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In the matter of Trump’s collusion with Russia’s attempt to influence the elections, no one, Left or Right, seems to be considering the essence, the substance, the content, the facts: what if the Russians had had verifiable facts about (more) gross Hillary wrongdoing?
I hate to seem to be defending Trump. You recall that I voted for Hillary, because I regard Trump’s appeal to the anti-conceptual, hostile, nativist, anti-global elements in the population as a unique threat.
But, this hullabaloo about “collusion with a foreign enemy” is beside the point. “Information” is being talked about as if it were not facts but some sort of assault weapon.
But information is facts grasped. What if the Russians had revealed that Hillary had arranged to have a political enemy killed? What if they had revealed that she had given nuclear secrets to the Chinese, to the Iranians? And what if this had not been just the Russian claims but verifiable fact?
Is it “collusion” to want the American people to know the truth?
Why wouldn’t Trump or anyone else want to learn what credible sources had to say on this? If the Russian secret police (or that lawyer who seemed to represent the Russian state) were credible sources, they had a civic duty to “collude” with them–i.e., to try to determine the facts.
“Collude” is being here used as a package-deal. One element of the term refers to cooperation with an enemy in doing something wrong. But the thing being referred to in this case is listening to an enemy in order to expose hidden wrongdoing by a woman running for president! And this is a woman already known to have engaged in many, many gross lies, lots of shady behavior, some crimes, and some possibly treasonable acts.
So, we have the spectacle of Hillary as Secretary of State illegally using a private email server, for the obvious purpose of hiding what she’s emailing, Hillary destroying 30,000 such emails upon their being discovered, security officials reporting that her private server could easily have been hacked into by foreign powers, and probably was–vs. Trump’s son being willing to listen to (further) dirt that the Russians claimed they had on Hillary. Which is worse?
By the way, I don’t accept the claim that the woman who met with Donald Trump, Jr. was not connected with Putin. In a dictatorship, there is no such thing as a private individual deciding on his or her own to initiate such an activity. Without Putin’s authorization, that would have been a death sentence (Putin has ordered the murder of several of his opponents).
This whole affair is parallel to the nefarious exclusionary rule in law. According to that rule, evidence improperly acquired cannot be used in court. So, if a police officer conducts an unwarranted search of, say, someone’s car, and finds evidence that the man has a weapon that was used to commit a murder, that fact cannot be used in court (I hope I have this right; there maybe exceptions and qualifications to it, but we know the general idea).
Vs. the exclusionary rule, if the evidence is independently verified, without requiring trust in the integrity of the rule-breaking provider of it, that evidence should be used. Vs. the media on Trump, if independently verifiable information had been given Trump by the Russians, he would have been morally required to reveal it to the voting public.
As it turned out, there seems not to have been information, or no information not already known to the Trump campaign. But that is irrelevant, because they wouldn’t have known that in advance.
Donald Trump Jr.’s email said, about the prospect of getting information to use against Hillary, “I love it.” Isn’t that a disgusting attitude? No, not really. Yes, delight is not an appropriate response, in view of the gravity of all this–we’re talking about the election of the President of the United States of America. But being glad, and feeling vindicated in a matter of justice would be quite appropriate–because Hillary Clinton is a thoroughly dishonest, scheming Leftist, who was seemingly getting away with outrageous wrongdoing.
Sure, if the information had been that Hillary had a lover, it would have been low to have taken delight in that. But the information could have been about serious crimes that the American people needed to know about. Donald Jr. didn’t know what the alleged information was. He wanted to find out. So would I. So should everyone. We could have dismissed any claims not supported by independent evidence. We could check whether any supposed evidence was real or fabricated by the Russians. But given the record of Hillary Clinton’s chronic wrongdoing, it was quite reasonable to accept the possibility that there were facts to be learned.
Facts are facts. Existence exists. But, in accordance with the essence of Kant’s philosophy, the culture is focusing entirely on the form (“collusion”) and ignoring the content. But the “how” does not invalidate the “what.” If there is some actual information the electorate should have, learning it from a foreign power is not “collusion.” Exposing the truth is not an “interference” in an election. Knowing facts is not an obstacle to making a rational decision.
