Will Trump's presidency be legitimate? Probably not: Opinion

The accusation that Donald Trump will not bea legitimate president, and thathe must be impeached the instant he takes office, is obviously a major charge thatmust not be made lightly. Democracy is messy and accepting a politician you may find horrible is a sad but vital andinevitable part of it.ButDonald Trump presents adifferent case.

Many nowquestionTrump's legitimacy, including the venerated civil rights heroJohn Lewis, who Trump lambasted on Twitter after he, Lewis, calledthe President-elect "illegitimate". Again, the accusation of illegitimacy isserious.Itmust not be used frivolously and mustbe understood:This is not ameredisagreementabout policy.So, why are people saying Trumpis illegitimate?

Rigged election

Add WION as a Preferred Source

• American intelligence, no less than 17 different agencies, all agree that Vladimir Putin himself interfered in the US election to benefit Trump. This is illegal. No foreign government is allowed to contribute even $1 to a US presidential candidate. Whether Putin's interference was the difference between a Trump or a Clinton victory--and Trump won three key swing states by less than 80,000 votes, so it very wellcould have been--is also irrelevant. The Huffington Post reported that Trump keeping rather than rejecting foreign "influence"could make him and the influencer subject to jail time.

• America's director of national intelligence James Clapper characterised Russia's pro-Trump cyberattacks as a "multifaceted campaign", and that "Hacking was only a part of it...it also entailed classical propoganda, disinformation and fake news". It's not that Russia hacked the election tallying machines themselves and directly altered the results, it's that their efforts were essentially complex and sophisticated psy-ops meant to shred Clinton's campaign and manipulate American votersinto voting for the Kremlin'scandidate.

• What transpired is illegal. There is an ongoing investigation to determine what exactly did happen and what effect it had, but even Trump himself reversed his initial denials and admitted that it was probably Russia who hacked the Democrats. Trump railed for weeks that the election was rigged against him, but as soon as it became apparent that it was rigged to favour him, he said that, basically, America should just get over it.

• The 2016 US election was the first in decades to be without safeguards protecting the rights of those from minority communitiesto vote, asthe "Voting Rights Act" was gutted in 2013. TheHuffington Postreported thatthis made it impossible for1.1 million citizens, mostlynon-whiteandpoor, tovote.

• Trump won the electoral college votes of three key swing states by very narrow margins. The Huffington Post made it easy to compare the numbers Trumpwon by in these states to the number of citizens for whomgutting the Voting Rights Act deprived of their fundamental right to vote--known as a "purge list".Trump won Michigan by 13,107 votes, it's purge list was 449,922. Trump won Arizona by 85,257, and its purge list was 270,824. Trump won North Carolina by 177,008, and its purge list was 589,393.

• Despite Russian interference, Fake News, the FBI director inexplicablyannouncing a probe (that led nowhere) into Clinton's emails mere daysdays before the election,Trump asking followers to watch the polls for voter fraud (interpreted as a call to intimidate voters) and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, still almost 3 million more people voted for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump.

Decades of Russian connections, financing

• Trump's stunning and stubborn refusal to publicly disclose his tax returns (he is the first presidential candidate in 40 years to fail this basic test of transparency)is even more suspect when seen besidehis pro-Russia policies and never-ending praise for Putin, even siding with him over American intelligence and the White House, and all his financial connections to Russian gangsters and the Kremlin (a distinction without a difference). Is Russian money behindTrump's pledge toendsanctions against Russia, imposed on them for invading Crimea?

So Trumplikes Russia, so what?

• American intelligence presented to Obama, and also Trump, a report claiming that Russia has "compromised" Donald Trump. In other words, the claim is Russiahassufficient information over Trumpforblackmail.There isapparently"audio and video" on "more than onetape".While the allegations in the intelligence report have not been verified, it is afact that the report was brought through official intelligence channels to theWhite House. If they are true, the problem isn't that Donald Trump as president wants to side with Putin, it's thatPutin wouldbe the one in charge.

