As a self-confessed political junkie who follows politics and campaigns year round, I’ve learned that every time you think you’ve seen it all, the best is yet to come.
That is particularly true when a new administration comes to Washington.
At the outset, there is jockeying for positions of power and sharp elbows thrown by everyone involved.
It happens in every administration and this one is no different. Those who occupy the coveted offices in the west wing of the White House are fueled by varying combinations of megalomania and narcissism.
This administration however seems to be afflicted by a rare disease.
It manifested itself early on.
First, Attorney-General, Jeff Sessions, repeatedly forgot that he had met with the Russian ambassador, Sergei kislyak, and other Russian officials when he applied for his security clearance upon being nominated for his cabinet position.
The penalties for this can range from being denied the security clearance, a denial of future security clearances, and a prohibition on being employed by the agency or department that it is sought for, up to a felony prosecution in the most serious cases.
In Sessions case, it appears the only sanction is his voluntary recusal from the Russian election meddling probe.
Kislyak must be an eminently forgettable person, because Trump’s National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn met with him in December 2015, after President Obama had imposed sanctions on the Russians for meddling in the election.
When the meeting was disclosed, Flynn apparently told Vice-President Pence that lifting the sanctions had not been discussed, only to discover that Kislyak had been heard on an eavesdropping device confirming to the Russians that they had discussed them.
Later it was discovered that Flynn had forgotten to register as a lobbyist for the Turkish Government despite having been paid over half a million dollars for services after the election.
Trump’s son-in-law and West Wing senior Adviser, Jared Kushner, is perhaps the most forgetful.
When he was applying for his security clearance, he forgot that he too met with Ambassador Kislyak.
He also forgot that he mat with Sergey Gorkov, the head of the Russian state owned bank.
This past week, we learned that Kushner, his brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort met with Natalia Veselinitskaya, a Russian lawyer, during the campaign after Trump had clinched the nomination.
The purpose of the meeting was set out in an e-mail that read, “The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with [his father] this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.”
It went on to explicitly state “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government support for Mr. Trump….”
The disclosure of this meeting was apparently the result of Jared Kushner having to, again, amend his disclosure forms for his security clearance because he forgot to include this particular meeting.
Once the meeting had been reported in the New York Times. Donald Trump Jr. posted the e-mail thread leading up to the meeting in the interest of “transparency.”
The fact that the Times had told him it was about to publish the e-mails apparently had nothing to do with his zeal to be “transparent.”
He then went on Fox News and told Sean Hannity that he had now disclosed everything about the meeting.
On Friday the Times reported that there was a Russian counter-intelligence operative in the meeting that had ties to Russian intelligence agencies.
Trump Jr. apparently “forgot” this detail.
Each time one of these forgotten meetings comes to light, I can’t help but recall Steve Martin’s famous line from a Saturday Night Live skit from 1978, “I forgot armed robbery is illegal.”
It’s hard to imagine that anyone could “forget” a meeting with a Russian government official, let alone, one that was about providing dirt about Hilllary Clinton and took place in Trump Tower.
Last September 19, I posted a blog piece entitled “The Manchurian Candidate 2016https://joefahey.com/2016/09/19/the-manchurian-candidate-2016
The post dealt with the Russian e-mail hacking and other meddling in the campaign that seemed to commence with the arrival of Paul Manafort as Trump’s campaign chief.
To no one’s surprise, Manafort was a participant in this latest meeting that Jared Kushner allegedly forgot.
I felt back then, as I do now, that a blind man could see what is going on here.
All of these “forgotten” meetings with the Russians has made me wonder whether we are witnessing an outbreak of contagious dementia among the Trump officials and team members.
We are now told that Trump Sr. never knew about the meeting that took place one floor below him involving his namesake, his campaign chief, his son-in-law and a Russian government official offering to provide campaign dirt on his opponent courtesy of the Russian government.
He claims he only learned about it a few days ago.
Yeah, sure he did.
Or maybe he just forgot about it.