Worse Than Watergate.

During the 1972 presidential race, Republican operatives known as the “plumbers” were caught breaking into the Democratic National Party (DNC) headquarters. Working on behalf of President Nixon, their intent was to rig the election. The break-in and ensuing cover-up led to the threatened impeachment of the president and, ultimately, his resignation.

Embarrassed and furious at losing the White House, Republicans have been looking for payback ever since.

More than anything else, the Republicans’ desire for payback was what drove the sweeping and nearly decade-long investigation into Whitewater, “Travelgate”, “Fostergate” and “Filegate”, which culminated in impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton for lying under oath about his relationship with a White House intern. And it didn’t end there. With each allegation against a Democratic official, Republicans are fond of saying that the actions are “worse than Watergate.”

That is especially true of any hint of scandal involving the Clintons.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Republican accusations regarding the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation and Hillary’s use of a private email server have all resulted in the claim that the events are “worse than Watergate.”

Of course, those claims are entirely untrue. But there is one scandal that may, indeed, be worse than Watergate.

I’m referring to the hacks and subsequent release of emails from the DNC, from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair – John Podesta. The hacks accomplished what Nixon’s plumbers failed to do – by allowing the GOP to sort through thousands of stolen documents in search of embarrassing details and their opponents’ campaign strategies. Worse yet, the NSA and CIA have determined that the hacks were executed by a foreign government – Russia – seeking to affect the outcome of our election.

Ignoring Democratic outrage, journalists have written relatively little about it. Other than Donald Trump’s call for Russia to hack Hillary’s private emails, Republicans have remained eerily silent about the matter. And, unlike the Washington Post’s sustained investigation by Woodward and Bernstein, the media briefly reported the story then refocused their attention on Hillary’s use of a private email server.

It’s almost as if the hacks, and a foreign government’s meddling in our presidential election, never really happened. Perhaps it’s because the media don’t know how to pursue the story. Perhaps they don’t feel they have the time or resources to do so. Perhaps they don’t know how to find and cultivate their own version of “Deep Throat.”

If so, that’s particularly troubling. Because a comedian did.

Despite lacking the resources of a major news organization, Samantha Bee and her crew were able to find and interview two Russians who could provide insight into the matter. They stated that they, and hundreds of other Russian hackers, have been hired by the Russian government to meddle in the US election by disseminating false information and memes on social media in support of Donald Trump.

Take a moment to reflect on that – a foreign government which is one of our long-time adversaries is meddling in our presidential election on behalf of one candidate. For what reason? What does Russia hope to gain? What should we know about that candidate’s relationship with Russia and its leaders? What impact would Trump’s election have on our nation’s foreign policy? What impact would Trump’s election have on our national security? What, if any, connection does the meddling have to do with the previous hack of the State Department’s email server (the government server that was hacked while Secretary Clinton’s private server was not)?

Is not the theft of private documents from one of our two major political parties a bigger story than a former Secretary of State using private emails to communicate with her staffers as her predecessors had done?

Many things have changed since Watergate. And few of the changes are good.

Will US Election Be Decided By Outsiders?

During the Clinton and Obama administrations, the right-wing promoted numerous conspiracy theories – that Hillary Clinton had Vince Foster murdered; that Obama is not a US citizen; that Obama is a secret Muslim; that Obama is coming for your guns; that Clinton and Obama sacrificed our Libyan ambassador by telling a military response team to stand down; that Obama planned to use the Jade Helm military exercises to take over our nation and institute Sharia law. The list of conspiracy theories is lengthy.

Now, allow me to posit a conspiracy theory of my own.

We know that Russia hacked the email servers of the DNC (Democratic National Committee), of the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee), and the DGA (Democratic Governors Association). We also know that some of emails were altered before their release to make them seem more damning than they were. We know that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has threatened to release additional emails aimed at damaging Hillary Clinton’s election campaign. And we now know that a foreign government hacked into the election systems of at least two states: Arizona and Illinois.

We know that, until recently, Donald Trump’s campaign was being run by a man with close ties to Russia and Vladimir Putin. We have heard accusations that Russian oligarchs are heavily invested in Trump’s businesses (we can’t know for certain because Trump refuses to release his tax returns) . And we know that Trump called for Russia to hack the former Secretary of State’s email server and release her personal emails.

Taken separately, these things are concerning enough. But collectively, I believe they represent a true threat to the sanctity of our election, especially given the improprieties that occurred in Florida during the 2000 presidential election that resulted in George W. Bush claiming the White House.

Equally worrying are Trump’s suggestions that the US elections are rigged and his claims that the polls don’t show the true strength of his campaign, saying that there are many voters who refuse to acknowledge their support for Trump to pollsters (of course, this would represent a ready-made excuse if the voting software are hacked to show that Trump’s vote totals significantly out-performed the polls to win the election).

Yes, I acknowledge that such concerns can be dismissed as a wild-eyed liberal conspiracy theory. But I think you will have to admit that there is far more substance to it than any of the aforementioned right-wing theories.

If It Was A Joke, We’re Not Laughing.

After encouraging Russia to hack the former Secretary of State’s website and reveal 33,000 of her personal emails, the Republican “Presidential” nominee now says he was joking. Having seen his plea to Russia at his news conference, it sure didn’t seem like a joke at the time. And no one was laughing. Not the FBI, not the NSA, not the CIA, not the White House, not the media, not even Republican members of Congress.

And given that the “clarification” was spewed from the mouth of the would-be Liar-In-Chief, it’s difficult to take it seriously. Indeed, the clarification is much more laughable than the original statement.

What is even less funny is the fact that a candidate for the most powerful office in the world called for one of our nation’s greatest adversaries to commit a cyber attack on a rival candidate in order to influence the election. Military leaders called it “unbelievable,” “disqualifying,” and “shocking and dangerous.” Some called for him to be denied the national security briefings traditionally given to the parties nominees for president out of fear that he might share the information with his Russian friends.

Taken by itself, Trump’s request might have been easily dismissed as just another of his bat-crap crazy statements designed to get media attention. But put his plea into the context of his previous statements of admiration for Vladimir Putin; of his campaign manager Paul Manafort’s ties to Vladimir Putin; of his nearly $60 million in profit from the sale of a Florida home to a Russian oligarch; of the reported investments in Trump’s enterprises by Putin’s friends; of his refusal to release income tax statements that might show his ties to Russian oligarchs; of his announcement that, if elected, he might not stand with our NATO allies; of his taking delight in the hack of the DNC email server by Russian intelligence agencies and the subsequent release of DNC emails by Wikileaks. With all of those combined, you have the makings of a real conspiracy – the very real possibility that Trump is conspiring with a foreign power to meddle in a US election in order to affect the outcome.

Trump has acknowledged that he is running on the same law and order theme used by Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. Is it possible that Trump is trying to one-up the Nixon campaign’s burglary of the DNC’s Watergate offices? Is it possible that he has so little regard for the US electorate that he thinks, unlike Nixon, he can get by with it?

At times, it seems that Trump’s campaign is a bizarre parody of itself – an attempt to test the limits of American politics; to see how much free publicity he can garner; to see how outrageous he can be before the reaction is so overwhelmingly negative that he has to walk back his statements; to test the gullibility of American voters.

As a result, I half-expect that one day, before the election, he’ll step to a microphone and announce that his entire campaign has been a practical joke. In fact, it already is.