What About This? By Wayne William Cipriano

President Trump was absolutely correct!

During an interview with George Stephanopoulos, the President was asked someting like: If you or your campaign were to be contacted by a foreign government or its agents saying they had “bad” information on a political opponent, would you listen to them or call the FBI?

Before I repeat what the President responded, what do you think is the correct response? What would you do?

The President was, as I said, correct when he said he would probably do both.

Sure, the correct answer has a lot to do with the meaning of “bad information.” If it were merely embarassing, only partially true, strained rationality, was mainly gossip, and so forth, the FBI might not be interested, but how could one tell unless one heard the information first?

If that information was seriously “bad”, but the one about to relate it to you would not speak with the FBI, might even go to elaborate steps to avoid the FBI, what dangers might manifest for our country before the information surfaced elsewhere?

Why would someone not wish to  speak with the FBI or even assiduously evade such an interview? Well, I’m sure we can all come up with hundreds of reasons – from having a bunch of unpaid parking tickets or unmet parental responsibilities all the way to being involved in ongoing criminal enterprises or being a highly placed member of a government unfriendly to our country. And all of these reasons to avoid the FBI could very well have nothing to do with the vericity of the infomration or its importance.

I do not wish to discuss the concept of information being valuable in the sense of the legislative pressure to keep financial contributions to political campaigns forbidden to foreign individuals and governments.You might argue for the concept, I disagree. The Supreme Court will no doubt settle the issue with a 5-4 decision that will please no one.

What I will discuss, again, is the blatant hypocrisy that is popping up around the question. You’d think there would be an objective answer to it: take the meeting and/or call the Feds; and, as I said, I think there is an objective answer and the President was right – both. But, take any politician that has weighed in with an opinion firmly based, they would say, in Constitutional law as well as laws made by the Congress, shift that politician to the other side of the aisle, and listen as the same Constitutional law, the same Congressional acts, favor the complete opposite of what they declared moments ago.

You wonder how our country can do so well, be so revered, be the preferred destination of just about everyone, and still be run by those of so little character, integrity, or whatever you wish to call it. Is it their fault that they will do anything if it seems to please us, just to hang on to their offices; or is it our fault that we overlook such behavior because it momentarily pleases us?

That really is a serious question. I’d like a serious answer. Is “both” too simplisitc? And even if it is an appropoiate answer, how does that help us – how does it help our country? And what does that say about us?

By the way, it seems evident to me that information is information. Its veracity is the important thing, not its genesis. 

What do you think?