Mueller and Trump both cross a red line

Some time back, in response to a question to Trump as to whether there was a red line that Mueller might cross that would lead to his firing, Trump agreed that it could be going into his and his family's financial history.  According to a report by Reuters, Mueller has begun to do just that.

Mueller has asked Deutsche Bank for information on accounts held by the Trump family.   Because Trump is considered such a poor loan risk -- after six bankruptcies and a reputation for not paying what he owes contractors -- no bank in New York has been willing to lend him money for years.  None, that is, other than Deutsche Bank, a German bank that has a branch in New York.

On Tuesday afternoon, Trump ignored reporters' questions about this.   His personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, released a statement saying they had confirmed with the bank that there had been "no subpoena" for financial records.   That does not rule out what was reported:   that Mueller had "asked" the bank for information on the accounts.

However, the reporter for Bloomberg News who broke the story was interviewed by MSNBC's Ari Melber.  He reaffirmed his story, saying that he had a source who works in Deutsche Bank who said they had received a subpoena.  Reuters news service and others had also said that the back was actually quite willing to cooperate and welcomed the official order to produce records on the Trumps.   Lacking a subpoena from congressional committees, they had had to deny their request for the same thing earlier.

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The red line that Trump seems to have crossed on Tuesday was his decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognize it as the capital of Israel.   According to a report by Reuter's news:

"U.S. endorsement of Israel's claim to all of Jerusalem as its capital would reverse long-standing U.S. policy that the city's status must be decided in negotiations with the Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.   The international community does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the entire city, home to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions.

"Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan's King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Saudi Arabia's King Salman, who all received phone calls from Trump, joined a mounting chorus of voices warning that unilateral U.S. steps on Jerusalem would derail a fledgling U.S.-led peace effort and unleash turmoil in the region."

Israel already claimed Jerusalem proper, and they captured the Palestinian East Jerusalem during the 1967 war.   It's fate has been a subject of bitter contention ever since.   Reuter's reports that the European Union, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia and the Arab League -- as well as some career officers in the U.S. State Department -- all have warned that such U.S. action would have serious repercussions across the region.  So did France's president Macron.

One of Trump's campaign promises was that he would move the embassy to Jerusalem, which would satisfy the Israeli's and the pro-Israeli lobby in the U.S.  Officials had hoped that Trump would settle for the less drastic announcement of recognizing Jerusalem as the capital but delaying the embassy move for at least another six months.

Knowing that Trump's decisions often are either just impulsive or are made for some other effect, one has to wonder if these two red-line crossings are related.   I don't mean to imply a substantive link -- just that, with Trump increasingly enraged over the Mueller investigation and his inability to squash it, perhaps he was unable to restrain his impulsiveness on this question.

In the end, his motivation doesn't really matter.    The important thing is that it's one more example of Trump dismantling policy and tossing a match into a gasoline can.   In the case of Israel's capital and our embassy, he just reversed the U.S. policy of seven decades duration.  It has now become as dependable as sunset:   If there is anything that Barack Obama did or stood for, Trump will try to undo it, oppose it, or destroy it.

This one could really blow up any Middle East peace efforts for some time.   An Arab-Israeli lawmaker sent out a statement calling Trump "a pyromaniac who could set the region on fire with his madness.  It proves that the US can't be the sponsor of negotiations."  The US consulate in Jerusalem warned its employees and all American citizens to be prepared for violent protests and possible attacks.

Poor Jared.  Leading the Middle East peace effort was perhaps his most cherished project in the ridiculously extensive portfolio assigned to him by his father-in-law.   Just last week he gave an optimistic report to a group of Arab leaders about the prospects for his peace plan actually working.  Trump just blew that one up.

Ralph