'Getting Trump' with the New McCarthyism

Yes, I get it. A lot of people want to remove Donald Trump from the presidency for a lot of understandable reasons: his breathtaking incompetence, his relentless narcissism, his destructive policies, etc. But he was elected under the U.S. constitutional system. He may have lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly three million ballots but he did prevail in the Electoral College.

And, unlike George W. Bush, who also lost the popular vote, Trump didn't have to steal Florida - and thus the White House - by enlisting Republican justices on the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the vote count prematurely. We now know that if all the ballots considered legal under Florida law had been counted Al Gore would have won regardless of which standard of "chad" was used. But Trump didn't have to resort to such bald-faced cheating.

And, yes, of course, there were many other problems with the election, such as Republican efforts to suppress African-American and other minority votes. But it's not as if the U.S. electoral process has ever been the gold standard of democracy that some Americans like to believe. The system has now - and always has had - serious shortcomings, but it also has enabled the diverse United States to function for more than two centuries without major political violence, with the exception of the Civil War when the process broke down over the South's insistence on slavery.

"I get the desire to get rid of Trump because of his unfitness and ineptness. But the 'Russia thing' - as Trump calls it - is unleashing an ugliness that many of us thought was a thing of the past."

So, whether one likes it or not - and many people really don't like it - Donald Trump is the constitutionally elected President of the United States. And, despite the many imperfections in that electoral process, the idea of negating a presidential election is very serious business.

Whatever the hurt feelings of the editors at The New York Times and The Washington Post, whatever snarky jokes are told on late-night TV, whatever connect-the-dots conspiracy theories are popular on MSNBC, the idea of telling 63 million Americans that their votes don't count, that the elites know best, that the President who won under the rules of the game must be ridden out of Washington on a rail will not go down as easily as some people think.

New McCarthyism

National Democrats and many progressives are also embracing a troubling New McCarthyism to justify what amounts to a "soft coup" against Trump.

In a normal world - after Tuesday's testimony before the House Intelligence Committee - former CIA Director John Brennan would have been led away in a straitjacket or given the role of General Jack D. Ripper in a remake of the Cold War dark comedy, "Dr. Strangelove." Instead, Brennan's Russo-phobic ramblings were made the lead story in the Times, the Post and other major American newspapers.

While General Ripper worried about Russian operatives polluting our "precious bodily fluids," Brennan warned that any conversation with a Russian or some Russian intermediary might put Americans on a treasonous path even if they "do not even realize they are on that path until it gets too late."

He also testified, "I know what the Russians try to do. They try to suborn individuals and try to get individuals, including U.S. individuals, to act on their behalf, wittingly or unwittingly." In other words, any American who has some contact with Russia or Russians may be a spy or mole whether he or she knows it or not. Subversion or possible subversion is everywhere. Trust no one.

Yes, I'm sure those devious Russ-kies do what all intelligence agencies, including the CIA, seek to do. And, in many cases, there is nothing wrong with the process. Unofficial give-and-take between adversaries can increase understanding - and that can be especially important to the future of humankind when the United States and Russia are still armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons.

Indeed, such informal contacts may have helped avert nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis when Washington-based KGB station chief Aleksandr Feklisov approached ABC News correspondent John Scali with a plan to dismantle missile bases in Cuba in return for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba. Though there remain historical questions about the significance of that initiative, it shows the value that such contacts can have despite the alarmist concerns raised by the likes of Brennan. In the New Cold War, we'd have to investigate Scali's loyalty.

Despite the paranoid fantasies, Brennan's testimony was widely praised as he suggested that any dealing with Russia or Russians or Russian businesses or possible Russian cutouts could put an American under counterintelligence suspicions because, hey, you never know.

"We see that Russian intelligence agencies do not hesitate at all to use private companies and Russian persons who are unaffiliated with the Russian government to support their objectives," Brennan warned.

No Edward R. Murrow

There was a time when some Democrats, some Republicans and a few courageous journalists objected to this kind of broad-brush challenge to the patriotism of American citizens. CBS News correspondent Edward R. Murrow famously stood up to Sen. Joe McCarthy and his Red Scare in the 1950s. It was then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton who chastised President George H.W. Bush during a 1992 presidential debate for making an issue of Clinton's student trip to Moscow during the Cold War.

After Bush referenced Clinton's Moscow visit, Clinton hit back: "When Joe McCarthy went around this country attacking people's patriotism, he was wrong. He was wrong, and a senator from Connecticut stood up to him, named Prescott Bush. Your father was right to stand up to Joe McCarthy. You were wrong to attack my patriotism."

