Remember what happened on January 28, 2017.
What should have been one of the most congenial calls for a new American President — a conversation with Marcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister of Australia, one of America's staunchest allies, turned into a Trumpian tirade, seemingly over a refugee agreement. 25 minutes into what was expected to be an hour-long call, Trump hung up on the Prime Minister. Later, in a day that included a call to Putin, Trump proclaimed that "this was the worst call by far." In short, Trump's first contact with Australia was a diplomatic debacle.
The whole world was appalled but also confused. What was happening and why.
With Thursday's revelation (December 30, 2017) in the New York Times that Australian officials were the first to notify the FB that the Russians were interfering with our elections, Trump's odd attack on the Australian Prime Minister no longer seems so inexplicable.
The chain of events that led to the start of the FBI investigation of Trump and the Russians began in May 2016, in a bar in London. A Trump foreign policy advisor named George Papadopoulos had been drinking and then began boasting to a top Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, that three weeks earlier, he had been told that the Russians had Hillary Clinton emails which they would soon use to embarrass her.
Two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, Australian officials, specifically Alexander Downer, passed the information that Mr. Papadopoulos had shared to their American counterparts. The Times report said this account of the Papadopoulos and Australian events was substantiated by 4 current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians' role.
The Journalist Kurt Eichenwald summarized the timeline leading up to Trump's outburst at the Australian Prime Minister this way:
Yes, it all make sense, in this strange Trumpian universe in which we live - a place where Donald Trump's fury that the Australians had spilled the beans about his campaign's reliance on the Russians causes a displomatic disruption and we are all mystified about what has happened and why. Yes, it all makes sense to help answer the questions: what did Trump know and when did he know it.i
This is our world since Trump's inauguration - a world in which bizarre activities by a deranged man prove to be rational activities by a man serving his own diabolical purposes.
The evidence of Trump knowledge and treason accumulates.
Will 2018 be the year Trump is removed from the office he and his Russian friends stole?
Let us make it so.
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January 1, 2018
Post Script. An October 31, 2017 story in Atlantic magazine ( https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/... ) argued that Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents during the Russia investigation, may have been secretly cooperating with Mueller investigators for months before his plea was announced. In lay parlance, Papadopoulos may have been wearing a wire.
This may well be another link in the Chain.