Trump’s Watergate All About
Drowning Out Russia
By Finian Cunningham
February
21, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- "SCF"
-
The adage about One Man’s
Terrorist is Another Man’s Freedom Fighter is
aptly paraphrased for the running battle in
Washington between President Trump and his
intelligence agencies. Only instead of
«terrorist» substitute the word «leaker».
Prominent sections of the US
media are willingly acting as conduits for
intelligence agencies leaking classified
government information to damage the Trump White
House. The media and Trump’s political enemies
are thus acting as accomplices in criminal
disclosure of supposedly secret government
information, which at another time the same
media and politicians would condemn as
treasonous. Think Edward Snowden or Chelsea
Manning for instance.
Trump has hit back
after his National Security Advisor Michael
Flynn was forced
to resign over
disclosed phone contacts he had with Russian
ambassador Sergey Kislyak earlier this year.
With barely contained anger, Trump described the
leaks as «criminal» and «un-American» and has
scorned media outlets for conspiring to
destabilize his presidency – only less than one
month after taking office.
In turn, media
outlets like the New York Times, Washington
Post and CNN have disparaged Trump
for trying to «deflect» the issue away from
alleged contacts with Russian state officials to
the issue of intelligence services leaking
classified information. Such disclosure is a
criminal offense, punishable by jail for breach
of government secrecy rules.
Trump does have a point though.
The practice of leaking confidential information
by security services is a grave breach.
But there is something of a
contradiction here on both sides of the fight.
When Donald Trump was campaigning
as presidential candidate he openly reveled in
the leaking of classified information by the
Wikileaks whistleblower website because much of
the disclosure was highly damaging to his
Democrat rival Hillary Clinton, originating
partly during her tenure as Secretary of State.
Now the shoe is on
the other foot. President Trump is screaming about
classified information being leaked and given
out «like candy» to media outlets. Because now
the leaks are damaging his administration with
allegations that some his aides were in close
contact with Russian government officials. The
alleged contacts go beyond just former National
Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The New York
Times this week reported anonymous US officials
claiming that several of Trump’s aides also
shared contact with Russians.
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Ironically, some of these major
US media outlets appear indifferent to the
criminal offense of leaking classified
information by intelligence agencies. They want
to focus on the alleged content of the leaks,
namely that Trump and his team are supposedly
compromised by clandestine Russian connections.
Yet, during the election campaign these same
outlets showed little interest in publishing the
damaging content of information leaked by
Wikileaks against Hillary Clinton. Part of
that indifference was feigned to be a concern
over publishing leaked classified information.
Again, now the shoe is on the
other foot. US media outlets that were
previously shunning leaked information about
their favored candidate, Clinton, are now all
too willing to run with leaks damaging President
Trump, whom they were decidedly opposed to
becoming the White House occupant.
However, to be fair to Trump when
he was a beneficiary of leaks against Clinton
during the election campaign he was then a
private citizen. There is no evidence that he
colluded with the source of the leaks, either
Wikileaks or, as is alleged, Russian hackers.
Also, much of the damaging information against
Clinton – her paid connections to Wall Street
banks for instance – was obtained from private
emails between her as a Democrat candidate and
the Democratic National Committee, not when she
was in office as the Secretary of State during
the Obama administration. That information was
not classified government correspondence, so
therefore was fair game for publishing.
Whereas the current leaks against
President Trump by intelligence agencies or
government officials are a clear breach of
secrecy laws on classified information. Those
leaks are clearly intended at undermining a
sitting president by insinuating that his
alleged contacts with Russian officials are
potentially treasonous.
The media clamor
over Trump’s alleged Russian connections are
fueling a growing
chorus in
Congress for further investigations. Media
pundits and lawmakers are boldly using the word
«treason» to describe Trump’s alleged contacts
with Russia. Some are even referring to the
infamous Watergate scandal
that led to President Nixon’s ouster in 1974.
The Washington Post
which famously helped uncover the Watergate
scandal published
an editorial this
week declaring: «The nation needs answers, not
deflections, on Russia and Trump».
