Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot editor
March 10, 2017
Following Donald Trump’s early successes as president, it appears the only tool left in the Democrat “thwart Trump” arsenal is the blind accusation that Russia successfully influenced the 2016 presidential election, rendering Trump’s presidency invalid or questionable at best.
While common sense doesn’t appear to be a fluent competency among liberal Democrats, let’s apply some toward examining this dilemma.
Hillary Clinton has hardly presented herself as a formidable foe to the Russians.
In March 2009, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a symbolic red “reset” button in the hopes of improving our relationship with the Russians, following a standoff over the country of Georgia in 2008.
For a while, relations appeared more amicable as Russia offered its cooperation in Obama’s Iran nuclear deal and the subsequent sanctioning of Iran’s nuclear program. But the Russians clearly didn’t intend to honor Clinton’s olive branch.
I’m confident Russia was aware of the inept nature of the deal when it offered its spurious support. By early 2014, any perceived Russian cooperation had completely diminished following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Crimea and his support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
In short, with whom do you suppose Putin would rather negotiate, a “manageable” Hillary Clinton or the man who wrote “The Art of the Deal”?
And Democrats may have taken the label of hypocrite to an entirely new level when they accused Attorney General Jeff Sessions of having inappropriate contact with Russia’s ambassador during the Trump campaign.
Last week, Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) took to the floor of the Senate and revealed “30 Democratic senators met with the Russian ambassador in 2015 to pitch President Obama’s nuclear Iran deal, all while supporting Democratic presidential candidates” as reported in a Kerry Picket column in “The Daily Caller.”
And speaking of inappropriate dealings with Russia, it was President Obama, in 2012, who was caught on a live microphone asking outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to relay a message to Vladimir Putin to give him more “space” until after his election when he would have more “flexibility.”
The obvious inference is that an untimely proclamation of Obama’s intentions would adversely impact his re-election. And don’t forget a 2016 congressional investigation concluded Barack Obama sent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to an Israeli group that used the money to prevent the re-election of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in last year’s Israeli parliamentary election, as reported in a July 2016 column by Stephen Dinan, in The Washington Times.
And to culminate a troubling week for Democrats, this past weekend President Trump requested, as part of the Russian probe, that the congressional intelligence committee investigate a potential Obama administration request for the Trump Tower to be wire-tapped during the 2016 campaign.
Oh, what a tangled web Democrats are weaving.
One must ask, how does this Democrat witch hunt benefit the American people? Does this bring back jobs, lower taxes or spur affordable healthcare? It doesn’t, but that doesn’t matter.
This isn’t about Democrats winning for Americans. It’s solely about winning for themselves.
Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger and Cabell County resident.
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