So, if I understand the Trump defenders here, any presidential candidate, of any political party, if offered help winning the election, by America's number one geopolitical adversary of the last 70 years, would keep their mouths shut about it, and, just as Trump did, (according to Mueller), expect to benefit from it, and even, as Trump did right out in the open, actively support it("Russia, if you're listening...."). Trump defenders would have me believe that this response by Trump would be played out regardless of who the beneficiary of this assistance was. Every last presidential candidate, of any political party, would be happy as a pig in slop to accept help from Russia. This is my interpretation of what defenders of Trump are claiming in this thread.
I don't buy it.
Max Boot, of the Post: "On Tuesday, President Trump
said he has such a wonderful relationship with Kim Jong Un that he wouldn’t let the CIA spy on the North Korean despot. On Wednesday, Trump
said that if a foreign country provided information to him on his political opponents, “Oh, I think I’d want to hear it. … I think I’d take it." In short, the president of the United States thinks it’s wrong to spy on the enemies of the United States but perfectly acceptable to spy on
his enemies.
This is what happens when a crook gets away with his crimes: He is emboldened to commit more of them. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that Trump’s campaign was guilty of criminal conspiracy with Russia during the 2016 campaign, but he did find
ample evidence that Trump welcomed Russian interference and that he obstructed the investigation of that interference."
(Roll that around in your noggin for a minute! That's our president).
More from Max Boot: "Trump tried to minimize the enormity of what he had said by suggesting that it’s just “oppo research” and that all politicians would take such research from any source — “they all do it, they always have, and that’s the way it is.” He is “defining deviancy down,” as Daniel Patrick Moynihan
put it — or rather he is defining his own deviancy as the norm. It’s not. I worked on John McCain’s 2008 campaign, and I know exactly what McCain would have done if a Russian lawyer had come calling with “dirt” on Barack Obama: He would have called the FBI. So would any other normal, law-abiding candidate. Veteran political strategist Matthew Dowd
wrote: “I have worked on 2 Presidential campaigns, & have close friends who have worked on every major nominee campaign since 1988. The Trump campaign is the only ones that have done this.”.
(And that is exactly what all you Trump defenders are doing, defining Trump's deviancy as the norm, by claiming he's only speaking the truth!)
Max Boot: "He is trolling for any dirt that any foreign intelligence service might have on the Democrats. He is thereby kneecapping the FBI, which is charged with enforcing the laws against foreign interference, just as he kneecapped the CIA by saying that it should not have recruited Kim’s brother as an informant. What Trump said may not be illegal, but it is definitely unethical, unpatriotic — and impeachable. He has once again violated his
oath to “faithfully execute the office of president” and “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/13/trump-has-bragged-that-he-will-break-law/