The Post editors write: «The news
[sic] that members of President Trump’s circle
had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence
officials in the year before the election,
reported by the New York Times on
Tuesday, might have been less concerning if the
president had responded by explaining or
condemning the contacts and accepting the need
for an impartial investigation. Instead, on
Wednesday morning, he dashed off a half-dozen
tweets in which he curiously both denied the
news [sic] and attacked the leakers who
disclosed it. In so doing, he gave more cause
for Republicans and Democrats to demand answers
about his opaque and increasingly troubling ties
with Moscow».
What the Washington Post
innocuously calls «news» is actually leaked
claims from anonymous US intelligence officials,
which are illegal. It is also hardly «news»
since the information is unverifiable claims
made by anonymous sources.
Nevertheless, the Post castigates
Trump for drawing attention to the illegality of
the leaks. And it goes on emphatically to
«demand answers about his opaque and
increasingly troubling ties with Moscow».
The dubious priority here is not
to question the ethics of leaking classified
information, but rather to push the vapid,
unverifiable hearsay that impugns the president
for allegedly having private communications with
the Russians. Trump has flatly denied that any
such contacts were ever made during his
campaign.
Ironically, the
connection to Watergate is more than it might
appear to be. That scandal is commonly thought
of as a «high point» of American journalism, in
which intrepid reporters from the Washington
Post dared to help bring down a Republican
president for involvement in «dirty tricks»
against Democrats hatched in 1972. A more
nuanced account is given by author Russ Baker,
in his book Family
of Secrets about
the Bush dynasty and the CIA. Baker provides
evidence that the Washington Post was actually
led by intelligence agencies to stitch up
Richard Nixon whom they had come to oppose over
his shady self-serving politics. Watergate and
the demise of Nixon was thus less a triumph of
democracy and media righteousness and more a
coup by the Deep State against Nixon in which
the Washington Post served as the
conduit.
The nature of today’s shenanigans
with Trump may be different in the precise
details. But the modus operandi appears to be
the same. A sitting president is out of favor
with the Deep State and the latter is
orchestrating a media campaign of leaks to
dislodge him. Appropriately, the Washington Post
is again at the forefront of the Deep State
operation to thwart the president, this time
Trump, as with Nixon before.
The story of Trump being a
potentially treasonous pawn being manipulated by
Russia is impossibly far-fetched to be credible.
Trump denies it, and Moscow denies it. Trump’s
former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn
appears indeed to have had contact with the
Russian ambassador during Trump’s transition to
the White House. But the content of the
conversation has been blown out of all
proportion by US intelligence and media to
contrive the narrative that Trump is in cahoots
with Moscow.
The upshot is that Trump’s avowed
policy of restoring friendlier relations with
Russia is being hampered at every turn. The
president is being goaded into having to deny he
is a Russian stooge and to prove that he is not
soft on Moscow – by, for example, stating this
week through his White House spokesman Sean
Spicer that «Russian must hand back Crimea to
Ukraine».
Evidently, the big purpose here
is to direct Trump to adopt a harder line on
Russia and to abandon any notion of developing
cordial relations. Either he must tow the line,
or he will be hounded by leaks, media
speculation and Congressional probes until he is
impeached. This is because the Deep State –
primarily the military-industrial complex that
is the permanent government of the US – is
predicated on a strategic policy of adversity
towards Russia and any other designated
geopolitical rival.
Meanwhile, amid the raging war
between the Trump White House and the US
intelligence network, which includes sections of
the media, Russia said this week that relations
between the two countries were suffering.
Dmitry Peskov,
spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, lamented that
the turmoil in Washington was turning into a
lost opportunity for the US and Russia to
normalize relations and get on with bigger, far
more urgent tasks of cooperation in world
affairs.
And that impasse between the US
and Russia, it would seem, is the whole object
lesson from Trump’s war with powerful elements
within his own state.
Trump may have been elected
president. But other darker forces in America’s
power structure are intent on over-ruling him
when it comes to policy on Russia. Trump’s
Watergate is all about drowning out a genuine
reset with Russia.
Former
editor and writer for major news media
organizations. He has written extensively on
international affairs, with articles published
in several languages
