Greg Olear - 23 May

An Introduction to Trump/Russia

By Greg Olear

Softback (print paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-64184-926-5

Ebook
ISBN: 978-1-64184-927-2

Tho much is taken, much abides; and tho
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses

TRUMP/RUSSIA IS THE GREATEST POLITICAL SCANDAL in American history. Its also the most complicated. This book, as its subtitle suggests, is an introduction to the subject. It is not intended to be comprehensive. There is so much complexity to the story, so many names to learn, so many relationships to understand, that it will take a much longer volume than this one to cover it all in detail. My purpose here is not to get lost in the weeds, but to present the larger narrative as succinctly as possible and get the reader up to speed.

Because Trump/Russia is an ongoing crisis, no extant book can possibly cover it from start to finish. Indeed, the full story may not be known for years, perhaps decades. Critical details are sure to emerge after publication. More indictments will come, more collaborators will flip. Our understanding of what happened will evolve. However, the key events that shape how we viewed Trump/Russiaand how we were encouraged to view itare more or less fixed. Dirty Rubles focuses primarily on this formative period, from 2016 through mid-2018.

This book is drawn from posts Ive written at The Weeklings beginning 18 months ago (Is that all? It feels much longer!). Because it was written quickly, and published independently, and because my own memory is fallible, it is impossible to properly acknowledge where I obtained every piece of knowledge I obtained. For this failing, I apologize up front. Let me instead acknowledge here, in a general way, the main sources of my understanding of Trump/Russia: Louise Mensch and Seth Abramson, first and foremost, and also John Schindler, Eric Garland, Dena Grayson, AliasVaughn, Counterchekist, Tea Pain, Natasha Bertrand, David Corn, Luke Harding, Tracie McElroy, Claude Taylor, Louise Neufy, Garry Kasparov, Asha Rangrappa, Rick Wilson, Pete Evans, Alison Greene, Caroline Orr, Kyle Griffin, Judd Legum, Steven Bertoni, Jay McKenzie, Sarah Kenzior, Molly McKew, Richard Painter, Laurence Tribe, Norm Eisen, Walter Shaub, Andrew Laufer, Elizabeth de la Vega, Benjamin Wittes, Cheri Jacobus, Grant Stern, Paul Wood, Molly Jong-Fast, Kelly Lieberman, Polly Sigh, Sara Danner Dukic, Spicy Files, Lincolns Bible, and everyone else on Twitter who has helped me gather knowledge. I am indebted to all of them for their insight, their courage, and their tireless dedication to truth, justice, and the American way. Special thanks to Jana Martin and Tracie McElroy for proofing the draft, and for everyone gracious enough to give me a blurb.

This book is dedicated to my wife, my kids, my parents, and to true patriots.

ON 8 NOVEMBER 2016, DONALD J. TRUMP was elected President of the United States. To say this was a surprise is putting it mildly. The odds were vanishingly, almost impossibly long. No one expected this resultnot even Trump himself. His victory seemed nothing less than miraculous.

He won despite losing the popular vote by some 2.8 million.

He won despite virtually every pollster and pundit predicting victory for Hillary Clinton.

He won despite the late-October release of the Access Hollywood tape, which showed him bragging about being able to grab [women] by the pussy and get away with it because of his celebrity.

He won despite two successive campaign managers leaving the campaign for dubious reasons.

He won despite bucking his promise to release his tax returns.

He won despite not receiving the endorsement of a single daily newspaper in the United States.

He won despite a number of prominent establishment Republicanssome contributing anti-Trump diatribes in a full issue of the conservative National Reviewvehemently opposing him.

He won despite appropriating a sloganMake America Great Againfrom the American Nazi Party of the 1930s.

He won despite a chequered past that included habitual non-payment of debts, multiple bankruptcies, lack of demonstrable charitable work, and involvement with organized crime.

He won despite being twice divorced, and having five children with three different women.

He won despite building a campaign upon insults, divisiveness, and lies.

He won by the slimmest of marginssome 77,000 votes in three swing statesbut he won just the same.

Donald Trumpreality TV star, failed businessman, insult comicwas going to succeed his nemesis Barack Obama as President of the United States.

ALMOST IMMEDIATELY , the election post-mortems came in: Hillary was a bad candidate. She should have visited Michigan and Wisconsin. She put too much faith in wooing celebrities and failed to connect with regular Americans. Who would want to have a beer with Hillary Clinton? She was fake. She was school-marmy. She was too strident. She was too prepared in the debates. She had too much baggage. No one wants a Clinton Dynasty. She should have picked Bernie as her running mate. Heck, if the DNC didnt rig the process, Bernie Sanders would have been the nominee, and Bernie would have won.

And her emails! Her emails!

HER FUCKING EMAILS!

Those reasons are all, at best, lazy. Hillary won more votes than any previous white candidate in American historyhers was the second-highest total of all time, behind only Obamas showing in 2008; how does that make her a bad candidate? Bill Clinton hurt her more than he helped her, without question, but two exceptional individuals who happen to be married does not a dynasty make. Even without the superdelegates, she would have soundly defeated Berniewho is not a Democrat, by the way, and whose refusal to go quietly once it became clear he could not win the nomination certainly damaged Hillarys campaign. There is no telling if Bernie would have won, because he was never properly vetted, his past is not exactly pristine, and his poor performance among black women suggests that victory would hardly be assured. And her emails were only an issue because the press made them into one.

In actuality, there were three primary reasons for Trumps David-and-Goliath-level upset:

First, the so-called Comey letter, which re-focused the medias attention on Hillarys emails a week before Election Dayfor no good reason, as it turned out. This reinforced the narrative of Hillary as crooked, secretive, untrustworthy, up to no good.

Second, the historically terrible article that ran in the New York Times on 31 October 2016: Investigating Donald Trump, FBI Sees No Clear Link to Russia. Here was the purported paper of record, just nine days before Election Day, proclaiming that Trump/Russia was bunk. Most major media outlets dropped the Russia story like a proverbial hot potato and did not pick it up again for months. Saturday Night Live gave more airtime to the red-flag Putin/Trump bromance than the news shows did.

Finally, but most importantly: Trump had help from Moscow.

All three of these reasonsthe Comey letter, the Times article, and the covert Russian aidare related to each other, and to Trumps shady business dealings, and to the machinations of his deplorable associates, especially Paul Manafort, Mike Flynn, and Jared Kushner. And the result could not have been more ominous: the nuclear launch codes were in the hands of the wrong personin every sense of the word.