But that was then. These days, Hillary Clinton and her Democratic allies have led the smearing of Trump supporters as possible Kremlin agents, albeit without proof of the so-called "collusion" or even clear evidence that Russia did "meddle" in last November's election.

And the backdrop for this New Cold War is that since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 - and the end of the Old Cold War - many Americans have done business in Russia and many Russians have invested in the United States. A Russian oligarch, Mikhail Prokhorov, even owns the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association.

The recent tensions are also not entirely the making of Russia or its President Vladimir Putin. The past several U.S. administrations have exploited the disarray from the Soviet collapse to push NATO up to Russia's borders.

U.S. officials also encouraged the violent 2014 putsch in Ukraine that overthrew elected President Viktor Yanukovych. Actively involved in Yanukovych's overthrow were senior U.S. officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, and Sen. John McCain. Several weeks before the coup, Nuland and Pyatt were caught on an unsecure phone line discussing who should take over the Ukrainian government and musing how to "midwife" or "glue this thing."

The coup also followed the specific targeting of Ukraine as "the biggest prize" by neocon Carl Gershman, the president of the U.S.-government-funded National Endowment for Democracy, which sponsored scores of political and media operations inside Ukraine. (Gershman is now calling for regime change in Russia.)

But the U.S. mainstream media essentially ignored this evidence of U.S. complicity in the Ukraine coup and accepted the State Department's propaganda line that the post-coup resistance to Yanukovych's overthrow among ethnic Russians in Crimea and eastern Ukraine was simply the result of "Russian aggression." The New York Times even denied that there had been a coup in an article that studiously ignored the evidence that there had been a coup, including the Nuland-Pyatt phone call.

Swallowing U.S. Propaganda

Similarly, the mainstream U.S. media has swallowed every evidence-free claim from the Obama administration's intelligence agencies without any skepticism. Indeed, the MSM has hyped those claims beyond even what the Obame team says by ignoring factual admissions from former CIA Director Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper about the limited nature of the intelligence "assessment" on Russian election interference.

The MSM has so enjoyed claiming that the Russian "meddling" allegations are the consensus judgment of all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies that a blind eye and a deaf ear have been turned to Brennan and Clapper contradicting that beloved groupthink.

In recent testimony, Clapper and Brennan acknowledged that the Jan. 6 report alleging Russian "meddling" was actually the work of hand-picked analysts from only four agencies - the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation under the oversight of the DNI's office. But that fact continues to be ignored by the MSM, with the Post on Wednesday castigating Trump for refusing "to fully accept the unanimous conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies."

If a non-MSM news outlet had published such a misleading claim from a different perspective - after U.S. senior officials had denied it - we would be hearing charges of "fake news" or perhaps accusations of "Russian disinformation." But clearly the Post doesn't want to give up on this formulation of unanimity among the 17 intelligence agencies even if it's not true.

The Post must feel that it's less impressive to say that the Russia-did-it conclusion was reached by "hand-picked" analysts at four agencies while other intelligence agencies, which could have supplied important context, such as the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, were excluded.

What has also been remarkable about the months-long investigations into alleged Russian "meddling" is how little evidence has been evinced to support the accusations. While there has been a parade of Obama appointees testifying before Congress - making broad accusations while demurring whenever evidence is requested on the grounds of secrecy or privacy - we haven't heard from any of the people accused of having these untoward contacts with Russians, even though some have volunteered to testify.

"I'm not going to identify the individuals [under suspicion] because this is information that, again, is based on classified sources and intelligence," Brennan said on Tuesday, although the identities of the suspected "traitors" have been widely publicized through leaks to the major U.S. news media.

Speaking Up

One of those Americans, onetime Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page, responded to Brennan's testimony in a letter to the House Intelligence Committee.

Page noted he was "an unpaid, informal" adviser to the campaign and "throughout my interactions with the Russians in 2016, I consistently made it crystal clear that all of my benign statements and harmless actions in Moscow as well as elsewhere overseas were solely made as a scholar and a business person speaking only on behalf of myself. In other words, in no way connected to then-candidate Trump. Both in Russia and in countries around the world, this was precisely the same position I had maintained stretching back over a decade."

Regarding Brennan's demurral about naming names, Page pointed out that it has been widely reported that he was put under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant. According to press accounts, that was, in part, because of a speech he made in Moscow in 2016. His identity, in communications intercepted by U.S. intelligence, had already been "unmasked" or exposed to the public, but whatever evidence there is against him has been hidden.

