After Mueller — The Dangerous Precedent of the President
Originally published in The Daily Comet on May 2, 2019 by Gwayne Gautreaux
After Mueller — The President’s Dangerous Precedent
The Mueller report has been released and as expected there are just as many questions as there are answers. While the report encompasses a kaleidoscope of interpretations, making any objective assessment requires transcending partisan politics.
Even in the absence of collusion, the real question remains, where do we go from here?
Dangerous Precedents of a Dangerous President
For some, “no collusion” is where it all ends; for others, the reckless and deceptive behavior of the Trump campaign is symptomatic of a much deeper problem, and my fear is that the president is gravitating toward a very dangerous precedent.
At this point, rather than the Trump administration taking action to discourage further nefarious activity from countries seeking to imitate Russia, they have, instead, continued their attack on the very same intelligence agencies that have pledged to protect the well-being of all citizens. Of course, working to prevent further Russian interference would require the president to trek into the unfamiliar territory of accountability. Unfortunately, he has moved in a completely opposite-self-serving direction.
In the first place, it is paradoxical how President Trump continues to label the investigation as a witch-hunt. Regardless of his feelings toward the FBI, the intelligence community, and the special counsel, the fact of the matter is the Russians did interfere in the 2016 presidential election with the specific intent of assisting the Trump campaign. We also know that members of the Trump campaign regularly sought and met with Russian operatives throughout the election for the sole purpose of acquiring “dirt” on Hillary Clinton and then misled the American people by repeatedly lying about it.
Secondly, the president would rather continue pandering to his extreme base rather than work to ensure the health and integrity of our political foundations. By failing to openly acknowledge what Russia did during the election, President Trump has undertaken another dangerous precedent of normalizing these actions and justifying the reckless actions of his administration’s support and encouragement of Russian interference. In fact, not only has the president willingly overlooked much of this activity but has repeatedly dismissed information given to him by American intelligence all the while endorsing the word of an autocrat, whose mission it was to weaken the country.
Likewise, staunch defenders of the president have even suggested that soliciting information from Russia isn’t at all problematic and indicated that Russia should not necessarily be classified as an adversary.
Sure, there is nothing wrong with seeking an alliance with Russia, provided that gaining one ally doesn’t come at the expense of losing others. There would be no benefit at all for the U.S. to establish a friendship with Russia while risk losing their relationship with other traditional European partners.
An Empty Alliance
While I wouldn’t consider Russia a mortal enemy, there still exists problems with a Russian alliance. First, Russia has been very clear about their disdain for western-style democracy. A big part of Russian foreign policy has been to undermine U.S. democracy since the height of the Cold War. They have sought to destabilize the very global and regional institutions that served the U.S. so effectively since World War II. Russia has also provoked dissension between the U.S. and NATO for decades. No other nation has championed the president’s condemnation of NATO more so than Russia, as they would likely be the biggest benefactor of an American departure.
Unintended Consequences
All in all, international norms have served the U.S. well, and it has allowed the U.S. to achieve and maintain global hegemony. While it may be true that the U.S. has contributed the most to NATO, the president has failed to mention that it has also allowed America to have the loudest voice. Challenging the status quo by normalizing the delinquent behavior of an adversary at the expense of accountability may prove to have more unintended consequences than one can imagine.
