Transcript

(drums)

I'm Keith Olbermann, and this is The Resistance.

On Russia, Trump appears to be running out of excuses.

He may also be running out of time.

He is not, however, running out of panic.

Two developments this week have underscored that.

The first involves one of those excuses,

and you guys are kidding right?

General Michael Flynn, who campaigned for Trump,

who spoke at Trump's convention, who presumably guided

the formation of Trump's policy on Russia,

who was communicating with the Russian ambassador

while on Trump's transition team, who Kellyanne Conway

said still had Trump's full confidence

as of about five P.M. February 13th,

who resigned as Trump's National Security Advisor

at 11 P.M. February 13th, who is in the best case scenario

merely guilty of lying to Trump's Vice President,

who has offered to testify somewhere presumably against

Trump in exchange for immunity, he is Obama's fault.

Uh-huh.

I just heard where General Flynn got his clearance from

the Obama administration, Trump told CBS.

When he went to Russia, it was 2015 and he was on

the Obama clearance.

When General Flynn came to us, as you know,

he already had the highest clearance you can have.

Go on.

They're so devastated because this only came up

two days ago, I watched one of your other competitors

and they were devastated by this news,

because you know what, that kills them.

That's the end of that subject.

And then there was a ruling and the ruling said

Flynn wasn't my fault, and the ruling also said

Flynn was Obama's fault, and so you can't ever

talk about Russia again, cause the ruling is final.

It's a ruling, and China ate my homework.

What are you, six?

Trump, mister business, mister extreme vetting,

mister full confidence in Flynn has just admitted

that when he brought Flynn on, he and his entire team,

his government in waiting, had no idea

whether or not Flynn had the necessary national security

clearance to become the National Security Advisor.

Although he knows Flynn traveled to Russia in 2015

on the payroll of Kremlin propagandists

to sit alongside Vladimir Putin at the same table

with Jill Stein and Trump knows that Flynn

was Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency

until Obama's team pushed him out.

He seems to think the idea that Flynn had gotten

security clearance while Obama was president

means anything Flynn did after Obama fired him

is somehow Obama's fault.

Trump also believes, literally believes,

that the fact that Flynn worked for the government

while Obama was president somehow ends

the story about the growing evidence of Trump's campaign's

connections to the Russian interference

with the 2016 election.

That kills them, he said, that's the end of that subject.

And this remarkable overconfidence dovetails

with the sudden return to Trump's early campaign pledge

to change the laws so he can sue anybody

who writes a news story he doesn't like.

When his henchman Reince Priebus went on ABC's This Week,

the first story Priebus used as an example

of media irresponsibility.

The only story Priebus used as an example

of media irresponsibility was that same saga

of the Trump campaign and Russia.

I would leave it to John Dean or a historian

to analyze the 12 stages of a massive presidential

political coverup, but somewhere in them

there has to be this exact succession of emotions.

First comes utter panic at some development

that might not be publicly visible,

followed by a complete rationalization that you

had managed to blame an outside party for it

and were now and forever free,

followed in turn by a public declaration

that the subject was now closed.

We saw this in Watergate.

I believe the time has come to bring that investigation

and the other investigations of this matter

to an end, said Richard Nixon in his 1974

State of the Union address.

One year of Watergate is enough!

The Republicans applauded and Nixon almost smiled

and a note to Mr. Trump, one week later,

the House voted 410 to four to authorize

the Judiciary Committee to investigate impeachment charges

against Nixon.

If we are in the utter panic at some development

that might not be publicly visible stage of coverup,

what has caused it?

Well, shoes continue to drop at a steady pace.

Two of the shoes belong to Sebastian Gorka,

reported to be leaving the White House.

He was the guy who came up through the Fox News

Breitbart pipeline who showed up at one of

the inaugural balls as an incoming Trump

National Security aid wearing what might

or what might not have been the medal

of a Hungarian group that was pro-Nazi

during the Second World War.

More pertinently, he was one of Trump's

wildest defenders about Russia.

Meanwhile there is also a Russian shoe,

a Russian national named Peter Yuryevich Levashov

has been indicted on eight counts in Connecticut

for, according to the Justice Department, quote

alleged operation of the Kelihos botnet,

a global network of tens of thousands of infected

computers, which he allegedly used to facilitate

malicious activities.

The former member of the British Parliament

Louise Mensch, who beat all of American media

by five months to the story that the Justice Department

had gotten FISA court order relating

to Trump's associates, has now posted, quote

sources linked to the intelligence community say

it is believed that a Russian hacker of the election

Pyotr Levashov, was paid directly by Boris Epshteyn

on behalf of both Trump and the FSB.

Pyotr Levashov?

Why, that's Peter Levashov's name!

The FSB is of course one of the many Russian spy agencies,

Epshteyn is the Russian-born former Trump

communications team member who just left the White House.

Mensch also quotes sources who say

that that botnet that Levashov operated

had a command and control setter in Trump Tower.

And yes, with Mensch, and the British agent

Christopher Steele of the Steele Dossier

and the British newspaper The Guardian

leading world coverage on this story

and the BBC reporter Paul Wood who isn't far behind,

yes, the British are in this case your cousin

who is just far enough away to see clearly

that your girlfriend or boyfriend is really no good

and you need to get them out of your life immediately.

And then there is another shoe I would not

ordinarily mention.

It is a story from a man named Claude Taylor,

who identifies himself on Twitter

as a quote veteran of three presidential campaigns,

served on White House staff (Clinton).

He tweeted on Friday, quote this just in from a source

with knowledge of Comey's investigation.

Two grand juries have convened and I know

that one is almost complete.

Thin gruel under ordinary circumstances,

but Taylor's seeming bombshell was then retweeted

by a man named Rick Wilson, with just one word added.

Quote, same.

Wilson is not just not a Democrat like Mr. Taylor is.

Wilson is a former Rudy Giuliani ad man

and advisor.

He also dreamed up the awful advertisement

linking Georgia Senator Max Cleland

to Osama Bin Laden in 2002 and he tied

then-Senator Barack Obama to Reverend Wright in 2007.

Take Wilson and Taylor for whatever you think they are worth

but I am not ready to dismiss them, especially not

after Taylor came back on Sunday to describe

one of the alleged grand juries as having

supposedly focused on violations of

the Foreign Agents Registration Act, RICO racketeering,

and the Russians and Trump Tower.

Are there grand juries ready to hand up, hand down,

or hand out indictments?

I would not dare claim to know, but I do know

what I see.

Trump at escalated levels of panic, Trump floating

a constitutional amendment that would keep us

from talking about his Russia problem, Trump at

the point of pretending that a not very interesting detail

about General Michael Flynn and his security clearance

that Trump should've known and anybody who'd ever

thought about it probably could've guessed

is somehow the final judgment on his entire

Russia problem that it quotes kills those covering

his Russia problem and concludes for all time

any discussion of his Russia problem.

Quoting him again, about his Russia problem,

that's the end of the subject.

I do not dare to claim to know the whole story

of Trump and Russia, but I willingly dare to claim

that this is not the end of that subject.

Resist.

Peace.