FREE THE TRUMP NINE
The first in a series of transmissions, henceforth known as “The Trumponicles,” celebrating the start of the second year of the reign of Donald the Deranged.
I don’t know about you, but I am alarmed at the growing number of Trump people who seem to be involved in “this Russian thing”—even though it is a hoax—as the commander-in-chief still calls it.
It’s up to nine on my scorecard, with new folks who we Trump junkies never heard of before –such as that low-level nobody “George Papadopoulos”—becoming household words, like a new drug that can kill, while their commercials show us golfers and the like enjoying their last days.
We haven’t had an administration with so much contact with Russians since we were giving them lend-lease war material aid in World War II.
The most bizarre aspect of the revelations is how the Trump people can’t remember their contacts and secret meetings with ambassadors, oligarchs, lawyers, professors, business commissars and even Putin’s son-in-law, all of whom have ties to the Kremlin.
How could they all forget?
In all my years as a respected scholar of presidencies, I have never witnessed an administration in which so many cabinet members and advisers had come down with, to use the clinical term, the forgotskis, or early Alzheimer’s.
It’s a contagious disease, a malady that was brought in to the Trump campaign by the military adviser, Gen. Flim Flam Flynn, who not only forgot to mention his rendezvous and phone calls with the Russian ambassador, but also he was an employee of the Russian TV network RT, and on the payroll of the Turkish government as a lobbyist, while neglecting to register as a foreign agent.
The saddest case of the forgotskis in recent memory hit Attorney General Sessions who had so many forgotten involvements he has had to revise his story three times. So far. He reminds me of those characters in Roger Corman horror movies who wake up not remembering a few hours or three days in their lives.
Before his next grilling by Sen. Franken of Minnesota, the AG would be wise to start taking the new miracle drug Prevagen, as they say on TV, clinically shown to help with mild to severe memory problems using jelly fish brains, as I gather, with possible side effects of creating the spines of a jelly fish.
A sure sign the disease of collective amnesia is catching is the strange performance being put on by the Commerce secretary.
In the haste ramming through anointed billionaires for the Trumpian cabinet, the Commerce Committee forgot to ask Wilbur Ross about his part-time job as vice-chairman of the Cyprus national bank, which specializes in laundering rubles and dollars while you wait for Russian oligarchs including President Putin.
While hailing himself for divesting 80 investments that made him the “king of bankruptcy,” just this week Ross confirmed that, da, he still owns a sizeable chunk of a transoceanic shipping company (Navigator Holdings), which transports Russian natural gas in partnership with Putin’s daughter’s husband.
He should also be on Prevagen.
And let’s not forget the commander-in-chief’s right hand son-in law, who may have set a record for the administration in forgetfulness. Jared neglected to list from 30 to 101 contacts with Russians when applying for top-secret security clearance.
I don’t know what to make of these guys.
The Soviet spymasters who cooked up this game plan for infiltrating the inner circle have managed to create what Ronald Reagan called “the Evil Empire,” right under our noses in the executive branch.
We don’t know where this Russian thing will end. The last time the Russians were so involved in the inner workings of our government, during the FDR and Truman administrations, according to the Venona Project, USSR intelligence agencies had 349 Americans embedded as spies. CIA alone had 15 to 20. Alger Hiss was on track to become Secretary of State until he ran into Whittaker Chambers and the pumpkin papers.
Will Rex Tillerson turn out to be the Alger Hiss of the Trump administration? Go know.
All of these choreographed memory lapses make it seem to some cynics the Trump team has something to hide, as unthinkable as it is. What could they possibly be hiding?
“No collusion, no nothing. Investigate Hillary,” Honest Don assured us as he left for Northeast Asia last weekend.
In the meanwhile, I recommend all the Trump people afflicted with the forgotskis waiting to do the perp walk on cable network news –and they know who they are—take two Prevagen and call Counselor Mueller in the morning.
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Marvin Kitman,
Nov, 7, 2017