This is an excerpt from from Robert Reich’s explanation of “Trumpgate”. We are now 8 days into this bizarre event in history sparked by a meltdown by the president and no evidence that there is anything real outside the president’s imagination. I can’t think of any explanation other than these three. If #2 is now ruled out then the scary prospect of either of the other two persists.
“we’ve got a huge problem on our hands. Either:
1 Trump is more nuts than we suspected — a true delusional paranoid. Trump’s outburst was seemingly triggered by commentary March 3 in the alt-right publication Breitbart News, which reported an assertion made the night before by right-wing talk-radio host Mark Levin suggesting that Obama and his administration used “police state” tactics last fall to monitor the Trump team’s dealings with Russian operatives.
If this was the case, we’ve got a president willing to put the prestige and power of his office behind baseless claims emanating from well-known right-wing purveyors of lies. Which means Trump shouldn’t be anywhere near the nuclear codes that could obliterate the planet, or near anything else that could determine the fate of America or the world.
2 The second possibility is that Trump is correct, and the Obama administration did in fact tap his phones. But if this was the case, before the tap could occur, Trump was likely to have committed a very serious crime, possibly treason.
No president can order a wiretap on his own. For federal agents to obtain a wiretap on Trump, the Justice Department would first have had to convince a federal judge that it had gathered sufficient evidence of probable cause to believe Trump had committed a serious crime or was an agent of a foreign power, depending on whether it was a criminal or foreign intelligence wiretap.
In which case we have someone occupying the Oval Office who shouldn’t be making decisions that could endanger America or the world.
3 The third possible explanation for Trump’s rant is that he’s trying to divert public attention from the Jeff Sessions imbroglio and multiple investigations of Trump associates already found to have been in contact with Russian agents during the election, at a time when Russian operatives interfered with the election on Trump’s behalf.
Maybe he’s trying to build a case that the entire Russia story is a plot concocted by the Obama administration — along with the intelligence agencies and the mainstream media — to bring Trump down. That way, he can inoculate himself against more damaging evidence to come.
But if it’s all a big show to divert attention and undermine the credibility of the intelligence agencies and the media, Trump is willing to do anything to keep his job — even if it means further dividing America, undermining trust in our governing institutions, and destroying the fabric of our democracy.
So there you have it. Whatever the reason for Trump’s rant, America is in deep trouble. We have a president who is either a dangerous paranoid who’s making judgments based on right-wing crackpots, or has in all likelihood committed treason, or is willing to sacrifice public trust in our basic institutions to further his selfish goals.
Each of these possible reasons is as terrifying as the other.”
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