In early 2016, at a campaign rally in Iowa, Donald Trump famously said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” Much of the rest of Trump’s campaign, and his subsequent Presidency, has seemed like a test of that declaration.
- He talked on tape about sexually assaulting women and won the general election.
- He fired the F.B.I. director, who was investigating him and his campaign for potentially criminal conduct, and Republicans yawned.
- He has used Twitter to escalate a standoff with a renegade nuclear state, and his supporters have defended it as a brilliant strategy.
.. a sign that the partisan rationalization of even the most abhorrent behavior is not exclusive to Trumpism
.. Moore conceded that he knew two of the women who told the Post that he had sought relationships with them when they were teen-agers, but he denied knowing the woman who said that he had abused her when she was fourteen.
.. The Covington County G.O.P. chairman, William Blocker, was blunter, telling Daniel Dale, of the Toronto Star, “There is NO option to support Doug Jones, the Democratic nominee. When you do that, you are supporting the entire Democrat party.”
.. from 2011 to 2016, the percentage of white evangelical Protestants who believe that “an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional life” shot up, from thirty to seventy-two per cent.
.. Evangelicals went from being the least forgiving religious group to being the most forgiving religious group. “What happened in the interim?” Edsall asks. “The answer is obvious: the advent of Donald Trump.”
To justify their support of Trump, evangelicals apparently reassessed the importance they place on a politician’s personal morality.
.. In other words: Americans identify with a party the way they do with a sports team or tribe. Often, one’s hatred of an opposing tribe—what political scientists call “negative partisanship”—is enough to overcome any doubts about one’s own.
‘These Are Not The Actions of an Innocent Man’
Trump’s after-the-fact complicity in Russia’s election meddling is abundantly clear.
.. Earlier, it may have been suggested, sympathetically, that
- the case had not yet been proven. That
- Trump’s vanity blocked him from acknowledging embarrassing facts. Or—more hopefully—that
- he was inspired by some Kissingerian grand design for a diplomatic breakthrough.
- Or that he was lazy. Or stubborn. Or uninformed. Or something, anything, other than … complicit. Not anymore.
.. his willingness to smash the intelligence and counter-intelligence agencies in order to protect Putin, Russia
.. “Then you hear it’s 17 agencies [who agree that Russia meddled in the elections], whoa, it’s three. And one is [former CIA Director John] Brennan, and one is whatever. I mean give me a break, they’re political hacks. … So you look at that and you have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he had nothing to do with that.”
.. A year after the 2016 election, the Trump administration has done nothing to harden U.S. election systems against future interference
- .. It refuses to implement the sanctions voted by Congress to punish Russia for election meddling.
- The president fired the director of the FBI,
- confessedly to halt an investigation into Russia’s actions—and
- his allies in Congress and the media malign the special counsel appointed to continue the investigation.
These are not the actions of an innocent man, however vain, stubborn, or uniformed.
.. In ways we cannot yet fully reckon—but can no longer safely deny—the man in the Oval Office has a guilty connection to the Russian government. That connection would bar him from literally any other job in national security except that of head of the executive branch and commander- in-chief of the armed forces of the United States.
.. It’s graver still at a time when this president seems determined to lead the United States into a preventive war in the Korean peninsula.
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.
Bob Mueller has an unreleased Trump letter about firing James B. Comey. Here’s why that’s big.
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.. Which brings us to that letter. According to The Post reporters, who were briefed on its contents, it doesn’t dwell on Russia, but it does express concern Comey wouldn’t say publicly Trump himself wasn’t under investigation.
.. The letter was drafted with top White House adviser Stephen Miller, a former Senate aide to now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Miller has been among the most controversial and ideologically extreme members of the White House staff
.. We also know the letter was multiple pages — suggesting plenty to pick apart — and aides cautioned Trump against at least some of its contents. The Times reports White House counsel Don McGahn believed the letter was “problematic.”