Commentary

JOHN BRUMMETT: The Russian affair

Let's begin today with seven questions and answers to dive into an unfolding and complex story.

1.Is there anything wrong with an incoming American president's national security adviser chatting with a Russian ambassador during the transition about the likelihood of relations getting better in a couple of weeks?

Not much. Decorum might say wait. But who's kidding whom? We already knew the Trump administration was in love with Russian testosterone.

2.Would it be wrong if the American president's national security adviser said or insinuated to the Russian ambassador that the incoming administration might rescind the sanctions the outgoing president had just that day imposed because of Russian computer hacking and other interference in our presidential election?

Probably. The incoming president and his people should respect the one-president-at-a-time courtesy. But it's not a criminal act by any means.

3.Might such a scenario amount more substantively to bad judgment and naïve policy--seeking to form a friendlier relationship with Russia to fight ISIS when Russia is not trustworthy and our flirtation represents a serious betrayal of our real allies of longstanding?

Yes.

4.Is it possible that President Donald Trump was a trusting delegator who did not bother knowing to whom that now-former national security adviser, retired Army general Michael Flynn, was speaking and about what?

Sure. A national security adviser can't advise without gathering information. Trump had tweets to write and cable television to watch.

5.Should Trump have made sure his vice president, Mike Pence, was aware that the Justice Department was telling him Flynn wasn't telling the truth when he denied having a conversation about sanctions with the Russian ambassador, at least before Pence went on television news shows to repeat Flynn's story?

Oh, probably, although Pence had already been on a talk show saying Trump won in a landslide. He was no pristine stickler.

6.Should all of that and more be independently investigated in Congress and through a Justice Department special counsel, with the inquiry to include business relationships and conversations between Trump and his associates and Russians during the campaign and after, including some that may have been with undercover Russian intelligence officials?

Absolutely. We need and deserve to know from independent sources everything from the first Russian hack to Flynn's resignation Monday night.

7.Is this at least as big as Hillary Clinton sending emails on a private server that the FBI read and cleared her on--twice?

Bigger.


Obama administration officials got suspicious when Vladimir Putin reacted calmly to the new sanctions arising from the hacking. Officials checked into the ambassador's intercepted calls and learned of his chat about sanctions with Flynn that very day.

Then Flynn lied about whether sanctions came up and Trump disregarded Justice Department warnings that Flynn wasn't telling the truth and thus seemed susceptible to a favored Russian tactic--blackmail.

I can see the possibility of a less-than-criminal scenario, but one we can't be sure about absent a credible investigation.

It goes back to an adage that our foreign relations should be about interests, not friends.

It is apparent that Trump and Flynn made a policy decision that it was in our national interest to try to make nice with the Russians to seek their partnership against ISIS.

It is entirely possible that Flynn is self-absorbed and out of control. He got fired by the Obama administration as head of defense intelligence because he was insubordinate and given to making up so many things that the Obama people began referring to "Flynn facts."

He was known to have allied with Trump as a vehicle for venting his bitterness toward Obama. And he had a transcendent personal relationship with Russians. He'd granted an interview a couple of years before to Russian television saying the countries needed to stop behaving as competing playground bullies and realize they were in a rocky marriage that needed work.

It's likely that Trumpians harbor such disdain for the Obama administration that they instinctively distrusted and blindly dismissed warnings of Flynn's misleading them that came from an attorney general who was a short-term place-holder left over from the Obama administration and serving only until Jeff Sessions' confirmation.

And speaking of Sessions: Who thinks such a Trump-adoring partisan would be objective in leading a Justice Department inquiry into the full range of Russian issues? Only a blinder partisan, surely. That's why we need a special or independent counsel.

The staunchest defenses in the Flynn affair have come from Republicans in the U.S. Congress and members of the Russian parliament.

The existence of that chorus is precisely what commands investigation.

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John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, was inducted into the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame in 2014. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.

Editorial on 02/16/2017

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