Ukraine Reality Check: What Was Donald Trump’s Role?

Posted on March 15, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, March 15, 2022,

Note: for this article I have relied heavily on a couple of published reports: a July 21, 2021 piece in Business Insider; a July 15, 2021 article in Just Security.

It’s too late to save Ukraine and its citizens from destruction, but people are waking up to the role Donald Trump may have played in encouraging Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade. Trump’s dealings with Russia go back to the 1980s. In his book, The Art of the Deal, Trump bragged about working in partnership with the Soviet government in 1987 to build a luxury hotel across from the Kremlin. The project failed, but Trump returned to Moscow in 1996 and invested $250 million in Russian real estate.

In 2006-2007, Donald Trump Jr. visited Russia six times, sometimes accompanied by his sister Ivanka, to solidify business ties. While the New York Times reported today that it found no evidence that Trump currently is in debt to Russians, in 2008, Trump Jr. said, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.” He was bragging, trying to impress his audience. It’s not clear what he was referring to, but Business Insider cited a Reuters report that almost $100 million was invested in Trump’s Florida properties by Russians, and the actual amount is almost certainly much higher, but difficult to trace because of LLC privacy rules.

In 2013, Trump thought he’d scored a major coup when Putin approved holding his Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow. Trump famously referred to Putin as “his new best friend.” Apparently actually believing that, Trump said, “I have plans for the establishment of business in Russia. Now, I am in talks with several Russian companies to establish this skyscraper.” But in June, 2015, when Trump did his escalator descent into politics, the deal still lay dormant.

Enter the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump’s attorney/fixer, Michael Cohen, as late as June 2016 was visiting Moscow trying to close it. Imagine the lust for wealth and power Trump felt to believe anything emerging from the mouth of Putin, one of the few people who has even less respect for truth than Trump himself. Putin and his moneyed oligarchs knew Trump desperately wanted his Moscow monument. How naïve does any American have to be to think Trump wasn’t driven by personal greed and ambition every time he dealt with Putin as president?

Matters were complicated when then Vice President Biden’s son, Hunter, was appointed to the Board of Burisma, a Ukrainian oil company that was thought to be corrupt. When the UK initiated an investigation of Burisma, and the local prosecutor took no action to make Burisma comply with requests for information, VP Biden was in a tough spot. He ultimately castigated Burisma, demanding that then Ukrainian President Boroshenko fire the corrupt prosecutor. There was never any evidence that Hunter Biden had done anything illegal, but that didn’t stop Trump from lying about it during his re-election campaign.

Add to that the obvious adoration Trump held for Putin that was on display in Helsinki and every other time the two leaders met. When every American security organization offered proof that Putin directed Russian hackers to interfere in the 2016 election in favor of Trump, the world heard Trump respond, “I asked President Putin if Russia was responsible and he said No. I believe him.” He claimed, out of the blue, thaat it was Ukraine that had hacked the election. “Ukraine hated me. They were after me in the election. They wanted Hillary Clinton to win,” Trump told Fox News and Friends, in November 2019. That was two years after he was impeached for illegally withholding military aid funding for Ukraine in an attempt to blackmail newly elected President Volodomyr Zelensky to smear Hunter Biden.

Even with the invasion of Ukraine looming as Putin sent 200,000 troops to enclose Ukraine, Trump was telling his rallies how brilliant Putin’s strategy was. The entire world knew what was ahead for Ukraine; we’d seen the Russian playbook in action in Syria, Chechniya, and Georgia. It was brutal and violated every international law of warfare (admittedly an oxymoron) by targeting civilians and using chemical and biological weapons. Yet, as recently as a few weeks ago, Trump was still praising Putin.

I believe that among Putin’s gross miscalculations was overestimating Trump’s ability to disrupt the Biden administration’s effort to reunify NATO and the EU as allies speaking with one voice. Putin was certain his blitzkrieg approach to the invasion would succeed before a disorganized western alliance could get itself together to respond. Whether or not Donald Trump specifically intended to help Putin destroy Ukraine, he played an important role in helping Putin conclude he would be successful.

I saw a poll today suggesting that 62% of Americans think Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine if Trump were still president. Of course not, he wouldn’t have had to. Trump would have simply ceded it to him and prevented NATO from responding.

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The Ukrainian Line in the Sand

Posted on March 12, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, March 12, 2022

Watching horrific videos and interviews with ordinary Ukrainians, it’s important to remember the elephant in the room: Nuclear War. That would be the end of civilization as we know it and possibly the destruction of all life on Earth. As some politicians and pundits beat war drums and others fuss about the cost of helping Ukraine, President Biden faces the defining challenge of his presidency.

When I studied game theory, whose principal purpose is learning to optimize positive outcomes in conflict situations, the first thing I learned was the difference between tactics and strategy. Tactics is about winning battles and defending people and places under threat. Strategy is about the long term. If battle tactics define victory as the “last man standing,” you picked the wrong strategy. What’s the point of winning if everything has been destroyed?

