Trump's Bad Week

One bird has sung, and two more may be about to sing. If you worked on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and had links to the Russian government, your time in the hot seat may be next. That has to be the sentiment of various individuals that have/had a direct/indirect contact with Trump, as Special Counsel Robert Mueller is showing the American people that he is not smoke and mirrors when it comes to doing his job. Mueller has brought federal charges against former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his Associate Rick Gates relating to activities with the Russians during last year’s presidential election. However, that’s not all. Unknown to everyone in Washington, another Trump campaign advisor, George Papadopoulous pleaded guilty back in July to lying to FBI agents about his interactions with individuals in the Russian government. The fact that no one knew about his arrest came as a surprise to the White House and Congress, even to the media who have eyes/ears everywhere. This is one time that even President Trump wasn’t able to tweet, what would have been his displeasure of someone that he knew, being arrested because of Russian meddling. With the arrest of one known associate of President Trump who has been shown to work” with the Russians during the campaign, is troubling at best for the president. That is because one must assume that others in the campaign that were higher “knew” about what was going on. Manafort is important because he has had a long relationship with Russian businessmen and government officials that had been “watching” Trump before he became president. Manafort is charged with among other things, money laundering which is a serious federal crime.

The Trump White House and Fox News are doing their best to convince voters that no involvement with Trump has been proven. Not yet. They are trying to put distance between Mr. Trump and those charged by Mueller, saying that they were with the campaign “for only” a short time. It makes one wonder what they will say if/when Don Jr., Jared Kushner and Mike Flynn are indicted. Nonetheless, the

arrest of Papadopoulous and indictments of Manafort and Gates is bad news for President Trump. For months, the president has said that there was not any collusion between his campaign and the Russians. The intelligence agencies have all said that the Russians were involved in the 2016 election, everyone that is, except Trump. The president does seem to want to blame Hillary Clinton and the Democrats for his troubles, while Republicans can’t seem to get anything done. Speaking of Mrs. Clinton, President Trump wants an investigation of a uranium deal done by the Obama administration, as if Clinton did it all by herself. It is not a good week for the president.

Prior to Trump associates being charged, Republicans on various investigative panels were talking about their ‘work” being almost over, because there wasn’t anything “there” to prove conclusively that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. However, Mueller’s latest action certainly has changed all that. Even Republicans must know that three arrests in an everexpanding investigation into the Trump White House, does not end things. There are many more questions that need to be answered. Why did Don Jr., Kushner and Manafort accept a meeting with Russian intermediaries to “get dirt” on Hillary Clinton? Didn’t they realize that Russia is an enemy of the U.S.? Why did candidate Trump ask Russia “to find” those 33,000 emails of Hillary Clinton? Will we ever know what is in that famous dossier, and if there is a tape of the president caught in a situation that is well, “not presidential”? Robert Mueller will come up with the answers. The Russians have some/all of the answers. It has not been a good week for the president.

Remember, the world is watching. So is God.