The Case for Impeaching Trump

by Elizabeth Holtzman

  The intelligence community issued its first public warning about Russian efforts on October 7, 2016. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement announcing that the US intelligence community “is confident” that the Russian government hacked into emails of “US persons and institutions” and disclosed them “to interfere with the US election process.”

  Candidate Trump’s reaction was to amp up praise of the leakers. “I love WikiLeaks,” he said on October 10, 2016, and followed the next day with: “This WikiLeaks stuff is unbelievable. You’ve got to read it!” In this final month of the campaign, in which WikiLeaks released the Podesta emails, Trump lavished attention and praise 160 times on the organization. Bear in mind WikiLeaks’ connection with Russian interests. In the spring of 2012, the Russian government–funded TV network RT gave Julian Assange a television show. It was likely an important source of revenue at the time, since WikiLeaks had been cut off from access to MasterCard and Visa services. After Assange fled to the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden for questioning on sexual assault, RT announced a partnership with WikiLeaks.

  Trump also made consistent efforts in 2016 to obscure Russia’s role in the election and may well have further encouraged Russia and confused the American voter as to the seriousness of the issue. In June 2016, he asserted that the DNC had hacked itself. “We believe it was the DNC that did the ‘hacking’ as a way to distract from the many issues facing their deeply flawed candidate and failed party leader. Too bad the DNC doesn’t hack Hillary Clinton’s 33,000 missing emails.” During a presidential debate in September 2016, he acknowledged Russia might have been behind the hacking but undercut the acknowledgement by saying: “But it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay?”

  President Trump has consciously and continuously misled the American public about a matter of critical national security. As president, he is privileged to have seen the detailed, classified evidence of the Russian attack, which the voting public has not. But rather than using his power and position to guard our democracy or to inform American citizens truthfully, he has lied to them.

  Here are sixteen examples that demonstrate a consistent and clear pattern of deception:

  December 2016. In an interview with TIME magazine, President-elect Trump said: “I don’t believe they interfered. … It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey. I believe that it could have been Russia and it could have been any one of many other people.”

  December 31, 2016. After President Obama imposed sanctions on the Russians for their interference in the election, President-elect Trump said: “And I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove. So, it could be someone else.”

  January 6, 2017. President-elect Trump said: “Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions.”

  April 2017. In an interview with CBS’s John Dickerson, President Trump again touted his cybersecurity expertise and cast doubt on how agencies prove responsibility for cybercrimes. “Knowing something about hacking, if you don’t catch a hacker, okay, in the act, it’s very hard to say who did the hacking,” Trump said. “With that being said, I’ll go along with Russia. It could have been China. It could have been a lot of different groups.” He called collusion allegations “a phony story,” prompting Dickerson to ask, “You don’t think it’s phony that they, the Russians, tried to meddle in the election?” President Trump responded, “That I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  May 11, 2017. To NBC’s Lester Holt, President Trump explained his decision to fire FBI director Comey: “When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.’” Holt pressed him: “We … there’s already—there’s already intelligence from virtually every intelligence agency that yes, that happened.” Trump conceded that election interference was serious but spoke of Russia’s involvement conditionally, always using the word “if.” He said: “I’ll tell you this. If Russia or anybody else is trying to interfere with our elections, I think it’s a horrible thing and I want to get to the bottom of it. And I want to make sure it will never, ever happen.”

  July 2017. After a lengthy private conversation with Putin at a Group of 20 meeting, President Trump conveyed without comment Putin’s responses to the charge of election interference. “First questions—first 20, 25 minutes—I said, ‘Did you do it?’ He said, ‘No, I did not, absolutely not.’ I then asked him a second time, in a totally different way. He said, ‘Absolutely not.’ Somebody did say if he did do it, you wouldn’t have found out about it. Which is a very interesting point,” President Trump said.

  September 22, 2017. Shortly after Facebook revealed that Russians had bought ads on its platform in 2016 and that it was working with investigators in the office of special counsel Mueller, President Trump dismissed the social media giant’s findings. He tweeted: “The Russia hoax continues, now it’s ads on Facebook. What about the totally biased and dishonest Media coverage in favor of Crooked Hillary?”

  November 2017. During a trip to Asia in which he met with Putin, President Trump declared: “Every time he sees me he says, ‘I didn’t do that,’ and I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it. … I think he is very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country.” President Trump passed on Putin’s lie without comment, and then lied himself by claiming Putin was “sincere” when he knew Putin was not.

  November 2017. During the same Asia trip, President Trump denigrated the heads of the intelligence agencies who had prepared the January 2017 report. “[I]f you look at all of this stuff and you say, what’s going on here? And then you hear it’s 17 [intelligence] agencies. Well, it’s three. And one is [former CIA director] Brennan and one is whatever. I mean, give me a break. They’re political hacks.”

