Rachel Maddow said Donald Trump’s extortion scheme with Ukraine makes him a counterintelligence threat to America.
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“This is why you don’t want U.S. officials in any position of authority or with any access to sensitive or classified information who are doing bad things or who have secrets in their past or in their present lives that could be exploited by anybody in a foreign country who comes to know of them,” Maddow said. “Most especially the president of the United States.”
Referencing the IG’s response to the whistleblower complaint, Maddow said of Trump’s behavior: “A. This is freaking illegal and, B. It is a counterintelligence threat to the country.”
Video:
Rachel Maddow says Trump’s Ukraine extortion scheme has officially compromised him. #ctl #p2 #maddow pic.twitter.com/TfqgzpPB2y
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) September 27, 2019
Maddow said:
There is a foreign country that knows he did it, right? Ukraine was there at the scene of the crime. They’re the ones who he asked to break the law. But even beyond Ukraine, any other foreign country or foreign intelligence service that knew President Trump was doing this, that knew President Trump had sought Ukraine’s help for the 2020 election, that foreign country, that foreign intelligence service thereby has leverage over him, right? ‘We know you don’t want this out. Would be a shame if it got out, huh? Mr. President, we know what you have been doing with Ukraine. You know how much trouble you are going to get in if and when this ever becomes public in the United States? We’ll keep your secret. We know your secret, but we’ll keep your secret if you do something for us. If you do something you wouldn’t otherwise do or that would be bad for the United States, we can leverage you into doing it because we’ve got something to lord over you.’ Right? This is why you don’t want foreign countries having access to potentially bad behavior by U.S. public officials, right? This is why you don’t want U.S. officials in any position of authority or with any access to sensitive or classified information who are doing bad things or who have secrets in their past or in their present lives that could be exploited by anybody in a foreign country who comes to know of them – most especially the president of the United States. And now we know that that is in part how the inspector general in the intelligence community was looking at this, right? Oh, dear. Right? Thank you, whistleblower. I consider your complaint to be credible and urgent. If what you said happened actually happened, A. This is freaking illegal and, B. It is a counterintelligence threat to the country.
Trump likely engaged in this type of behavior with other countries
The criminal behavior that Donald Trump engaged in during his discussion with the president of Ukraine is just one instance that has come to light thanks to a courageous whistleblower.
But what the complaint also showed is that the White House has been using a secret server to hide other conversations with world leaders that may be politically damaging to the president.
As The Huffington Post noted, the administration is “abusing” the server as it’s meant to store top-secret national security information, not politically scandalous material that the White House doesn’t want to become public.
In other words, the criminal conversation Trump had with the president of Ukraine is the one we know about. The question remains: What other unethical transcripts of conversations with other world leaders are hidden on that server?
House Democrats will dive into these concerns as their formal impeachment proceeding moves forward in the coming days and weeks, but there is one piece of information that we already know: Donald Trump is an active counterintelligence threat to the United States of America.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