President Biden is keenly aware of the alternatives before him. Many people fantasize about the good guys rushing to Ukraine’s rescue, wiping out what appears to be a seriously over-rated Russian military. If the Ukrainians could hold off a force of 200,000 infantry for weeks, NATO ought to have an easy time of it, right? Our military leaders have dozens of winning tactical scenarios, and they’d probably work if Russia’s underperforming army weren’t backed up by nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons controlled by a leader skilled at playing the madman game.

We’ve been here before. In 2000, Russian President Vladimir Putin began an “anti-terrorist” campaign against Muslim insurgents in Chechniya. Within months, after the city of Grozny was reduced to rubble, Russia had re-absorbed the former Soviet Republic. Western countries stood by and watched. In 2008, Russia invaded the former Soviet nation of Georgia. The world tried minor sanctions, but otherwise let the Russian military take over the country in twelve days.

In 2014, Russia invaded the Crimea region of Ukraine. President Obama imposed a few sanctions, but again, the west sat by and let Russia annex the province. People who knew Putin well warned that he wouldn’t stop there and the west’s lack of response would embolden him.

Students of history compared Crimea to Hitler’s aggressive moves on the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia populated mostly by German-speaking people that borders Germany. Hitler insisted that Sudetenland was rightfully part of Germany, and he simply annexed it, running into little opposition. Western Europe, led by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, adopted a policy of appeasement. We know how that turned out, yet when Putin seized Crimea in an almost bloodless coup under virtually identical circumstances, Obama, whether because he was hamstrung by an obstructionist Republican majority in Congress or because he seriously misjudged Putin, committed the same error as Chamberlain.

Along came Donald Trump, who immediately set about creating discord among the NATO alliance, while simultaneously seeming to revere Putin. Trump praised Putin for being a strong leader and complained that if only he weren’t constrained by the Constitution he’d sworn to defend, he could be equally strong. Putin played Trump like a violin and did everything he could to create disunity among NATO countries. Experts warned that Putin’s ultimate goal was the reunification of the former Soviet countries under his dominion, some of which are now members of NATO.

With Ukraine making overtures to NATO and Biden setting about reunifying our allies, Putin had to act fast if he expected to re-absorb Ukraine without having to confront NATO forces. But master strategist Putin made some serious miscalculations. NATO turned out to be more united than ever, and Ukrainians were willing to fight to the death to defend their homeland. The irony is that the west, having finally learned the lesson of World War 2, that appeasement only encourages aggressors, was confronted by the reality that Article 5 of the NATO Treaty might result in World War 3.

The question all Americans are asking is how far Biden will go in defending Ukraine. His strategy has been to enclose Russia in a net of worldwide sanctions, and to re-evaluate our relationships with adversaries like China, Venezuela, and Iran. The objective is to create so much internal pressure on Putin that he either backs down (extremely unlikely) or is removed from power internally.

We and our allies, led by Biden, are pouring massive amounts of munitions and equipment into Ukraine. How far will Biden go? We got a clear message when Poland offered to funnel Soviet era MIGs to Ukraine through an American Air Base in Germany, which would support the creation of a No-Fly-Zone and raise the specter of NATO aircraft coming into direct conflict with Russian forces. Biden rejected the plan over the loud objections of some politicians. Interviewed yesterday, he said, “we will defend every inch of NATO territory… if we respond [to Russian aggression] it is World War III…we have a sacred duty [to defend] NATO territory… [but] we will not fight the third World War in Ukraine.”

I’m proud to have a president with sound judgment who knows the difference between friends and enemies.

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The Nuclear Madman Scenario

Posted on March 1, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, March 1, 2022

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was always going to be a risky proposition with the borders between Ukraine and four NATO countries within shelling and rocket range of the fighting. The risk seems greater now that Ukrainian forces have put up fierce resistance, upsetting Vladimir Putin’s plans for an early victory. Americans are asking questions. What would it take for NATO forces to be drawn into the fight? What would immediately trigger Article 5 and require American forces to engage against Russians?

With NATO having ordered its quick reaction force to be ready to move, why is anyone surprised that Vladimir Putin put his nuclear deterrence force on alert? And what does that mean, exactly? Nuclear deterrence means Russia has about 6,000 nuclear warheads attached to medium range and intercontinental ballistic missiles aimed at every critical target in every NATO country. That’s enough explosive power to destroy life on Earth if not Earth itself.

If you’re much over sixty, you remember the Cuban Missile crisis. I was 19 in 1962. Like everyone around me, I was terrified that we could be nuked any minute as President Kennedy had laid down a gauntlet, blockading sea routes to Cuba, daring Russian naval vessels to cross it. It was especially terrifying because I was in New York City, a prime nuclear target. For some arcane reason, about a thousand students were lined up registering our presence with Columbia University, everyone listening to Walter Cronkite on our transistor radios and looking up at the sky. It was reminiscent of Philip Wylie’s 1954 novel, Tomorrow! wherein two twin midwestern cities are attacked with nuclear weapons. The scene that stuck in my mind was a man standing on a rooftop who, through some trick of light and luck, actually sees a nuclear missile heading towards him.

