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Dr. Errington Thompson is a critical care trauma surgeon, author, and talk show host. Listen to the Errington Thompson Show, available through Podcast and download at: www.whereistheoutrage.net
by Errington C. Thompson, MD –

Before Paul Manafort was found guilty, before Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, pled guilty, we knew Donald Trump colluded with the Russians.

I really do not care how many times he tweets there was “NO COLLUSION.” I do not care how many times Sean Hannity, on Fox News, looks into the television camera for added sincerity and states there was “no collusion.” We all know that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians.

Roger Stone

Roger Stone is Republican political insider. You have to be a political junkie to have ever heard of Roger Stone. He has been around for decades. He has worked on campaigns for candidates from Richard Nixon to Bob Dole to Donald Trump.

Roger Stone

It was somewhat curious that shortly before WikiLeaks released the pilfered emails from the private account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, Roger Stone tweeted, “It will soon be Podesta’s time in the barrel.” Wow! That is a curious thing to tweet about.

One of the truly weird things about the multiple releases of stolen emails was a shadowy character on Twitter called Guccifer 2.0. This was an Internet entity who talked about stealing sensitive information from the Democratic National Committee and then released that information. Most government experts believe that Guccifer 2.0 was—and maybe still is—a Russian agent. Like a modern-day rapper, Guccifer 2.0 spent most of his (or her?) time bragging about his hacking conquests. And who was direct-messaging Guccifer 2.0? Roger Stone.

Sure, it’s possible that Roger Stone was just messing around. He was not really serious. That was his story when he testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Possible? Perhaps. Likely? But I doubt it.

George Papadopoulos

George Papadopoulos

It is hard to really figure out what was going on with George Papadopoulos. When Donald Trump was being interviewed by The Washington Post in March 2016, Trump himself identified Papadopoulos as one of his foreign policy advisers. The very next month, Papadopoulos was in London meeting with a professor with connections with Russia, who told him that Russia had thousands of stolen emails from Hillary Clinton.

Papadopoulos desperately tried to set up a meeting between Vladimir Putin and officials in the Trump campaign. And earlier this year, when indicted and facing trial, he pled guilty to making false statements to government officials regarding his contacts with Russian agents.

Carter Page

And There Is More

There’s more. There is Carter Page, who met with a Russian undercover agent and whose testimony under oath before Senate investigation committees contradicts what Sessions, Corey Lewandowski, other top members of the Trump campaign, and Trump himself, stated (including the false claim that he wasn’t part of the campaign). This agent was known to the United States government, which also believed Page was being recruited as a Russian agent himself.

But of most concern was Donald Trump’s famous declaration, “Russia, if you are listening, I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. (This is referring to Hillary’s 30,000 emails which were thought to be personal and therefore NOT turned over to the FBI and were deleted.)” It appears that Russia, that same day, began a separate hack into Hillary Clinton, the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC. All this information came out in an indictment against 12 Russian officials a couple of months ago.

And there is still more… If we look at Donald Trump’s actions, you have to scratch your head and say we are looking at a man who is guilty. When it was clear that the FBI was looking into retired Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s former National Security Chief, Donald Trump acted like a guilty mobster as he tried to shut the investigation down. When he couldn’t do it, he fired FBI Director James Comey, the man who refused to put loyalty to Trump above loyalty to the United States, and then had Jeff Sessions fire the deputy director, Andrew McCabe. Now it is obvious that Trump was not trying to shut the investigation down to save Michael Flynn, but to save himself.

We know about the infamous meeting at Trump tower. Russian operatives were invited there to talk with Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman, and Donald Trump Jr. The purpose of the meeting was to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from our foreign adversaries, the Russians. We know that Trump, himself, approved this meeting. This is illegal.

It does not matter how you look at it. It does not matter whether you succeed or not at getting any dirt, or what you do with it if you do get it. Getting dirt from a foreign government or foreign agents (or representatives, or foreign nationals, or foreign spies) is, simply, illegal. In fact, the only thing you can legally do if offered foreign assistance of any kind in an American election is report it to the FBI. Period.

Trump was trying to benefit from foreign espionage. This is collusion.

You want more evidence? The Mueller investigation. Donald Trump has tried every single angle that he could to shut down the Mueller investigation. Why? Is it because he cares about Paul Manafort, or Michael Cohen, or Carter Page? Or is he desperately afraid that Donald Trump, Jr. and Donald Trump, himself, are guilty of treason?

He fired the head of the FBI. Why? To shut down the Mueller investigation. He continually rails against Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General of the United States, for following strict, legally required FBI rules about recusing himself from the investigation into the Trump campaign that he (Sessions) participated in. When has this ever happened before? Never in my recollection.

Why is that rule in place? Because it is a fundamental principle of the rule of law that no man may investigate himself, or be the judge in his own case. Yet that’s exactly what Donald Trump has demanded. Trump has personally called GOP senators to try to persuade them to support him in pushing Jeff Sessions out of office. He has had his White House release a statement that Sessions will stay in the job … until after the coming election!

In any other scenario, this is enough evidence to convince the public and prosecutors that the man is guilty. This is not about twisting the facts. As a matter of fact, this is simply a superficial look at the facts. If we look at the details, Donald J. Trump looks even more guilty. We know he is guilty. The only question is whether or not we have the political will to impeach him.