From an entirely separate angle, this affair raises the question: why did the Russians want to aid Trump? I continue to think likely my earlier-posted view that the Russians have the goods on Trump, or in some other way think they can control him.
/sb
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 100269 of 7/12/17
Hopefully, your post will be published. I believe it’s really a case of The Emperor’s New Clothes. As countless commentators have appeared on CNBC, the business channel over the last few days, none of any political persuasion has even alluded to this aspect. I can’t imagine it’s not the immediate reaction of most people. Having a wider audience see it might get some to realize whose side they should be on or unknowingly really are on.
*sb
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 100269 of 7/12/17
Re whatever Hillary may have illegally or improperly done, our intelligence agencies surely know it. So why, especially now that her election opponent is President, does Trump not reveal it? Also, since Hillary interfered in Putin’s election, Putin had that as motive to hurt her election. But this whole thing is a slippery can of switching and swimming worms. Churchill called intelligence a bodyguard of lies. Be clear that patriotic Americans, in their own defense, want our intelligence agencies to lie. As someone said, intelligence is a hall of mirrors [reflecting infinitely(?) back and forth to each other]. Intelligence agencies systematically tell lies on top of, underneath and to the side of each other to hide the original lie as much as possible. I.e., whatever Hillary and/or Trump may have illegally or improperly done, it exists within the integrated context of America’s total effort to defend itself. I.e., publicly revealing what Hillary or Trump may have wrongly done would or might reveal our intelligence sources and/or methods. As in chess, sometimes one “sacrifices” a piece or position for a bigger gain. Americans should care about the bottom line. Can our intelligence protect us, regardless of any short-range methods that may be taken out of context by those who have no need to know?
Thus Hillary’s and Trump’s possible wrongdoing may never, never be revealed. If so, this could be good. I’ve read that there are intelligence activities from WW2 that our government still has not made public because their secrecy continues to defend us. It’s publicly known that the head of Nazi military(?) intelligence, Gehlen, worked for the Allies! But, then, were their other, highly placed Allied assets, e.g., top Nazi military officers who may have been asked to end the war before their own government ordered it.
After Patton finished helping end the Battle Of The Bulge, he headed toward Germany. He stopped to fight a German Army Group (of several divisions) but met so little resistance that he turned back toward Germany. That German Group did not follow and attack Patton to stop him from invading their nation!!!!! Presumably the German commander was disgusted with the war by that time. But did Allied intelligence contact him to persuade him to stop fighting? I don’t know. It would certainly be a method we would want to hide from future enemies. Are we in touch with Russian, Chinese and North Korean top military officers, just in case. I don’t know. But, as the classical, Chinese military strategist, Sun Tzu, said, in his Art Of War, “Make a noise in the East and strike in the West.”
So, whatever Hillary or Trump may have done, the big picture may invalidate publicly revealing it now or in the future. Do we have highly placed assets in Russia? Is Putin Our Man In Moscow? I am not now or have I ever worked for or with a US intelligence agency. Or so I say . . .
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 100269 of 7/12/17
From an entirely separate angle, this affair raises the question: why did the Russians want to aid Trump? I continue to think likely my earlier-posted view that the Russians have the goods on Trump, or in some other way think they can control him.
I think it’s more serious. As a KGB operative, Putin was trained in ideological warfare. When Marxism failed, Putin climbed back down the ideological tree, to Hegelian Nationalism. Unlike anyone in current American politics, Putin understands the importance of ideology. Putin promotes Hegelian Nationalism worldwide. In Europe, Putin has installed Hegelian Nationalists in Poland and in Hungary, and was very close to installing one in France. Putin understands that an America that insisted on global free trade, that opened its borders to productive immigrants, that promoted the freedom of ideas in the global Internet, and so on, would be a formidable obstacle to local Hegelian Nationalist regimes everywhere, including his.
