As anyone outside the White House knows, Donald Trump Jr. is in really hot water. We now know that when he was told that Russia was willing to give him salacious information about Hillary Clinton, he literally jumped at it. In so doing, he engaged in behavior that would be a firing offense at best–in a normal business, that is–and treasonous at worst. But former National Security Agency analyst John Schindler thinks that it means more than that. It’s hard proof that the Trump campaign indeed colluded with the Kremlin.
Donald Jr. would have you believe that when he, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort met at Trump Tower with pro-Kremlin lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, they were there primarily to talk about how to let American families adopt Russian kids again. But Schindler isn’t buying it. For one thing, he finds it hard to believe that two of Trump’s most senior advisers, as well as the then-operating head of the campaign, would have any time to discuss adoptions.
Even if they had the time, Schindler argues that it’s not likely adoption was really on the agenda. According to Bill Browder, the former boss of murdered Russian dissident Sergei Magnitsky–the namesake of the law that blacklists those suspected of killing him in 2009–Veselnitskaya has very close ties to Russian intelligence. He believes that anyone who did any sort of “due dilligence” on her would have no good-faith reason to meet her.
As we now know, Donald Jr. agreed to meet with Veselnitskaya because he believed she was proffering dirt on Hillary. The Russian term for this is kompromat. Its use was standard operating procedure during Soviet times, and has continued today in Russia. Schindler believes that when Donald Jr. got that email, he expected to receive “very high level and sensitive” kompromat about Hillary delivered via “a trusted Kremlin intermediary.”
As it turns out, Veselnitskaya only offered “vague” and “ambiguous” information. But Schindler, a 10-year NSA veteran, argues that even if Veselnitskaya didn’t deliver, the meeting itself is still outrageously illegal.
“You don’t have to commit the crime to get arrested for it; planning and attempting to do so can be enough to get arrested—as any viewer of NBC’s popular reality show To Catch a Predator knows.”
Schindler, like most political junkies, noticed Donald Sr.’s deafening silence on this issue, even though his own son is being boatraced by “the failing New York Times.” It’s the strongest indication of the “panic” that has set in at the West Wing in the last 48 hours. They have good reason to be afraid. If there is even the slightest sign that Trump knew about that meeting in Trump Tower, he is in deep trouble.
Schindler makes no secret that he is a conservative. And yet, he can’t understand why his fellow Republicans can’t take off their red blinders and realize how serious this is.
You're either OK with using a hostile intel service to win a US election or you're not.
There's no middle ground.https://t.co/eCEXuAbAfW
— John Schindler (@20committee) July 11, 2017
Then one of the greatest parties in the history of democracy, anywhere, is choosing suicide. Hope they don't. https://t.co/XvHZKe3ooq
— John Schindler (@20committee) July 11, 2017
If you don't want to accept the FACT that Team Trump wanted Russian intelligence help, because that "helps liberals" you are not a patriot.
— John Schindler (@20committee) July 12, 2017
I hope we can all agree this is more substantially serious than lying about getting a blowjob. https://t.co/bxw5EznJK6
— John Schindler (@20committee) July 12, 2017
If there was ever a time to take off the red and blue blinders, this is it. Before we are Democrats and Republicans, we are Americans. And as Americans, we must recognize that it increasingly appears that a major-party campaign was willing to crawl into bed with a hostile foreign government. At best, everyone who took part in this meeting or knew about it and did nothing must be fired. At worst, they all belong in jail.
(featured image courtesy Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)
