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Local roundup: Nanticoke Area rolls past Old Forge in boys basketball

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Kingston woman arrested on drug, prostitution charges

<p>I do not speak Russian, but I have picked up a few words over the years. One of them is &#8220;golubchiki,&#8221; which means &#8220;the little dears&#8221; or &#8220;dear little ones.&#8221;</p><p>I first encountered the word many years ago in reading about an interview with one of the Bolshevik henchmen who helped hide the bodies of the murdered Tsar Nicholas II and his family in 1918.</p><p>Decades later, that henchman sardonically described the mutilated corpses as &#8220;golubchiki&#8221; in recalling the bloody events and where they dumped the remains.</p><p>I think that speaks to the distinctive black humor that has always characterized Russian politics.</p><p>I also think the days, weeks and months to come could witness a pile of dear little ones tossed onto the burn pile of American politics.</p><p>I don&#8217;t much care if Donald Trump told his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to pay off a chatty model and porn star who claimed they had affairs with him, even if such payoffs violated campaign law.</p><p>Yawn. Such a stupid and tawdry offense &#8212; if, indeed, Trump committed it &#8212; is not the sort of thing worth bringing down a president. Sex and lies about sex were not worth the effort when Republicans were impeaching Bill Clinton 20 years ago, and they aren&#8217;t now.</p><p>It&#8217;s not as if anyone can pretend to defend Trump&#8217;s character anymore. If there is a there there, let it be dealt with once he leaves office in the natural order of things.</p><p>What we all should care about is how comfortably in bed Trump may have been with elements of the Russian establishment who would seek to do our country harm, through election interference or other actions.</p><p>That&#8217;s where what we know so far about special counsel Robert Mueller&#8217;s findings should scare anyone who loves America &#8212; and anyone close to the 2016 Trump campaign.</p><p>Prosecution documents released Friday state that Cohen described for investigators about a November 2015 contact with a Russian claiming to be a &#8220;trusted person&#8221; who could provide the Trump campaign with &#8220;political synergy&#8221; and &#8220;synergy on a government level.&#8221;</p><p>That person was not identified, but documents state the Russian proposed a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladi&#173;mir Putin, saying such a meeting could have a &#8220;phenomenal&#8221; impact, &#8220;not only in political but in a business dimension as well,&#8221; according to the special counsel&#8217;s office.</p><p>In a plea deal announced last month, Cohen admitted lying about efforts to get a Trump Tower built in Moscow, efforts which included contacting Putin&#8217;s press office in January 2016.</p><p>That plea deal also suggests Dmitry Peskov, an assistant to a Putin spokesman, lied about responding to Cohen about the tower inquiry.</p><p>So much lying. So many Russians. So many mentions in Mueller&#8217;s documents of Cohen briefing Trump and his family members about the status of a project he lied to prosecutors about.</p><p>No one comes out of this a winner, except the Russians.</p><p>If Trump or members of his family committed crimes in collusion with a hostile foreign power in an effort to win the White House, the legitimacy of his administration is forever tarnished, whether he is prosecuted or not.</p><p>If he is prosecuted and convicted the legitimacy of our electoral process and the dignity of our nation&#8217;s highest office is degraded.</p><p>If he leaves office prematurely due to this, the millions of Americans who voted for him will no doubt be left angry and feeling their votes have been usurped, regardless of how guilty Trump may prove to be.</p><p>If some sort of pardon is arranged, the rule of law will have been seriously tarnished.</p><p>Even if the president escapes personal repercussions, some of the closest members of his circle might not. Already, we&#8217;ve seen the fall of several at the fringes of that circle.</p><p>His administration, meanwhile, has been a revolving door that witnessed many prematurely departing functionaries spilling deeply disturbing stories once safe out on the sidewalk.</p><p>Expect the pile of golubchiki to grow. The big question is whether America&#8217;s self-styled tsar will be tossed onto the heap before the bloodletting is all over.</p><p>From the safe vantage point of Moscow, only Putin is laughing as U.S. prestige takes a major hit.</p><p>Oh my dear little ones, what a mess.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump are seen at the 2017 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Danang, Vietnam. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/web1_TrumpPutin.cmyk_.jpg</photo0><caption0>Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump are seen at the 2017 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Danang, Vietnam. </caption0><photoCredit0>AP file photo </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Roger DuPuis</p><p>rdupuis@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div>

On Politics: Mueller, Moscow and the political body count