  February 18, 2018. In the wake of Mueller’s indictment for the social media campaign, President Trump once again failed to condemn Russian actions and continued to sow confusion and doubt: “I never said that Russia did not meddle in the election. I said ‘it may be Russia, or China or another country or group or it may be a 400-pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer.’”

  March 6, 2018. At a press appearance with the Swedish prime minister, Trump declared: “The Russians had no impact on our votes whatsoever.” But no such determination has been made by any government agency or any other body researching the issue, and President Trump knew that from his January 2017 briefing. He went on to say: “[C]ertainly, there was meddling [by the Russians] and probably there was meddling from other countries and maybe other individuals.” This statement simply repeats comments made long ago that muddy the waters on Russia’s responsibility for the interference.

  June 28, 2018. President Trump once again passed on Russia’s false messaging to the American public in a tweet. “Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election!” He then pivoted to promoting the idea that Hillary Clinton actually colluded with Russia and that the DNC hack was an inside job. “Where is the DNC Server, and why didn’t Shady James Comey and the now disgraced FBI agents take and closely examine it? Why isn’t Hillary/Russia being looked at? So many questions, so much corruption!”

  July 16, 2018. After meeting with Putin in Helsinki, Finland, President Trump spoke at a joint press conference. He was asked whether he would denounce what happened in 2016 and warn Russia never to do it again. In response, he once again repudiated the American intelligence community as part of an effort to hide or minimize Russian interference. “My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others and said they think it’s Russia. I
have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this. I don’t see any reason why it would be.” To stop the uproar about his comments, the next day President Trump said he misspoke and claimed he meant to say “why it wouldn’t be.” Whether he meant to say “would” or “wouldn’t” is irrelevant. Both formulations are evasive, and not a clear statement that Russia engaged in cyberattacks, as it had.

  July 17, 2018. Faced with continuing furor, President Trump tried to explain away his Helsinki performance: “I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place,” he conceded, then undercut with his pro forma: “It could be other people also. There’s a lot of people out there.”

  July 22, 2018. President Trump tweeted: “So President Obama knew about Russia before the Election. Why didn’t he do something about it? Why didn’t he tell our campaign? Because it is all a big hoax, that’s why, and he thought Crooked Hillary was going to win!!!”

  August 21, 2018. President Trump returned to only conditional acknowledgment of Russia’s attacks. Speaking of special counsel Mueller’s investigation, he told Reuters that it “played right into the Russians—if it was Russia—they played right into the Russians’ hands.”

  President Trump has clearly and persistently said that he rejects or does not care what the intelligence and law enforcement agencies have concluded about Russian interference in the election. He has sent a signal to the public, the agencies, and the world that he does not take the matter seriously as part of his effort to downplay and cover up Russia’s interference. Russia surely has received the same signal and likely has concluded it is free to interfere again.

  President Trump has tried to undermine public confidence in our election system in yet another way, by repeatedly spreading falsehoods about illegal voting and claiming that 3 million fraudulent ballots were cast in 2016. To support this deception, he created a Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity to investigate the nation’s voting systems. Focusing almost exclusively on fraud rather than security, the commission was disbanded less than nine months later, having never conducted comprehensive research, completed an investigation, produced a report, or offered any recommendations. The claim of fraud was not just laughable, but diverted attention from the real problem of Russian election interference.

  President Trump’s Failure to Provide Safeguards against Future Attacks

  It took more than a year and a half after Inauguration Day for President Trump to chair a meeting of the National Security Council to discuss election security. The meeting was prompted by his disastrous performance at Helsinki, which he tried to minimize by creating the appearance that, despite everything, he actually cared about protecting our elections from Russian attack. When it finally came about, in late July 2018, the meeting lasted a scant thirty minutes. He “issued no new directives to counter or deter the threat,” according to the Washington Post.

  A commander in chief seeking to respond to a cyberattack has many options available, including imposing sanctions or other penalties, hardening or improving our defenses, and counterattacking. President Trump failed to direct the use of any of them at that July meeting—or at any other time before that.

  In fact, President Trump has shied away from confronting the Russians or protecting the integrity of our elections from them. Almost immediately after winning the 2106 election, he and his team began undercutting efforts to respond to the Russian attack. On December 29, 2016, President Barack Obama announced measures to punish Russia for its interference in the presidential election, including the expulsion of Russian operatives from the United States and the imposition of new sanctions. President-elect Trump’s transition office issued a statement: “It’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things.” His team worked to undermine the sanctions, reassuring Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, that Russia would get a friendly hearing from the new administration. Jared Kushner was so eager for that friendly hearing that he asked Ambassador Kislyak to help set up back-channel communications using Russian diplomatic facilities “in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring” by the United States, according to the Washington Post. In the next chapter, we’ll examine the actions of President Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, in regard to those sanctions.

