Russian President Vladimir Putin with Donald Trump, Helsinki, July 16, 2018

Turning the US Government into his personal weapon, Donald Trump is trying to bury the evidence of his long-standing links with Russia.

In 2016, Russian agencies cooperated with the Presidential campaign of Trump, whose connections with Moscow-linked agents dated to the 1980s. They hacked the e-mails of the Democratic campaign of Hillary Clinton. The Trump camp eagerly welcomed the offer of the material, which was eventually released via WikiLeaks.

The Kremlin’s operatives mounted a propaganda and disinformation campaign across the Internet and social media, liaising with Trump advisors such as his campaign manager Paul Manafort. They cultivated relationships with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his future National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

Once in the White House, Trump mounted a years-long campaign to obstruct investigation of the links. He was eventually saved by his Attorney General William Barr, who buried the report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and by the Justice Department’s ruling that he could not be prosecuted while in office.

In his second term, Trump is moving to crush the evidence for good. He has commanded his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to put out a “report” laden with propaganda and misinformation, and his Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue the hoax of a “plot” by President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton against him in 2016.

Trump has an additional motive this summer for the campaign: diverting from his political trouble over the files of his late associate, the convicted sex abuser of girls Jeffrey Epstein.

In a 16-minute interview on Tuesday with Azerbaijan’s ANewz, I carefully laid out the past and current situation.