Zeroing in on Trump and Russia

Things are coalescing here, folks, on the Trump-Russia nexus.

1.  Prime Minister Theresa May has expelled a large number of Russians from the U.K., -- and taken other measures as well -- in retaliation for the Putin regime's using an extremely toxic nerve gas on a Russian exile/former spy and his daughter, now living in the U.K., which also seriously injured a British police officer and endangered other citizens.   This is a specific toxin that only the Russians make and possess.
   The European Union, NATO and other allies have joined in condemnation of Russia, like good allies do.   Like the U.K. did immediately when we were attacked on 9/11, and in fact as they did in supplying us with some of the intelligence that helped prove that Russia hacked into our election process.
   But Trump had remained virtually silent.   His silence is consistent with the "see no evil" attitude toward Putin from the beginning.
   Today, the Treasury Department announced the imposition of sanctions on a number of Russians -- but it's mostly just what Congress authorized by a near-unanimous vote last year.   Trump had let the deadline for imposing the sanctions go by without doing anything.
   He did finally yesterday give a weak acknowledgement that maybe Russia did the nerve gas attack in the U.K.   But he had already sent the message he wanted to send.

2.  It was also reported yesterday by the New York Times that Robert Mueller had issued supboenas to the Trump Organization for business records involving Russia.   This is the red line that Trump had said, in the past, that would be a step too far, hinting that it could lead to his getting rid of Mueller.
   Ty Cobb, one of Trump's White House lawyers, spoke with MSNBC's Ari Melber about their response to the subpoena and said that they would "do the right thing" about complying.

3.  Also yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI released a public warning that Russian hackers have now penetrated into the computer networks that control some of our nation's power plants, both nuclear and conventional.   Their initial hacking of the administrative networks of these plants occurred in 2015-16 at the same time of their attacks on our political systems.
   But now they've been able to get into the systems that control the operations of the power machinery itself, which means they can shut them down or cause sabotage.  So far, they have not acted, but they are there and could do so at any time.    Our government has definitely identified them as Russian hackers.
   The problem in fixing this, as explained by the New York Times reporter who broke the story, is that these are mostly private companies that have old or very unsophisticated software programs.   So our government can't just simply go in and fix things.   This warning is to make them aware;  some did not know they had been hacked.

4.   This all comes just days after the Republican majority of the House Intelligence Committee issued its partisan "status report" and abruptly and unilaterally shut down the investigation.   That has been the goal of its chairman, Devin Nunes, all along, who has been acting solely to protect Donald Trump and not in the best interests of the American people.
   And Paul Ryan has enabled Nunes' and the Republicans' hyper-partisan destruction of the previously highly effective intelligence oversight committee.  Even when the FBI Deputy Director went to Ryan to ask him to intervene when Nunes wanted to release his earlier report, which the FBI had given strong warning about the classified material in it, Ryan sided with Nunes.  It's all been to protect Trump.

5.  The Democrats on this same committee have issued their own status report, which is quite, quite different.   Among a long list of questions and people that need to be pursued, or questioned further, they have hinted at some things that they know that had not been previously revealed.  Their status report contains this statement:
   "The committee has learned that candidate Trump's private business was actively negotiating a business deal in Moscow with a sanctioned Russian bank during the election period."   At the same time, of course, candidate Trump was vociferously denying on the campaign trail that he had any business deals in Russia or with Russians, including no debt to Russians.'  It is a crime to do business with a sanctioned bank -- and, if it's a foreign national, it may also violate campaign finance laws.

This is a crucial point in this investigation.   If Trump is going to try to get rid of Mueller and shut it down, this is probably the point at which he would do it.  He's on a roll of pushing people out (Tillerson and others to come, he says);  he has said that he's tired of "being reined in," and getting into his business affairs before the campaign would be the red line.

Ralph