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.
____________________
“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
____________________
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.