Trump, being a Pragmatist, has no ideas of his own – but his advisor Bannon is a reliable Hegelian Nationalist. With Bannon’s ideas filling Trump’s void, America will do nothing to stop the emergence of Putin-owned Hegelian Nationalist regimes all over the world, and will keep Putin’s regime safe from America.
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 100269 of 7/12/17
Why wouldn’t Trump or anyone else want to learn what credible sources had to say on this? If the Russian secret police (or that lawyer who seemed to represent the Russian state) were credible sources, they had a civic duty to “collude” with them–i.e., to try to determine the facts.
Is it right to regard the sources here as credible, or even potentially credible? As I understand it, Donald Jr. was approached by an intermediary who offered to put him in contact with a lawyer with Russian government connections who claimed to have damaging information about Hillary. Donald Jr. ought to have inferred from this that any information obtained from that channel was being shared at the behest of the Russian government as part of some strategy that served their interests.
Given that, isn’t the proper attitude towards any information obtained in this way skepticism? Shouldn’t we assume that the information is at best selectively provided and at worst false or misleading in a way the serves Russian interests?
Moreover, if the secret information was, in fact, true, that would point to the existence of a Russian operation to influence the US election that had successfully committed espionage to obtain that secret information (this was before the DNC hack story broke and it became widely accepted that such an operation was going on).
Especially given the source, why would we think Donald Jr. and others in the Trump campaign would be capable of assessing whether the information was credible, or even be remotely interested in doing so? The Trump campaign and administration have a long history of indifference to the truth (Ted Cruz’s dad participated in the Kennedy Assassination, etc.). And there’s little evidence that Donald Jr. was interested in getting to the bottom of any information that was provided. The emails he released suggest that he was simply delighted at the fact that he might be getting valuable “oppo” that could be deployed against his father’s political opponent.
If a basically-ethical political campaign was approached in the manner that Donald Jr. was, isn’t the appropriate response to report the matter to the FBI? I think the prospect of a foreign operation targeting a Presidential election — whether, e.g., a disinformation campaign or an intelligence-gathering operation that might constitute espionage — is quite serious and the Trump campaign had a duty to report it (which they did not). Had the Russian lawyer actually had access to information obtained through espionage and shared it with the Trump campaign, I’d go so far as to say that it would make Donald Jr., Kushner, Manafort et al. accessories after the fact to the espionage. That would be quite serious, perhaps as (or more) serious than any (hypothetical) revelations about Hillary contained in the “intel” provided by the Russian source.
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 100269 of 7/12/17
This term “collusion” is a package-deal, packaging the idea of criminals meeting to plot criminal activity with any meeting with anyone. Trump Jr. met with this Russian woman because he had been told she had some dirt on Hillary. I have not heard any evidence that they met for the purpose of creating dirt out of thin air, which would be criminal.
Then I hear allegations that the same Russian woman has been photographed in meetings with high level people in the Democrat party. The implication is that she has colluded with the Democrats to set Trump up to appear to be colluding with the Russians.
This sounds to me like a new version of what many concluded from the McCarthy hearings. I think most people considered them assassination of character by mere meeting or associating in some way with someone who was a communist. I remember my mother repeatedly admonishing me as a child (mid 1950’s) not to even talk to or be in the room with someone suspected of being communist. She was horrified that I had written to the Soviet embassy in about 5th grade to ask for information on Russia. That letter would be on file for the rest of my life! Every student in the classroom had written to some embassy to get information. She was even worried about a teacher of mine who was strongly anti-communist (John Bircher) because just the fact that he talked about communism may associate me with communism.
Irrational? Yes, and here we see it again. There are a thousand reasons to talk, meet or associate with someone from Russia and even a representative of the Russian government. It now appears both parties are trying to suggest that any such meeting is collusion for nefarious ends.
In each case, there is an attempt to evade the nature and the facts of the meeting and whether the facts demonstrate criminal or immoral behavior.
I don’t know if Trump Jr. knew ahead of time he was meeting with a representative of Russia. He claims that the information revealed was incoherent and of no use. He heard her out, left and did nothing.
