TREXIT: Trump Needs to Exit the White House

I’m on a VirginAtlantic flight to Manchester, UK visiting a country that we have traveled to over the past 32 years. It’s business and pleasure, but that’s  not what this post is about.

Coming to England for more than three-decades, we’ve (my wife and I), met and became friends with many British people. Over a year ago, the British voted to leave the European Union and the result was by a small margin. For many people, it was a shock, and not a welcomed outcome. For other friends that we know, it was a received well. And of course, we know that this action to get of the E.U. was abbreviated Brexit (Britains Exit from the E.U.).  They are still not out of the E.U., and the Prime Minister has called for new elections this summer to see if the British still want to leave.

At 5:41 PM, my inbox was flooded with emails from various news sources that announced that President Trump had asked F.B.I. director James Comey in February to close the case on Michael Flynn. The President wanted Comey to shut the case down. Or as Trump put it, “I hope you can let this go.”

Comey Memo

This was documented in a memo that Comey wrote just after meeting with Trump in the Oval Office. (Comey indicated that as soon as a phone call or a meeting with Trump was finished, he would write a memo detailing the conversation and share it with F.B.I. officials.

Comey shared the February memo with senior F.B.I. officials, according to the New York Times’ article, “Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him to End Flynn Investigation,” May 16, 2017).  Michael S. Schmidt, author of the NYTimes article reported that James Comey created a paper trail documenting what he believed was improper behavior of the President to influence the links between Trump’s associates and Russia.

The case on Michael Flynn, Trump’s pick for director of the National Security Agency (NSA). has to do with his connections to Russia. Flynn has not only received thousands of dollars from Russian organizations, but has been privy to the small talk people make sitting together at a regal dinner. Flynn sat next to President Vladimir Putin, in Moscow well before he was appointed director of the NSA. Of course, Trump had to fire him after it was learned that Mr. Flynn lied to the Vice-President, and everyone else.

Liars in Waiting

We now know that a wide swath of Trump’s appointees lied about their involvement with Russia, and it was only after the press brought evidence to light that people such as Attorney General Sessions, Trump’s son-in-law, Kushner (who according to the Chinese, is living the “princely” life in the White House), Trump’s attorney, and others fessed up.

The President’s Truthfulness

It appears as if the President is lying about conversations he has had with Comey. Comey had dinner in early February with Trump, and Trump’s recollection of their conversation is quite different from Comey’s account. Trump insists that Comey asked for the dinner (he didn’t), and that he did so to appeal to the President to stay on as director of the F.B.I. (he didn’t). Then in a Tweet, Trump threatened Comey by suggesting there might be tapes or a recording of the dinner.

The suggestion that Trump might be a Nixon copycat has roiled the Congress, and the press. Are their tapes? If so, the Senate and the House want them turned over.

Trump also lied about the warning that acting Attorney General Sally Q. Yates gave to the White House that General Flynn could be blackmailed by the Russians because of his connections with them.

Then, we saw on TV (video taken by Russian media in the Oval Office) Trump all smiles as he met with Russian Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.  All were smiling.  I don’t know about you, but I suppose Kislyak and Lavrov were smiling because of what Trump had just told them about intelligence from a secret source.  They probably could not believe the President of the U.S. would share such information with them.  This was dangerous behavior on the part of Trump.  He may have overstepped and possibly could be accessed of treason.

Even Bob Corker, Senator from Texas, and chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said that if Trump revealed highly classified information to Kislyak and Lavrov, key members of the Russian government, then “the White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order. It’s got to happen.”

Other Cultures

I have a longer relationship with Russia than with Britain. As professor at Georgia State University, I had relationships with hundreds of Russian scholars, researchers, teachers, middle and high school students, and their parents. I had the privilege to learn about Russia from the inside out, that is from people, their colleagues, their families, and then organizations and the government.

Governments  tend  to do things to protect their citizens from threats of aggression, and terrorist brutality within and outside their homeland.

Those whom I worked with in the U.S. and in the Soviet Union, saw  the unraveling of the USSR into fifteen separate countries, one of which is Russia.

The last thing that the people I know in Russia want is war with America. On Russian Television, citizens are bombarded with images showing NATO troops on the Polish-Russian border.

It is an unfortunate state of affairs that aggression and war in Syria, Ukraine, Georgia, Iraq, and Aftganistan that has brought the two countries to the brink  These two countries have to look at how their actions have led to such hostilities in the Middle East, and elsewhere.

So now we are back to the meeting between the American president and two Russian officials in the Oval Office.

What is Trump’s motivation in being cozy with these two Russian officials when he should be presidential. Did Trump protect the interests and intelligence of the American government by telling two of the highest ranking members of the Russian government about U.S. classified information.

The meeting Trump had with Kislyak and Lavrov was more of a pissing contest than anything else.  Trump is not knowledgeable about (foreign) affairs, and thinks that he can win over people by promising them a wall, a ban on people from some Muslim nations, making America great again, but today he’s promising to share State secrets.
Trump has no idea what he’s doing. If he wanted to improve relationships with Russia then he would have an adult conversation which would mean that he would entertain and ask hard questions. For instance, Trump might start with Why did you meddle in the Ukraine? Whose side are you on in Syria? How can you back Assad when uses chemical weapons to kill innocent men, women, children?

Kislyak and Lavrov might ask questions such as What made you launch 59 cruise missiles into Syria?  Was this to impress the Chinese who were having dessert with you? What are you trying to prove by dropping the Mother of All Bombs, MOAB, the most powerful  nonnuclear bomb in the world?

Each side has the responsibility to act and talk with credibility and knowledge of their own country. Meetings like this one are problematic.  In this case. Trump, the blabbermouth, trying to be chummy and boastful, in is fact stupid in the eyes of these two men. At least that’s what I think.

Trump’s twitter and mouth are bringing us to the brink of disaster. He wouldn’t get away with this in Russia.

What do you think might have happened to Kislyak and Lavrov if they told Trump about how Russian intelligence obtained information about a specific event that will occur somewhere. We can only guess. But if they did, they never would have said they had the right to reveal such information, as Trump did.

Trexit

Enough is enough.

Trump has to exit the White House. Resign or be impeached.  He has to leave.

We’ll refer to Trump’s exit from the White House, TREXIT, kind of parity of England’s BREXIT.