While the case for collusion was manufactured in large part by the Democratic party-press, and the abhorrent acts of senior FBI and Department of Justice officials in attempting to destroy a presidency, among others, it is worth a brief journey into history to recall some actual occasions when presidents or near presidents colluded or committed other acts of treachery, thereby providing a measure of sober perspective to the specious allegations of abuse of power directed at President Trump.
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For starters, the media and others who share the progressive outlook are infatuated with their new favorite founding father, Alexander Hamilton, who was directly involved in colluding with a foreign power and undermining President George Washington’s neutral foreign policy, leading to the much-condemned (rightly or wrongly) Jay Treaty.
For example, Ben Brantley, a New York Times journalist and chief theater critic, fawns over Hamilton the musical, which is a progressive twist on Hamilton’s life, through which many progressives find validation for their own political agenda and “resistance” mindset. Brantley wrote: “During the past several months, while it was being pumped up and trimmed down for its move from the East Village to Broadway, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s rap-driven portrait of the rise and fall of Alexander Hamilton (this country’s first secretary of the Treasury) has been the stuff of encomiums in both fashion magazines and op-ed columns. . . . Even I, one of the many critics who enthused about ‘Hamilton’ in February like a born-again convert in a revival tent, was beginning to think, ‘Enough already.’ Then I saw the show at the Richard Rodgers.”25
“I am loath to tell people to mortgage their houses and lease their children to acquire tickets to a hit Broadway show,” writes Brantley. “But ‘Hamilton’ . . . might just about be worth it—at least to anyone who wants proof that the American musical is not only surviving but also evolving in ways that should allow it to thrive and transmogrify in years to come.”26
The same Democratic party-press that seeks President Trump’s indictment, impeachment, and tar and feathering for his noninvolvement in a supposed Russian collusion scheme celebrate their remake of Hamilton despite Hamilton’s collusion with the British during the Washington presidency.
Do they even know of Hamilton’s collusion with Britain?
As the late historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Lance Banning explained: “Near the end of March 1793, news arrived that the revolutionary French Republic had declared war on Great Britain. . . . [President George Washington] was determined to maintain the strictest neutrality. . . . Locked in a struggle for survival, both France and Britain interfered with American neutral trade. Moreover, few Americans could be impartial about the war. The two political parties were involved in a struggle between liberty and order at home, and both saw a similar struggle in the conflict abroad. Republicans were certain that domestic conspirators desired a connection with Great Britain in order to advance their plot and to bring the United States into the war against liberty in Europe. Similarly, Federalists suspected a connection between the Republicans and the French which might involve America in the war and bring about a second and more violent revolution in the United States. ‘French’ and ‘British’ factions, and political division assumed a ferocity seldom equaled. Washington found it impossible to maintain the national harmony he desired and increasingly difficult to stay above the fray.”27
“Each political party became more and more convinced that its opponents were unduly influenced by affection for a foreign power if not by foreign money,” writes Banning. “Accusations of foreign bribery have never been substantiated, at least as to high executive officers; and although historians would later turn up evidence of questionable conduct on the part of Jefferson and more especially Hamilton, none of this evidence was known in the 1790s. . . . Hamilton was more or less constantly involved in confidential, even clandestine, communications with British agents or ministers from 1789. Jefferson came to suspect that Hamilton was secretly sabotaging his negotiations with foreign powers, particularly Britain, and this contributed to the frustrations that led him to resign his post at the end of 1793. Most historians have found Hamilton’s actions improper, perhaps even damaging to the country’s foreign relations, but have acquitted him of culpable misconduct. . . .”28
Now that Hamilton’s collusion with Britain has been made broadly known, will progressives care? Of course not.
What of the late Democratic senator Edward Kennedy, also known as “the Lion of the Senate,” who was a onetime candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for president in 1980 and was contemplating another run in 1988? He sought the assistance of the Soviet Union in the midst of the Cold War to help defeat President Ronald Reagan’s reelection effort.
As Peter Robinson explained in Forbes: “Picking his way through the Soviet archives that Boris Yeltsin had just thrown open, in 1991 Tim Sebastian, a reporter for the London Times, came across an arresting memorandum. Composed in 1983 by Victor Chebrikov, the top man at the KGB, the memorandum was addressed to Yuri Andropov, the top man in the entire USSR. The subject: Sen. Edward Kennedy.”29
In 1992, Sebastian published a story about the memorandum in the London Times. Here in the United States, Sebastian’s story received no attention. In his 2006 book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, historian Paul Kengor reprinted the memorandum in full. “The media,” Kengor says, “ignored the revelation.”