I believe the reason we didn’t see one approaching that day was that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev realized his American counterparts were out of their depth and therefore unpredictable, the worst possible scenario in a diplomatic crisis. The only way he could assure the world’s survival was to call back his navy. We older folks remember Khrushchev well, especially when he took off his shoe during an address to the UN Security Council and began banging it on a table. He was belligerent, loud, and intimidating, and many Americans thought he was a nuclear-armed madman. Fortunately for all of us, he wasn’t. It was all an act, and Khrushchev, the level-headed statesman, realizing the peril his ships had placed the world in, backed off.

In recent days, pundits around the western world have been debating whether Vladimir Putin is a nuclear-armed madman. The media immediately jumped on the notion, just as they hype and sensationalize anything that might attract viewers. From what I’ve heard, not a single one of these “experts” knows the first thing about mental illness, and it’s all speculation based on various observers claiming Putin has somehow changed in recent years. Consider the statement by Florida Senator Marco Rubio who warned that Putin is far more dangerous than he was in 2008 and 2014, and appears to suffer from a neuro-physiological disorder. What the hell does Rubio know about neuro-physiology and what’s the point of stirring up fears of nuclear war among the American people? It’s irresponsible, and can’t lead to any kind of positive outcome. The only voice that attempted to blunt this kind of dangerous gossip was President Biden’s. When asked by reporters if he thought Americans should worry about the fighting in Ukraine leading to nuclear war, his answer was eloquent. “NO!”

Conventional wisdom says a paranoid leader who lives in isolation and surrounds himself only with loyal yes men and women is at risk of losing touch with reality. We saw it happen with Richard Nixon, and many would say, with Donald Trump. In both cases, our military leaders made certain an irrational leader could not trigger a nuclear attack. The same conventional wisdom says senior Russian military leaders would act just as responsibly today, but can we count on that? If nuclear push comes to shove, could they prevent Putin from triggering a nuclear holocaust? Can pressure from Russian oligarchs who see their fortunes threatened by sanctions and growing unrest among ordinary Russians?

The media are pushing a dangerous narrative that Vladimir Putin is the most dangerous man in the world and that no one could stop him from escalating what he started into World War 3. My response is to turn off my TV and fly the Ukrainian flags I bought yesterday from my balcony. If Putin is as crazy as they want us to believe, there’s not much we as private citizens can do about it. Instead, let’s assume he still possesses the ability to think rationally and show him the world is aligned against him in solidarity.

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Heroism and Leadership

Posted on February 27, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, February 27, 2022

Every major conflict produces heroes; sometimes they’re not the people you might expect. The hero of the first week of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is, hands down, Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine. If the indiscriminate Nazi bombing of London was England’s (perhaps the world’s) darkest hour, the current assault by 200,000 Russian military is surely Ukraine’s. The comparison is apt for another reason.

When I see and hear Zelensky rallying his people in the streets of Kyiv (when did the capital’s name change from Kiev?) I can only think of Winston Churchhill. In reviewing Erik Larson’s book, The Splendid and the Vile, Smithsonian Magazine writer David Kindy described Churchhill’s role like this: “For 57 consecutive nights in 1940, Nazi Germany tried to bring England to its knees. Waves of planes pummeled cities with high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices as part of a campaign to break the English spirit and destroy the country’s capacity to make war. One man stood strong against the onslaught: Winston Churchill, [the] defiant prime minister who almost singlehandedly willed his nation to resist.” The article is accompanied by photographs of Churchhill visiting bombed out homes and churches, reassuring his people and encouraging them to fight on to defend their homeland.

The other person who comes to mind when I watch Zelensky is comedian and political commentator Jon Stewart, late of the The Daily Show. Many people have described Zelensky as Ukraine’s Stewart, because he, too, was a standup comedian who spoke out against the anti-democratic actions of his government. He is also an actor who starred in a Ukrainian television series about a Stewart-like character whose anti-government rants went viral all over the country. When the show was canceled, Zelensky ran for president to replace Petro Poroshenko who served for one year after corrupt pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych abandoned his office, fled the country, and was subsequently impeached..

Zelensky won with 73% of the vote, a number reached in American elections only by George Washington, who was elected unanimously, and in the narcissistic delusions of Donald Trump…speaking of whom, it was Zelensky from whom Trump tried to extort a political favor during the 2020 election, a violation of federal election laws that resulted in Trump’s second impeachment. With all the lies and disinformation campaigns by a combination of Trump supporters and Russian propaganda, we didn’t really know who Zelensky was back then, but we do now. Who would have expected a cross between Jon Stewart and Winston Churchhill to become a charismatic figure revered by the entire non-Communist world? Scenes of Zelensky out in the streets of Kyiv, refusing offers of evacuation to a safe place, armed and vowing to fight the Russian invaders himself have been seen by billions of people, most of whom are rallying to his cause.

