The latest assertion from a Trump Administration official in defense of President Trump’s highly questionable behaviors is causing a well-deserved uproar:
Toward the end of the night, Democrats bridled over comments by [Deputy White House Counsel Patrick Philbin] responding to a question from Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) about Trump’s apparent public solicitation of Russia and China for compromising materials on his campaign rivals. Philbin argued that Trump’s remarks did not, in fact, represent a violation of campaign finance laws that make it illegal to accept or solicit a “thing of value” from foreign sources.
“Apparently it’s okay for the president to get information from foreign governments in an election — that’s news to me,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a House manager, as fuming Democrats accused Philbin of engaging in a wholesale rewrite of federal law to cover for Trump. [WaPo]
Of course, none of this is happening in a vacuum. As was true in the aftermath of the Stephanopoulos interview, we’re confronted with a dynamic in which Trump and his legal team have signaled to possible international benefactors that the sitting American president would welcome their interference in his re-election efforts. The president is well aware of the scandal that unfolded after the 2016 race, but Team Trump has left little doubt that he wouldn’t mind seeing a sequel.
Benen’s post contains quotes and links of several Congressional members.
Some readers may wonder about the hubbub – that is, what’s wrong with accepting information from foreign sources? Here’s the thing: we can generally hope and assume that a domestic information source is providing the information with hopes that it’ll be used to the benefit of the United States.
A foreign source cannot be assumed to have the best interests of America anywhere near its heart; it may be nearer its boot heels, instead. As we’re all learning, the quality of information in the Internet era is a critical factor in its usefulness, and when we’re talking about foreign sources, there’s little reason to consider the generic “foreign” information to be worthy of trust. We may consider information from Great Britain more trustworthy than that from Russia or China, but that’s really more a matter for professional intelligence analysts to decide – not an amateur President and his third-rate advisors, such as Philbin, to decide.
It’s not so much cheating as it is blindly pursuing advantage to the discredit of those in that pursuit, as well as America.
This leaves the sober reader with the following two judgments of Trump to choose from:
- He’s a fool for soliciting foreign information.
- He’s looking for an illegal & immoral advantage.
The choices are not mutually exclusive, of course.
