Investigative reporters have begun to flesh out the Trump\/Russia timeline. To keep everything in one location, here\u2019s an updated summary (so far).<\/p>\n
BY<\/strong>\u00a0STEVEN HARPER<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0| FEBRUARY 15, 2017<\/p>\n This post was updated on Feb. 17, 2017.<\/em><\/p>\n The\u00a0last installment of the Trump Resistance Plan<\/a>\u00a0began with Thomas Paine\u2019s 1776 observation in\u00a0Common Sense<\/em>, \u201cTime makes more converts than reason.\u201d<\/p>\n Sometimes it doesn\u2019t take much time at all.\u00a0Russia interfered<\/a>\u00a0with an American presidential election; Congressional Republicans unwilling to convert and seek the truth no longer have anywhere to hide.<\/p>\n Putin\u2019s 2016 Ticket<\/strong><\/p>\n Investigative reporters have begun to flesh out the Trump\/Russia timeline. To keep everything in one location, here\u2019s an updated summary (so far):<\/p>\n The Flynn Affair<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Keep Sending the Message<\/strong><\/p>\n In response to the latest controversy surrounding Mike Flynn and Russia,\u00a0Trump tweeted a Valentine\u2019s Day diversion<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cThe real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington?\u201d<\/p>\n No, the real story is the question Trump ducked on Jan. 11 and deflected repeatedly on Feb. 16: What contact did Trump or anyone on his team have with Russia\u00a0before\u00a0<\/em>the US election?<\/p>\n Stay on message. Tell Republicans in Congress that American democracy requires an answer \u2014 under oath \u2014 to Ann Compton\u2019s Jan. 11, 2017 question: \u201cMr. President-elect, can you stand here today, once and for all, and say that no one connected to you or your campaign had any contact with Russia leading up to or during the presidential campaign?\u201d<\/p>\n Putin knows the answer. So does the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, who\u00a0said in November<\/a>\u00a0that the Kremlin had maintained continuing communications with Trump\u2019s \u201cimmediate entourage\u201d prior to the election. So do any campaign members and other Trump associates who, according to\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>, had \u201crepeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election.\u201d<\/p>\n But the American people don\u2019t, and that asymmetry of information could give Putin the power to blackmail the country\u2019s leaders. On Jan. 7,\u00a0Sen. Lindsey Graham urged an investigation<\/a>\u00a0\u201cwherever it leads.\u201d A few Republicans want the Senate Intelligence Committee to add the Flynn affair in its ongoing inquiry \u2014 but they\u2019re offering too little, too late. At this point, a credible investigation requires the approach that\u00a0Sen. John McCain initially proposed<\/a>: a bipartisan commission with subpoena power. American democracy can no longer trust Senate Republicans to run this show. Nor can hearings be conducted secretly.<\/p>\n Congress must authorize a special independent 9\/11-type commission.\u00a0Step 2 of The Trump Resistance Plan has contact information<\/a>\u00a0and language for messages to Republicans and Democrats in Congress. The message to all of them is simple: \u201cStep up, stand strong, and save democracy while someone still can.\u201d Call, write, email, march and win.<\/p>\n This is part of a series by Steven Harper. Read the other posts in the series:\u00a0<\/em>Trump Resistance Plan<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *This post initially stated that a batch of emails released on Oct. 7, 2016 by WikiLeaks was Wikileaks\u2019 first email dump relating to the 2016 US election. That was incorrect; WikiLeaks\u2019 first email dump occurred on July 22, 2016. The post also stated that the emails released on Oct. 7, 2016 were obtained from DNC servers. That was incorrect; hackers obtained the July emails by accessing DNC servers but obtained the October emails by accessing from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta\u2019s email account. The post has been corrected and we regret the error.<\/em><\/p>\n **This post was originally published on Feb. 15, 2017 and was updated on Feb. 17 with new information.<\/em><\/p>\n TOPICS:<\/strong>\u00a0DEMOCRACY & GOVERNMENT<\/a><\/p>\n TAGS:<\/strong>\u00a0ELECTION 2016<\/a>,\u00a0MIKE FLYNN<\/a>,\u00a0REX TILLERSON<\/a>,\u00a0RUSSIA<\/a>,\u00a0SEAN SPICER<\/a>,\u00a0TRUMP RESISTANCE PLAN<\/a>,\u00a0VLADIMIR PUTIN<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump Resistance Plan: A Timeline \u2014 Russia and President Trump Investigative reporters have begun to flesh out the Trump\/Russia timeline. To keep everything in one location, here\u2019s an updated summary (so far). BY\u00a0STEVEN HARPER\u00a0| FEBRUARY 15, 2017 This post was updated on Feb. 17, 2017. The\u00a0last installment of the Trump Resistance Plan\u00a0began with Thomas…","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[44,43],"tags":[36,37,38,39,40,41,42],"class_list":["entry","author-larrynorton","post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-democracy","category-government","tag-election-2016","tag-mike-flynn","tag-rex-tillerson","tag-russia","tag-sean-spiceer","tag-trump-resistance-plan","tag-vladimir-putin","no-post-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8bppg-43","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":255,"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions\/255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nortonspeaks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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