coup,” he said. “We need your leaks, your information, your intelligence, your recordings, your videos, [and] your conscience. The civilian government and the military of the United States are no longer in the hands of the people, nor in control of any responsible individuals on whom you can rely.”
He continued by saying, “the White House is run by a cabal of an amoral family syndicate that has [at the time] spent its first three months slapping a dollar sign on anything that stood still long enough; a cabal with, at its head, a man with seemingly no interest in our laws, in our rights, in our Constitution, and with a brain that appears to not work properly.”
“We, the citizens of the United States of America, are the victims of a coup,” Olbermann repeats. “For months we have heard that your organizations have damning evidence against Donald John Trump. Whatever evidence you may have, you cannot conceal it any longer.”
That’s really eloquent, Keith. Seriously, it’s no wonder why you’re relegated to this medium rather than say, MSNBC, Current, or even ESPN. This is totally asinine. Second, like these agencies are really going to take your pleas from…GQ seriously. What are you smoking, Olbermann?
There was an election. Hillary Clinton lost fair and square and now because you don’t like the result—you think that foreign intelligence sources, including the Russians, should break protocol, violate their laws concerning classified information, and possibly cause more unrest because you don’t like Trump. Newsflash: In a democracy, often times the other person wins. You just have to deal with it, kid. This whole video is the idiot’s guide to national security. Even someone who isn’t part of the Deep State knows that leaking classified information is a federal crime, and that leaks for these selfish reasons—not liking an election result—is destructive to our democracy. Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept noted this in February—and yes, he finds the Trump presidency worrisome, even dangerous, but he’s more afraid of the intelligence community since they aren’t constrained by constitutional conventions [emphasis mine]:
Even if you’re somebody who believes that both the CIA and the deep state, on the one hand, and the Trump presidency, on the other, are extremely dangerous, as I do, there’s a huge difference between the two, which is that Trump was democratically elected and is subject to democratic controls, as these courts just demonstrated and as the media is showing, as citizens are proving. But on the other hand, the CIA was elected by nobody. They’re barely subject to democratic controls at all. And so, to urge that the CIA and the intelligence community empower itself to undermine the elected branches of government is insanity. That is a prescription for destroying democracy overnight in the name of saving it.
This almost borders on parody for its stupidity. Foreign nations may not like Trump, but they certainly don’t see this as a constitutional crisis. Trump fired James Comey from the FBI, something that’s well within the authority of his office. This isn’t a dictatorship in progress, nor is it a junta; a fanciful term the former MSNBC host said is the reason for his call to arms. Our democracy has been stripped in the eyes of Olbermann, and those who have inhaled too much glue.
The ironic part is that Olbermann is saying we’ve been victims of a coup, and then proceeds to make his case that the only way to fix this is with…another coup from people who are unelected. Trump was elected; even Obama said he’s the legitimate successor to him, and that the “will of the American people” was reflected in the 2016 results. Was the Obama White House a partisan agent, Keith? Was that collusion? From the liberal rulebook, calling on foreign agents, including the Russians, to leak damning information on Trump, some of which might contain classified material, because you don’t like him is treason. Of course, I don’t think that, but these are your rules, not mine.
I wish I could say that no one takes this rant seriously, but some have, as evidenced in the report on the recent leaks from within our own government that was released by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), chair of United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Kim Strassel of The Wall Street Journal added that these leaks, besides a having a detrimental impact on our national security, have one purpose: to take out the president. So, Olbermann isn’t the only one spouting nonsense that goes against the very mechanisms that were established to keep us safe. He called for the weaponization of the unrestrained intelligence community to remove a democratically elected president for the sole reason that he doesn’t agree with him politically. That’s insane.
Here’s a passage from Olbermann that’s quite chilling, “They [The Trump administration] have no rules. For now, the rest of us who only want our democracy back, we can have no rules either. We will take the risk of re-establishing the rules later on.”
So, for all that talk about how Trump disrespects our laws, rights, and Constitution—all of which is unadulterated crap—you’re calling on the anti-Trumpers to resort to lawlessness and hope that the good will of men will abdicate their shadow positions of power in this attempt to leak Trump out of office. That’s cute, Keith. As any student of history would tell you, things don’t turn out that way.
In all, Keith is saying I don’t like how the election turned out, Trump is a fascist, and that means everyone who spies on everyone else has to disregard their oaths and training they received to ensure the protection of civil liberties because our democracy is under attack, of which there is no evidence—but I just feel this way.
Yikes.