February 21, 2020: For Trump, the Threat is the Truth

 

2/21/20: If Thursday was a terrible day for the rule of law, Friday was worse. President Trump went on another rant about the free press, speaking like any of the worst dictators in history, just getting started in his career. We learned that the Russians were already interfering in the coming election and Trump addressed the issue by firing all the people who said so.

 

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“The central tenet of our legal system and our justice system is that no person is above the law.” 

Former Deputy Attorney General Donald Ayer

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Slowly but surely, the parameters of the new system of Trump Justice become clear. And, unbelievably, Trump’s approval ratings rise. 

One man who recognizes the danger is former Deputy Attorney General Donald Ayer, who served in that capacity under President George H. W. Bush. Sadly, he explains, he has no choice but to label his colleague from the late 80s, now Attorney General William Barr, as “un-American.” 

“The reason I say he’s un-American,” Ayer told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, “is that the central tenet of our legal system and our justice system is that no person is above the law. Bill Barr’s vision is that there is one man – one person – who needs to be above the law and that is the president.”

 

Ayer went on to explain that there was no problem with Barr’s thinking when he served as Attorney General the first time, under Bush 41. There was no reason to “test” Barr’s views, because Mr. Bush “had no interest in being an autocrat [emphasis added].” 

By comparison, Ayer said, Trump does. And Trump spent the weekend validating Ayer’s concern. 

Mr. Ayer’s immediate fear involved the meddling in the criminal case of Roger Stone. He called that the “tip of the iceberg.” Then he slammed Barr for claiming in a 2018 memo that the president “is the executive branch and that he necessarily has complete and unlimited discretion to oversee criminal cases.” 

Call that one pillar of Trump Justice. 

In an opinion piece for The Atlantic, Ayer went on to warn, “Bill Barr’s America is not a place that anyone, including Trump voters, should want to go. It is a banana republic where all are subject to the whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen. To prevent that, we need a public uprising demanding that Bill Barr resign immediately, or failing that, be impeached.” 

Vain hope, of course.

 

* 

Trump lashes out. 

IN THE MEANTIME, sensible heads continue to roll. On Thursday, there were reports that U.S. intelligence experts had warned the U.S. House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee that Russians were already meddling in the 2020 election. 

As NPR explained Friday, 

And at the briefing, the election threats executive, Shelby Pierson – she’s the intelligence community’s coordinator for election security against foreign threats – she relayed that there was intelligence that Russia essentially wanted to see Trump re-elected, that Russia had developed a, quote-unquote, “preference” for the incumbent, for Donald Trump.

 

Republican lawmakers sitting in on the briefing pushed back on Pierson’s assessment. The New York Times reported that Trump was angry and feared Democrats would “weaponize” the story. 

The problem was in how the president responded. He lashed out at everyone involved and hurled unfounded accusations in all directions. The fact that the Russians might be meddling again (and let’s not forget it took Trump more than two years before he admitted they meddled the last time) barely dented his consciousness. He refused to heed the warning and order our defenses against the Russians bolstered. 

Instead, we had a flurry of sometimes bizarre, sometimes dangerous decisions. First, Trump went to work tweeting. “Another misinformation campaign is being launched by Democrats in Congress,” he growled, “saying that Russia prefers me to any of the Do Nothing Democrat candidates who still have been unable to, after two weeks, count their votes in Iowa. Hoax number 7!” 

A keen observer would quickly note that the “Democrats in Congress” weren’t responsible for what Pierson said. What Pierson said was that the Russians were again messing in our elections. 

In normal times that would be the story. The Russians. These are not normal times. Trump moved “decisively” and axed Joseph Maguire, the Director of National Intelligence, who allowed Pierson to present the intelligence community assessment to members of Congress.

Trump didn’t go after the Russians. He didn’t warn Putin to stay out of our business. He cut off the head of the messenger. 

One is reminded, when considering the dangerous tendencies displayed by Donald Trump, of the unhinged behaviors of all-powerful Persian rulers, centuries ago. Xerxes the Great, ruler of a mighty empire, once asked how the Battle of Salamis was going, a naval contest against a much smaller Greek fleet. His adviser Demaratus replied, “Would you like a truthful answer, my Lord, or a comforting one?” 

 

The truth Xerxes did not want to face was that the Greeks were smashing the larger Persian navy.

 

* 

For Trump and his minions, the threat was truth. 

TRUMP MADE SURE he’d get no more truthful news, by announcing that he would recall Richard Grenell, Ambassador to Germany. Grenell would be the new acting Director of National Intelligence. 

