In our collective memories, the United States has not experienced an election as it did in the 2016 Presidential Election in which Donald Trump was elected and Hilary Clinton was defeated.  Trump attained 304 electoral votes, while Clinton got 227 electoral votes.  However, in the popular vote, Clinton got 65,853,514, while Trump received 62,984,828, a difference of 2,868,686 votes in favor of Hilary Clinton.  It’s not the first time that a president was elected without carrying the popular vote, e.g George W. Bush was defeated by Al Gore in the popular vote by 540,520 votes, while Bush managed to get 5 more electoral votes (271-266!).

To our knowledge the 2000 election was never investigated by a special counsel, although the actual electoral votes were determined by the Supreme Court in favor of Bush based on technical issues associated with paper ballots which were difficult to “read.”

But, for the first time, it was determined that a foreign entity conspired to influence the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election.  This in itself is the most astounding part of the controversy and political battles that have emerged since that day in November, 2016.

January 6, 2017 CIA, FBI and National Security Agency Briefing

On this day the U.S. Intelligence Community briefed Donald Trump, by then President-Elect, and President Obama, that, with high confidence, had concluded that Russia had intervened in the Presidential election through a variety of means (now, detailed in the Mueller Report) to assist Trump’s candidacy and to harm Clinton’s.

By early February, three Congressional Committees announced they would be conducting inquires into Russian interference.

By March, 2017, FBI Director James Comey announced that as part of its counterintelligence mission, they would be launching an investigation into the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 Presidential election, and to investigate the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government.  Furthermore, the FBI began to explore whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.

May 9, 2017 You’re Fired!

James Comey is fired by President Trump.  Comey finds out he’s fired on TV while he’s on the West Coast talking FBI policy with FBI agents in Los Angeles.

With Comey gone, Trump hoped the Russian investigation would go away.  It didn’t.

May 17, 2017 Not So Fast, Donald!

On this day, Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed the Special Counsel and authorized him to conduct the investigation that James Comey had started.

May 17, 2017 – April 18, 2019 I’m Fucked!

For nearly two years, President Trump has carried out a campaign to denigrate and even put an end to the Special counsel’s investigation.  When he found out that Rosenstein had appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel he said:

This is the end of my presidency, I’m fucked.

According to the Mueller report, Trump engaged in efforts to curtail the Special Counsel’s investigation and prevent the disclosure of evidence to it, including through public and private contacts with potential witnesses.

Is the Trump Presidency Valid?

After living through the past two years of the Trump presidency, reading numerous reports, papers, and interviews, and after reading the Special Counsel’s Report, it’s very difficult to conclude that the Presidency of Donald Trump is anything but invalid.

Although Mueller’s report says there was not “sufficient evidence” to charge a crime, the Mueller team did charge a number of people in Trump’s orbit with high crimes, especially lying to prosecutors.  The report concluded that these lies interfered with their investigation of Russian election interference.

Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manfort, and Micheal Cohen, tightly held to the Trump orbit, all were charged and convicted of crimes, and will spend time in jail.

As I will discuss in future posts, there is ample evidence to show how Trump and his associated did what they could to use the Russian interference in the 2016 election to their benefit, and to denigrate Hilary Clinton.  Mueller, unfortunately, did not go far enough in drawing conclusions about the Trump organization’s coziness with Russia and Russian government officials.  Although individual American’s were not identified as conspiring with the Russian trolls, they did, unknowingly, pass on to their followers on Twitter and Facebook just what the Russian trolls were feeding them.  And, champions at passing on these negative ads and articles on Twitter and Facebook were the adult members of the Trump family and Trump campaign officials.

Although Trump has been in office for two years legally, there is no question in my mind that he got there with direct help from an adversary government, and that in itself should judge his presidency as invalid.  More Americans than not voted against him in 2016.