July 16, 2018

Whatever else people say about what happened today, this should go without saying: Trump's performance and obvious bow to Russian president Vladimir Putin is a moment for every American to set aside partisanship and simply stand for patriotism. Whether they are Republicans or Democrats, they should stand as patriots, first. Right?

Well, not if you're Rand Paul, who cannot even state clearly that the facts as laid out by the FBI and law enforcement officials are clear: Russia attacked our country by infiltrating the GOP, attacking election systems, and hacking into the DNC.

After he basically denied what DNI Coats and others have said today about Trump's ridiculous claims, Paul admonished Wolf Blitzer, saying, "Instead of making this about everything's about Trump and accusing Trump of collusion with the Russians and craziness that's not true, try to protect the integrity of our elections."

" Nobody is talking about protecting the integrity of the elections," he repeated.

Blitzer got right to the point.

"Who do you trust," he asked Paul. "The American intelligence community, the American law enforcement community or Vladimir Putin?"

Rand could not and would not answer the question, ducking into nonsense about "our intelligence community having way too much power."

Also Peter Strzok, blah blah blah.

Blitzer tried again: "But who do you believe? The intelligence community of the United States or Putin? "

"I'm not discounting the allegations that the Russians hacked into Hillary Clinton's e-mails. I'm not discounting that at all," he replied.

Frustrated, Blitzer tried to pin him down more. "So, so why don't you just say you believe in the intelligence community, the law enforcement -- you accept their assessments and move on?"

All of this just gave Rand Paul another chance to echo Trump's talking points about how we all have to get along with Russia, etc, etc, etc.

Wolf tried one more time. "Bottom line, senator. Do you believe that what President Trump did today here in Helsinki was good?"

Once again, the stock answer: It was "a great idea and a good idea to meet with the Russians and engagement, to have conversations and to make sure that we don't accidentally stumble into war."

Duh. Wolf basically said that back to him, before pointing out that Trump threw the intelligence community under the bus, which is really the least of what he did. What Trump did today was simply to give Vladimir Putin verbal oral sex on an international stage. Let's not pretend otherwise.

Rand continued to try to make this a partisan thing because he has clearly chosen the treasonous GOP over his country, prompting Blitzer to give him a warning: "It's going to cause enormous, enormous grief for the president and his administration."

It's already caused enormous, enormous grief for the country, so it's about damn time Trump and his cronies felt some of it.

Shame on Rand Paul. He is complicit in Trump's treason and is no patriot. NONE.

(*This is where I remind everyone that Rand Paul has voted against Russian sanctions because reasons)

UPDATE: Oh! Rand Paul is heading to Mother Russia soon as reward for his service, no doubt.

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