In an “acting” capacity, barring confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Grenell could serve for no more than 210 days. 

You might assume Grenell’s first order of business would have been to call a meeting of top aides to gather information and figure out how to deal with the Russian threat. Not even close. This was Trump’s administration, and Grenell was the typical toady. What Grenell did was get rid of Andrew Hallman, Maguire’s second in command, a gentleman with three decades of experience in C.I.A. and intelligence circles. 

Or, to put it another way, Mr. Grenell addressed the danger of foreign meddling by getting rid of a man with three decades more experience in intelligence than the new Acting DNI possessed at that moment. 

Grenell’s background is in public relations, not intelligence, including a stint working for Fox News.

 

At least one key GOP senator was unhappy, although we have little evidence that any Republican lawmakers will ever show they have any nuts. Senator Richard Burr, head of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, did at least praise both men who had been fired. “For nearly four decades, Joe Maguire has dedicated his career to securing our country, both in and out of uniform,” Burr told reporters. As for Hallman, Burr said he appreciated “his extensive knowledge of intelligence matters and his deep respect for the men and women” of the intelligence community. 

Reporters began hearing rumors that Grenell was hiring Trump loyalists to support him, come in, and “clean house.” That is, the threat wasn’t Russians. For Trump and his minions, the threat was truth. 

And truthful Americans.

 

* 

Trump’s most dangerous speech ever. 

FRIDAY NIGHT, the president took his freak show on the road to Las Vegas for another rally. 

The speech he delivered before an adoring crowd, roaring like Germans at Nuremberg in 1934, was his most dangerous ever. 

Trump did mention Russians at the start – namely the Russian hockey team we defeated in the 1980 Olympic “Miracle on Ice.” Then he thanked himself for bringing the Olympics back to the U.S.A., adding an oddly authoritarian twist. “And by the way, we got the Olympics coming back or coming to Los Angeles. Thank you. Thank you, President Trump. Thank you, President Trump. Thank you very much. Thank you, President Trump,” he said. “Eight years. Eight years, 2028 you know what? Unless I’m still president then, which is a distinct possibility…” 

Trump would be finishing up a third term in office, and running for a fourth by the time the Summer Olympics come to L.A. in 2028. 

And you figure the Russians would still be helping.

 

What made this speech even more toxic than usual were the sustained attacks on political foes and the free press. It turns out Trump had invited some of the stars from the 1980 Olympic hockey team to attend. He brought Mike Eurzione, one of the heroes of the games, up on the podium. “Look at that,” he shouted at one point. “Look at the press. Hey Mike, look at the fake news back there.” 

Then he turned his fury, not on Vladimir Putin, but on Chairman Adam Schiff, head of the House Intelligence Committee. “These people are sick,” he said, meaning Schiff and the Democrats. “That’s pencil neck, pencil neck again.” 

That’s his insult for Schiff. 

(A Democrat with similar juvenile tendencies would have to start calling the president, “Pig Jowls.”) 

Trump told the crowd he was told “a week ago” that the Russians were meddling in our election. Oddly enough, that didn’t rile him. What did rile him was when the story started leaking, that the Russians were trying to help. “It’s disinformation,” he groaned. “That’s the only thing they’re good at. They’re not good at anything else. They get nothing done. Do nothing Democrats.”

 

Russian disinformation wasn’t what troubled Trump. It was Democratic disinformation that boiled his blood. He scoffed at the idea Putin wanted to make sure he won a second term. “So doesn’t he want to see who the Democrat’s going to be? Wouldn’t you rather have, let’s say Bernie? Wouldn’t he rather that Bernie who honeymooned in Moscow? Wouldn’t that be?” 

Naturally, he labeled the Democrats “crazy.” “Trust me,” he told the crowd, “I like what we’re doing and I love this country. I love this country.” 

He wants them to believe the Democrats don’t. 

He’s not mad at the Russians or Chinese, Vladimir Putin, or Xi Jinping, or Kim Jong-un. He’s made at Schiff, Schumer, and Pelosi. “Who the hell needs to have conflict?” he says of Russia and China. North Korea still has all its nukes; and it’s building more. But it’s the Democrats he hates. They’re “sick, they are sick people. The radical left’s attempts to poison our democracy and overturn the last election have totally ended in a big fat failure.” 

The Russians interfered in the 2016 election. Trump wanted the Ukrainians to help him win again in November. The Democrats weren’t the problem.

