Donald Trump is circling the drain
“President” Donald Trump is in trouble. He knows it. As Speaker of the House, and Badass #1, Nancy Pelosi, said, “It is staggering that the President has chosen to surround himself with people who violated the integrity of our democracy and lied to the FBI and Congress about it.” We are at 37 indictments and counting, and that includes Cohen (personal lawyer), Papadopoulos (foreign policy advisor), Manafort (campaign chair), Gates (aide) and now Roger Stone (adviser).
Rather than try to figure out how he is going to actually be able to get out of the reality that he has associated with numerous criminals and ne’er-do-wells and addressing Pelosi’s serious and accurate charges, Trump engaged on Saturday in his two main obsessions: tweeting incessantly and whataboutism. Trump tweeted all of this in quick succession:
CBS reports that in the Roger Stone indictment, data was “released during the 2016 Election to damage Hillary Clinton.” Oh really! What about the Fake and Unverified “Dossier,” a total phony conjob, that was paid for by Crooked Hillary to damage me and the Trump Campaign? What about all of the one sided Fake Media coverage (collusion with Crooked H?) that I had to endure during my very successful presidential campaign. What about the now revealed bias by Facebook and many others. Roger Stone didn’t even work for me anywhere near the Election! WITCH HUNT!
The tweets as usual are easily debunked. But they also seek to go back to the favorite saw of the Conspirer-In-Chief, the Collusion King, that somehow, he was treated unfairly during the election, the Dossier is fake, and that somehow, he is the victim. The “Unverified ‘Dossier’” is no such thing – while some salacious facts (the golden shower tape) have not been verified, nothing, repeat zilch, has been debunked or verified as false. Every day, more and more facts in the Dossier are in fact found to be truth.
We must resist the whataboutism of Trump. The only “what about” we should be asking now is who else is going to jail in Trump’s orbit. What about Junior? What about Jarvanka? What about POTUS? Trump should be focused on his dire situation and how he will face the Mueller Time train coming – and forget about trying to go back to Hillary’s emails and some twisted reinvention of history.
Daniel is a lawyer writing and teaching about SCOTUS, and is the author of the book “The Chief Justices” about the SCOTUS as seen through the center seat.