Page wrote: "underscoring what a complete mockery this process has become, my identity has already been publicly revealed in the wake of the felonies committed [by the Obama administration, including] baseless FISA warrant, Male-1 unmasking, etc.).

"Serving as a loyal Clinton/Obama regime surrogate, Brennan's spineless practice of hiding behind this lame confidentiality excuse rather than taking any responsibility for their illegal actions only stirs up more misunderstanding and illegitimate fears which continue to damage our great country. This further underscores the urgent need for the public disclosure of these related documents."

Joining the Stampede

Yet, congressional Democrats have recognized the political gain that they can extract from this New McCarthyism, as reflected in an exchange between Rep. Jim Himes, D-Connecticut, and Brennan at Tuesday's hearing. Himes cited a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a leading think tank for the Military-Industrial Complex.

Himes said: "I want to use my five minutes to try to paint a more specific picture around the methods and mechanisms that the Russians used to suborn ... our democracy and our electoral process. And I want to start with a quote by a report I know you're familiar with, CSIS' report, 'The Kremlin Playbook' in which they say that Russia, quote, 'Seeks to corrode democracy from within by deepening political divides,' unquote.

"The Russians stir the pot, heighten anxieties and know that when they trigger chaos, even if it ends up negatively affecting them, that they are serving the purpose of weakening us. I want to talk about people because you made reference to people and I don't want to do it specifically, I want to do it in the abstract.

"'The Kremlin Playbook' ... says further that Russia looks to corrode democracy by, quote, 'Investing in rising politicians, cultivating relationships with prominent businessmen, or helping to ensure that its business affiliates become well-positioned in government.'

"Mr. Brennan, assuming that you agree with that, how specifically has the Kremlin gone about cultivating relationships with key Americans in an effort ... to influence our policy?"

Brennan: "It is traditional intelligence collection tradecraft ... to identify individuals that you think are either very influential or rising stars, and you will try to develop a relationship with them and the Russians frequently will do that through cutouts or through false-flag operations. They won't identify themselves as Russians or as members of Russian government. They will try to develop a personal relationship and then over time they will try to get individuals to do things on their behalf.

"And that's why again, having been involved in a lot of counterintelligence cases over the years and seeing this pattern over and over again, my radar goes up when I see that the Russians are actively involved in a particular intelligence operational campaign and that U.S. persons are being contacted by Russian officials. ... these are contacts that might've been totally, totally innocent and benign as well as those that might have succumbed somehow to those Russian efforts. ..."

Himes: "do Americans who are suborned in such a way ... do they necessarily need to know that they are doing Russia's bidding?"

Brennan: "No, many times they do not. They do not even know that the person that they're interacting with is a Russian. Many times they know that individuals may be Russian officials, but they don't know that there is an intelligence connection or intelligence motive for behind it. ..."

No Doubts

Himes: "There's hardly anyone left today who doubts that Russia attacked us, but we have to realize the true thrust of the Russian attack is what they have triggered in us, the partisanship. Every time we refuse to face facts, every time we attack the messenger rather than confront the actions that happened, every time we undercut our allies in our alliances and our values, I think we're playing precisely in the Russians fondest hopes.

"We're doing something about that in my opinion, the gray, cold warriors, be it Ronald Reagan or Harry Truman would never have allowed."

Responding to Hines's comments, Page wrote: "This offers a precise depiction of the Clinton/Obama regime's playbook based on their continued false evidence regarding former Trump campaign supporters such as myself, in the wake of their sad disappointment as sore losers. Immediate disclosure of their falsified FISA warrant documents upon which these same tactics were based last year is an essential way to cease this process which has been weakening all Americans."

Page added, "Other gray, cold warriors of bygone eras had J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy to do precisely this dirty work: attacking the messengers. In other words, attacking those who wanted to see positive changes in their country's policies based on realistic strategies which can benefit all citizens while creating a viable pathway to increased peace around the world."

A core problem with what Brennan and other Obama administration officials have set in motion is that the suspicions are so vague at this point - even some 10 months into the investigation - that a paranoia has taken over. There is a McCarthyistic element to these allegations, including guilt by association regarding any contact with any Russian or even some intermediary who might somehow be a Russian "false-flag." Anyone or everyone might be a Russian "mole."

So, yes, I get the desire to get rid of Trump because of his unfitness and ineptness. But the "Russia thing" - as Trump calls it - is unleashing an ugliness that many of us thought was a thing of the past, an era of evidence-free accusations of disloyalty and a crazed hostility toward the other nuclear superpower that could end in a miscalculation that could end life on the planet. Is this really what Democrats and progressives want to embrace?