 

Childish insults filled up Trump’s rally speech. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, he labeled “Mini Mike.” 

(Again, a Democrat might have to call the president “Extra-Large Trump,” to get the same childish effect. I kind of like “President Blubber.”) 

At one point the president shouts toward the back of the auditorium, where the free press is filming. “You fake news people…The way I look at it, when fake news CNN, oops, there goes the camera off. Red light just went off.” Trump shades his eyes, the better to see the fake news folks in back. “See, I can tell every one of them. I know them by heart. I know the operators. I know the camera men,” he tells his cheering MAGA fans. “They’re okay. They’re all on our side by the way.” 

Then he claims the cameras go off on the orders of some unknown CNN “Enemy of the People.” The camera persons get “screamed at. Get that camera off.” The camera guys protest. “Get that camera off, or it’s going to be your job,” Trump says the unknown “Enemy of the People” insists. There is no known evidence for this charge. It sounds like paranoia. Trump doesn’t care because he knows his adoring fans don’t care about evidence.

 

At one point, he goes off on a particularly dangerous riff, attacking MSNBC, which he calls MSDNC. It seems he has a little good, old-fashioned, Soviet-style censorship in mind if he gets re-elected: 

They’re worse than CNN. And they’re owned by people that really are bad. I think they’re very bad for our country. The owners of Comcast, rotten company, bad for our country, very bad. They try, they have all these PR things to try and keep their image nice and clean. What they do on television is so disgusting. I think in the old days you had to have licenses for this stuff, right? They can say whatever they want to say. Let’s see what happens over the next period of time. Bunch of dishonest people. Comcast, terrible company. Terrible people running that company.

 

He spends the next several minutes bragging about the fourteen successful seasons of his show, The Apprentice. Then he’s back to attacking the free press. “They’re very ruthless people,” he says. “Comcast is a rotten company.” 

He mentions two journalists by name, Jake Tapper and A.B. Stoddard, and attacks them both. 

Then he assures the crowd, “But we’re standing up for the defense of our constitution, for our freedom, and democracy itself.” 

To prove the point, he brings up a guy from the crowd. The man appears on the podium, wearing a t-shirt emblazoned in red letters: “CNN, FAKE NEWS.” In smaller black letters, his shirt lists ABC, CBS, NBC, and MSNBC. “Thank you for saving America,” the man in the anti-free press shirt says.

 

Trump falls back on juvenile insults. Elizabeth Warren. He saw her in the Democratic debate. She embarrassed “Mini Mike.” He got destroyed “by Pocahontas. Pocahontas. And she’s mean, isn’t she? Did you see that? Do you see the anger on her face? That nervous energy. She’s jumping up and down. She’s a mess.” 

He tells his fans that Pete Buttigieg is a good debater; but neither he nor Warren will be the Democratic candidate. “It can’t be Buttigieg. Can’t be, I don’t think. Alfred E. Neuman, ladies and gentlemen, introducing President Alfred E. Neuman.” He thinks Mayor Buttigieg looks like the old Mad Magazine character. Then he suggests, maybe he should call Buttigieg, “Howdy Doody.” 

Again, I find myself leaning towards calling Trump, henceforth: “President Blubber.” 

As for Sen. Sanders, Trump grumbles, “Bernie is too emotional. He’s screaming, going crazy. And Biden is angry. Biden is angry. Everything’s anger.” Then he takes a cheap shot, hinting at Biden’s tendency since he was a boy to stutter. “And that’s what happens when you can’t get the words out.” 

The president starts bragging about his daughter Ivanka and some magical job-creating power she must possess. “She’s gotten these great companies like Walmart, and many others, Exxon, she’s gotten them to take millions of people. She’s now over fifteen million jobs [emphasis added] where they train people and bring them into the companies. It’s incredible,” he says. “Fifteen million. And she’s smart. She got it figured out, but most people can’t, but she does.” (See: Trump Math, 2/8/20.) 

He points again, menacingly, at reporters in back of the crowd. “I can’t say it because I got all these maniacs back there. They’re trying to find... ‘He put the comma in the wrong place. He didn’t make that word plural, therefore he lied.’” 

(Well, in fact, he did lie. And it wasn’t about the comma. The claim of 15,000,000 jobs is preposterous.) 

Then he decided it would be fun to slam his predecessor – for lying. And he set up another pillar of Trump Justice. 

In a second term – and maybe a third and even a fourth – Trump’s enemies would be at his mercy.

