I was interested to see the questions former FBI director James Comey thinks members of Congress should ask Robert Mueller when he testifies next week. They are a series of “yes or no” inquiries that can basically be divided into two categories. One set focuses on the fact the investigation uncovered that the Trump campaign was well aware that the Russians had hacked Hillary Clinton and welcomed their help in using that information to win the election. The other set is dedicated to the obstruction of justice charges (or lack of them, actually).  But there is one question which I think really gets to the heart of the matter:

Did you find that, despite the fact that candidate Trump said he had “nothing to do with Russia,” his organization had been pursuing a major Moscow project into the middle of the election year and that candidate Trump was regularly updated on developments? (vol 1, p. 5: vol 2, p. 19)

I wrote on May 17, 2018, that Trump’s lies about the Moscow Trump Tower project were impeachable all on their own, and I truly believe that. The key question concerning Trump as early as the fall of 2015 was why he was saying nice things about Vladimir Putin and whether it indicated that he was attempting to win some business in Russia. He was asked repeatedly if he had any business dealings or aspirations in Russia, and he continuously lied by falsely insisting that he did not.

There are two reasons why these lies were important beyond the obvious fact that it’s generally bad for a presidential candidate to tell enormous lies on the campaign trail. The first is that Trump was setting his policy positions (e.g., Crimea, Syria, sanctions, NATO, etc.,) with respect to Russia based not on American interests but on his desire to win approval from Putin for a major real estate development deal that would have put Trump’s name on the tallest building in Europe. Many people suspected this, and the reason he was asked about it was that it would be disqualifying.

The second is that Putin knew Trump was lying because Michael Cohen and Felix Sater were in contact with his officials as they tried to negotiate the parameters of the deal. If Putin had pilfered emails he could use to sabotage Clinton’s campaign, he also could have exposed Trump at any time and blasted his campaign to smithereens. The second Trump lied about the Moscow Trump Tower deal, he gave Putin complete leverage over his political fate.

The combination of these two factors, that Trump was setting Russia policy based on his self-interest and that he was completely compromised by the Russians are devastating to any argument that Trump is fit to be president.  These problems did not go away once Trump was inaugurated. They actually got much worse. That Trump has taken every available opportunity since to meet privately with Putin is an indication that he is still operating completely at Putin’s mercy.

So, we can take all the other factors that might impel Congress to impeach the president (and there are many) and we can throw them in the Bering Sea. The fact that Trump crafted American policy to suit Putin and the fact that Putin controls his fate are not only sufficient to justify his removal from office. It actually makes his removal imperative.