EDITORIAL: Trump as Russian asset?

The Trump presidency has thus far been marked by many, many firsts: The first president to be elected at 70 years old. The first president with no military or political experience. The first with three wives, with children attributed to each. The first to meet with North Korea. The first who had his own TV show.

And he’s definitely the first American president we’ve all heard use the P-word when referring to a woman’s genitalia.

Now, our president is in possession of another remarkable first: He’s the first that has ever officially been suspected to be a Russian spy.

The New York Times broke the story on Friday: Around May 17, 2017, surrounding the firing of James Comey, the FBI actually opened an official counterintelligence investigation into the possibility that Trump was a Russian agent, or — perhaps even worse — unwittingly acting in their best interests against those of the American people.

The reasons given for the investigation were things that everybody already knew: Trump’s praise of Putin on the campaign trail and his invitation to Russia to find Hillary’s missing emails. Trump’s secretive meeting with Putin at the G20 Summit. Trump’s reluctance to acknowledge Russian meddling in the election that he ultimately won. The meetings between Russian agents and oligarchs and Trump’s son, Trump’s campaign manager, Trump’s lawyer.

Trump said, out loud on TV, that he wanted to fire Comey because of “this Russia thing.” Trump appeared to side with Russia against our European Union allies. Trump has pulled troops out of Syria and then shut down the government, leaving the region vulnerable to Russian interests.

There’s actually quite a bit more. When taken all at once it’s a preponderance of evidence, enough that, were this a movie script about a Russian asset who managed to get himself elected president of the United States, it would get spiked for being way too obvious.

In reality and in retrospect, it would have been tantamount to negligence on the part of the FBI not to consider the possibility that Donald Trump might not be telling us all the facts when it comes to his ties with Russia.

The FBI’s initial investigation has been rolled into the broader Mueller inquiry. Meanwhile the rest of us are now grappling with the genuine possibility that our government and military has been infiltrated at the very highest level.

Another first for President Trump.