It’s no surprise that Donald Trump admitted this week that he would be willing to take foreign intelligence from the Russians … again. What started with, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” has morphed into a full blown invitation for foreign adversaries to tamper with our elections to his benefit. But the president’s willingness to extend his ear to an insidious foreign dictator who wants nothing more than the downfall of Western democracy is not “called oppo research.” It’s called illegal. I know better than most what opposition research is, and it’s most certainly not this. That’s because for the past three years, I’ve run the largest opposition research effort focused on Trump in the Democratic Party at American Bridge 21st Century. Our work digs deep. On a daily basis, we scrutinize Trump’s public records and financial returns and scour through decades-old public remarks. We use our information to weave the story of a lifelong pattern of corruption and deceit by Trump and his family to build their personal wealth. But even in our hyperpartisan operation, we have rules that we enforce rigorously. Our information is never stolen. It’s lawfully obtained. It’s always public record. And it’s most certainly never solicited from foreign governments.
In reality, opposition researchers operate like trial attorneys. We make the case against Republicans up and down the ballot by stockpiling months, years and often decades worth of public evidence against them. We submit Freedom of Information Act requests to unearth spreadsheets of Cabinet members creepily detailing the pregnancy status of immigrant teens who are seeking an abortion. We scour the Federal Procurement Data System to discover that Trump’s former Interior secretary spent $139,000 on doors. Or in many cases, we just go through Twitter. All of these tools help us build the case for the American people against the chronic Republican wrongdoing that we believe is plaguing our country. But even in this, at American Bridge, we know better than to unlawfully solicit “dirt” from foreign actors, or encourage them to wage cyberwarfare and hack into their email accounts. We don’t “ping” Julian Assange begging for those Republican emails. And we certainly don’t respond to messages from foreign lawyers connected to the highest ranks of the Kremlin, offering illicit information on Republicans, with “I love it.”
In the Mueller report, we saw detailed evidence of over 272 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian-linked operatives, and a series of efforts by the two organizations to coordinate and conspire against America. That’s not opposition research. If real opposition researchers ever conducted themselves in the same manner as the president, they wouldn’t still be sitting behind their desks. They’d likely be in prison. That reality just further proves my point: What Trump is describing is not opposition research, rather it’s likely criminal behavior.
President Donald Trump’s argument in an interview that it was acceptable, and even common, to use opposition research from foreign governments threw a spotlight Thursday on how campaigns research opponents and whether they draw a line at foreign interference. Trump said in a Wednesday interview with ABC News he would consider accepting “oppo research” from a foreign government and wouldn’t necessarily alert the FBI. He also said members of Congress “all do it, they always have.” Lawmakers from both parties quickly pushed back on that characterization. Both parties have campaign staff and outside groups that work to uncover negative information about political opponents, but that research does not involve help from foreign governments. “I’ve lost track of how many campaigns I’ve been a part of, but can say with 1,000 percent confidence that I, and the people I’ve worked with, have never received ‘dirt’ on an opponent from a foreign adversary, let alone solicited it,” said Shripal Shah, vice president of American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic opposition research super PAC.
But campaign finance experts said Graham’s argument ignores the difference between soliciting intelligence on an opponent from a foreign entity and hiring a foreign national in a standard commercial transaction to do campaign work. “Opposition research is not illegal and can lead to important information voters may be interested in knowing,” said Erin Chlopak, a campaign finance expert with the Campaign Legal Center and former lawyer with the Federal Election Commission. “Depending on the nature of information, it may require ascertaining information from foreign countries. There’s a difference between a foreign country inserting itself into our elections and offering free services or contributions to influence our election, and commercial transactions.” Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest son, solicited information from Russian nationals without payment, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III said in his final report. That invites corruption by creating the expectation that Trump or his associates would return the favor, Chlopak said.
Opposition research involves finding dirt, whether it’s questionable use of tax breaks, nasty details in divorces or other legal proceedings, or trying to draw connections, however tenuous, between a candidate and unsavory characters or issues that might be unpopular with target voters. Both parties do it, and as the DCCC hack exposed, they sometimes do it to their own candidates to prepare for potential attacks. But Democratic consultants said Trump’s comments mischaracterized how it actually works. “Even some of the more unethical candidates I’ve encountered in the last 20 years would have had the sense to run away from receiving foreign intelligence,” said Rodell Mollineau, a Democratic strategist and former president of American Bridge.
