Putin shaking down Trump

Regarding Active Measures

Rob Glaser
Sep 3, 2018 · 5 min read

Last night I watched Active Measures. It’s an incredibly thorough and detailed explanation of the many threads of the Trump-Russia scandal, and features outstanding interviews with a number of leading lights. The John McCain segments are particularly poignant given his very recent passing. Having said that, for my money the star of the show is Mike McFaul, the former U.S. Ambassador to Russia.

You should watch Active Measures as soon as you can, and you should tell all of your friends. If you have Hulu, you can watch it for free. Otherwise, you can rent it for $4 on iTunes.

Having said that, Active Measures isn’t going to break through and reach people who aren’t already outraged by Trump, much less those who think that the Trump-Russia scandal is just a bunch of partisan propaganda. There are 3 reasons for this: 2 are intrinsic, and 1 is the fault of the director (who in many other ways did a great job).

The 1st intrinsic issue is that the story of Trump-Russia is actually (at least) 5 complicated stories:

  1. The rise of Putin and how he has assembled Czar-like powers over the past 20 years.
  2. The deep ties between Putin and financial corruption in Russia, at a massive scale;
  3. Putin’s efforts to use all possible means (including Active Measures) to subvert democracy and reassemble as much of the former Soviet Union as he can without starting wide-scale wars, including in Georgia and Ukraine; and
  4. Trump’s financial misdeeds/crimes, going back decades, and how they have become deeply intertwined with Russia.
  5. Russia’s shockingly successful program to use Active Measures to subvert U.S. democracy and to install Trump as the 45th U.S. President, with Trump’s actively and directly involved in their efforts to do so.

Any one of these topics could fill a 2 hour movie. Fitting all 5 into 1 movie is close to impossible.

The 2nd intrinsic issue is that topics #4 and #5 are still in the middle of being investigated in a very rigorous, airtight process led by Robert Mueller. While there are many dots being connected, indeed more and more by the day, there are still key pieces that haven’t yet been fully explicated.

Therefore any treatment of #4 and #5 has to carefully convey the difference between (a) what has already been proven, (b) what is highly likely but not yet fully proven, and (c) what is very plausible, but where an insufficient amount of information has been disclosed to make the case today.

In saying the above, I am not suggesting that I think that 4 and 5 aren’t going to be proven. In particular, if the Democrats win control of the U.S. House of Representatives on November 6th, I think it is all but certain that both 4 and 5 will be proven to the degree necessary to drive Trump from office in 2019. Having said that, as of today, September 3rd 2018, an insufficient amount of information has been publicly released to fully make the case on 4 and 5.

This leads to my criticism of the movie that’s not intrinsic to the situation. Again, to be clear, I am very happy that Active Measures was made. In a lot of ways Jack Bryan did a terrific job, especially considering that he’s a first-time director and (I assume) he rushed to get this movie out so that it would have an impact on the 2018 elections. Moreover, the interview segments are terrific — Bryan got a number of great “gets” and did an outstanding job of getting a number of people to open up and talk candidly about what they know and believe.

However, I think Active Measures could have been even better and more impactful. Bryan didn’t do a great job of hitting the two intrinsic issues head-on. Rather than explaining that Trump-Russia is a combination of 5 different story lines, Bryan just jumps rights into the fray. He jumps back and forth across the 5 story lines in roughly chronological order.

As someone who has tried to deeply understand the Trump-Russia connections since the spring of 2016 (which led to me launching PutinTrump.org 2 years ago), I wasn’t confused by all the different story lines. But I’m pretty sure I’m not the target market for this documentary.

Based on several of the reviews I’ve read, it seems to me that Bryan would have had a much greater impact if he had untangled the spaghetti. If you’re only casually aware of one or more of the story lines, be prepared to hit pause and rewind a few times or to make time for a second viewing.

Bryan also stumbles over the second intrinsic issue — i.e. that a lot about Trump’s Russia-related misdeeds has yet to be proven or publicly disclosed. This reality runs somewhat counter to a film that is clearly trying to persuade and motivate people to stop Trump and to stop Russia. But again I think taking this intrinsic issue head on would have made for a more effective movie.

Specifically, I wish that Active Measures had been very explicit about which aspects of Trump’s malfeasance/criminality vis-a-vis Russia are known versus aspects that are very likely but not yet proven versus plausible but more speculative aspects. I think that what’s already known and highly likely about Trump’s indebtedness to Putin and Russia is so powerful by itself that it would make almost anyone want to know more and support a robust investigation of the rest.

In sum, I encourage everyone reading this to watch Active Measures and to promote it to your friends and family. But in doing so, you should be aware of both its towering strengths and its significant limitations.

I’m very much looking forward to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11–9, which comes out in 2 1/2 weeks. I hope it ends up making the case both persuasively and rigorously. Knowing Moore’s previous work, I bet it will do the former for sure. In the meantime, spread the word about Active Measures!

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