RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/447780/print

This is from a #Never Trump member…..

From the last Morning Jolt of the week:

When Does All That Evidence of Collusion Arrive?

Thursday night, White House communications officials were eager to spotlight these comments from legislators, admitting or confirming, that they had, so far, seen no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Sam Stein, Huffington Post: “But just to be clear, there has been no actual evidence yet.”

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): “No, it has not been.”

Keep in mind, this is “Mad Maxine” Waters, who begins that interview by contending, “Lock her up, lock her up, all of that, I think that was developed strategically with people from the Kremlin, with Putin.” Right, right, there’s no way the Trump campaign could have possibly thought of that rallying cry on their own. That’s gotta be the work of Russian intelligence right there – you’ve cracked the case, Congresswoman!

Then there’s a Republican senator who hasn’t been a consistent Trump ally with the same assessment.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina: “There is no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians as of this date. I do not believe the president himself is a target or subject of any criminal investigation as of right now. So that’s what I know right now, and where this goes, I don’t know. Follow the facts where they lead.”

Perhaps the most significant comes from Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California:

WOLF BLITZER, CNN: “The last time we spoke, Senator, I asked you if you had actually seen evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, and you said to me — and I’m quoting you now — you said, ‘not at this time.’ Has anything changed since we spoke last?”

SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA): “Well, not– no, it hasn’t.”

…

BLITZER: “But I just want to be precise, Senator. In all of the—you’ve had access from the intelligence committee, from the Judiciary committee, all of the access you’ve had to very sensitive information, so far you’ve not seen any evidence of collusion, is that right?”

SEN. FEINSTEIN: “Well, evidence that would establish that there’s collusion. There are all kinds of rumors around. There are newspaper stories, but that’s not necessarily evidence.”

Feinstein is the most intriguing, because think about how easily she could have fudged her answer: “I’ve seen things that trouble me, Wolf” or “I’ve seen things that raise serious questions” or some other word salad that avoid the word “no.”

And then there was this Reuters article, reporting that Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race,

The people who described the contacts to Reuters said they had seen no evidence of wrongdoing or collusion between the campaign and Russia in the communications reviewed so far. But the disclosure could increase the pressure on Trump and his aides to provide the FBI and Congress with a full account of interactions with Russian officials and others with links to the Kremlin during and immediately after the 2016 election.

(The Reuters story cites “current and former U.S. officials” as sources. Every time we see the words “former U.S. officials” we should keep in mind there’s a good chance the source would be more accurately characterized as a “former Obama administration official.” This doesn’t mean that former official is automatically lying, just that they have a particular agenda for leaking this information, and one that is being effectively withheld from readers.)

Democrats are increasingly convinced that the seemingly endless storm of allegations around Trump will inevitably lead to his impeachment, and an impeachment that will come soon, not late in Trump’s first term. They’re convinced that evidence of Trump violating the law exists, and they’re convinced that the FBI or the investigating committees in Congress will find it.

Are any Democratic lawmakers starting to fear that they’re not going to find that evidence? The intelligence community is presumably always watching the Russian government as closely as they can. The FBI counterintelligence guys presumably track Russian agents on our soil as much as possible. You figure the NSA can track just about any electronic communication between Russians and figures in the Trump campaign.

If there was something sinister and illegal going on between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, the U.S. government as a whole had every incentive in the world to expose that as quickly as possible. They didn’t expose it before Election Day, they didn’t expose it before the Electoral College voted, they didn’t expose it before Inauguration Day… How many months have the best investigators in the United States been digging into this?

In February, California senator Janet Nguyen (R-Santa Ana), the country’s first Vietnamese-American state legislator, whose district includes more than 100,000 people of Vietnamese descent, was removed from the Senate chamber after objecting to the lionization of deceased former state assemblyman and senator Tom Hayden, a communist collaborator during the Vietnam War. Nguyen was born in Saigon a year before the city fell to the North Vietnamese forces in 1975 and legally immigrated to the United States with her family four years later, settling in southern California.

When the posthumous lionization began of Hayden’s service of almost two decades in California state government, Nguyen was distressed. She knew Hayden as someone who had aided and given comfort to the communist enemy in her country of origin. She felt compelled to express the sentiments of her heavily refugee-populated district, whose families had suffered greatly because of North Vietnamese brutality. The community blames the U.S. anti-war movement for undermining the war effort and contributing to the eventual victory of the North Vietnamese communists.

During the Vietnam War in the 1960s, Hayden, a prominent and vocal voice for the North Vietnamese communists, had organized a campaign with Jane Fonda, John Kerry, and Ted Kennedy to cut off American aid to the existing government of South Vietnam and cooperate with the Vietcong and Khmer Rouge. Hayden traveled to southeast Asia numerous times during the conflict to strategize with the enemy on defeating America’s anti-communist plan. When reports came to light that American soldiers were being tortured in communist captivity, he proclaimed the reports to be “propaganda.” Hayden and Fonda notoriously weakened the morale of American POWs by participating in broadcasts for the North Vietnamese in which they accused American troops of war crimes.

After Hayden’s passing October 23, 2016, the California Senate held a ceremony five months later on February 20, 2017, honoring his service to the state legislature. California Democratic Party chairman John Burton praised the former senator as “one of the great visionaries” and as “a guy with a lot of courage.” President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) crowed, “He dedicated his life to the betterment of our state and our great country through the pursuit of peace, justice and equity.” Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) applauded Hayden for his street activism against the Vietnamese war.