Drew Harwell has a piece in the Washington Post that looks at the unusual behavior of Donald Trump Jr. Here’s the key takeaway:
Presidential children traditionally serve to soften and humanize their fathers, reminding voters that the nation’s leader can be a family man, too. But Trump Jr. has sharpened his father’s already-pointed edges, often amplifying the president’s grudges.
On Twitter, he regularly jabs at the president’s antagonists, from liberal media personalities to Republican politicians to kneeling football players…
…He often retweets or references far-right voices, as well as websites aimed at conservatives, such as Gateway Pundit, the Federalist and Breitbart News. Earlier this month, he retweeted a comment that the Clintons were “an unscrupulous gang of thugs” and alluded to a fringe-right conspiracy theory alleging that the couple covered up a murder.
As Harwell details quite well, this isn’t a change in strategy or reaction to current events. Trump Jr. has been fulfilling this role since the beginning of his father’s campaign for the presidency. However, the behavior is more suspect now that Trump Jr. and his father’s administration are under so much scrutiny. What might have worked as a political matter could well be ill-advised as a legal one. Trump Jr. hasn’t been arrested yet, but he still should be advised of his right to remain silent and that any Tweet can be used against him in a court of law.
It appears to be deeply ingrained in the Trump family that the best defense is an obnoxious offense, and that may be true when you’re a well-financed privately-held business that regularly defaults on contracts and engages in fraud. It’s a way of bullying your way through life that can be very effective in normal litigation. It seems needlessly risky in a case where you’re giving sworn statements to federal law officers and members of Congress.
With the news that Michael Flynn has probably turned state’s witness against the president, it might be understandable that the Trump family would go to time-tested strategies. For example, why not first make sure that the base is reassured?
“[Trump Jr. is] very smart to be in the spotlight,” said Charlie Kirk, a friend and the founder of the conservative college and high school group Turning Point USA. “Would they stop the investigation if he stopped tweeting? He’s in a situation where either you defend yourself, reassure the base, reassure the supporters, or stay silent. And if you’re totally silent, it only increases suspicion.”
The Trump base is with him, Kirk added: “Most people can’t even keep up with this stuff, anyway.”
This is why the president is attacking the father of a black basketball player and black athletes from the National Football League. He’s trying to distract people from focusing on his collapsing defense against the Russia allegations. He doesn’t want his supporters looking at the man he hired to be his first National Security Adviser or the man he tapped to guide him through the Republican convention and then chair his national campaign.
The special counsel is also eyeing Flynn and his son, Michael Flynn Jr., for offenses far more severe. Last December, the Flynns allegedly took a meeting with agents of the Turkish government, in which they discussed arranging the extrajudicial rendition (a.k.a. kidnapping) of a legal U.S. resident in exchange for $15 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. That resident was Fethullah Gülen, the Turkish cleric turned American charter-school founder whom Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has blamed for the failed coup attempt against his regime in July 2016.
At the time the coup was in motion, Flynn praised it. Erdogan might have been democratically elected, but he was also an Islamist with authoritarian tendencies, and thus, Flynn reasoned, his ouster would be “worth clapping for.” Then, the coup failed — and Flynn Intel Group won a lucrative contract with allies of the Erdogan regime. On Election Day, Flynn wrote an op-ed calling for Gülen’s extradition. Months later, as the incoming national security adviser, he was allegedly considering extraditing the Pennsylvania resident himself, with the aid of his son.
Political guru Paul Manafort took at least 18 trips to Moscow and was in frequent contact with Vladimir Putin’s allies for nearly a decade as a consultant in Russia and Ukraine for oligarchs and pro-Kremlin parties.
Even after the February 2014 fall of Ukraine’s pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych, who won office with the help of a Manafort-engineered image makeover, the American consultant flew to Kiev another 19 times over the next 20 months while working for the smaller, pro-Russian Opposition Bloc party. Manafort went so far as to suggest the party take an anti-NATO stance, an Oppo Bloc architect has said. A key ally of that party leader, oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, was identified by an earlier Ukrainian president as a former Russian intelligence agent, “100 percent.”
Rather than mount some kind of defense against these revelations, the president is currently engaged in race-baiting and excusing pedophilia and child molestation. Trump’s dirty bag of tricks has proven remarkably, shockingly effective in the political sphere, but it seems wholly inadequate for his present legal challenges.
Yet, in the end, impeachment is a political matter and he’ll need to retain his political support to survive. That might make his behavior and the behavior of his son seem more rational, but it’s certainly not helping in the short term. The president and vice-president are the only ones who have some kind of built-in immunity from immediate criminal prosecution. Donald Trump Jr.’s legal problems can’t be shielded by a partisan Congress any more than Michael Flynn Jr.’s problems can.
