Photo courtesy of Steve Baker (Flickr)
When President Trump was campaigning against Democratic Nominee Hillary Clinton, he consistently slammed his opponent for being dishonest with the public and trying to keep secrets. Trump even went so far as to call Clinton a criminal for her continuous acts of deception and argued that she deserves imprisonment for her actions. While I agreed with him about Clinton not being honest with the public, I now have to take Trump to task in the wake of new reports revealing that members of his administration and his campaign have been in contact with Russia.
Numerous agencies like the FBI and the NSA intercepted calls between Russian agents and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. These organizations also intercepted calls between Russian agents and Paul Manafort, a former campaign manager of Trump.
While Manafort has denied claims that he was talking to Russian officials, Flynn stepped down from his position of National Security Advisor this past Monday. The damage was already done though, as numerous sources claimed that Flynn’s interactions with Russian agents were known by the Trump Administration for weeks.
When I turn on the news and hear about the unfolding controversy surrounding, Trump and his administration, I feel like burying my head into my hands and audibly sighing in dismay. Just like the immigration policy, what possible outcome could Trump and his administration have expected other than the one that occurred? It’s almost like they are doing this on purpose just to see how many feathers they can ruffle before being booted out of the White House.
For the past few months, Trump has denied any legitimate connections between himself and the Kremlin. Trump has actually gone so far as to claim any news outlet making these accusations is “fake news.” Some of those news stories were fake and had no real evidence, but these new reports that came out do. With this latest story, there is hard evidence revealing that members of the Trump administration have been in talks with Russian agents and have lied about it.
Trump has stated that he wants to have a better relationship with Russia, which is actually a productive goal to aspire for. I see no problem in governments with differing ideals putting aside their differences to work together for the betterment of both countries. Yet, Trump is also trying to act like he has no real relationship with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin when he clearly does.
All of this could have been avoided if Trump and his supporting cast were honest during the days of the campaign and said that they were communicating with Russia. Trump could have built part of his campaign around the fact that he was going out of his way to keep in touch with Russia and try to build a positive relationship between the two countries. Now it comes off as the Trump Administration doing shady business with Russia.
I doubt that the conversations between Russian agents and members of the Trump organization were of any sinister nature. The problem of the situation does not stem from the fact that there was contact between Trump’s organization and Russian agents.
The real problem in this situation is that, instead of being honest and laying the truth out for all to see, the Trump Administration tried to keep these facts hidden from the public. Trump and his crew are doing the same thing that they slammed Clinton for doing just months before. They did not delete anything or use a private server, but they were still being dishonest about things they had done. What happened here is a case of people lying about something they had done and making it worse by not being denying it.
I have no idea what Trump thinks he is doing, and I honestly believe that he has no idea what he is doing either. Trump is a businessman who has stepped into a world unlike any he has been in before. The president desperately has to get his act together so that he and his administration can do their jobs and run this country with intelligence, honesty and responsibility.
