The Russia collusion conspiracy theory is back in the spotlight. The left-wing media – particularly CNN – have renewed their obsession with the idea that President Donald Trump is some kind of Russian puppet or even a Russian agent. The vigor with which the president’s political opponents are, once again, pushing this bizarre narrative may be tied to the strong possibility that a third Trump Supreme Court nomination is likely to come before the Senate in the coming months. [perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=”24″]The left sees that as a nightmare scenario…[/perfectpullquote]
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may not be months or even weeks from officially vacating her seat on the Supreme Court bench for health reasons. Absent for more than a week, she continues to work on Court business from home. Official word is that Ginsburg’s recent surgery to remove cancerous nodes was successful, but cancer-related treatment and surgery take a huge physical toll. The chances that the 85-year-old justice will continue to serve beyond 2019 are probably not more than 50-50.
Supreme Court at Stake for the Left
So, how do the two things – the potential retirement of a Supreme Court justice and the reborn obsession with Trump’s undetected and unproven links to Russia – tie together? The answer is timing. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for the president to get a Supreme Court nomination through the Senate in an election year. If Ginsburg’s health forces her to retire in 2019, Trump will get his third justice, and the Supreme Court will have a decisive conservative majority for decades to come.
Brett Kavanaugh and Donald Trump
The left sees that as a nightmare scenario; the hysterical and outrageously grotesque lengths to which Democrats went in their efforts to prevent the president from getting Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the bench are proof enough of that. Even with both Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the court, though, Trump has given conservatives only an edge in Supreme Court fights. A third successful nomination would ensure that the overwhelming majority of opinions handed down by the nation’s highest court, over the next 20 or 30 years, will favor the conservative viewpoint.
From the moment Trump took office, the Democrats have gambled everything on allegations of collusion between the U.S. president and the Russian government. Clearly, they see it as the best chance to remove Trump from office or force him to bow out at the end of his first term. If successful in their efforts, Democrats would then make the case that the president’s Supreme Court nominations – Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and a possible third pick – would all be illegitimate.
As unlikely as it is that they would ever manage to remove two or maybe three justices from the Court, Democrats would surely attempt to do so, were they able to prematurely end the Trump presidency. They would argue that a president rendered illegitimate for crimes committed in order to gain the office and while in office would also render everything he did, as president, illegitimate.
Using Russia to Kill Trump’s SCOTUS Legacy
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin
Neoconservative never-Trumper Max Boot even dreamed up an outrageously flimsy and speculative theory that laid out 18 reasons to suspect that Trump is a “Russian asset.” That comical idea was pushed by both The Washington Post and CNN. The 18 reasons include the accusation that the Russians successfully “hacked” the 2016 election to get Trump elected, an idea that has been clearly debunked. At the same time, Boot and other Russia conspiracy theorists deftly ignore the many ways in which the president has set back Russian interests, including the rebuilding of the U.S. military, the now-dominant rate of American energy production, and the president’s ongoing attempts to persuade European nations like Germany to break their reliance on energy supplies from Russia.
If Trump’s purpose was to advance Russian military, political, and economic interests, he is not doing a very good job of it thus far. Boot and neocon has-beens like Bill Kristol have become favorite pawns of the left in its grand destroy-Trump plot.
Removing Trump from office by pinning on him various crimes – regardless of the validity of any accusations – was always the Democrats’ intended strategy. With the possibility of another Supreme Court vacancy looming, the effort has taken on a new urgency. Just weeks ago, most of the left-wing media largely had backed away from focusing on Russian collusion, but this conspiracy theory is back with a vengeance. Should Ginsburg not fully resume her Supreme Court duties soon, the cry from Democrats will be that a president should not be allowed to nominate a new justice while under investigation for possibly treasonous acts. The editorials are, quite likely, already being written.
