The New McCarthyism, Let's Review, WWYD

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author:  The New McCarthyism -  The left's attacks are becoming more unhinged by the day. Here's the latest: Last year, then-Senator Jeff Sessions spoke to the Russian ambassador twice. This was "breaking news" this morning, and there are calls on Capitol Hill for Sessions' scalp.

Democrats are alleging that Sessions committed perjury during his confirmation hearings when he was asked about communications between the Trump campaign and Russian officials last year. The media would have us believe that the Alabama conservative is a Russian mole.

I'll let you decide. Consider this exchange between Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) and Sessions:

Franken: CNN just published a story alleging that the intelligence community provided documents to the president-elect last week. . . These documents also allegedly say 'there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government.' . . . if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?

Sessions: Senator Franken, I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians, and I'm unable to comment on it.In a written questionnaire, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) asked Sessions whether he had "been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day." [Emphasis added.] Sessions replied, "No."

Here's what you need to keep in mind: While Jeff Sessions did endorse Donald Trump, he was not a member of the campaign staff. He was also a United State senator and member of the Armed Services Committee. It is not unusual for members of the Senate to meet with foreign ambassadors.

After all, Senate Democrats had no problem with the Russian ambassador telling them how great Obama's nuclear deal with Iran was.

Sessions met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak once at a public event where dozens of other ambassadors were present and once in his Senate office. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for that second contact.

Sessions had met with the Ukrainian ambassador the day before he met with Kislyak. According to Fox News, "These meetings took place a week before a seven-day unilateral ceasefire plan was accepted by Russia on behalf of separatist rebels it backed in the conflict with Ukraine."

Now back to the confirmation hearings. Sen. Franken asked Sessions about a "continuing exchange of information." Sessions said he wasn't aware of any.

Sen. Leahy asked Sessions if any Russian officials contacted him specifically "about the 2016 election." Sessions said no.

There is zero evidence of perjury here.

Apparently, Democrats and their media allies have no shame. They are running around with their hair on fire, demanding to know if anyone in the Trump Administration, now or at any time, ever spoke with a Russian. Joseph McCarthy must be cheering Senate Democrats and Big Media from his grave.

Let's Review - Let's review one more time the core issue involved in the left's nonsensical theory.

Hackers associated with Russia broke into servers and stole emails that influenced the election. Hillary's emails? No. She repeatedly insisted her server was never compromised. The FBI said it had no evidence that her server was hacked, although it had to assume the information was compromised because Hillary was so "extremely careless."

The servers that were hacked belonged to John Podesta and the Democrat National Committee. Those emails were entertaining, but hardly significant.

What defeated Hillary Clinton wasn't the DNC emails. It was her total irresponsibility in handling the national security secrets of the United States of America!

But we are past that. Now we are interrogating any official about their communications with the Russians. Well, I do remember one person who did talk to the Russian leadership.

This person leaned over and whispered in the ear of the out-going Russian president about how much "flexibility" he would have after the election. The Russian leader answered, "I will transmit this information to Vladimir."

Barack Obama was extremely interested in cooperating with Vladimir Putin, and no one on the left cared at all. Yet, we're supposed to believe that Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump are somehow compromised.

WWYD? If you wanted to hurt the Russians, what would you do?

Well, their economy is weak and they have only one major export -- oil and natural gas. If you wanted to hurt Russia, you would unleash the American energy industry to drive down the price of oil.

If you wanted to hurt Russia, you would follow Ronald Reagan's playbook and rebuild the American military.

If you wanted to hurt Russia, you would tell our NATO allies to drop the socialism and beef up their own defenses.

If you wanted to hurt Russia, you would make America great again.

On every count, Donald Trump's policies are the opposite of the left-wing agenda advanced by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. And Trump's policies are working against Russia's interests. This is so plainly obvious!

What is not obvious to me is why Republican senators and other leaders are not making that argument.
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Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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