America now ponders two remarkable questions. First, did a presidential candidate compromise our interests in exchange for electoral help from a foreign adversary? Second, once elected, did he obstruct justice in order to conceal his disloyalty?
We must have answers. But, for the moment, let’s consider what we already know: how assiduously America’s president serves Russia’s interests.
During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump’s praise of Vladimir Putin evoked the slavish sycophancy of a Soviet-era puppet.
Putin, he told us, “has eaten Obama’s lunch”; “done an amazing job of taking the mantle”; and deserved “a lot of credit” for intervening in the Ukraine. Dismissing the Russian government’s murders of dissidents and journalists, he asserted that “our country does a lot of killing also…”
As president now, Trump is equally servile. At the G-20 summit, after Trump neglected a state dinner to seek a one-hour tete-a-tete with Putin, he crowed about forming a joint cybersecurity plan with the very nation that hacked America’s elections. At times ― as when he called to thank Putin for praising Trump’s economic stewardship ― he grovels for rhetorical crumbs.
But Trump’s servitude is also substantive. He slights our allies and alliances, furthering Putin’s hopes of dividing the West. He ignores European concerns about Russian intrusion in their own elections. He airbrushes Russia’s invasion or harassment of its neighbors. He countenances Russia’s participation in Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian slaughter. His indifference to human rights mimes Putin’s. He has become the principal geopolitical asset of America’s foremost global adversary.
Trump’s cardinal service is his relentless facilitation of Putin’s efforts to subvert America’s electoral and legal institutions. In 2016, Russia caused the release of hacked emails calculated to help Trump and damage Hillary Clinton; disseminated a tsunami of fake news, calculated to influence the election, for which Robert Mueller has now formally indicted Russian nationals and companies; and probed election-related computer systems in numerous states. Yet Russia continues to escalate such attacks both here and abroad, advancing Putin’s resolve to discredit Western democracy.
