Trump’s Putin problem

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/11/01/trumps-putin-problem-returns-in-a-big-way/


While it remains improbable that anything found on Anthony Weiner’s computer will change the FBI director’s July conclusion that Hillary Clinton lacked requisite intent for criminal prosecution with regard to her home email server, it becomes more probable each day that Donald Trump and/or those around him have some highly peculiar connections to Russia that would pose a danger to the United States.

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Separately, Franklin Foer at Slate reports that a Russian bank had a server connection with a Trump server in New York. “The irregular pattern of server lookups actually resembled the pattern of human conversation — conversations that began during office hours in New York and continued during office hours in Moscow,” he writes. “It dawned on the researchers that this wasn’t an attack, but a sustained relationship between a server registered to the Trump organization and two servers registered to an entity called Alfa Bank.” Both the bank and the Trump campaign deny any relationship or communication was going on, but there is plenty of smoke. When a New York Times investigation turned up the supposed server connection, something curious happened:

The Trump organization shut down the server after Alfa was told that the Times might expose the connection. Nicholas Weaver told me the Trump domain was “very sloppily removed.” Or as another of the researchers put it, it looked like “the knee was hit in Moscow, the leg kicked in New York.”
Four days later, on September 27, the Trump organization created a new host name, trump1.contact-client.com, which enabled communication to the very same server via a different route.

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Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan put out a statement, which read in part:

This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia. It certainly seems the Trump Organization felt it had something to hide, given that it apparently took steps to conceal the link when it was discovered by journalists.
This line of communication may help explain Trump’s bizarre adoration of Vladimir Putin and endorsement of so many pro-Kremlin positions throughout this campaign. It raises even more troubling questions in light of Russia’s masterminding of hacking efforts that are clearly intended to hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign. We can only assume that federal authorities will now explore this direct connection between Trump and Russia as part of their existing probe into Russia’s meddling in our elections.

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Given the choice between a knowledgeable, responsible candidate who has cut corners to secure wealth and power and a racist, xenophobic, ignorant and erratic personality unable or unwilling to learn much of anything (someone who is, worst of all, a puppet of one of America’s enemies), we have little doubt that Trump is the greater of two evils.

Won’t Clinton’s presidency be tied up in scandals and investigations? Perhaps, but then Republicans don’t have much to worry about her pursuit of an aggressive agenda, especially if the GOP keeps majorities in one or more houses. The danger from Trump is not that he would be a hobbled executive but that he would act on his authoritarian tendencies and pursue interests contrary to U.S. national security at the behest of a foreign enemy. Sorry, Clinton haters, but Trump beats her hands down when it comes to unfitness. That doesn’t mean that one has to vote for her (for some it’s a bridge too far), but it does mean voting for him is unthinkable.