Living in the middle of a spy novel

Here's the plot: a foreign power, a rival or enemy of the United States, finds a way to infiltrate a "mole" or spy into America's government. This is a long-term strategy, and its implementation consumes years of grooming and training the "plant" and prepping the political system and the public for the plant, so that he/she can win the public's trust while keeping his/her loyalty to the foreign power secret.

Sounds far-fetched but barely plausible. As the plot for a mystery/thriller novel, it could sell well. As a thriller movie, it could go gangbusters at the box office. The novel would be like John Le Carre's or Tom Clancy's best. As a movie, well, think of "The Manchurian Candidate."

That's the basic plot, but here's the scary part: The plot may be playing out in real time. The New York Times has revealed that the FBI began an investigation to determine whether President Donald Trump was actually working for the Russian government. Trump's inexplicable cozying up to foreign dictators, his praise of Vladimir Putin (a former KGB agent and current dictator of Russia) raised questions about Trump's loyalty to the United States. 

Adding to these odd behaviors, The Washington Post has reported that Trump went to extraordinary lengths to keep secret, even from his closest aides, the content of talks he engaged in during a meeting in Hamburg in 2017. First, he met with Putin with no advisers present. The only people in the room were translators, and Trump made sure that the translators' notes were destroyed. So no one — not top administration staff and advisers, not members of Congress and not the American people — knows what went on behind closed doors with Putin. It's not that the notes were classified and unavailable to those without clearance; the notes do not exist at all! We do know that Trump was just as effusive as ever in praising Putin after their secret conversation. Trump has not denied the report about the meeting notes.

These strange events come in the wake of a widely reported campaign by Russia to sow distrust among American voters and to help elect in 2016. Putin has fairly proudly admitted that he favored Trump in the 2016 campaign. Almost daily, Trump attacks the work of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is charged with investigating links between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia.

No one has proven that a duly elected president of the United States is a Russian agent, but suspicions are piling up.