Even on matters of near-perfect moral clarity, he is often transactional and capricious. If he does the right thing, there must be an angle.
.. His word is never final; it’s only the latest in a never-ending set of tactical adjustments made with one eye on his poll numbers, and the other on Fox News.
.. Conservatives erupted. Ann Coulter, author of “In Trump We Trust,” unleashed a stream of protests, demanding that he be impeached.
.. Of course, Mr. Trump always saw the wall as more of a campaign slogan than a possibility. Even congressional Republicans are balking at handing him billions for a quixotic project
.. conservative Never-Trump stalwart William Kristol had sound advice on dealing with Mr. Trump.
“To liberals, centrists & conservatives,” he wrote, “work for good policies during Trump’s presidency; never lose sight of his unfitness to be president.”
No one should cheer Mr. Trump’s latest moves as a pivot toward principles. So far, his main operating principle seems to be service to himself.
Pence implicated, placed in Oval Office as Trump plotted Comey firing
Pence, he did a telling about-face, going from a previous definitive statement that there was “no evidence of collusion” to a more mealy-mouthed claim that he was “not aware” of any such contact or collusion.
.. Pence was in the Oval Office, alongside White House counsel Don McGahn, when Trump handed out copies of the letter he drafted with his adviser Stephen Miller that ordered Comey’s firing.
.. McGahn’s concerns, the Times states, “show how much he realized that the president’s rationale for firing Mr. Comey might not hold up to scrutiny.”
And Pence, belying his past statements, was right there beside them as the letter was debated and those crucial concerns were raised.
.. Thus, not only is Pence caught out in more dishonesty, he may also be implicated in obstruction of justice
.. it was read in a room of people, including Vice President Pence. And when that letter was read, it had, quote, the New York Times talks about a “screed,” and it identified all of these other connections to the Russian probe for why Trump had decided to fire Jim Comey.
.. Then after this letter is edited, Mike Pence then tells the media that the Comey firing was not connected to the Russian probe, and he said it was due to Rod Rosenstein’s recommendation. Those are untrue. Those statements are untrue, and it implicates Mike Pence now in a combination of conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice, aiding and abetting obstruction of justice, and also a relatively less known felony called misprision of a felony, which is 18 U.S.C. Section 4, and it’s when one has knowledge of a felony and if one conceals and does not make it known to the legal authorities, one can be guilty of misprision of a felony.
.. And also, let’s keep in mind that the Nixon articles of impeachment included a provision blaming Nixon for misleading or false statements to the public. Now, that’s not a felony, but it was grounds for impeaching President Nixon. It may be grounds for an impeachment of Vice President Pence.
A Conspiracy of Dunces
Here is a good rule of thumb for dealing with Donald Trump: Everyone who gives him the benefit of the doubt eventually regrets it.
.. This was true of clients and contractors and creditors throughout his business career. It was true of the sycophants and opportunists before whom he dangled cabinet appointments during the campaign and then, oh, never mind. It has been true of his cabinet members and spokesmen, whose attempts to defend and explain their boss’s conduct are gleefully undercut by the boss himself.
And it should be true — for the sake of their souls, I sincerely hope it’s true — of the Republican leaders whose reputations for probity and principle he has stomped all over since winning their party’s nomination.
.. The meeting’s existence does not carry us all the way to the maximal collusion scenario, in which Trump himself was aware of Russia’s role in the hack of the Democratic National Committee and ordered his aides to conspire with WikiLeaks and Russian intelligence to time the drip-drip-drip of hacked emails and maximize their impact.
.. So the Trump team presumably assumed that it involved some other Hillary-related dirt — some of the missing Clinton server emails that Trump himself jokingly (“jokingly”?) urged Russian hackers to conjure and release, or direct evidence of Clinton Foundation corruption in its Russian relationships.
.. the Russians are still a more-hostile-than-not power these days, with stronger incentives to subvert American democracy than the average foreign government. So taking their oppo has a gravity that should have stopped a more upright and patriotic campaign short.
.. it’s strong evidence that we should drop the presumption that such collusion is an extreme or implausible scenario... Instead, the mix of inexperience, incaution and conspiratorial glee on display in the emails suggests that people in Trump’s immediate family — not just satellites like Roger Stone — would have been delighted to collude if the opportunity presented itself. Indeed, if the Russians didn’t approach the Trump circle about how to handle the D.N.C. email trove, it was probably because they recognized that anyone this naïve, giddy and “Burn After Reading”-level stupid would make a rather poor espionage partner... That means there is probably more and worse to come, and the more there is, the worse the president’s dealings with James Comey look. Even if the president himself is innocent of Russian collusion, protecting your family from exposure is a pretty strong motive for obstruction.
.. the House G.O.P. probably won’t impeach for anything short of a transcript of a call between Trump and Putin in which the words “yes, I want you to hack their servers big-league, Vladimir” appear in black-and-white. And even then.. But right now, the 2018 congressional elections promise to be a de facto referendum on impeachment. There are enough sparks in the smoke; there will probably be fire for some of Trump’s intimates before another year is out... And as for the president himself — well, to conclude where I began, anyone presuming his innocence at this point should have all the confidence of Chris Christie awaiting his cabinet appointment, or Sean Spicer reading over the day’s talking points.
Want to Get Rid of Trump? Only Fox News Can Do It
For many conservatives, they support Mr. Trump because he’s their de facto leader in a cultural war. Liberals mock Christianity and demean Christian morals. Conservatives respect our police and military, while liberals romanticize street thugs. Conservatives’ tax dollars help pay for public schools and colleges that indoctrinate liberal values. Out here some conservatives aren’t even calling them “public” schools anymore. They call them “government schools,” as in, “We don’t want to pay for your damn ‘government schools.’ ” They’re afraid to send their kids to them.
.. A sergeant major in the Iowa National Guard recently overheard a pro-Trump law enforcement friend and me disagreeing about Mr. Trump. He shook his head and smiled, telling me, “Well, all I know, Bob, is that my unit’s budget just doubled.”
.. my conservative friends should ask themselves, what has President Trump accomplished that a President Mike Pence couldn’t have, without all of the drama? And what matters more: President Trump or their conservative values?
.. Mr. Hannity and other Fox hosts could provide cover for congressional Republicans to consider impeachment.
.. Right now, Mr. Hannity might have more power over an impeachment process than Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell.
.. Even if the investigation turns up clear evidence of presidential misconduct, I believe it would be impossible for the party to consider impeachment without Fox’s support.
.. Yet if Fox turns, it’s inevitable. For reasons I do not understand, that network has that kind of power among most of the conservative rural voters I know.