It’s not unreasonable to credit Zelensky with the stout defense put up by the Ukrainian military against vastly superior numbers. Their courage and grit have given the rest of the world breathing space to work out how to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for ordering the invasion, which has resulted in several days of ever increasing unity among Europe, NATO, the United States, and even neutral nations of Africa and the Middle East. If the Russian invasion ultimately fails to achieve its objective, Zelensky will be the hero of his time.

There’s a kind of irony about Volodymyr Zelensky that’s very personal to me. Putin called Zelensky and his Cabinet a bunch of neo-Nazis and drug dealers – was he unaware that Zelensky is Jewish? The whole world knows he is now, and that is the best part of Zelensky’s saga for me. After years of Bernie Madoff, Michael Cohen, Stephen Miller, Steve Mnuchin, and Jared Kushner, all of whom I view as poster children for anti-Semitism, it’s a great relief to see a prominent Jewish leader stand tall. It even makes sense as the Nazi-like, anti-Semitic White Supremacist movement in the United States aligns itself with the Pro-Putin Trumpers.

Apparently, people in the United States and around the world, as Wolf Blitzer might say, are buying Ukrainian flags and flying them in honor and support of Zelensky and the Ukrainian people. What a wonderful idea! I just checked Amazon.com, and you can buy a three by five foot Ukrainian flag in its bright blue and yellow colors for as little as $5.79. I love the idea of Putin seeing millions of them flying in his face all over the world whenever he turns on his TV.

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Abetting Our Enemies

Posted on February 24, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, February 24, 2022

Try to imagine that far across the ocean, a large, powerful adversary has surrounded a neighboring sovereign nation with clear intent to invade and overthrow its legally elected government. No one has any illusions about whose military forces are stronger, but the smaller country is no patsy, and unlike the Afghan army we trained and paid for, these people will fight as long as they have life to defend their homeland. This nation is not a bunch of loosely connected regions ruled by warlords and religious zealots, but a country with a thousand years of history and tradition. The fight, now that it has begun, will be long and bloody, but allies along the beleaguered nation’s western flank have committed to support it with heavy equipment, and possibly even personnel.

That sounds troubling enough, but the reality is worse. Not since 1938 has one nation conducted this kind of aggression against its neighbor, and that led to the bloodiest war in our history. Overnight polls here at home imply that the vast majority of Americans view the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as someone else’s war. It’s understandable after two years of dealing with a pandemic and challenging economic problems, but as the experience of Europe in the last century proved, it’s completely wrongheaded. Because Ukraine is bordered by NATO countries, one stray Russian missile that lands in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, or Romania could set off a Europe-wide conflict, which, because of NATO charter commitments will involve the United States directly.

NATO countries know the only way to stabilize the situation short of global conflict is through strength and unity. The NATO Charter requires unanimity on the part of all thirty member states before joint military actions, even defensive ones can occur. Unlikely as that may appear, such unity exists and appears to be holding firm. Even the four NATO countries that border Ukraine, which lived under the domination of the Russian led USSR until its dissolution thirty years ago remain firm in their defense of Ukraine. We’ve seen no pro-Russian demonstrations in those countries, no voices raised in support of Vladimir Putin’s actions.

The only country in which prominent politicians have praised Putin and his gross violations of international law is ours. No sooner did we breathe a sigh of relief, that in Joe Biden we had a president willing to stand up to Mr. Putin and take every action short of direct military engagement, and a Republican Party that has mostly fallen in line behind Mr. Biden, then the Trumpers began marching in lockstep in support of the Russian President. Their leader, of course, was Donald Trump, who will probably be indicted for his role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection. If fomenting insurrection weren’t serious enough, he has now turned to what smells very much like outright treason.

With the rest of the Free World condemning Putin’s bald-faced aggression, our mentally ill former president has instead chosen to praise and compliment him. Supported by people like Tucker Carlson, who as Russia was beginning a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and pushing toward Kyiv and its four million residents, referred to it as a border war that’s none of our business, Trump went further. He described the invading Russian army of nearly 200,000 as “the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen.” He might as well have written Putin’s speech for him, as the Russian leader proclaimed that Ukraine is rightly part of Russia, and he is obligated to cleanse and replace the “Nazis” who now control Ukraine to protect its citizens, who Putin claims are Russians being held hostage.

Describing Putin’s lies and misdirection in the past few weeks, Trump went on to say, in his barely literate style, “This is genius…Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. He used the word ‘independent’ and ‘we’re going to go out and we’re going to go in and we’re going to help keep peace.’ You’ve got to say that’s pretty savvy.”

No, you don’t. We knew Putin was a brilliant tactician, but his invasion strategy is exactly what most American military commentators predicted it would be, and after the initial couple of days, Putin’s forces could find themselves bogged down with bloody insurgencies with both civilian and Russian casualties mounting rapidly. Is that savvy or the result of desperation-driven risk taking?

More to the point, Trump has proven undeniably that America First is the farthest thing from his mind. The only thing that ever matters to Trump is himself, and with his latest attempt to glorify and aid Putin, the master war criminal, it’s clear that he needs to be locked away in a secure facility that will prevent him from doing further damage to America.

