Back Channels -- Progressives Try to Land a Punch on Trump, but the President Is too Savvy to Be Hit

THE REAL NEWS OF THE DAY -- BACK CHANNELS ARE ROUTINE. • • OBAMA AND BUSH USED BACK CHANNELS. We have to wonder if the liberal news media has forgotten everything that Barack Obama did when he was President. The latest non-controversy is that Trump top aide and son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly wanted to set up a secret back channel with the Russians. Fox News’s Catherine Herridge reported that a source told her that no back channel discussion ever came up. Okay. But, let's deal with the frenzied mainstream media living on fantasyland and remind them about reality. FACT. Back channels are not unusual. The Obama administration and other past administration used them -- and, shock and horror, they’ve mostly been conducted in secret. Should we have a special counsel look into that while they are checking on Jared? All this noise feeds into the ongoing drama over whether Trump officials colluded with the Russians during the 2016 election. • There is No Evidence. • • • OBAMA AND RUSSIA. On the ABC’s This Week, Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said that back channels are acceptable and normal functions of diplomacy. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper -- Obama's intel creature who lied to Congress under oath -- has not only reiterated several times that there is No Evidence of Russian collusion, but recently added that back channeling is a “long standing practice.” • Josh Rogin, who was then with Bloomberg, wrote that during the Obama presidency, the White House secretly reached out to the Russians (OMG!) over their aggression in Ukraine three years ago. It was largely unsuccessful, but given how some Democrats are reacting to meetings Trump officials had with Russians, all of which have thus far been legal and proper, there ought to be another commission to look into Obama’s actions because it's only fair, right? President Barack Obama's administration worked behind the scenes for months to forge a new working relationship with Russia, despite the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin showed little interest in repairing relations with Washington or halting his aggression in neighboring Ukraine. Leading the charge was Secretary of State John Kerry, who even proposed going to Moscow and meeting with Putin directly. The negotiations over Kerry’s trip got to the point of scheduling, but ultimately were scuttled because there was little prospect of demonstrable progress. In another attempt at outreach, the White House turned to an old friend of Putin’s for help. The White House called on former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to discuss having him call Putin directly, according to two officials. It’s unclear whether Kissinger actually made the call. • • • OBAMA AND IRAN. Behind the scenes, Obama tried ot tell Iram that things would be easier for Iran if he were elected President. This was in 2008 before Obama was President -- Trump contacts occurred after his election during the transition period. I think we really need a special prosecutor for this back channeling. The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel noted on NBC’s Meet the Press then-candidate Obama sent William Miller, a former diplomat under Bill Clinton, to Iran to tell that government should Obama win the 2008 election -- there will be friendlier terms. Fareed Zakaria, CNN's Middle East guru who hates Trump but spits it out with high-falluting words and cadence, also wrote about candidate Obama sending Miller to Iran in the Washington Post. • What is very interesting about Kimberley Strassel's account is that it sounds a lot like what Michael Flynn did and paid the price for with his job. Strassel told NBC : "We are having a discussion that is absolutely divorced from reality this week. It is astonishing. Let me set the scene for you. It's 2008. We are having an election. And candidate Obama, he's not even president-elect, sends William Miller over to Iran to establish a back channel and let the Iranians know that should he win the election they will have friendlier terms." Got that -- a private citizen going to foreign soil obviously in order to evade US intelligence monitoring and establishing a back channel with a sworn enemy of the United States who was actively disrupting our efforts in the military in the Middle East. • We know Obama had bad or no judgment, and this is a good example of it. But, back channels are completely normal. Reagan had them. Obama had them. Everyone did. So, said Strassel : "I'm not quite sure why supposedly having, at least the President's now elected, setting up a back channel with the Russians is somehow out of bounds." • MSNBC’s Joy Reid noted that it’s different because Iran wasn’t trying to interfere in our election, citing the intelligence community’s report that Russia tried to interfere though state-funded news outlets and social media trolls -- note that this is not hacking. And, yes, Iran and Russia are different; Iran later jived Obama and Kerry and is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons. Reid cites a Reuters story that says there were 18 undisclosed contacts Trump officials had with the Russians in the last seven months of the campaign. But, what Reid did not report was that buried in the Reuters story was this gem -- Reuters showed that none of these meetings point to collusion or wrongdoing : “The people who described the contacts to Reuters said they had seen no evidence of wrongdoing or collusion between the campaign and Russia in the communications reviewed so far.” • So, there is No Evidence of Russian collusion. Election interference, while troubling, is not uncommon. The US is not an angel in this department. Between 1946-2000, the United States interfered in 81 elections from other countries. At the end of the day, much of the Russian collusion drama is rooted in Progressive America’s inability to cope with Hillary Clinton losing the election. If Clinton had won and tried to create a back channel with Russia, she would have been lauded as someone trying to "reset" her failed reset button with Russia. • • • AND IF THE FRENCH PRESIDENT WAS COZYING UP TO PUTIN??? While the New York Times David Leonhardt poured his Progressive little heart out about Trump and Putin -- "For all of the illicitness surrounding President Trump and Russia, his motives have never been clear. If anything, a relationship of convenience between Trump