Remember president Obama? Remember, he said, “you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan.” 28 times, he lied, so we should impeach him. We’re going to impeach him. We’ll do a belated impeachment. Twenty-eight times, “you can keep your doctor,” right? Remember, you could keep your doctor. Unfortunately, when they found out you can’t keep your doctor, he said, “I was just kidding.” Now, we should impeach him. We’ll do a belated impeachment. Fake news, you have it. See, you have to be very careful when you say impeachment because you know what they do? They go back and they write. President Trump said that Obama should be impeached, but he’s not in office and so therefore they can’t impeach. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about because he’s not in office, so therefore they can’t. So, you have to be very careful. That’s why I use the word belated impeachment. Belated, meaning I’m just kidding, okay?

 

Yes, and he’s just kidding about requiring licenses for news organizations, so he and his enablers can deny them to anyone whose views they don’t approve. 

And how funny he is, talking about impeaching a former president he hates, for lying about healthcare. 

For no apparent reason, the president starts riffing about the Academy Awards. He’s still upset that a movie from South Korea won for “Best Picture.” He says he thinks they should do more movies like Gone with the Wind. Now he’s a movie critic. “What I say is make great movies, not this computerized garbage. And I was never a fan of Brad Pitt, I will tell you that.” 

Trump is venting as only Trump can: 

No, I thought he was a stiff. He was a stiff, it’s like a boring guy. All of a sudden, he wins the Academy Award, so fitting. Their ratings aren’t so good at the Academy Awards. You know when that stopped? When they started attacking us, their ratings went right down the tubes. I told somebody, the evening newscasts, they’re terrible for conservative people and they’re crooked, they’re absolutely dishonest ….But ABC is terrible and NBC is terrible and CBS is terrible. They’re all the same.

 

Trump suggests that if the other networks would just hire away some Fox News folks, their ratings would go up “five-fold.” They could hire Pete Hegseth or Jessie Waters, he says. Just like he hired Grenell to be Director of National Intelligence. 

(What could go wrong?)

 

* 

“She did terrible things and said terrible things.”

AT TIMES, Trump sounds merely delusional. All too often he sounds dangerous. He’s a demagogue. His fans don’t notice. He begins to talk about Trump Justice, more specifically. “We have two sets of justices in this country,” he sneers. “It’s no good. It’s no good. It’s no good. You know the thing we’re working on right now? We’re trying to get fairness for a certain person who’s been treated very unfairly.” 

Trump means Roger Stone, one of six campaign aides from the last election to be convicted of at least one felony. What he really means is that we need one “justice.” 

We need “good” justice. 

Trump Justice. 

All kinds of voices have sounded warning in recent days about what “Trump Justice” will look like if he wins a second term. 

His fans don’t care. 

The speech continues. Trump adopts the role of both hero and martyr: 

A man [Stone] who had a juror, who was a radical anti-Trump person, and she didn’t say that when she went up there and she became the foreperson of the jury and she did terrible things and said terrible things. And you know how they caught her. When he was convicted and then a statement was made, she started jumping up and down screaming, “Yes, yes.” And started telling everybody. They said, “Wait a minute. Wasn’t she just a juror?” The woman was totally biased. How do you do this? So I fight. Look, I fight. A lot of times it’s not worth it, but I got to fight for fairness.

 

I got to fight for fairness. Got to fight for fairness. It’s a very unfair system. I guess it’s called the swamp.

 

The charge, that the jury forewoman did and said “terrible things” is about as vague as any charge could be. It doesn’t matter. The crowd roars. In fact, with Trump Justice, we can dispense with juries in the future. We can send cases to the Oval Office, for the president to decide alone. 

Trump hits at the free press again, telling his fans how hard his job has been. “I only didn’t know how disgusting and dirty the swamp is and a lot of the media is a big part of the swamp,” he says. 

And that’s the final pillar of Trump Justice. The system will rest on a foundation of press control. 

Trump and his allies will drain the swamp of reporters who refuse to toe the administration line.

 

Finally, Trump drapes his authoritarian plans in an American flag, and hopes his MAGA cult won’t notice. He spends the last third of his ninety-minute speech listing his many, many, many great accomplishments. 

So many. Such greatness! 

Then he ends with a stark warning:

At stake in our present battle is the survival of our nation. If you want your children to inherit the blessings that generations of Americans have fought and died for to secure, then we must devote everything we have toward victory in November of 2020. November 3rd. November 3rd. Only this way can we save the America we love and drain the Washington swamp once and for all.

 

You almost expect him to spread his arms, Christ-like on the cross, the Savior of the Nation, ready to rule.