4/11/18: I think we can assume the president spent another restless night in the West Wing. It turns out Trump is fuming about “an attack on our country in a true sense,” and by that we mean...North Korea?
Russia?
No…we mean the F.B.I. raid on Michael Cohen.
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“It would be suicide for the president to want to talk about firing Mueller.”
Sen. Charles Grassley, (R-Iowa)
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What do we know about the gentleman in question? We know Cohen has been referred to as Trump’s “pit bull.” We know Cohen likes to compare himself to Tom Hagan, lawyer for the Corleone family in The Godfather. We know he has threatened Trump’s enemies in the past. He has worked the boss out of legal jams related to shady business deals and paid out of his own pocket (or so he claims) to silence porn stars who might have dirt on Trump. We know in December 2015, with Trump already running for president, that Mr. Cohen was excited to see a news story quoting Vladimir Putin, saying Trump was “talented” and “very colorful.”
Cohen viewed that story through the same lens anyone who works for Donald J. Trump would. Namely: green-colored glasses. This was a chance to cash in! Cohen emailed a friend who had been talking extensively with the Russians in an effort to close the deal and build a Trump Tower in Moscow. “Now is the time,” Cohen told Felix Sater, that friend. “Call me.”
In those days, Sater (a convicted felon) was working on drumming up Kremlin support. More emails and phone calls flew back and forth. Negotiations progressed to a point where Candidate Trump signed a letter of intent to build in the Russian capital. Then the business deal stalled.
Cohen reached out to the Russians again in January 2016.
Now remember: His boss is running to become the President of the United States. And what is the focus?
That January, he contacted Vladimir Putin’s private secretary to ask about getting a tower built. According to Cohen nothing lucrative could be arranged. “I decided to abandon the proposal less than two weeks later for business reasons,” he said, “and do not recall any response to my email.”
Again, don’t miss the point. Trump and his personal lawyer and his felonious friend would have happily worked with Vladimir Putin, the kleptomaniacal leader of a nation ranked first or second on a list of our implacable foes. The moral questions didn’t matter. The money just wasn’t right.
$$$$$
In addition, we now learn that the president had to be talked down from the White House roof Tuesday – not to mention last December, as well. The raids aimed at his lawyer left Trump in a rage.
Trump spent the day glaring at the television and steaming over how to respond to news of this raid. He might, for example, allow the investigations to continue, potentially clearing his name. If the whole investigation is really a “witch hunt” he has nothing to hide because witches can’t fly. Or he could just fire everyone he can, and maybe a few people he legally can’t.
In the wake of the Cohen raids, Trump was wallowing in self-pity. He threatened to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. He would put some hack, maybe Fox News howler, Judge Jeanine Pirro, in his place. Then the hack would fire Mueller. Trump would fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions and F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray.
According to one White House source, behind the scenes the president was acting like a madman. Asked by reporters on Monday if he intended to fire Mueller, Trump responded, “We’ll see what happens. …Many people have said ‘you should fire him,’” he claimed. Then he went with the clincher: “Again, they [the investigators] found nothing and in finding nothing, that’s a big statement.”
Of course, if we’re being honest no one knows yet what the F.B.I. has found, including the F.B.I.
What we do know is that to get a search warrant, agents would
have to prove to a judge that they had “probable cause” to suspect crimes were being or would soon be committed if
they did not quickly act. (See: 4/12/18; 4/25/18; 5/4-5/18; 5/7/18 and 7/2/18 for comparison):
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TUESDAY, PINOCCHIO SANDERS tells reporters at the daily press briefing that she hates her job lying for Trump and would rather work for the D.C. Sewer Department than keep up the charade.
No, seriously, she says the president believes he has the power to fire Mueller. If Trump told Sanders he had the power to levitate the Pentagon, she would go out like a parrot and squawk agreement.
For once there were rumblings among Republicans, however gingerly they decided to rumble. Sen. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was at the forceful end of the spectrum. “It would be suicide for the president to want to talk about firing Mueller,” he warned.
Sen. Milksop Mitch McConnell was waiting to be enrolled in the Witness Protection Program and could not be reached for comment.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan gave it all up and announced he would retire at the end of his term.
Sen. Joni Ernst, of Iowa, a war veteran, and someone from whom you might expect a little courage, punted when it came to upholding the U.S. Constitution. “No,” she said, she didn’t see why the Senate should pass legislation to protect Mueller from being fired, “because I don’t think the president’s going to do it – and do you think the president would sign that legislation?”
Ha, ha, good one Sen. Ernst. “Checks and balances.” So passé.
Other Republicans at least had something to offer. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana gave the president the benefit of the doubt and said he thought Trump was “too smart” to get rid of Mueller. “I think it would provoke some sort of reaction by Congress. I think he knows that,” Kennedy said. Besides, “the president can’t just fire Mr. Mueller, Kennedy added. “He’s got to direct Mr. Rosenstein to fire him, and I don’t think Mr. Rosenstein would do it.”
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn said firing Mueller wouldn’t do the president any good. “The facts will come out one way or the other.” Mueller and his team would be expected to compile a report, even if he were fired, and that report would be made public, whether to exonerate Trump or not.
Finally, when I called my own Republican senator, Rob Portman, and left a message, I got a lengthy email response. In a key paragraph, Portman provided the kind of response that gave a shred of hope:
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller is well qualified to
oversee this probe and I continue to support his efforts to fully
investigate this issue. Determining the extent of Russian efforts to influence
our democratic process is a matter of national security and is far more
important than partisan politics. Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation
should be allowed to run its full course, and he should remain in charge.
In the House of Representatives, however, abject cowardice has been more the rule of the day.
“I think the president is very frustrated.”
These lawmakers have elections to win every other year, and what matters most to them is 2018, not 1215, when, in the Magna Carta, the English enshrined the rule of law. A bill to protect Mueller, sponsored by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN.) has the backing of almost every Democratic member of the House. One Republican, Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina, is supporting the bill.
In theory, this would be the chance for all members of the House to prove we still have three coequal branches of government and that two are working to protect fundamental principles.
Sadly, it’s not happening with these clowns and cowards. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL.), one of the head clowns on the House Judiciary Committee, has been calling, instead, for a panel to bring in Attorney General Sessions, Deputy A.G. Rosenstein, and Special Counsel Mueller to explain the thinking behind their investigative efforts. “I think the president is very frustrated,” Gaetz explains.
There it is in a terrifying nutshell. If the president is
frustrated, then the guiding principles laid down by the Founding Fathers in
1787, including the belief that no man is above the law, may be swept aside.
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