Freedom Rider: Russiagate and black misleadership

“Outraged by President Trump’s 2 hr meeting w/Putin, the man who orchestrated attacks on our democracy. Where do his loyalties lie?”—Barbara Lee

“Trump’s denial of the demonstrated fact that Russia attacked American democracy in 2016 is beyond disgraceful.”—James E. Clyburn

“Instead, he legitimized Putin and disrespected the clear findings of our law enforcement and intelligence officials here at home.”—Elijah Cummings

Black people should be first in line when it comes to casting doubt on the work of intelligence agencies and federal prosecutors. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) ought to uphold the proud tradition of defying corrupt law enforcement. Instead they prove themselves to be happy tools of the neoliberal war party, a bipartisan construct that includes the Democrats. They join with the rest of the democratic party in flogging the Russiagate story and hope that their constituents won’t ask them about anything else.

Robert Mueller is no different from his prosecutor colleagues across the country. They lie. They over charge and force innocent people to plead guilty. They “squeeze” defendants with threats of draconian sentences and get them to turn on other people or even to tell lies themselves.

Mueller’s indictmentsof Russian officials is akin to the shady doings that he and the rest of his profession always engage in. After more than one year of investigation, Mueller succeeded only in proving that Paul Manafort is a crook and that Donald Trump, Jr. is stupid. The charges against Manafort and Trump attorney Michael Cohen have nothing to do with the Russian collusion story at all. The indictments make a political rather than a criminal case and are a weak effort to prove that the year-long charade was worth carrying out at all.

The allegations made in the indictment are a rehash of claims that the Russian government hacked Democratic National Committee emails and used Wikileaks to release them and discredit Hillary Clinton. The indictment relies on the word of the DNC’s CrowdStrike firm who self-diagnosed a Russian hack without corroboration from anyone else.

Russia does not extradite its citizens so the indicted individuals will never appear in an American courtroom. Of course the last thing Mueller wants is to provide evidence in court. The real purpose of the investigation has succeeded. The goal is to make excuses for the Democratic Party elite, explain away their failures which led to Donald Trump’s election, protect the real electoral colluders in U.S. intelligence agencies, and prevent any normalization of relations between the United States and Russia.

The timing of the indictments killed many birds with one stone. They were a last ditch effort to embarrass Vladimir Putin as the soccer world cup wound down in Moscow and had the added benefit of delegitimizing the Trump and Putin summit meeting in Helsinki, Finland.

Mueller names 12 Russian nationals as military intelligence officers and also says that they conducted the hacking and leaking. He provides no evidence so the claims must be taken on blind faith, something that is never recommended where the feds are concerned.

And this is where the CBC groveling is so shameful. If there were any doubts before, it is now clear that they have thrown in their lot with our enemies. Hillary Clinton was the second Democrat to have a presidential election stolen by Republicans in less than 20 years. In 2000 republicans took eligible voters off the rolls to deny Al Gore a victory in the pivotal state of Florida. In 2016 various forms of voter suppression, and electronic vote theft denied Hillary Clinton enough votes in enough states to give Trump an electoral college victory. She also denied herself by depriving the get-out-the-vote campaign of much needed funds from her $1 billion war chest.

The CBC have said little about the real threats to what is left of democracy in this country. It is Republicans who routinely steal votes, not foreign governments. It was Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and CBC members themselves who chose not to address the needs of their constituents and hoped that she could somehow win by a slim margin. CBC members are among the culprits who brought the Trump presidential administration into being.

No one in the rogues gallery has been called to account. The so-called resistance is a fraud, a means of stoking fear about a Republican bogeyman instead of giving people the right to health care and jobs and housing and gaining electoral victory in the process. The Democrats still hope to win without giving the people what they want and need. Only the specter of Vladimir Putin is enough to get otherwise intelligent people to trust a party which stabs them in the back at every opportunity.

This columnist was in the process of writing this commentary when an email arrived from the NAACP. They were pleased to announce that Bill Clinton would speak at their annual convention now taking place in San Antonio, Texas. This is the same Bill Clinton who ended the right to public assistance and who put thousands more black people behind bars. Yet he is welcomed with open arms by the CBC and their ilk.

It will be interesting to see if Slick Willie will vilify Vladimir Putin too. That may be a bit difficult after earning a cool $500,000to give a speech in Moscow. But he may do it after all. He is shameless and so are his friends among the black misleaders.

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.