Is TrumpWorld about to tumble down?

Some people might say that the world of Donald J. Trump is about to come tumbling down.  Aside from what that would mean for our country, considering that he is, after all, the president -- there is a lot of evidence that things are coming undone in the scam that Trump has been conducting for his whole adult life.

Although Mitch McConnell has declared "case closed" on the Mueller report, Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats are saying that we are in, or close to, a constitutional crisis.  The White House is refusing to turn over any . . . any . . . documents or obey any subpoenas for officials to testify.

First, there was the news this week that for 10 years, back in the late 80s to early 90s, Trump lost over a billion dollars in failing business ventures   Now I'm still suspicious that he didn't really lose that much money but that the tax forms that were revealed might instead show that he was cheating on his income tax, i.e., paper losses, using legal and, maybe, illegal loopholes.  Just as he either inflated or deflated the value of his property according to whether he was claiming an insurance adjustment or whether he was paying property taxes.

But there is other evidence and other people who say that he really did lose huge sums of money back in those days.    This also means that for eight of those 10 years, he did not pay one dime of federal income taxes.

They also say that casinos are money making machines;   except in Donald Trump's world.   Except for one short span of time, his casinos managed to lose money, big time.    He really has no head for business, doesn't take an interest once the deal has been done.

Then there is matter of the Mueller report details -- not the Barr cover-up summary -- that are beginning to come into the public's awareness, and they're pretty damning again and again for Donald Trump.    Now the Republican chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, has issued a subpoena for Donald Trump, Jr. to come back for further testimony and to clear up some discrepancies where he may have misled them.

Yes, by some measures, the economy is doing swell;   but the majority of voters have gotten very little benefit themselves from the Trump tax cuts.   And there was a long, informative discussion by Chris Hayes and his guests Thursday night about the voters' fatigue with all the chaos and the divisiveness Trump creates.

On top of this, we have rumblings of hostilities between the U.S. and Iran, and Trump has sent one of our largest ships into the region as a show of force.   Iran is about to pull out of some of the provisions in the nuclear agreement (which Trump pulled the U.S. out of a year ago).    And Kim Jung Un has been doing provocative things with missile launches.    And we're in a trade war fight with China that's going to hurt our own farmers.

It makes me awfully uneasy, given that I've always feared that, if Trump's personal world closes in on him, he might start a war to bolster himself as the necessary leader in time of war.   Who would stop him now?   The generals are gone.   His current Chief of Staff doesn't try to rein him in.   He's just appointed as Secretary of Defense a man who has zero experience with military or foreign affairs.  In addition to the fact that his National Security Adviser John Bolton has been itching to attack Iran from the beginning.

So there's a lot of bad news.    But what I really wanted to share is a note of levity.   Chris Hayes just had on as a guest the ghost author of Trump's book sequel to the Art of the Deal.    This one was titled Surviving at the Top, and it was ghost written for Trump by Charles Leehrsen, whose tales of his experience with Trump are ridiculing and amusing to those who do not buy Trump's con game.

The line Leehrsen said about Trump that made me chuckle was this:

   "This is a man who has 'written'
      more books than he has read."

If done by anyone not president, "it's obstruction," say 500+ former prosecutors

The Washington Post reports that more than 450 [now over 500 700 and growing] former federal prosecutors agree that they see enough evidence of obstruction in Mueller's report on the president's activities that anyone else would have been charged with obstruction.   It's only that Office of Legal Counsel opinion -- not an established law -- that says a sitting president cannot be indicted that is preventing President Trump from being indicted for obstruction.

And he could still be indicted when he leaves office, if the statute of limitations has not run out -- which might be the case if he wins and serves out a second term.

Mueller chose to follow that ruling by the Department of Justice which appointed him and for which he worked, but he also pointedly laid out his reasoning and a road map for Congress to follow if they chose to bring impeachment.   Further, he provided all the evidence he had gathered, backed up by the sources and details, so that Trump could be prosecuted once he is out of office.

And he explained in the report that, by doing so, he was preserving the evidence while it was still available and fresh in people's memories.   That at least implies that he expects there might be a future indictment and trial.

So now having Mueller testify before the House Judiciary Committee becomes imperative (with Democrats imperatively for and Republicans flip-flopping about it).  Trump himself is flipping all over the place:   first, he "would leave the decision to the Attorney General";   then he tweeted that it was unnecessary, that Mueller had already said all he needed to say in the report;   then he became vehemently opposed, blaming the Democrats for wanting to have a "redo" because they didn't like it that Mueller didn't find what they wanted to destroy Trump.   Then he seems to be back-tracking again.   It's hard for his staff to keep up with his position from one hour to the next tweet.

