Welcome to whatever this is
Any minute now, the stock market will open and try to rebound from the damage that Donald Trump just did to it with his idiotic trade war. Sometime later today, a federal judge will likely rule that accounting firm Mazars is free to give Trump’s financial records to the House Democrats. Trump’s personally loyal Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet with Vladimir Putin for reasons that are unknown, yet undoubtedly treasonous. And that’s just the half of it.
There comes a point in every mystery novel where the plot has advanced to the point that players on all sides have to finally start revealing what they’re really up to. Is Trump really going to bet what’s left of his presidency on a war with Iran? Or is that just the latest in a long line of empty threats he likes to make, in order to distract us from the things he’s actually doing? We’ll soon find out.
There are also other big reveals playing out as we speak. Last night House Intelligence Committee revealed on MSNBC that he’s spent the past few months waging a legal battle to try to force the FBI to brief him on the Trump-Russia counterintelligence investigation that it’s been running, apart from Robert Mueller’s probe. Schiff is now going public with his battle, because he’s reached a point where the full House is about to carry out a vote to… what? Hold the FBI Director in contempt? He didn’t specify.
So maybe not all the secrets are coming out just yet. But we’re remarkably close to learning a whole lot of things that have long been just under the radar – and in a whole lot of ways. The judge in the Roger Stone case just managed to force William Barr to give her a far less-redacted version of the Mueller report. She’s not going to unilaterally release it. But if the Supreme Court ends up ruling that it has to be released, and Barr illegally refuses to do it, perhaps this judge will simply give the Supreme Court her copy instead.
The point is that there are a ton of moving parts in play right now. We don’t know how many of these battles Donald Trump will win or lose. But we do know that he’s playing defense in all of them. And really, he only has to lose one of these crucial battles and he could be toast. Impeachment is coming; we all know that by now. But there’s a whole lot more coming down the mountain than that. Welcome to whatever this is.
