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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy 'Individual 1' Is Owned By Vladimir Putin
Gene Lyons
December 5, 2018 2:07 am
Some years ago, I watched a herd of nine mares stampede across a pasture on a friends farm. It was an impressive spectacle, like leaning on the rail at a race track. Because I fed them regularly, I knew them well.
As they thundered by, the two youngest animals at the rear kept looking backward and making eye contact as if to say, in horse-speak What the hell are we running from?
About the time the stragglers pulled up, I watched the head mare gallop into a run-in shed. Apparently, the whole herd was fleeing a big biting fly on her rump. (Horseflies avoid moving shadows.) Anyway, thats how horses work. When one runs, they all run. Until the ones at the rear no longer sense danger. Then everybody settles down.
Humans arent so different. The 19th century Scottish author Charles MacKay, put it this way in his classic book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds: Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.
Another way of putting it is that the political figure designated as Individual 1 in Michael Cohens guilty plea for lying to Congress last week has probably got all the supporters hes ever going to have. By now, smart Republicans have got to be catching each others eyes. After enough quit galloping, the stampede will peter out.
Nobody knows exactly how the storys going to end, but its surely significant that White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders has switched from saying there was no collusion with the Russian government during the 2016 campaign to emphasizing that the president wasnt personally involved.
Big difference. And shes said it several times, so its no accident.
Meanwhile, Individual 1 has taken his customary prevarication to operatic heights. Following Cohens plea bargain for lying to Congress about his scheme to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, he called it common knowledge. This deal was a very public deal, said last week. Everybody knows about this deal. I wasnt trying to hide anything.
Oh really? Both during and after the 2016 campaign while Michael Cohen was secretly negotiating with the Putin government on Individual 1s behalf, he repeatedly denied having any Russian business interests whatsoever.
Washington Post reporter Meg Kelly has compiled an encyclopedic list. For example, although hed signed a letter of intent to proceed with the Moscow plan during the GOP presidential debates, he tweeted a categorical denial in July 2016: For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia.
Stung by Hillary Clintons depiction of him as a Russian puppet, he told an October 26 campaign rally that I dont know Putin, have no business whatsoever with Russia, have nothing to do with Russia.
Even after the election, Individual 1 told a Feb. 16, 2017 press conference that Russia is a ruse. I have nothing to do with Russia. Havent made a phone call to Russia in years. Dont speak to people from Russia. I have nothing to do with Russia. To the best of my knowledge, no person that I deal with does.
None of these statements was even remotely truthful.
Rep. Adam Schiff, incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee puts it this way: At the same time candidate Trump publicly urged sanctions relief for Russia, he was privately putting together a business deal in Moscow that required lifting US sanctions. Then President Trump and his confederates misled the country about it, in a way that left him compromised.
You swat the fly on Individual 1s back, he swats yours.
Somebody who wasnt misled, however, was Vladimir Putin, more accurately described as the boss of an organized crime cartel than the lawful president of Russia. Cohen, see, was negotiating directly with Dmitry Peskov, Putins personal assistant. So Putin had Individual 1 by the short hairs all along. All the Russians ever had to do was release Trump Tower documents in their possession to do Individual 1s campaign grievous political harm.
And Individual 1 definitely knew it, as his obsequiousness to the Russian dictator has shown. Instead, Putin put the Russian intelligence apparatus to work attacking Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Alas, soon after Russian operatives met in Trump Tower secretly promising to incriminate Hillary as part of Russia and its governments support for Mr. Trump, the scam fell apart.
On June 14, 2016 the Washington Post and CrowdStrike, an investigative firm hired by the Democratic National Committee, revealed that Russian intelligence operatives had hacked DNC computers. Moscow scuttled the Trump Tower project that same day.
The press first learned of the deals existence in August 2018. But Vladimir Putin still had the president by the short hairs and acts as if he still does.
And thats just one of the things Individual 1 is fleeing from.
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http://www.nationalmemo.com/why-individual-1-is-owned-by-vladimir-putin/