Grove City College professor Kengor is a Cold War expert who has written extensively of Kennedy’s collusion with the Soviets. For example, on April 12, 2018, writing in The American Spectator, Kengor discusses “a highly classified May 14, 1983, memo from the head of the KGB, Victor Chebrikov, to his boss, the head of the USSR, Yuri Andropov,” which was discovered in the former Soviet Union’s archives, about which Kengor has written in earlier books. Kengor explains that “[t]he lead words atop the document stated in caps: ‘SPECIAL IMPORTANCE.’ The next words: ‘Committee on State Security of the USSR.’ That’s the KGB. Under that followed this stunning header: ‘Regarding Senator Kennedy’s request to the General Secretary of the Communist Party Y. V. Andropov.’ Kennedy’s request was delivered directly to Moscow by his law school roommate, John Tunney, a former Democratic senator from California.”30
Digging further into the memo, Kengor observes that “Kennedy was described by Chebrikov as ‘very troubled’ by U.S.-Soviet relations, which Kennedy attributed not to the odious dictator spearheading the USSR but to President Ronald Reagan. The problem was Reagan’s ‘belligerence,’ compounded by his alleged stubbornness. ‘According to Kennedy,’ reported Chebrikov, ‘the current threat is due to the President’s refusal to engage any modification to his politics.’ This was made worse, said the memo, because the 1984 presidential campaign was just around the corner, and Reagan was looking easily re-electable.”31
Kennedy provided advice to the Soviets on what he believed to be President Reagan’s electoral weaknesses. “The KGB memo speculated—compliments of Kennedy’s appraisal—that the chink in Reagan’s political armor was matters of war and peace. Thus, said the head of the KGB: ‘Kennedy believes that, given the state of current affairs, and in the interest of peace, it would be prudent and timely to undertake the following steps to counter the militaristic politics of Reagan.’ ”32
Next, Kennedy offered potential action items to the Kremlin. Kengor writes: “In the memo, Chebrikov then delineated for Andropov a series of specific steps proposed by Kennedy to help the Soviets ‘influence Americans.’ This included Kennedy arranging for Kremlin officials to meet with certain American media. Which media? The memo went so far as to directly name Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters. Kennedy offered to help bring Soviet political and military officials to New York and Washington to connect them with friends in the press. And further, the memo included an offer from Kennedy himself to personally fly to the Kremlin to meet with Andropov.”33
The memo makes explicit Kennedy’s ultimate interest: “Tunney rem
arked that the senator wants to run for president in 1988. Kennedy does not discount that during the 1984 campaign, the Democratic Party may officially turn to him to lead the fight against the Republicans and elect their candidate president.”34
This would seem to be the collusion of all collusions. Yet, despite the explosive bombshells about Kennedy’s betrayal published in the London Times in 1992, and Kengor’s revelations in his 2006 book, The Crusader—Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism35—not a single major news outlet was interested in interviewing Kengor or seriously covering Kennedy’s actions during his lifetime (he would pass away in 2009, after these revelations were made public). Kengor observed that “[t]he press response was the exact opposite of today’s maniacal digging on Donald Trump. Sources like CNN, which have now launched into 24/7 ‘breaking news’ mode on Trump and the Russians, didn’t do a single news story on Kennedy and the Russians. I can tell you unequivocally that I was never contacted once by CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and on and on. And my 2006 book was published by HarperCollins, one of the top publishing houses. My publisher couldn’t be dismissed as the ‘right-wing press.’ ”36
Furthermore, there were no congressional inquiries or hearings, no ethics investigations, no Logan Act–related probe37 (of the sort that was used as a pretext to investigate retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn), no special counsel criminal investigation—nothing.
And the Democratic party-press was utterly uninterested.
The following decade, there was another attempt to influence America’s presidential election. This time it involved the reelection of Bill Clinton for president and Communist China. As Byron York wrote in the Washington Examiner on September 9, 2018, “[i]n the 1990s, a hostile foreign power meddled in our presidential election. There were serious questions about whether one party’s candidate—the beneficiary—was complicit in the meddling, or at least looked the other way while it was going on. The candidate fiercely resisted the appointment of a special prosecutor, then known as an independent counsel, to investigate. Finally, amid only moderate media interest and public concern, it all faded away.”38
The Los Angeles Times, which did take an investigative interest in the story, reported: “The chief of China’s military intelligence secretly directed funds from Beijing to help re-elect President Clinton in 1996, former Democratic fund-raiser Johnny Chung has told federal investigators. Chung says he met three times with the intelligence official, Gen. Ji Shengde, who ordered $300,000 deposited into the Torrance businessman’s bank account to subsidize campaign donations intended for Clinton, according to sources familiar with Chung’s sealed statements to federal prosecutors.”39
Chung provided damning testimony before a federal grand jury that the Chinese government wanted Clinton reelected. “During their initial meeting on Aug. 11, 1996, in Hong Kong, Ji conveyed to Chung the Chinese government’s specific interest in supporting Clinton: ‘We like your president,’ Ji said, according to sources familiar with Chung’s grand jury testimony. Chung testified that he was introduced to the intelligence chief by the daughter of China’s retired senior military officer.”40
Chung spread around a great deal of foreign money on Democratic candidates and organizations and bought himself repeated access to the White House. He “contributed more than $400,000 to various Democratic campaigns and causes, visited the White House no fewer than 50 times and brought numerous Chinese associates to events with the president and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. He pleaded guilty last year to election law violations and became the first major figure to cooperate with a Justice Department investigation of campaign finance abuses, including a probe into improper foreign donations. A number of contributors have been indicted in the scandal.”41
So concerned were the Chinese government and others about Chung’s knowledge and testimony that “[t]he FBI feared for Chung’s safety after he received veiled threats and bribe offers from individuals pressing him to keep silent about his China dealings. Those concerns grew after the FBI received information from overseas indicating that Chung could be in danger.” Consequently, on numerous occasions the FBI placed Chung and his family in protective custody.42 He was eventually sentenced to probation.