President Trump's saying that he was cleared of obstruction is simply misstating the facts.   Mueller's report clearly states that he was following the OLC policy that a sitting president could not be indicted.   But Mueller also added that, if he could clear him of claims of obstruction, he would so state.   But, he wrote, "I cannot."

The former federal prosecutors' letter states, in part:

“Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice. . .  . Of course, there are potential defenses or arguments that could be raised in response to an indictment of the nature we describe here. . . . But, to look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice — the standard set out in Principles of Federal Prosecution — runs counter to logic and our experience.” 

Former Rep. Donna Edwards, speaking on MSNBC, said:   'I'm a mediocre prosecutor myself;  but even I believe I could prosecute this case and probably win.'

Those signing the letter include many prominent Republicans as well as Democrats.  Next to a decision by a federal court, this is probably the strongest challenge to the position of the Attorney General in "clearing" the president when he said there is not enough evidence to charge obstruction.

So it does seem imperative that the man who did the investigation and who wrote the report should testify before Congress and the American people -- especially since his report and his intentions have been so obviously distorted that he wrote a letter to the AG objecting.

Ralph

PS:   Breaking news:    A former assistant to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani (who is a former federal prosecutor) has told CNN that even Giuliani (now Trump's public-promoter-in-chief) would have indicted someone for obstruction based on the evidence in the Mueller report.

Katyal challenges Barr on AG's role in special counsel report

Neal Katyal, former Acting Solicitor General of the U.S. Justice Department, who drafted the rules and regulations governing the special counsel position, writes in the New York Times that he has faith that our justice system "is working, and inching, however slowly, toward justice."

Katyal says, authoritatively as the author of the regulations, that "such inquiries have one ultimate destination:  Congress.   That is where this process is going, and has to go.   We are in the fifth inning, and we should celebrate a system in which our own government can uncover so much evidence against a sitting president."

Katyal further states that, given that the Constitution gives the executive branch control over prosecutions, "there's no easy way to remove the attorney general from the process."

To compensate for undue bias or political sway, two mechanisms were written into the regulations.   First, an independent investigation.   Second, if an AG interferes with the special counsel's inquiry, that "would be reported to Congress and ultimately become public."

Katyal points out that the "underappreciated story" in our current situation is that the American public and Congress now have the facts and evidence before them" to show that it was indeed the AG, not the special counsel, who pronounced the president "cleared" of any obstruction charges.    Katyal adds:  "The sunlight the regulations sought is shining."    Continuing quotation from Katyal:

*     *     *     *     *

"Mr. Barr tried to spin these facts.  He hid Mr. Mueller’s complaints, which were delivered to him in writing more than a month ago, even when Congress asked in a previous hearing about complaints by members of the special counsel's team. And the four-page letter that Mr. Barr issued in March and supposedly described the Mueller report omitted the two key factors driving the special counsel’s decision (which were hard to miss, as they were on the first two pages of the report’s volume about obstruction): First, that he could not indict a sitting president, so it would be unfair to accuse Mr. Trump of crimes even if he were guilty as sin; and second, Mr. Mueller could and would clear a sitting president, but he did not believe the facts cleared the president.

"These two items came out because the special counsel regulations allowed for public release of this information (and not, as Mr. Barr testified on Wednesday, because he “overrode” the regulations to give the information to the public). The attorney general was misleading through and through, not just about the investigation, but about the special counsel regulations themselves.

"What’s more, we now know about Mr. Barr’s reasoning to clear the president, which turns out to be painfully thin. When asked on Wednesday why he did so, Mr. Barr said the Department of Justice ordinarily issues “binary” decisions: indict or not indict. But Mr. Barr’s own view is that this case is anything but ordinary, because the president cannot be indicted. If Mr. Trump were an “ordinary” individual, he’d almost surely be looking down the barrel of a federal indictment right now. So how can Mr. Barr now use the “ordinary” rules playbook?

"This mishmash of legal arguments is absurd. No responsible scholar who thinks a sitting president cannot be indicted also thinks an attorney general can try to truncate a process of oversight — by Congress, for example — by “pre-clearing” the president in advance. The whole idea behind the notion that a sitting president cannot be indicted is that the responsibility lies in Congress. An attorney general shouldn’t put his thumb on the scale one way or the other. That’s why Mr. Mueller’s predecessors, Kenneth Starr and Leon Jaworski, simply served the evidence up to Congress; they didn’t try to exonerate the president in advance of it."

