“As scandals-in-the-making go, this one may become famous for featuring the President as the principal witness against himself: he seems committed to uncovering any cover-up,” Obama White House Counsel Bob Bauer observed in Lawfare.
The case for this is laid out from one self-inflicted wound to the next. Here’s a section to highlight because it has bearing on the future and on the evidence that might be brought against Trump, “The President has drawn attention to the possibility that he has some material—some evidence—bearing on those conversations, which will certainly be of interest in any future inquiry into this dismissal. Mr. Trump’s threat to deploy these ‘tapes’ unless Mr. Comey refrains from giving his side of the story is highly imprudent.”
Those tapes Trump threatened Comey with will most likely be subpoenaed in any investigation into the President and his firing of James Comey — if they exist at all.
Trump basically took to Twitter and waved a big red flag at the bull, even pointing the bull to his vulnerable spot —- all the while thinking that he was beating the bull, showing the bull who’s in charge.
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Trump then went on NBC and opened himself up to allegations listed in the charges of impeachment against Nixon — a point made by Obama’s deputy Secretary of Labor Chris Lu early Friday morning.
I can’t say this enough because it fundamentally matters so much: Donald Trump has horrible political instincts, in part due to his inability to correctly assess his own positions and in part due to his adversarial relationship with reality. This same bad judgment that caused Trump to publicly threaten a man who was investigating him and whom he just fired is also being used in Trump’s foreign policy.
To wit:
Saudi: Hey US can we borrow $20 billion of arms?
US: $40 billion??What are you going to do with $60 billion?! Fine, but only $100 billion. https://t.co/gx1adEkWQY— Robbie Gramer (@RobbieGramer) May 13, 2017
Which is why Trump has to take credit for things Obama actually did, like:
The other "REAL news" is that this was initiated by the Obama Administration in September. https://t.co/QO7ENK0wf9
— Steven Rattner (@SteveRattner) May 12, 2017
If Trump weren’t suffering from the same rotten judgment that compelled him to demand a birth certificate he had already been, he might not have just sealed his own fate. But for far too long, Trump has been enabled and allowed to bury himself in delusion and fantasy. Our own media enabled his dysfunction during the campaign, and it mattered then because you see what it’s doing now.
Being able to admit reality and make decisions based on reality has never been laid out as a necessity because no one could have imagined a major U.S. political party being so willing to lower its bar so much that it no longer has a bar.
It mattered that Donald Trump lied his way through his campaign. His fixation on Obama’s birth certificate predicted this behavior today. His willingness to threaten Hillary Clinton’s life if she won, and yes I’m going to go there now given the latest evidence of Trump threatening Comey, was indicative of his complete lack of character and judgment.
Now he’s starting to throw his staff under the bus as well as Senator Chuck Grassley. Sadly these people set themselves up for this by getting into bed with a man who told them they were immune to the nastiness he dishes out to others. No one is immune. And every single Republican who has enabled Trump will be tossed under the Don’s bus before this is over.
The biggest problem Donald Trump has is himself, and when Donald Trump has a problem, others will pay.
Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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