I think, too, that Trump is making a mistake if he thinks he can pardon his way out of this mess. Firing Robert Mueller would be difficult and involve mass resignations and a revolt from law enforcement and the intelligence community. It wouldn’t end the investigation necessarily, either, or make it possible to govern going forward. Trump may attempt to do these things, especially because his son and son-in-law seem to be in real jeopardy, but that’s the kind of thing that works at the end of a presidency rather than the beginning.
In the end, Nixon tried to wall off the Watergate conspiracy and might have succeeded if it hadn’t been for those dastardly tape recordings. But it’s easier to fire Haldeman and Erlichmann than the father of your grandkids. Trump has no way of plausibly distancing himself and the people he needs to throw under the bus are too close to him.
Still, Trump will eventually need to say that he was a victim of his aides and advisers, and that requires some kind of pivot. He hasn’t pivoted, yet, and so his strategy makes little sense. He and his son are following it because they’re in a trap and it’s the only way they’ve ever known to fight.
Exactly. It is the only way they know how to fight. Since it has worked up till now, there’s no way they’re going to stop doing it.
Meanwhile, filed under Maybe there is hope for humanity: The President of the Young Republicans in Alabama withdrew their support from Ron Moore, saying sometimes you have to put aside politics and do what is right. There are Republicans who are repulsed by this man and his behavior. Sometimes people are led to a place they don’t want to go and turn back.
“Sometimes“?
Talk about unintentionally revealing statements…
What other options does he have?
I’m not so sure that he can’t pardon his way out of this mess. He can pardon the people he ‘cares’ about–immediate family–then fire Mueller and revel in the mass chaos and revolt, because that doesn’t threaten any more than he’s currently threatened. And if the investigation takes down Flynn and Manafort and a dozen other non-Trumps, what the fuck does Trump care? He doesn’t, not at all.
If the political/media elite get a few scalps, they’ll be sated. They’ll declare that it’s enough, the system works. Trump and his family will stroll away from this in the chaos he creates. The legal sphere doesn’t stand completely apart from the political sphere, either: it will be Better To Move On. There will come a time when indictment exhaustion sets in, and that’s after a bunch of the henchmen are punished, but before any of the Trumps are.
If you’re Donald Trump, how do you handle this? You maximize the chaos, you damage the system, you make everyone who opposes you pay as dearly as possible, until they realize that justice comes at too great a cost.
Pardoning immediate family is so egregious it could wake up some of his base that would otherwise stay loyal. I think that would be so indefensible as to be an unforced error.
Besides, immediate family are people with exposure to the NY Attorney General, he can’t pardon that.
I don’t think it’d wake up the base. He’s a Daddy Figure, he’s protecting his family from the lies. Hell, even if he’s protecting them from the truth, an Authoritarian Daddy has to protect his people. That’s a good thing to the base.
I agree that the NY AG is a different issue. If I were Trump, I’d wait for federal charges (double jeopardy means they can’t be indicted by NY after a federal pardon, right?) to reduce the exposure. But either way, I’d try to throw so much chum in the water that it just exhausted the process. I know that in theory the law grinds slowly but exceedingly fine: I think that’s bullshit though. The law is people. If I’m Trump, I’d pardon my family federally, fire everyone possible, and make clear that I’d declare holy war against NY if they do more than a slap my family on the wrist. I’d pardon every single federal prisoner in NY. Does Schneiderman want to be responsible for that? I’d freeze NY out of as many federal contracts and benefits as possible, and slow-walk the rest. I don’t know what kind of psychotic shit I’d do, but in the end rational people would have to weigh the benefit of arresting three or four criminals against damage to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people.
Not true (the assertion re: double jeopardy). A person cannot be tried twice for the same crime. However, another jurisdiction can charge for a violation of its laws. Since federal and state laws are separate, it’s not the same crime (even if the underlying behavior that gave rise to the crimes is identical) and, thus, not double jeopardy.
No, they won’t be sated. I think you absolutely misread the situation.
God I hope you’re right.
Trump pretty stubborn guy, can’t let stuff go – this is a current headline on the WashPo front page:
trump-blasts-nfl-chief-for-ceding-control-to-players-amid-anthem-protests
I wonder how far down the rabbit hole is Republican leadership and its closely tied true base of plutocrats is willing to follow Herr Trump. At some point, their interests become imperiled. In fact, I assert we’re already well past that point (as exemplified by 2017 election returns). Unless they’re ready to go far further than voter suppression around the edges and move on to wholesale disenfranchisement/authoritarianism, their advantages can get easily overrun. When those on the left stop fighting among themselves and unify behind a common objective (which we essentially have, evidence in this forum to the contrary notwithstanding), we have the power to overrun the enemy. Apathy and infighting are our true adversary.