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Biden vs Putin

Posted on February 22, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, February 22, 2022

Remember the testimony during the Senate trial of Trump’s first impeachment? If you watched much of it, you were impressed with Fiona Hill, who served as Trump’s chief Russia expert, which is not to say he paid any attention to her advice or expertise. Ms. Hill may be the most qualified person among the western alliance to address both Russia’s cultural history and Vladimir Putin’s thought process. Educated in the UK, she served as Chief of Staff to the British Prime Minister before becoming an American citizen and advising American presidents, beginning with a position on George W. Bush’s National Security Council.

While Ms. Hill does not work for the Biden administration, (she is a fellow at the Brookings Institution,) the President is seeking her counsel concerning the Russia-Ukraine crisis. By way of context, Ms. Hill is no idealogue. Brookings is well known as non-partisan and centrist, and Hill has advised governments at both ends of the political spectrum. That makes her remarks contrasting Biden’s approach to Russia with Trump’s most enlightening.

In an interview with CNN’s John Harwood, she said Trump’s approach to foreign policy ”was like nothing Hill or her national security colleagues had ever seen.” She went on to say, “There’s no Team America for Trump…not once did I see him do anything to put America first. Not once. Not for a single second,” claiming Trump treated NATO like a “protection racket.” In fact, historian Heather Richardson reported today that Russian state television said the Trump administration gave Putin a four-year reprieve from pushback from the west.

By contrast, she sees Biden’s strong approach to Russian President Vladimir Putin already paying dividends. “It might have deterred a full-scale invasion. Now (Putin) is basically recalibrating, recalculating.” Hill won’t go so far as to predict that Biden will convince Putin to back off, but gives him enormous credit for re-vitalizing NATO and holding the western alliance together. The final outcome, she says, will depend on whether he can keep it together indefinitely as the sanctions imposed by the US, UK, France, and Germany kick in.

The sanctions announced today are intended to cripple Russia’s ability to obtain financing from western countries, isolate the breakaway parts of Ukraine that Putin recognized as part of Russia, and prevent the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from coming online, which would cost Russia $15 billion in annual revenue. But there will be economic pain on our side as well, as we will see sharp increases in energy prices.

There’s been an unprecedented flurry of diplomatic activity to head off a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the possibility of a dangerous broader war involving Europe. Such a conflict would trigger the mutual defense clause of the NATO Charter, which means the United States would be obligated to defend any NATO state that came under attack. It’s a dangerous powder keg that must be handled with delicate precision, and in many ways is reminiscent of two previous situations. One is Europe’s failure to unite to prevent the Fascist regimes in Italy and Germany from seizing territory from their sovereign neighbors. Standing tough might not have averted World War 2, but it wouldn’t have looked like an open invitation to Hitler and Mussolini to take whatever they wanted…or like the one Trump gave Putin during four years of worshipping him.

The more relevant parallel is the Cuban Missile Crisis, during which a poorly prepared Kennedy administration went head-to-head with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Much has been written since then about how Kennedy’s foreign policy team handled the crisis, a lot of it negative, which is why the involvement of people like Fiona Hill matters so much now. Kennedy had filled his cabinet with what the media called the Harvard Elite, academically brilliant, but lacking an adequate understanding of the Russian mentality.

I was studying Russian at the time at Columbia, and my professor provided insights that in retrospect seem right on. Russian is subtly different from either the Latin or Germanic languages from which English evolved, and that difference can be critical in diplomacy. It’s virtually impossible to communicate clearly with an adversary if you are not fluent in its language, and many historians believe that Kennedy’s diplomacy was hopelessly outmatched. It’s possible that nuclear war was averted only by the wise statesmanship of Mr. Khrushchev. Some people attributed the disconnect to the fact that Russian does not use tenses as we understand them in English. Rather it uses “aspects” which involve entirely different conceptions of past, present, and future.

It’s essential that President Biden rely on advisers like Ms. Hill, who is both fluent in Russian and has decades of experience studying the Russian mindset. We can’t predict yet how successful Mr. Biden will be, but we should all be grateful that it is he at the helm instead of his predecessor.

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Joe Biden, Leader of the Free World

Posted on February 19, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, February 19, 2022

As I watched President Joe Biden address the nation, yesterday, talking about Russian President Vladimir Putin and the likelihood that Russian forces will invade Ukraine in coming days, I felt proud. He was strong and clear. There was no sign of the life-long stuttering that his opponents like to seize on and interpret as creeping dementia. He was terse and to the point making sure the world knew that America’s solidarity with the European Union and NATO was unbreakable.

He was also clear that the western alliance of democracies would continue to supply Ukraine with weapons and equipment and would strenuously execute Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, the one that requires all member nations to defend each other if any one of them is attacked, if that occurred. He promised that if Russia invaded, especially if it targeted Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, a city of “2.8 million innocent people,” the west would impose crippling economic and diplomatic sanctions.

