Russia amnesia syndrome: a recently recognized condition

Russia amnesia syndrome is a recently recognized condition which so far appears to be restricted to a cluster of Republican individuals associated with the Trump campaign and transition. This entity is characterized by the apparent inability to remember meetings and/or communications with Russian officials or other individuals until confronted with clear evidence of such, followed by a variable response of continued denial, partial or complete recall, or trivialization or justification of their actions. Individuals known to date to have been afflicted with this condition include: Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Jeff Sessions, George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn. It is not known whether this condition is contagious or caused by other environmental factors, but there appears to be a common predisposition, namely an inherent lack of scruples. There is as yet no known cure, although Robert Mueller is investigating various interventions. Alternatively, maybe they’re all just bald-faced liars in the process of getting caught!

Seriously, it’s great to finally see more of these Russian connections revealed along with the web of deception around them. It’s also great to see the plausible denial by Trump and his surrogates get ever less plausible, although that certainly doesn’t stop them!  We still have no idea where this will all lead and whether all the smoke (obvious attempted collusion) will ever reveal any fire (actual collusion). Trump’s handlers have obviously been pressuring him to lay off commenting and tweeting about the past week’s indictments and guilty plea as well as the Mueller investigation, with limited success. As for the involvement of Jeff Sessions, who has already had to revise his under-oath denial to Congress of Russian contacts at least once, it would be the height of irony if Trump used his lying under oath about Russian contacts as an excuse to finally fire him and replace him with a loyalist AG who could oversee and possibly shut down the Russia investigation.

Curiouser and curiouser! Stay tuned!