Susan Wright on the Right
President Trump is having a very bad, no good week.
As wave after wave of bad press rolls in, beginning with the truckloads of ready-made late night joke material about rain and his infamous hair, extending to a series of White House shakeups, there have been few wins to speak of.
Notably, when the president lashed out last week, firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and replacing him with his chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker, he was shocked by the immediate backlash.
I don’t know why he would be surprised. It was a transparent move to interfere in the special counsel probe into Russian activities in the 2016 election. It was the ugly kind of move that tends to make a free people react.
And before the loyalists start claiming that there was no proof that Trump is attempting to stop Robert Mueller’s probe, let’s insert some common sense.
To begin with, Jeff Sessions was Trump’s first and most devoted toady. As attorney general, he carried out every Trump whim, with ruthless precision.
He was tough on the border and immigration, and by all accounts, he could have continued on as attorney general carrying the president’s agenda on his shoulders, the whole way.
It was that one thing – the Russia probe – that caused him to fall into disfavor.
Once he recused himself, out of ethical concerns, nothing else mattered. He became Trump’s constant target, and Trump did not hide the fact that he blamed Sessions for the ongoing probe. In his mind, the attorney general’s top job is to defend the president against legal scrutiny.
Sessions’ replacement, Whitaker, has had an otherwise unremarkable career. Nobody would have considered him as the kind of man with the experience or background to take over as head of our nation’s Justice Department.
Indeed, Whitaker stood out to Trump because of his public attacks against Robert Mueller and the probe. In 2017 he appeared on CNN and said firing Mueller was unnecessary. The probe could be ground to a halt by shutting off funding.
Now there are legal minds batting about the notion of whether Trump can simply name someone to that post without going through the proper vetting and confirmation process.
Can he?
I don’t know, but the controversy was marked by protests and fresh calls in Congress to pass legislation that would protect Mueller, as well as future special counsel probes.
On Wednesday, Republican leadership in the Senate struck down a bid to pass that legislation. In return, retiring Senator Jeff Flake said that he would not vote to advance any new judicial nominees through the Judiciary Committee, nor would he vote to confirm any new picks on the Senate floor, unless the bid to protect special counsel was heard.
And speaking of special counsel Robert Mueller, talk through the week has intensified of new indictments being announced.
While Mueller has kept a fairly tight lid on the work his office is doing, word of those possible indictments has to make the president nervous.
Earlier this week, former Trump attorney and “fixer,” Michael Cohen, made a special trip from New York to Washington, D.C., just to speak with Mueller’s investigators.
What do you think they talked about?
It’s hard to say, but that news came about the same time as the report that over 30 witnesses had testified that Donald Trump was actively involved in paying off his mistresses to remain quiet about the affairs, just before the 2016 election.
Like I said: It’s been a very bad, no good week for Trump.
Other reports are that he’s becoming increasingly isolated and angry. Also believable.
Do you doubt it?
What do I always say? Just watch his Twitter feed.
“The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess,” he wrote in a tweet. “They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want.”
No. Seriously. Nobody is saying that about Robert Mueller’s team. They’re saying it about Trump and his White House, but nobody is saying it about special counsel.
The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess. They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want. They are a disgrace to our Nation and don’t…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2018
And he wasn’t finished (because of course he wasn’t):
“They are a disgrace to our Nation and don’t care how many lives the ruin. These are Angry People, including the highly conflicted Bob Mueller, who worked for Obama for 8 years. They won’t even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side. A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!” he added.
This comes across as somebody coming apart at the seams. He doesn’t seem well, does he?
….care how many lives the ruin. These are Angry People, including the highly conflicted Bob Mueller, who worked for Obama for 8 years. They won’t even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side. A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2018
This is beyond a Nixonesque outburst.
And to be clear, for those who just swallow up whatever Trump says, without question, Robert Mueller is a Republican, first appointed by George W. Bush in 2001. He’s no Obama/Democrat foil. He’s just a lawman with such impeccable credentials, that President Obama chose to keep him on.
He actually left his position as FBI director in September 2013, after serving 8 years under President Bush and 4 years under Obama, not 8.
And I think Donald Trump has pretty much lost any right to call anyone else a disgrace, after he stood beside the leader of our greatest geopolitical foe in Helsinki and gave his allegiance to him, while demeaning his own nation’s intelligence community, for the whole world to witness.
Also, his openly declaring his love affair with a brutal, bloodthirsty dictator, who even now is plotting ways to threaten the safety of the United States – as well as the world, in general – didn’t really make him seem like the best or brightest to ever hold the office of POTUS.
Keep spinning and spitting, Mr. Trump. We’ll wait to see what Mueller is about to unleash that has you so upset.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In