These would include shutting down the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines Russia built to supply natural gas to western Europe. Between loans and financing by the state-owned Gazprom company, Russia spent sixteen billion euros (eighteen billion dollars) constructing pipes from Siberia to the North Sea to provide Europe with more than a third of its natural gas. Loss of the revenue it receives from those pipelines would be a devastating blow to Russia’s economy. It would also increase energy costs in Europe, but there is no sign of weakening resolve on the part of the EU.

As I listened to our president yesterday, I was grateful that the man speaking was Joe Biden. Can you imagine what we would have heard if it had been Donald Trump? Trump couldn’t even state publicly that Russia had hacked into the 2016 election after our government’s entire security apparatus had shown him and the world media compelling evidence. Recall that Trump’s fist impeachment resulted from attempting to blackmail Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky into providing non-existing evidence against Hunter Biden during the 2020 campaign by illegally withholding billions of dollars in weapons the country needed to defend itself against Russia.

Recall, too, how Trump was hounded by reports of being indebted to Russian banks and oligarchs to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and that his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was sentenced to seven years in prison for fraud over his business dealings with Russia and Ukraine. Trump never divested his interest in his businesses, as he was required to by law, which, combined with his history of attempting to build Trump hotels in Russia, fueled suspicion that Putin had evidence that could have destroyed Trump. That and Trump’s public worshipful treatment of autocrats like Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un, while attacking European leaders and even Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, combined with ill-advised tariffs and a costly trade war had left our traditional alliances in a shambles.

Yesterday showed us that in one year in office, Biden has restored the Western Alliance. It’s no small thing that the EU and NATO are standing firm, diplomatically, economically, and militarily against Russia. The failure of the post-World War 1 western alliance to recognize and stand up to German and Japanese aggression made the second world war inevitable. As political scientist David Rothkopf wrote in The Daily Beast, “The reality [is] that Trump’s record on Russia—and the damage he did with our allies and at home—set the stage for the crisis that Biden and his team are expertly managing today. Don’t forget Trump said on the campaign trail that he would consider lifting sanctions on Russia and recognizing occupied Crimea as Russian land.”

Biden has shown resolve and unwavering strength in dealing with Vladimir Putin, something we never saw from Trump, who was clearly enamored with the Russian autocrat and jealous of the power he could wield unfettered by a constitution that protected human rights. Were Trump in office today, not only would Russia feel free to invade and occupy the sovereign nation of Ukraine, but that likely would have been the final blow that destroyed NATO.

Our nation is fortunate to have a president who is both a natural leader and a statesman. Joe Biden has spent his life in foreign relations. He understands that diplomacy and defending America are not about ego or personal wealth and power. They are the sworn duty of the President. He also understands that strength in the face aggressive action by a leader like Putin is the only thing that will prevent the destabilization of our essential alliances.

Isn’t it wonderful that in Joe Biden we have a president who is willing to wear the mantle of Leader of the Free World once again?

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Trump’s Waning Influence

Posted on February 15, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, February 15, 2022

Remember the (Bill) Clinton years? They provide interesting perspectives for today. The politics of the nineties were nasty, culminating in the 2000 election in which George W. Bush’s victory over Al Gore was as much a statement by the right-leaning Supreme Court as a clear decision based on vote counts. It could have been a national disaster. Were there even a shred of similarity between Al Gore and Donald Trump, the final decision could have been dragged through the courts and the media well past inauguration day with violent demonstrations in the streets of Washington.

Gore chose to accept defeat because healing partisan divisions over the election and the six-week battle over counting Florida’s votes, and defending the transfer of power clause of the Constitution were more important to him than winning. To fully appreciate just how venal Donald Trump’s inability to accept defeat is, I recommend Gore’s concession speech to Bush. He began by quoting Stephen Douglas’ concession to Abraham Lincoln: “Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I’m with you, Mr. President, and God bless you…in that same spirit, I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside, and may God bless his stewardship of this country.” Can you imagine Trump speaking those words?

Another perspective from that time begins with the husband-wife duo James Carville (Democrat) and Mary Matalin (Republican.) Their spirited, pointed, on-air debates entertained us throughout Clinton’s presidency. They argued their points of view fiercely, but with neither rancor nor appeals to hate or racism. Consider their counterparts for the Trump years, Kellyanne and George  Conway.

Kellyanne ran Trump’s 2016 campaign and served as senior advisor throughout his administration, to all appearances a wholehearted participant in the evolution of Trumpism. It was she who first used the phrases “fake news” and “alternative facts.” George was a conservative Republican who Trump initially considered for Solicitor General, but George withdrew his name as the reality of the Trump presidency evolved. As Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party seemed unstoppable, George changed his party affiliation from Republican to Independent and became a leading voice of the Lincoln Project, prominent current and former Republicans working to assure that Trump would be defeated in 2020.