• Trump hasstockedhis cabinet with people who have very deep and concretelinks to VladimirPutin. Rex Tillerson and Paul Manafort are the high profile ones. Tillerson, as CEO of the oil giant ExxonMobil, was personally awarded the "Order of Friendship" from Vladimir Putin, and Manafort secretly received millionsin cash to lobby for thepro-Putin leader of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich.Manafort and another Putin-linked Trump aide named Rick Gate resigned in the summer when this came to light, but Manafort quietly cameback toadviseTrump on cabinet picks. While working for Exxon, Tillerson opposed sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine at a time when the sanctions prevented his company from making billions of dollars on an oil discovery in Russia's north. Trump's pro-Kremlin stanceisfiltering down in major ways.

General conflicts of interest

• Trump has a sprawling business empire that spans the globe, and the character of his business isuniquely susceptible to conflicts of interests. There was talk of using a "blind trust" to manage his businesswhile he's president, but "blindness" is impossible, considering a major part of hisbusiness isa slew of skyscrapers in marquee destinations around the world with "Trump"written on them in giant golden letters. Foreign dignitaries are already careful to stay in his hotels and use his products, hoping to curry favour. Ivanka Trump is very dubiously straddling the line between managing the private business and serving inpublic office.
  
• The "Emoluments clause" in the American constitution may be the biggest threat Trump faces. Theclause forbids "Any person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States]" from accepting "any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State" (unless Congress explicitly consents). Some experts in US law believe thatthere are definitelygrounds to impeach Trump on his first dayin office.
  
• But this isn't the end of the story. If a Trump appointee decides not to prosecute Deutsche Bank, will it be because they think it representsthe best coursefor America, or because Deutsche Bank decides in the future to forgive the $300 million Donald Trump owes it? This dynamic can play out countless times more, considering the vastness of Trump's business interests. While manyethics experts call on Trump to completely divest, saying basically the only way for his business to not interfere with his role as president is tonot havea business, Trump steadfastly refuses.
  
• When considering whetherTrump can be counted on to separate his children running his businessfromthe world leaders he is bound to meet as president, remember that before even assuming officethey have already sat in on a meetingwith US tech industry leaders and the Prime Minister of Japan. Also, the Trump transition team reportedly sought White House security clearance for Trump's children and nephew, Jared Kushner.
  
• Trump said that he will solve the conflict of interest problem not by selling his business, as he will keep a stake in it but will turn the management over to histwo sons, joined by an executive. Trumpclaimed that he will not speak to these two sonsabout the business. He then joked that if profits are lowhe willtell them, "You're fired!". This does not meet any serious definition of absolving himselfof conflict of interest, especially when the stakes are this high.

Is there enough evidence?

It's hard to get a smoking gun because Trump breaks normal transparency standards by failing to disclose key information, then celebrates himself for disclosing what he hasn't disclosed,thenattacks and intimidates anybody who tries to bring this patternto light.

Trump falsely said he cannot publiclyrelease his tax return (he said he is under audit, the IRS said he is free to release it, then Eric Trumpsaid that releasing it would subject his business interests to public scrutiny). He threatened to sue the New York Times for releasing a page that showed that despite professing to be a billionaire he likely paid no income tax for 18years.

Trump falsely stated thathe does not knowhere they are pictured together) via Bayrock (a real estate firm with offices in Trump Tower)and Putin (Bayrock has seen a cash infusion from Putin-friendlyKhazakstani and Russian businesses). Sater haspled guilty to stabbing a man in the neck with a broken margarita glass in a bar fight and to aracketeering scam worth $40 million, connected to four mob families.

Trump denied knowing Putin personally, yet has said on video that he personally knows Putin. In short, Trump and his teamdo everything to obfuscate what is happening andattack those who threaten hisso-called legitimacy.

There are still many unanswered questions, and it's an understatement to say Trumpappears to be in nomood to answer them. Until both DemocratandTrumpsupportersget real andsatisfying answers to everything thatgot Trump elected andto the nature of what is driving his decisions in office, Trump's legitimacy as presidency will always be hopelessly in doubt.

And if the real answers to these questions ever cometo light, it seems they are unlikely to strengthenTrump's legitimacy.

(WION)