WiseElder
WiseElder's JournalThe Most Damaging Thing That's Happened to Trump
Source: The Atlantic
It is the morning after a devastating defeat. Smoke is still rising from the field. The rubble has not yet been cleared. And the commanders are having trouble facing just how hopeless their position has become. They no longer know on how many fronts they are fighting, how many separate enemies they face, or to what extent those enemies are cooperating—one might say “colluding”—with one another. They know they are surrounded. They know the next push could come at any moment—or be days, weeks, or months off. But they know neither what the attack will look like nor from which side it will come.
snip
And now there’s the Cohen investigation. The most damaging thing that happened yesterday to Trump was not that his former lawyer alleged under oath that Trump had directed him in the commission of crimes. It was that the United States Department of Justice allowed him to enter a guilty plea whose factual basis was that Trump had directed him in the commission of a crime. That is to say that the significance of the Cohen plea is not merely that Cohen alleges that Trump had him arrange to pay hush money to a porn star and a model in a specific effort to influence the election with illegal corporate contributions. It’s that the Justice Department believes this allegation to be true and is willing to proceed criminally against Cohen on that basis. That’s ominous for both Trump personally and for his campaign. What’s more, this particular front in the war is not under Mueller, who spun it off to the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York. This is not, in other words, a problem Trump can fire his way out of. The SDNY has a lot more than 17 prosecutors; and whether they are angry or not, Democrats or not, they are not going away.
The situation gets worse for the president—because nobody, including him, has much idea when the next blow is coming or along which of these fronts. On any given day, we could see a subpoena for the president’s grand-jury testimony, which would provoke major litigation, assuming the president decided not to accede to it. At any point—perhaps today, perhaps a week from now, perhaps after the midterm elections—Mueller’s grand jury could issue its next indictments, likely involving people on this side of the Atlantic. And, of course, nobody knows how quickly, if at all, the Southern District might choose to move against other Trump-world figures who are mentioned in yesterday’s Cohen plea filings or what they might seek to do with Cohen’s allegations against Trump himself.
There’s one more reason why nobody will tell the mad king the hopeless truth that he’s surrounded, outmanned, outgunned, and that there’s no telling from where or when the next blow will come: the king is mad and doesn’t want to hear it. And his courtiers, seeking his favor, have either to convince themselves or play along with it. They do this both in talks with him privately and in their public utterances—to show loyalty, or because they are well paid to do so.
And thus we wait.
Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/the-presidents-situation-gets-worse/568135/
A great read. Head to the link
Since 1965
Since 1965
Democrats (25 years in power):
3 indictments
1 conviction
1 prison sentence.
Republicans (28 years in power):
120 indictments
89 convictions
34 prison sentences.
Remind me again how both parties are basically the same?
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