Kellyanne left the White House amid family turmoil emanating from her association with Trump. Her teenage daughter had become a social media sensation blasting both her mother and Trump, a poignant reminder of Trump’s unique ability to wreck both families and life-long friendships. Recently, Kellyanne joined the Republican primary race to replace Ohio Senator Rob Portman, who is retiring to escape the partisan gridlock. According to Forbes, Bernie Moreno, the candidate she’s advising, described Trump as a lunatic and a maniac in 2016, vowing to never support him, yet (big surprise) he’s running as a Trump ally.

George is now this generation’s James Carville, despite their very different political views. What they have in common is love for America and respect for the Constitution. George is a sought-after commentator who thoroughly understands the threat Trump poses to America and has devoted himself to stopping him. An attorney with a Yale law degree whose legal opinions are well respected and a long-time observer of presidential politics, he’s someone I listen to attentively.

Today, when George Conway granted media interviews to CNN, NBC, Yahoo News, et al, I couldn’t wait to hear what he thought about the New York State Attorney General’s revelation that the accounting firm Mazars, which had handled the finances of the Trump Organization for years had informed Trump in writing that his financial records from 2010 through 2020 were unreliable. In English that means Trump and his people falsified numbers to acquire loans and falsified them again to receive low tax assessments on their properties. That is felony fraud.

Conway’s take: “This is worse for [Trump] than being impeached twice,” because the worst possible outcome from an impeachment is being thrown out of office, but if Trump is proven guilty, his businesses and his private life will be threatened. Most large banks have been reluctant to loan Trump money for many years, because people on the inside knew he lacked business ethics and routinely ran out on debts. Now that his accounting firm has divorced him, accusing him of falsifying the data he gave them, it’s clear, as Conway put it, that they’re now playing on Team Attorney General and Team (Manhattan) District Attorney, not team Trump.

Conway’s final salvo caught my eye most. He said New York AG Letitia Jones can file a civil suit against the Trump organization and family under a New York statute that does not require proof of intent. The Mazars letter would then constitute sufficient proof of Trump and his associates’ guilt. Ms. James appears to be close to charging him. She knows what most of us know. An indictment will severely weaken Trump’s political influence, and that cannot happen too soon. Our country’s future is hanging in the balance.

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Classified Hypocrisy

Posted on February 11, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, February 11, 2022

I was one of many Americans who held top secret clearance during the Cold War and Vietnam years. Everyone took that stuff very seriously back then. We were read the riot act concerning all the federal statutes they could throw at us if we violated even the most trivial-seeming requirement. We were threatened with huge fines and long prison terms for violations, which included things like whether our own clearance levels entitled us to see specific classified materials, where they could be destroyed, stored, or even looked at, and whom they could be shared with.

This reflected the paranoia of the times. Our superiors gave the impression of a leak-proof system hardened against spying or treason, but there was always a potential loophole. While every government and military institution and every contractor had to run all clearance approvals through a strict and detailed FBI vetting process, there was and still is one glaring exception, equivalent to leaving the barn door wide open. The exception applies only to the president, who can legally grant any level of clearance to anyone he or she chooses.

As loopholes go that doesn’t seem all that serious. After all, the president is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces and the individual most clearly tasked with protecting the safety and security of all Americans. What would motivate a president to behave irresponsibly with highly classified materials?

Donald Trump answered that question as soon as he took office. In April, 2019, Reuters reported that, “A White House whistleblower has said the Trump administration overruled security experts to give questionable security clearances to more than two dozen people, including the president’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner.” Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, had been granted top secret clearances by the president because he had no respect for rules and norms observed by his predecessors. From the first, Trump considered himself above the laws the rest of us have to obey.

It might seem ironic that Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016 has been credited by many observers to the infamous email scandal fueled by Trump’s supporters and the Fox News Channel. It might, except that it was simply a political hit job conceived by people with no scruples for whom winning was everything, in other words, Trumpers. Clinton was never accused of deliberately misusing of mishandling classified documents. Rather, the entire kerfuffle was about a gray area in the then current rules for how they could be stored. As Secretary of State, Ms. Clinton used a private server in her home to do some of the government’s business, a practice that George W. Bush’s Secretary of State, Colin Powell said he had used as well. There was no evidence that Clinton knowingly acted irresponsibly or committed any act that compromised our security.

What may eventually prove to be ironic, depending on how it plays out, is evidence being provided to the House Special Committee on January 6th that Trump deliberately destroyed classified documents to keep them from coming to light. He also illegally moved documents from the White House to his residence at Mara Lago including many clearly marked “Top Secret” without securing them. It appears that there is more than enough evidence that Trump violated both the Presidential Records Act and the Rules for Safeguarding Classified National Security Information contained in federal regulations (32 CFR Part 2004.) These are serious crimes that could land you and me in federal prison for the rest of our natural lives.

It seems our lawmakers, in writing security rules, never imagined a president like Trump, who believed he could make his own rules whenever it pleased him, whose boundless arrogance extended to routinely violating federal and state statutes. People who know Trump well have often compared his behavior to that of a Mafia crime boss – total disregard for laws, morality, and common decency. If you are shocked by the latest revelations by the Washington Post about Trump ripping up Top Secret documents, flushing them down toilets, and taking a cavalier approach to national security, I’d have to ask which planet you’ve been living on for that last five years.