The line for using that information or contacting law enforcement depends on who is providing it and how the source obtained those details. An approach from someone associated with a foreign government would prompt a campaign to reach out to law enforcement, in part because that source would be acting in the interest of another country, Mollineau said. It is also illegal to accept a campaign contribution from a foreign government. Opposition researchers would also likely notify law enforcement if the information were obtained illegally. The most high profile example of this came during the 2000 presidential campaign when Democratic nominee Al Gore received a briefing book detailing how his GOP opponent George W. Bush was preparing for an upcoming debate. The Gore campaign turned it over to the FBI in part because it did not know if the book was stolen from the Bush team. “This actually isn’t as hard as people think,” Mollineau said. “If it smells bad, it likely is bad, which is why the simplest thing to do is, as [FBI Director] Christopher Wray said, to contact the FBI.”
President Donald Trump tweeted out once again that he doesn’t know the difference between a man hired to do opposition research and an entire country intruding on an election to sway the result. In a Sunday Twitter rant, Trump proclaimed that if Republicans had done something like that, “there’d be hell to pay.” The problem for Trump is that the Republicans did actually pay for the first portion of the dossier Christopher Steele wrote. “Fusion GPS was hired by Republicans to do opposition research, they were hired back [by] the Democratic Party to do opposition research,” added Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the Steele dossier. Indeed, Fusion GPS was hired by the conservative political website The Washington Free Beacon in October 2015. It was there that the Steele dossier began. Just shy of one year after that is when Democrats paid for the other half of it. The Republican-led Intelligence Committee also issued a report revealing that the dossier was perfectly legal under every law.
President Trump declared that he might accept dirt on political opponents from foreign governments in the 2020 presidential election. He did so despite the fact that such a move appears likely to be illegal and that the chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission confirmed it would be. But Republicans keep finding creative ways to defend Trump’s comment. The initial argument wasn’t so much a defense of Trump as it was “Democrats did it, too!” Republicans tried to argue that Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016 essentially did what Trump was saying by hiring Fusion GPS, which paid for the Steele dossier — a document compiled by a former British intelligence agent who relied upon sources from within the Russian government. As we’ve noted, that argument doesn’t make much sense. And in fact, even the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee confirmed in their 2018 report that the arrangement was legal, as long as the information was paid for at market rate. Steele shared his reports with federal law enforcement officials.
The Trump administration presents a series of unanswerable moral riddles. What’s worse — President Trump’s outrageous acts? His gaslighting? His followers’ eagerness to join him in coverups and lies? All three were on display this week, as they have been pretty much every week since Jan 20, 2017. First, the misconduct: Having claimed that he did not collude with Russia in 2016, Trump now proudly advertises his willingness to collude with any foreign government in the future. If a regime offered him useful information, he told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, “Oh, I think I’d want to hear it.” “I would not have thought that I needed to say this,” responded Ellen L. Weintraub, chair of the Federal Election Commission: “It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election.”
Next came the gaslighting. Trump indignantly tweeted: “I meet and talk to ‘foreign governments’ every day. I just met with the Queen of England (U.K.), the Prince of Wales, the P.M. of the United Kingdom, the P.M. of Ireland, the President of France and the President of Poland. We talked about ‘Everything!’ Should I immediately call the FBI about these calls and meetings? How ridiculous! I would never be trusted again. With that being said, my full answer is rarely played by the Fake News Media. They purposely leave out the part that matters.” Actually, the media didn’t leave out any part of his answer. It was the president who, in his ham-handed attempt at cleanup, left out the truth. Stephanopoulos wasn’t asking him whether, as president, it was proper for him to have diplomatic exchanges with foreign heads of state. He was asking whether Trump, as a candidate, would accept help from a foreign government. So Trump is, as usual, throwing out absurdities and falsehoods to distract from what he said and to give his followers — some cynical, others credulous — an excuse to claim that it was all fake news.
Trump’s trucklers did not disappoint. On Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show, Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institution said the lesson was that “you shouldn’t ever talk to George Stephanopoulos,” and Ingraham was perturbed that someone (perhaps a 400-pound coach potato?) put Trump “in that situation — I don’t get it.” On “Fox & Friends,” co-host Ainsley Earhardt said it was ridiculous for Trump to report foreign assistance to the FBI: “What’s the FBI going to do?” Uh, stop the election interference? A common trope among the Trumpkins was that criticism of their idol for making use of foreign election assistance was hypocritical because, as Sean Hannity argued: “Hillary Clinton literally empowered a foreign agent who produced a dossier for the Russian lies.” This whataboutism was echoed by the likes of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who should be smart enough to know better.
