Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee revealed him to be a man of great integrity, above the political aspersions cast by Senate Democrats who refuse to drop the false narrative that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to rig the elections, despite the absence of any evidence.
Sessions’ history is one typified by honor and love of country. For those aware of that history, the notion that he would collude with any foreign government, let alone a country he regards as an arch enemy of the United States, is preposterous. Sessions is an American patriot. He would die for his country if called to do so. He has served his nation faithfully, well, and with honor for his entire career. He underwent a grueling confirmation hearing at which no stone was left unturned and from that effort a character assassination his opponents found precious little with which to do battle.
The contrast between the Sessions’ testimony and the Comey testimony could not have been greater. In Sessions you will never find a man who would dare leak the confidences of the President to the media. Indeed, repeatedly in his testimony, General Sessions refused to reveal the private discussions he had with the President. By contrast, Comey presumed not only to relay select parts of his private conversations with the President but also to interpret the meaning of those conversations in ways that cast doubt on his superiors, President Trump and General Sessions alike. That is dishonorable.
A further contrast is warranted. While the Trump Russia story has no legs (there simply are no facts supportive of the false assertion that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians), the Watergate story did have legs. Caught in a legal and ethical dilemma, White House Counsel John Dean respectfully and accurately recited in his congressional testimony the facts that added to the foundation of evidence against President Nixon. President Richard Nixon was engaged in a cover up and an obstruction of justice, endeavoring to withhold evidence that revealed the complicity of the White House, including his top aides, in the clandestine use of Committee to Re-Elect the President funds and former Cuban CIA operatives to bring about a break in at the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee and a theft of documents from those offices. Watergate is thus a direct example of illegal activity during a presidential election campaign.
There is thus no comparison between the evidence rich environment that existed in Watergate and the evidence deficient environment of the Trump Russia story. John Dean faced a legal dilemma (he must either reveal the crime he knew to exist or become guilty himself of perjury and obstruction of justice; he chose the former).  There is no John Dean in the Trump Russia story because there is no illegality.
The repeated assertion that there is a basis for the charge of collusion with the Russians is itself not only dishonorable but also a dangerous diversion from what should be the central issue. While it is not true that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to influence the outcome of the last presidential election, it is true that the Russians have endeavored to interfere with the electoral process. Evidence reveals that the Russians hacked into 39 states’ voting systems during the 2016 elections. Although unsuccessful this time in creating chaos and disrupting the vote tally or altering any votes, unless the full extent of this hacking is investigated and barriers and countermeasures are put in place to stop the hacking, we will inevitably see instances of successful tampering in future elections.
While the Democratic leadership exerts relentless effort to find any scrap of circumstantial evidence that can be interpreted to suggest a tie between the Trump campaign and the Russians, spending millions of tax dollars on this errant venture, they are ignoring a direct threat to the democratic process. If the hysteria among Democratic leaders over the loss of the election quelled, it might be possible to proceed in a bi-partisan manner to investigate and act against the Russian electoral machinations, but there appears to be no end to the hysteria.
The ultimate solution lies with the electorate, but given the extent of obfuscation present, it is difficult to predict how votes will be cast. In the mid-term elections, will enough voters cast ballots to remove the obstructionists or will they return them to office and fuel the current hysteria which blocks progress?
© 2017 Jonathan Emord – All Rights Reserved