All this is in its preliminary stages. Eventually, all the evidence will be referred to and studied by Department of Justice investigators. If we believe Attorney General Merrick Garland, DOJ will not be intimidated by either political pressure or the media. Predicting whether Trump will be indicted or brought to trial is a losing gambit, but as the walls of justice close in on him, we can rest assured that his political star will continue to fade. I have no doubt that his actual influence is being exaggerated by the media. His fall from grace cannot happen too quickly.

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The McConnell Declaration

Posted on February 9, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, February 9, 2022

Declarations of war are generally issued well after conflict has begun. That’s despite the constitution’s requirement that only Congress can declare war. It wasn’t FDR’s classic Day of Infamy speech declaring war on the Axis powers that began our entry into World War 2, it was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Or if you look further back, you can argue that we actually entered the war with the Lend Lease Agreement and the release of the Atlantic Charter.

Similarly, the civil war in the Republican Party has been brewing since Donald Trump declared his candidacy for president in 2015. His opening salvos made it clear that he wouldn’t tolerate any disloyalty, and he defined any Republican who disagreed with him as disloyal. He savaged each of the other Republican Candidates who were running in 2016, insulting people and inventing crude, vulgar nicknames for them. His conduct was so out of bounds, his opponents had no idea how to respond, and once they realized the true nature of the monster they had enabled, it was too late.

Observing how each of them reacted should have taught us a valuable lesson. The entire Bush clan slinked away with their tails between their legs, forever truncating their influence in the Republican Party. Would Representative Liz Cheney have been subjected to constant attacks from within her own party if brothers George and Jeb remained engaged? Chris Christie started out criticizing Trump, was viciously attacked because of Jared Kushner’s personal grudge against him, then became Trump’s lapdog, and finally, now that Trump’s star may be fading, has found the courage to tell the truth about him. Trump ridiculed renowned African-American neurosurgeon and committed Christian Ben Carson shamefully, yet, despite Trump’s pandering to every racist group in the country and lack of moral character, Dr. Carson inexplicably joined his administration and never spoke out publicly again.

Perhaps the most aggegious examples were Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham. Time.com reported that Trump and Cruz exchanged serious public insults fourteen times during the 2016 primary campaign. Trump attacked Cruz’s wife and implied that Cruz’s father had been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, while Cruz called Trump a sniveling coward, a liar, and consistently disgraceful – before Cruz endorsed Trump and became one of his most ardent defenders.

Trump’s attacks on Graham were equally disgraceful, calling him a nut job and suggesting that Graham didn’t have what it took to stand up to him. Yet Graham ultimately supported Trump and became one of his most enabling sycophants, remaining silent when Trump repeatedly trashed his “best friend” John McCain. Then, he got caught in the crossfire of the burgeoning Republican civil war between Trump, Mitch McConnell and the Republican National Committee. Is that a shred of integrity I hear when Graham speaks out against the insurrection and in favor of the Constitution?

It didn’t take Republican politicians and office holders long to recognize what Donald Trump was, but by then, their fear of his hold on his ignorant, racist base was so great, they were individually afraid to criticize the former president and seemingly unable to unite to restrain him. But despite their relative silence, the Republican Civil War simmered, and revelations coming from the January 6th Committee have raised the temperature to a boil. With the midterm elections looming and the Supreme Court appearing ready to permit states to gerrymander any semblance of election fairness out of existence, it was now or never.

Some Republicans joined the party out of principle and still believe it is their sacred duty is to uphold and defend our Constitution. We’re approaching crunch time if they’re going to act against the Trump faction of their party in time to save our democracy. Like most politicians, they need a truly horrendous action by the other side to give them the fortitude to speak out; fortunately for the rest of us, the RNC delivered that to them on a silver platter when it released a statement censuring Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kissinger for participating in the investigation of the Trump-inspired insurrection, which it characterized as “legitimate political discourse.”

The RNC action was so outrageous it catalyzed Former Vice President Mike Pence to speak against his former boss for the first time, reacting to all the slurs and threats around his refusal to unlawfully attempt to overturn the election of Joe Biden. Maybe Pence was the tipping point. If the RNC was the Confedracy firing on Fort Sumter, Pence and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell accusing Trump of violating his oath of office was Lincoln calling out 75,000 troops to quell the rebellion.

Now we have an acknowledgement, a declaration of civil war by McConnell. About the RNC’s statement he said, “The issue is whether or not the RNC should be sort of singling out members of our party who may have different views from the majority. That’s not the job of the RNC.” And about the RNC’s stance on the insurrection, he said: “We all were here; we saw what happened. It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next. That’s what it was.”

That sounds pretty clear to me. It says the gloves are off and the so-called RINOs, the real Republicans, are ready to fight for their party. We can only hope Senator McConnell, one of the most ruthlessly partisan politicians in the country, is equally ruthless in defending democracy.

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