and Vladimir Putin seemed more likely than an actual alliance.The past week has increased the chances that something akin to an alliance exists. On his European trip, Trump repeatedly behaved as if he were trying to advance Putin’s interests. Meanwhile, back in Washington, we learned of an attempted secret communication channel between Jared Kushner -- the President’s son-in-law and senior advisor -- and Putin’s Russia." • What Leonhardt didn't mention was that at the same time he was trashing Trump and Kushner, another president was actually meeting with Putin to restart a relationship. Spread all over European TV were the images of French President Macron schmoozing with Vladimir Putin at Versailles last Monday. Le Figaro, the only really conservative daily paper in France, waxed poetic about the meeting -- a visit to Versailles, lunch there with the French and Russian delegations, one-on-one discussions about Ukraine and Syria, and -- oh yes -- a visit to the Trianon on the Versailles site, where Macron entertained Putin with an exhibition about the visit of Russian Tzar Peter the Great to France 300 years ago. And, said Le Figaro, it was all thought of and planned by the new French president. The Kremlin's news release made sure to include that last bit -- it was all suggested and organized by Macron. • And, according to Le Figaro, the Macron-Putin meeting took place after Russian media spent two weeks applauding and extolling the virtues of Macron. All this because Putin and Russia have been kicked out of the G7 and Putin wants to show that Russia is a world player -- so he chose to cozy up to the half of the Franco-German EU leading couple that he considers the weaker, France's Macron. There's a little collusion there, don't you think? • Le Figaro printed an interview last Tuesday with an historian who specializes in Russia, Helene Carrere d'Encausse, who just happens to be the current "secrétaire perpétuel de l'Académie française." Her view is that the Macron-Putin meeting was "very important....The new President of the Republic is beginning to recreate the French-Russian relationship that had been torn apart by President Hollande." • Why is neither the media nor world political leaders complaining about the blooming Bro relationship forming between Macron and Putin? That's easy to answer -- it's because it isn't Trump. • • • McMASTER AND KELLY SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT. President Trump’s National Security Advisor, General H.R. McMaster, is putting the fake panic about Jared Kushner to rest. McMaster told reporters during a press conference at the G7 Summit in Sicily that he is “not concerned” with reports that Jared Kushner tried to set up diplomatic back-channels with Russia. McMaster initially declined to speak on the Kushner reports but when asked if he would be concerned if someone in the administration tried to set up a back channel with the Kremlin, he said “no,” Reuters reported. McMaster added : "We have back channel communications with any number of individual (countries). So generally speaking, about back channel communications, what that allows you to do is communicate in a discreet manner, we're not concerned about it." • Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly on Sunday called senior advisor Jared Kushner's effort to set up private communications with the Russians during President Donald Trump's transition "a good thing" in an interview with ABC News' "This Week." Kelly said "back channeling" is "both normal in my opinion and acceptable. Any way that you can communicate with people, particularly organizations that are maybe not particularly friendly to us, is a good thing, it's not a bad thing to have multiple communication lines to any government." • DEAR READERS, while the intel world is in agreement that Jared Kushner's attempt to set up a back channel with Russia is normal and a good thing, one former CIA head -- Michael Hayden -- expressed incredulity on CNN Saturday that Trump advisor Jared Kushner would set up communications with Russia, calling it “off the map.” • That is the essence of Progressive Trump-hate -- saying something negative about Trump or his team when you know FOR A FACT that what you are saying is a lie. • Hayden is a retired General and should know better than to be caught up in a lie. Do Progressives in the Deep State have the slightest moral twinge about lying? No. Their talent is to make sure that every bureaucrat in the Deep State, from the CIA to your local library, is a cowardly conformist, living in fear of top-level bureaucrats. • And this is an enormous advantage for President Trump. He has the will to win. His people are good enough to go mano-a-mano with the drones of the Deep State. • And Trump also knows this : “When you strike at a king, you must kill him.” Ralph Waldo Emerson said that and we can be sure Donald Trump has survived and flourished by realizing it. Alternatively, consider Nietzsche : “From life's school of war : what does not kill me makes me stronger.” Whether the mysterious Mr. Big in the Deep State is Obama or Soros or Bill Clinton or somebody whose name we would not recognize, he should be smarter than to hit Donald Trump with left jabs just sufficiently stinging to keep him moving backward off balance. Trump knows that Hillary Clinton lost, not because of the Russians, but because she is a miserable campaigner whose ideas and character are detested by the majority of Americans. Trump also knows that even if there is a Mr. Big, the Progressive Democrats are in disarray and flailing to land even a left jab on him. Trump is no quitter and he is nobody's fool. He has heard former CIA director John Brennan tell House lawmakers that he is 'unaware' of any efforts by President Trump to push back against probes into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and that he knows of No Evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia. • As country singer icon Charlie Daniels put it : “Sen. Schumer, what goes around truly does come around and if, or should I say when, this pendulum starts swinging back the other way, do you realize that Mr. Mueller could actually find a lot more dirt on prominent Democrats than they do Trump and his staff. You have opened Pandora’s Box, sir, and basically thrown away the lid." • Donald Trump knows that, too. The war is not over. It has barely started. And, President Trump has the big guns and the life experience needed to use them. As a friend often reminds me, fasten your seat belt and hang on.