Moreover, writes York, Charlie Trie, a longtime friend of President Clinton, “raised $1.2 million in foreign dollars for the Clinton legal defense fund and the DNC. In March 1996, Trie dropped off a donation of $460,000 at the Washington offices of the defense fund, with some of the money in sequentially-numbered money orders made out in the same handwriting. He visited the White House 22 times. He pleaded guilty to violating federal election laws and was sentenced to probation.”43
In addition, reported the Los Angeles Times, James T. Riady, another “longtime friend of President Clinton” and “who heads the worldwide Lippo banking group, pleaded guilty . . . to conspiracy related to illegal campaign contributions in the 1996 Democratic fund-raising scandal and during the previous eight years.” Riady, who had extensive ties to China, “and his banking group acknowledged in court papers that they made millions of dollars in illegal campaign donations to Democratic presidential and congressional candidates dating to 1988, including hundreds of thousands of dollars to Clinton’s first campaign for the White House in 1992.” Riady was also sentenced to probation.44 The Times added, “There was no indication that any candidates knew the contributions were tainted foreign funds.”45
The Times also noted that “[f]ormer Democratic fund-raiser John Huang . . . [a] onetime official of Lippo California, pleaded guilty in the scandal two years ago and cooperated in the case against Riady, who he said directed all political giving.”46 York noted that Huang “raised more than $1.5 million from illegal foreign sources” and “visited the White House 78 times.”47
Then–attorney general Janet Reno had refused to seek the appointment of an independent counsel (the independent counsel statute has since lapsed) to investigate the Chinese–Democratic Party–Clinton collusion scandal. There would be no formal questioning of the Clintons under penalty of perjury. There would be no prosecutorial report. Bill Clinton had already been reelected to his second presidential term. The scandal died, never to be raised again despite Hillary Clinton’s race in the Democratic Party presidential primary in 2008 and her subsequent presidential run in 2016 as the Democratic Party nominee. The Democratic party-press had no interest.
There are numerous other occasions in which elected Democrats sought to undermine Republican presidents and their foreign policy by colluding with foreign governments. For example, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has been among the leading voices promoting the Russia-collusion narrative, was herself openly defiant of President George W. Bush’s efforts to isolate Syria’s genocidal dictator, Bashar al-Assad. She led other congressional members—“the Gang of Eight”—on an unauthorized diplomatic mission to Syria.
In April 2007, the Associated Press reported, “U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday for talks criticized by the White House as undermining American efforts to isolate the hard-line Arab country. Pelosi and accompanying members of Congress began their day by holding separate talks with Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem and Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa and then met Assad, who hosted them for lunch after their talks. Pelosi’s visit to Syria was the latest challenge to the White House by congressional Democrats, who are taking a more assertive role in influencing policy in the Middle East and the Iraq war.”48
President Bush was none too happy. “Bush has said Pelosi’s trip signals that the Assad government is part of the international mainstream when it is not. The United States says Syria allows Iraqi Sunni insurgents to operate from its territory, backs the Hezbollah and Hamas militant groups and is trying to destabilize the Lebanese government. Syria denies the allegations.”49
The Associated Press understated Syria’s brutal offenses. As columnist Tom Rogan wrote in National Review, “between 2005
and 2008, foreign jihadists flooded along the arterial highways that connect eastern Syria and western Iraq. Once in Iraq, they joined up with facilitators from the Islamic State’s precursor, al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The zealots were then assigned to murder American soldiers and Marines. And AQI was responsible for particularly gruesome crimes. . . . But it wasn’t just AQI that received Assad’s support. A long-term ally of Iranian intelligence and the Lebanese Hezbollah, Assad’s regime harbored those waging Explosively Formed Penetrator (EFP) terrorism against U.S. military patrols in Iraq (and power-drill wars against the heads of innocent Sunnis). Again, the facts are clear. When the CIA finally caught up with Imad Mughniyah (a key organizer of these attacks) in February 2008, he was in Damascus. Think on that. Nearly a year after Pelosi’s ‘peace’ visit, Assad was still protecting this murderer as he lived openly.”50 As Speaker, Pelosi would have known this and much more.
But Pelosi was not the first Democratic House speaker to try to subvert a Republican president’s foreign policy this way. The late Jim Wright had taken it upon himself to lead negotiations among the various factions in Nicaragua, including the communist regime led by strongman Daniel Ortega, in contravention of President Ronald Reagan’s policy. On November 17, 1987, the Los Angeles Times reported that “President Reagan . . . personally admonished House Speaker Jim Wright . . . for talking with Nicaraguan leaders, but Wright left the meeting unapologetic for the unorthodox role that he is playing in the Central America peace negotiations.”51
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