The problem for the plutocrats and their knob polishers is they know they can’t get away with full-blown authoritarianism. They will lose their base and they we’ll be looking at a tiny fraction of the population, less than one tenth of one percent, trying to hold off an armed insurgency. Will the military follow down that rabbit hole? Why should they? They shouldn’t bet their lives and their fortunes on the chance they could get away with Tienanmen Square. That’s a super high risk move for folks who already have more money than they could ever possibly spend. The thing they can’t buy is immortality; bullets and guillotines work just as well against their flesh as ours.
There’s a legitimate argument that this was the purpose of the 2nd Amendment. In such a scenario we could find ourselves standing side by side with those we disparaged and who disparaged us. Perhaps someone will lend me a gun and some ammo.
Man, that was a poorly edited piece of writing (no doubt because I didn’t bother to even proof read before posting). My bad, but hopefully you can find your way through the maze of my ramblings.
We certainly do live in interesting times and I guess one cannot rule out any eventuality with certainty. We want to, perhaps as a means of assuaging our fear. But our fears can be overblown too, particularly in this time of unprecedented territory.
I don’t think so. There was an ostensible reason and a real reason.
The ostensible reason was there was a debate as to whether the new country would have any standing army at all, or just rely on mobilizing state militias, the amendment was to facilitate armed state militias.
The real reason was the slave colonies demanded it, because they wanted to facilitate armed slave catchers.
Firing Mueller is something that I just don’t see him being able to pull off. He would first have to fire Sessions or Rosenstein since I don’t see either of them doing it. Then he would have to get a puppet through the judiciary committee a and confirmed as a replacement which would actually be pretty difficult because of the nuclear bomb firing either of those two would create. As John Dean put it :
“But if Sessions leaves the post of attorney general, Trump will never get a puppet through the confirmation proceedings. Nixon tried such a ploy, but the Senate Judiciary Committee put so many strings on Nixon’s nominee, Elliot Richardson, that if he had fired Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, it would have ended not only his public career but his private career as well. If Sessions leaves there are enough Republicans in the Senate who are troubled by Trump to strengthen the position of special counsel Mueller, not weaken the post.”
But even if Trump somehow pulled this off, it still isn’t easy to fire Mueller. Dean continues:
“Unlike the summary firing of Archibald Cox by Nixon, to remove Mueller or any of his staff would require an investigation and proceeding by the Department of Justice, and would be subject to appeal in federal court. Indeed, these regulations were written to make it difficult to remove a special counsel, and I seriously doubt Trump can succeed. These regulations would have to be nullified by Trump, but I have little doubt Mueller could and would litigate that action, and prevail in federal court because a president cannot remove due process to accomplish his goal of removing the special counsel. Nor with a special counsel as experienced and careful as Mueller, can he exercise any control over the investigation.”
Maybe I’m too optimistic but I don’t think Mueller is going anywhere.
Of course, one can envision Trump failing or refusing to understand any explanations of these constraints and bulling ahead with firing Sessions and trying to fire Mueller anyway, figuring all he has to do is demand and rage and he’ll get his way.
The dilemma Trump has always posed remains the same – he’s the natural result of Republican reactionary, racist, cult behavior that started with Buckley/Goldwater, intensified with Reagan, went full blown reality free with Bush/Cheney.
They have no respect for normal morality, treating people with respect unless they are part of the tribe, or any sense of responsibility to any one, any thing, or any common good.
They have come to the point where they apply WF Fuckley’s view of Southern white supremacy to National Republican supremacy:
It’s been their belief since the 1950’s and it’s taken this long for a plurality of the Democratic Party to finally realize what they have been up against all this time.
Even folks as smart as Obama and RBG have been hopelessly naive in not understanding the facts as clearly laid out before them.
Every time a Republican says it’s a privilege not a right to vote, we live in a republic not a democracy, etc they are really telling you what they believe is in those block quotes.
Gerrymandering, voter suppression, unending obstruction, Supreme court rigged elections, condoning foreign interference in elections, voting for admitted sexual predators, voting for creepy Mall-banned pedophiles, etc.-
“such measures as are necessary to prevail”
Responsible people need to be thinking of what it takes to prevail against a cult that does not recognize any legal or moral constraints.
It’s also clear that this is the reason the Republican cult has always been so media and court obsessed.
These are constraints not only on their actual behavior but they define what’s acceptable beyond what’s strictly legal.
In `Judgment at Nuremberg’ the scenes between Tracy and Lancaster are exactly the themes playing out with respect to Republican aims for America.
Republicans are corrupted, effectively reactionary fascist enemies of our basic mores and ideal legal framework. “What’s right, is what we say is right.”
With that understanding, it’s hard to know how Trump’s legal and political challenges play out since the other side is playing a different game with no rules.