  President Trump’s utterly inadequate response to Russia’s election interference did not change after his inauguration. The most notable cybersecurity initiative he pursued occurred in July 2017. After meeting with Putin, President Trump hyped a joint US-Russia “impenetrable Cyber Security Unit” for elections. This fox-guarding-the-henhouse idea didn’t pass the congressional smell test. It was “pretty close” to “the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard,” according to Republican senator Lindsey Graham. It provoked fierce rebukes from other Republican senators, including a tweet from Marco Rubio: “Partnering with Putin on a ‘Cyber Security Unit’ is akin to partnering with Assad on a ‘Chemical Weapons Unit.’” After the pushback, President Trump withdrew the idea. The proposal was another kind of deception: a way of suggesting that Russia was not a cyber adversary and could be trusted.

  Congress’s attempt to address the issue, an August 2017 law sanctioning Russia for its election interference, was resisted by President Trump. He wanted to veto the bill but was persuaded his veto would be overridden. For a long period of time thereafter, however, he simply did not implement the sanctions as directed by Congress.

  President Trump not only failed to use sanctions in 2017, he neglected his responsibility to lead the government in appropriate countermeasures or in improving our defenses. By late 2017, the impact was becoming clear. In October 2017 congressional testimony, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was asked whether the administration had done enough to prevent future Russian assaults. “Probably not,” he said. “And the matter is so complex that for most of us we are not able to fully grasp the technical dangers that are out there.”

  Our military and intelligence agencies were not mobilized to address the attacks. In February 13, 2018, testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, National Security Agency director Mike Rogers testified, “I can’t say I’ve been directed to blunt or actually stop” Russian cyberassaults. The NSA is the main spy and defense agency charged with conducting cyber operations. In fact, all the heads of US intelligence agencies testified at the hearing that President Trump had not directed them specifically to combat Russian attacks on our election systems. FBI Director Wray, then-CIA director Pompeo, and Director of National Intelligence Coats “were unable to point to specific direction from President Trump to ‘blunt’ and ‘disrupt’ Russian meddling in future elections,” according to a report from The Hill. In later February testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Rogers testified that in the absence of a clear direction, he did not have the authority to respond to Russian interference. “I need a policy decision that indicates there is specific direction to do that. … I’ve never been given any specific direction to take additional steps outside my authority. I have taken the steps within my authority, you know, trying to be a good, proactive commander,” Rogers said. “I have not been granted any additional authorities.” He went on: “Clearly what we’ve done hasn’t been enough.”

  At least one other agency that President Trump should have tasked with urgent action simply neglected its duty. On March 4, 2018, the New York Times reported that the State Department had not yet spent a penny of the $120 million it was allocated by Congress to counter election assaults by foreign agents. Not a single Russian-speaking analyst worked at that time in the bureau responsible for dealing with the problem. Likewise, the Department of Homeland Security has been dilatory in providing protection. At a March 2018 hearing regarding the department’s work, Republican senator Susan Collins of Maine told Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen: “When I listen to your testimony, I hear no sense of urgency to really get on top of this issue.” Indeed, the
department did not notify states about its findings on 2016 interference until September 2017. “It’s unacceptable that it took almost a year after the election to notify states that their elections systems were targeted,” Democratic senator Mark Warner of Virginia added. In late July 2018, President Trump’s former homeland security adviser, Tom Bossert, told Yahoo News he was worried about “who’s minding the store” with respect to developing strategy for cybersecurity. “On cyber, there is no clear person and/or clear driver, and there is no clear muscle memory,” he said.

  In the wake of President Trump’s calamitous performance at his July 2018 Helsinki meeting with Putin, the administration scrambled to find examples of actions it was undertaking to combat Russian election interference. First, it staged a press conference with the heads of the US intelligence community, but President Trump notably did not attend. Then, it pointed out in a press release that the Department of Homeland Security was coordinating with state election officials and offering them free cybersecurity scans, but that was a puny move in the face of a concerted cyberattack by a hostile nation. The White House also cited in that press release its most substantive program to counter Russia’s activities, but it turned out to be a congressionally mandated $380 million fund allocated four months earlier to help states upgrade their election systems. Most analysts believe it will cost three times that, and the allocation is not even specifically earmarked for security. As of August 2018, most state election officials said the money came too late to have a real impact on the elections.