*     *     *     *     *

Congress must now begin a process of its own investigation.  Whether they choose to call it an "impeachment investigation" yet is irrelevant.    It should be a seeking of further facts and proof of what's in the Mueller report.  In other words, expose the truth. And, if Trump stonewalls this investigation, then Congress should hold him in contempt.

An ongoing investigation, with all the backdrop of Trump scandals obstructions, should be a nice backdrop for the election campaign.   Trump will try to spin it with himself as the victim and the Democrats as "haters," whose sole goal is to destroy his presidency.    But more and more evidence of Trump's chaos and criminality will be coming out all the time that voters are making up their minds..

Ralph

"How Trump Co-opts Leaders Like Barr" -- Op-ed by James Comey, former FBI Director

Here is James Comey's take on the effect of working in Trump's orbit and how he "eats your soul."    I don't know how much this explains Bill Barr's choice to risk what could have been generally perceived as a good reputation in history.   But it's another take I want to share before offering my thoughts on Barr's motives -- another day.

============

by James Comey

Former FBI Director

"People have been asking me hard questions.  What happened to the leaders in he Trump administration, especially Attorney General William Barr, who I have said was due the benefit of the doubt?

"How could Mr. Barr, a bright and accomplished lawyer, start channeling the president in using phrases like 'no collusion' and F.B.I. 'spying'?  And by downplaying acts of obstruction of justice of the president being 'frustrated and angry,' something he would never say to justify the thousands of crimes prosecuted every day that are the product of frustration and anger? . . . .

"How could he write and say things about the report by Robert Mueller . . . that were apparently so misleading that they prompted written protest from the special counsel himself?

"How could Mr. Barr go before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday and downplay President Trump's attempt to fire Mr. Mueller before he completed his work?

"And how could Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, after the release of Mr. Mueller's report that detailed Mr. Trump's determined efforts to obstruct justice, give a speech quoting the president on the importance of the rule of law? . . . .

"What happened to these people? . . .  I have some idea from four months of working close to Mr. Trump and many more months him shape others.

"[There are exceptions, like Gen. Jim Mattis, who resigned on principle.]  . . . But more often, proximity to an amoral leader reveals something depressing.  I think that's at least part of what we've seen with Mr. Barr and Mr. Rosenstein.  Accomplished people lacking inner strength can't resist the compromises necessary to survive Mr. Trump, and that adds up to something they will never recover from.  It takes character like Mr. Mattis's to avoid the damage, because Mr. Trump eats your soul in small bites.

"It starts with your sitting silent while he lies, both in public and private, making you complicit by your silence.  In meetings with him, his assertions about what 'everyone thinks' and what is 'obviously true' wash over you, unchallenged -- as they did at our private dinner on Jan. 27, 2017 -- because he's the president and he rarely stops talking.   As a result, Mr. Trump pulls all of those present into a silent circle of assent.

"Speaking rapid-fire with no spot for others to jump into the conversation, Mr. Trump makes everyone a co-conspirator in his preferred set of facts, or delusions.  I have felt it -- this president building with his words a web of alternative reality and busily wrapping it around all of us in the room.

"From the private circle of assent, it moves to public displays of personal fealty in places like cabinet meetings.  While the entire world is watching, you do what everyone else around the table does -- you talk about how amazing the leader is and what an honor it is to be associated with him. . . . So you praise, while the world watches, and the web gets tighter.

"Next comes Mr. Trump attacking institutions and values you hold dear -- things you have always said must be protected . . . Yet you are silent.   Because, after all, what are you supposed to say?  He's the president of the United States.

"You feel this happening.  It bothers you, at least to some extent.   But his outrageous conduct convinces you that you simply  must stay to preserve and protect the people, institutions and values you hold dear. . . . 

"You can't say this out loud -- maybe not even to your family -- but in a time of emergency, with the nation led by a deeply unethical person, this will be your contribution, your personal sacrifice for America . . . .  you are playing a long game for your country. . . 

"Of course, to stay, you must be seen as on his team, so you make further compromises.  You use his language, praise his leadership, tout his commitment to values.

"And then you are lost.  He has eaten your soul."

==============

No comment necessary.   Comey was there, and he speaks from both personal experience and observation.