In reality (remember that quaint concept?), there is nothing illegal or unethical about the Clinton campaign paying a U.S. research firm, Fusion GPS, which employed a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, who talked to actual Russians to probe Trump’s suspicious Russia links. Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee admitted as much: This is standard opposition research. It is not remotely equivalent to the Russian government helping Trump win. It’s actually similar to the Trump campaign hiring Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting firm. Moreover, Steele did go to the FBI — something that Trump boasts about never having done. Beyond the issue of foreign election interference, this sordid episode shows how an utterly amoral president in league with power-hungry Republicans and the ratings-driven conservative media-industrial complex has hijacked U.S. politics. Considerations of truth, justice and the national interest are utterly alien to our new overlords. All that matters is “owning” the “libtards” — and enjoying the spoils of power.
The FBI had to wiretap mafia bosses like John Gotti and Vincent “The Chin” Gigante to catch them breaking the law. All they had to do to catch Donald Trump on Wednesday night was turn on ABC News. Trump proceeded to commit multiple felonies out in the open on national television when he told George Stephanopoulos he would be happy to accept dirt on his opponent from foreign governments in his 2020 re-election campaign. “Somebody comes up and says, ‘hey, I have information on your opponent,’ do you call the FBI?” Trump asked rhetorically. “It’s not an interference, they have information — I think I’d take it,” Trump said. “I’ll tell you what, I’ve seen a lot of things over my life. I don’t think in my whole life I’ve ever called the FBI. In my whole life. You don’t call the FBI. You throw somebody out of your office, you do whatever you do.” He paused for a moment. “Oh, give me a break — life doesn’t work that way.”
He looked like he’d been gobbling Adderall. His pupils were pinned, and he kept doing that thing with his hands, holding them in front of himself and moving them apart and then together impatiently, talking to Stephanopoulos like he was a school child just learning about politics rather than the seasoned operative he is (Stephanopoulos was one of the architects of the Bill Clinton campaign when he won the presidency in 1992 and has covered political campaigns as a reporter and news anchor in the decades since then). But perhaps Trump was right. Maybe Stephanopoulos needs a good talking to from the Capo du tutti capo on Pennsylvania Avenue. Doesn’t George get it that politics in the age of Trump is a criminal enterprise, that politicians are no different from gangsters? They don’t go to the FBI and turn each other in. They don’t report crimes. They commit them, and they keep their mouths shut. My buddy’s having sex with underage girls? Call the FBI? Are you kidding? Trump acted like a bank robber who walked up to a cop standing in front of the bank and said, “hey, man, I’m going in there in a minute, and I’m going to rob that bank, and what are you going to do about it?” We got our answer from Republicans the next day. Nothing. Zip. He’s going to rob that bank? We’re cool with that. By the way, we’ll be happy to pick up any bills he drops on the way out.
Stephanopoulos looked like Lester Holt the day Trump told him on TV that he fired Comey because of “the Russia thing.” He knew he was onto a big story, so he pressed him. “You want that kind of interference in our elections? he asked, fishing. Trump allowed that he might call the FBI “if I thought there was something wrong,” but he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with accepting campaign help from the Russians or anybody else. He has admitted he didn’t think there was anything wrong with seeking Russian help when he begged them during the 2016 campaign, “Russia, if you’re listening,” and urged them to find Hillary Clinton’s missing emails. That’s what he does. That’s who he is. The only thing that’s new is that Trump has dropped any pretense he’s going to follow the law. He doesn’t care what the law is. When Stephanopoulos reminded him that Christopher Wray, the Director of the FBI, had testified to Congress that any campaign receiving a solicitation from a foreign government should report that fact to the FBI, Trump told him, “The FBI director is wrong.”
Trump just warned the chief law enforcement officer of the land that if he does his job, he’ll be fired. This should come as no big news to Wray, however. He watched it happen to former FBI director James Comey. He watched it happen to former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe. Trump treats law enforcement officials like subcontractors on one of his buildings. Stiff the stupid fucker, and if he comes back at you, fire him. And if he doesn’t like that, sue him. Trump just put up a banner outside the White House telling autocrats around the world that he’s open for business. You want a few F-22’s over there in Poland or the Czech Republic? Bring me some crap on Biden, or Bernie, or Warren! You want to get that oil flowing out of the ground up there above the Arctic Circle, Putin my pal? Get those damn hackers clacking those keyboards! Hey, MBS! You want some more smart bombs to drop on goat herders over there in Yemen? How about putting some bucks in my buildings!
When the prez backed out of the Iran deal with no suitable replacement, while always ratcheting up the tensions, it greatly increases the threat of war along with Iran speeding up their nuclear program:
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