If the standard for removal of a president were “pollution of the civic realm” rather than “high crimes and misdemeanors,” President Trump would deserve impeachment.
Trump’s assertion that he would gladly accept “opposition research,” even from hostile foreign powers, shows yet again that his inclination is to replace the rule of law and ordinary standards of decency with the unethical ethic of “whatever I can get away with.” It also reminds us that neither he nor his son, Donald Trump Jr., would have avoided “collusion” with Russia if the anticipated benefit had been substantial enough.
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos specifically asked Trump “If Russia, if China … offers you information on an opponent, should [your campaign team] accept it?” Trump’s bottom line reply, after some back and forth: “They have information. I think I’d take it.”
For the record, if a candidate merely listens to a foreign national spread a rumor, that probably would not be prosecutable. But if any documentation or evidence or actionable intelligence actually changed hands, that would clearly be illegal. The relevant law, 52 USC 30121, reads as follows, with the context being federal election campaigns: “It shall be unlawful for … a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) [including any ‘thing of value’] … from a foreign national.” In our current context, given that foreign nationals did all of the publishing and hacking themselves in the 2016 election, this statute likely couldn’t be applied to Trump. But if he were to accept valuable documentation about an opponent, then it arguably might apply to him.
The FBI has a Foreign Influence Task Force specifically to combat efforts by foreign nationals to undermine our electoral system. The president is dead wrong to suggest that such foreign influence is no big deal — especially when coming from adversaries such as China and Russia.
Trump’s essential message to Stephanopoulos on Wednesday, repeated Thursday in a series of tweets, was that “everybody does it” or would do it if given the chance. That’s the sort of ethics from which most of our parents disabused us when we were eight years old. Especially coming from the president, whose sworn job is to “faithfully execute” the laws of the United States, it is abominable.
It also reminds us why the idea that Trump or his team conspired with Russians was never far-fetched. It is undisputed that the Russians undertook copious, highly sophisticated, illegal efforts to help Trump win election. It is undisputed that Trump was surrounded by an unusually high number of aides and associates with close or deep ties to Russians with Kremlin connections. It is undisputed that Trump has longstanding business relations with Russia, so much so that Trump Jr. said in 2008 that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.”
We know no previous Republican candidate who held such a strangely and outspokenly pro-Russian attitude while campaigning. And we know Trump Jr. was willing to conspire with Russians because he enthusiastically accepted a meeting that he was specifically told involved “documents [my emphasis added] and information that would incriminate Hillary” that was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
The conspiracy/collusion aspect of the Mueller investigation at least seemed plausible because Trump and his team acted and spoke as if they were copacetic with Russian assistance flowing their way.
For all but about four years of the past 74, Russia’s policies have been dangerously adversarial to those of the United States. For Trump knowingly to accept any foreign electoral aid from Russia would probably be illegal; for him to welcome it from Russia in particular, even as a hypothetical, is worse than technically illegal. It is sleazy and, in effect if not in intent, subversive of our American nation.
