But for Russia, Donald Trump would NEVER have been president. To this very day, our perspective-free news media scratches welts into its scalps trying to figure out why Donald Trump still holds the Republican Party in the palm of his orange, small-fingered hand. Even when Trump’s grip seems to wane, it only ever wanes slightly. I don’t mean his grip on the Republican electorate. One third of America loves Trump because they prefer America’s dark, white-racist past to any bright, diverse future. No, I mean the grip Trump still has on the membership of the Republican Party currently serving in Congress. Trump still controls their fate. And Russia controls Trump. Russia has always been the glue holding the Trump conspiracy together.

Annointing “The Donald”

Most of the “professional” Republicans hated Trump at the outset. They still do. Unable to out-corrupt Trump, they knelt to him and kissed his ring. They’re the “hate the man, love what he’s doing for my bank account” GOP-ers. In Congress, these Republicans knew going in that Russia had corrupted Trump (beyond how corrupt he already was).

We can point to the day when the Republican Party officially became Trump’s co-conspirators in treason. They were willing to betray America for Donald Trump. On May 17, 2017, The Washington Post’s Adam Entous published a story headlined “House majority leader to colleagues in 2016: ‘I think Putin pays’ Trump… swear to God!”. In the story, Entous reports on a June 25, 2016 meeting of the GOP’s leadership. Someone recorded the meeting and played it for Entous nearly a year later. Current GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy had just left a meeting about Ukraine. Putin was attempting to corrupt Ukraine’s coming election. Whatever he heard convinced McCarthy that “There’s two people I think Putin pays – Rohrbacher and Trump”. That’s what McCarthy said out loud as he entered the room.

Trump’s Takeover Begins

Now, please remember the times. Trump had run roughshod over the rest of the Republican field of candidates. But, he hadn’t yet wrestled the party away from the establishment Republicans. On June 25, 2016, the GOP’s nominating convention was still a month away. While the primary season was over, time remained for intrigue.

A party leader says out loud to a room filled with other party leaders that he thinks Vladimir Putin has compromised the man they’re about to nominate to the presidency! Putin, everyone in the room knows, was KGB. Yes, the KGB no longer “was”. Different letters had replaced it – GRU. The bottom line: once KGB, always KGB. If Kevin McCarthy thought “Putin pays Trump”, then he should also have thought “that would make a “President Trump” a grave national security threat”. McCarthy didn’t think that. Neither did anyone else in the room.

Keeping It In The Family

One would think that a statement as jaw-dropping as “Russia pays the guy we’re about to nominate to be president” would get a big reaction. It didn’t. It got nervous laughter – which is why McCarthy threw in the “Swear to God!” No one leapt forward saying “Whaaaaat? Kevin, are you sure about that?” Not a lawmaker present asked why McCarthy would say or think such a thing.

Instead, then Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan (second in line to the presidency) stepped forward and commandeered the convo. Per Entous: “Ryan instructed his Republican lieutenants to keep the conversation private, saying: “No leaks. . . . This is how we know we’re a real family here.” That’s where the discussion ended.

“This ‘Thing” Of Ours”

By “family”, Speaker Ryan meant “a crime family”.

Even Ryan must have appreciated the kind of crime he and everyone in that room had just committed. Consider how much covering up the GOP has done since that conversation. They’ve relentlessly obstructed justice. Rod Rosenstein (the temp AG), we now know, ended an ongoing counter-intelligence investigation into Trump’s odd relationship with Putin. He told Team Mueller that the FBI was doing it and told the FBI that Team Mueller was doing it.

Ends, meet the middle.

Trump Sees Russia From His House

But for Russia, Trump would never have been president. Trump planned to stay in office. His attempted coup remains multi-faceted and complex. So too was the Russian plan that PUT Trump in office in 2016. Russia didn’t know or expect it would succeed. But every time Trump succeeded, Russia succeeded. And the more success Russia had working with Trump (their Manchurian Candidate), the more ambitious they became.

The Republicans focused on three Democratic “blue wall” states – Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Those are three of the four states (Minnesota was the other) for which Trump Campaign manager Paul Manafort handed GRU alum Oleg Deripaska proprietary polling data.

Return To Sender

We know that polling data returned to America in the form of personalized Facebook ads that landed on the pages of Black Democratic voters. The ads – all of it propaganda written in Russia by Russian intelligence – told Black voters that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats were secretly racist. The goal: dissuade them from voting. Get them to stay home.

Did it work? We owe ourselves a deep dive investigation. I’d also suggest an investigation into the voting machines – mostly ES&L. Every ES&L and Diebold machine (their competitor) has a backdoor the voting machine company uses to update the machine’s software. Bad actors could use those same backdoors – imagine that! – to change the voting machine’s computer code and alter its vote tallies and vote record.

Glue

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Russia didn’t “make” Trump POTUS. I’m willing and happy to “be” wrong. Let’s find out the truth. But we better be willing to deal with the truth whatever it is. Prosecuting Trump as a traitor allied with Russia would have been hard all by itself. Fortunately for America, Trump committed a second crime almost as nefarious – he tried to steal election 2020.

Trump’s own lawyers are preparing Trump for indictment. They know it’s coming. See the growing line of Trumpanistas suddenly willing to talk? They, too, know it’s coming and know that if they don’t cut a deal now, there probably won’t be a deal to cut later.

My guess: some of the guilty Republicans unable to cut insurrection deals with the DoJ will open the Russia door as a way to get a deal. Once that door opens?

Watch Donald Trump come unglued.