Donald Trump’s Freudian slip
On Monday, the Trump “Make America Great Again” Committee sent out an email with the subject line “WORSE than Watergate.” In what could be the greatest Freudian slip to date by Donald J. Trump, or another case of projectionism, the headline and contents of the email blast may be true – what we know to date appears to be a much bigger scandal and more widespread than Watergate ever was.
The email blast calls for individuals to sign a petition to the DOJ to investigate the “abuse of power” Trump alleges has happened to him and his campaign. The body of the email reads: “I hereby DEMAND that the Department of Justice investigate whether Obama’s FBI and DOJ infiltrated or surveilled our campaign for political purposes. THIS COULD BE THE GREATEST POLITICAL SCANDAL IN AMERICAN HISTORY.”
Trump reportedly met with FBI Director Chris Wray and with Deputy Attorney General on Monday to discuss, among other things, his demand that the alleged infiltration or surveillance into the Trump campaign be investigated. Setting aside the excellent observation by Neal Katyal on Twitter that it seemed “a bit strange that Trump is complaining that the FBI used informants and violated his rights when his own Solicitor General filed a Supreme Court brief earlier this year in the Carpenter case against this view,” the last bolded, capitalized sentence Trump emailed may have, as noted, issued the great Freudian slip declaration in history.
Because, yes, the increasing number of reports about how foreign nationals may have participated in the election and assisted the Trump campaign is shaping up to indeed be the “greatest political scandal in American history” and if it proves to be true, it will be worse than Watergate. Breaking news on Monday from the AP was that Broidy and Nader “passed messages purportedly from princes of Saudi Arabia and UAE to Trump” to go against Qatar, which happened. We now have potential foreign interference from Russia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and who knows who else. Indeed, this is shaping up to be true to Trump’s comment that this is indeed the “greatest political scandal in American 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.