Even the use of collusion in an actual statute is such a package-deal. It is used in anti-trust legislation. The intent is to leave this package-deal in as ambiguous a state as possible so that any businesses the regulators wish to control can be threatened with prosecution.
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Re: Brian Alspach’s post 119435 of 7/13/17
Especially given the source, why would we think Donald Jr. and others in the Trump campaign would be capable of assessing whether the information was credible, or even be remotely interested in doing so? The Trump campaign and administration have a long history of indifference to the truth (Ted Cruz’s dad participated in the Kennedy Assassination, etc.). And there’s little evidence that Donald Jr. was interested in getting to the bottom of any information that was provided.
That’s an issue of the nature of the particular individuals involved here. Yes, if we accept that Trump, his son, and their associates are corrupt, nothing they do will be right or defensible. But I was writing on the issue as such, independent of anyone’s view of Trump. For instance, Fox News doesn’t recognize Trump’s indifference to the truth, but they have not, to my knowledge, even raised the issue of whether it’s “interference” with our elections to provide an independently verifiable truth!
I don’t write to exonerate Trump, but to point out the Kantian dropping of “the what” in favor of “the how” that is so shocking in the public discussion of this affair. Consider the indifference to facts and obsessive focus on people and their consciousness: “It was collusion with a foreign power that was interfering with our election.” “Colluding”? “Interfering”? The ignored issue is: were there demonstrable facts about Hillary’s actions? If there were, then the “interference” is supplying knowledge, and the “collusion” is accepting the offer of knowledge.
On the practical issue, yes, I would have turned any information over to the FBI–after I got it.
On the evidential status of Russian allegations: I stressed that their claims have to be independently verifiable. Presumably, the Russians would know they have to provide such independent verification. Then the FBI could investigate.
*sb
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Harry Binswanger asked in post 100269 of 7/12/17
why did the Russians want to aid Trump?
Perhaps any help offered by Russia wasn’t favoritism toward Trump, but rather part of an effort to curry favor with all potential winners. That way, no matter who won the election, Russia stood ready to exact favors.
Nothing about this explanation is offered to make Trump look good; it doesn’t. However, Obama, Hillary and Trump often seem three variations of a kind in their approaches toward Russia. Likewise, the Russian rulers may consider each sufficiently acquiescent to them. (As a foil, contrast this trio to Mitt Romney in Romney’s 2012 campaign remarks warning against Russia.)
/sb
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Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 119447 of 7/14/17
Reading Peggy Noonan’s column today in The Wall Street Journal, opened my eyes to an aspect of the Donald Trump Jr. situation I had overlooked: the absurdity of the offer by the Russian lawyer.
Assume that Putin wants Trump to win the election; assume that he has some actual, secret information about serious wrongdoing by Hillary. What would he do? Leak it to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal–or have some unknown attorney contact Donald Trump’s campaign (let alone Donald Trump Jr.)?
What does Putin need the Trump people for? He could publicize any new information himself or through any number of intermediaries. I mean, Putin could even tell the FBI.
So, in this regard, the affair smacks of someone falling for the Nigerian-bank-scheme email. (“Dear Honored Sir, I need your help in a matter of retrieving funds from . . .”) A savvy Donald Trump Jr. would have dismissed the idea of juicy information that only he could hear, or tell the profferer: “If you have actual information, disclose it to the authorities.”
What if it had been Putin who contacted the Trump campaign, and what if he had done so because he wanted to make Trump be in his debt? That would be precisely the contingency that should make Trump & Son refuse to accept it.
(Alternatively, a really courageous Trump could pretend to accept the favor, get the information, make it known in a proper way, and then hold a press conference to reveal that Putin had given him the info as part of a deal, but that he, Trump, has no intention of honoring a “deal” made with a murderer.)
So, a legitimate offer of real information wouldn’t go to the Trump campaign in the first place. If, somehow, it did, the charge of “collusion with a foreign enemy” could be obviated by simply disclosing, along with the information on Hillary, that the Russian government was the source of this information, and that they (the Trump campaign) are making that fact quite public so that it will be clear that no favor-trading or secret, back-door dealing has gone on or will happen in the future.
/sb
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