MUELLER - TRUMP WILL BE TRUMP

This Yuletide week saw a dramatic turn in the political landscape as Trump and his devotees, in the wake of the indictments and guilty pleas in the Russian investigation, escalated their efforts to destroy the institutions that ensure democracy and law and order. With the writing on the wall that at best the Republicans will lose the House of Representatives and at worst the Senate as well, there was an urgency to extricate the beleaguered President before a possible devastating expose was released by Mueller. In less than a year there would be a Congress which would be controlled by the Democrats who would be in a position to act on a Mueller report. There is little doubt that Trump and his echo chamber are expecting a highly negative result as why else would they be delegitimizing and politicizing the process as well as creating diversions? Put another way if the FBI probe outcome turns out to be positive for the POTUS the Democrats could argue, “What do you expect? The Trump camp admitted it was rigged from the start!”

THE DEMOCRATS SOUND THE ALARM

The opposition response to the frenetic Republican activity was epitomized by the normally laid back Democratic House Representative from Baltimore, Congressman Cummings, who has seen it all as a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement.  Cumming’s announcement was accompanied by a warning and a threat by the quite spoken Senator Warner who is the Democratic ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee that has a very active probe into the Russian intervention in the Presidential election. 

Cummings saw theTrump support as an attempt to threaten American democracy:

“This is a fight for the soul of the democracy. Nothing less. I am going to work hard to make sure we save the democracy until I die. We have seen over and over again how the very pillars of our democracy are being cut down. People’s right to vote. You know that. Freedom of the Press. You know that. CIA and FBI criticized. Over and over and over again.”

Warner was even less subtle and outright instructed the President not to impede the investigation under penalty of dire consequences:

“I believe that it is up to every member of this institution, Republican or Democrat, to make a clear and unambiguous statement that any attempt by the President to remove  Special Counsel Mueller from his position or pardon any key witnesses in an effort to shield them from accountability would be a gross abuse of power. These are red lines and we simply can’t allow them to be crossed”.  

THE ATTEMPT AT SUBVERTING AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

This is not the first time in recent American history that a demagogue has attempted to use all the trappings of democracy in an attempt to destroy it’s very essence. Charles Lindbergh the charismatic flying American icon, attracted to Nazism, claimed that the survival of the white race was more important than Europe, Joseph McCarthy played on the country’s fears of the scourge of post war Communism and Governor Wallace connected with the Southern dread of change and loss of privilege, represent just three of the failed attempts. 

Truth be told the charismatic icon Donald Trump is the first President to exploit the freedom mechanisms to attack freedom itself. His message was to hone in on the disgust the body politic had developed towards its politicians and the promise to turn back the clock to an industrial mining pure white world. As a result of his remarkable salesmanship he is now the representative of one of three independent branches of Government and is hellbent on neutering the other two. He shamelessly attacks the independent judiciary, even with racist slurs, and chastises his own Supreme Court pick for disloyalty. He outright attacks his Attorney General for recusing himself in an investigation that involves his Presidency - he freely admits that had he known this he would not have appointed him as if the Justice Department solely exists to do his bidding. 

He finally fired the head of the FBI who refused to pledge loyalty to him and because of the “Russia Investigation”. He has demanded that the Republicans in Congress “Do Something” about the Mueller investigation and enjoined them to finish their enquiries and or rather to investigate Hillary Clinton and or Barak Obama. He has systematically attacked those who could corroborate an Obstruction of Justice Case against him…. 

THE TRUMP GAME PLAN 

One way or another Trump is not going to allow Mueller or anyone else to derail his Presidency or challenge his nearest and dearest without a fight. His task really has to be done politically as he has no intention of standing around waiting to be cleared by the conventional due processes provided by the American Constitution.

 He thus can go one of two ways stop the probe - fire Mueller or get him fired or maintain that Mueller and the FBI are part of a conspiracy to, in the words of Fox News, effect a coup. In both of these endeavors he needs to win the battle politically as no mechanism exists whereby he can effect these objectives lawfully. Put another way there are no other legal agencies that he can call upon to objectively probe the institutions that society has put in place to enforce the Constitution.  In short Trump will precipitate a Constitutional crisis maintaining that the mechanisms the American Democracy have instituted are corrupt and unable to fulfill their constitutional roles. He will seize total control and would presumably call upon the military to back him up. Presumably he will further take Fox News advice and arrest the leaders of the FBI. To take this argument to its logical conclusion some major figures have to be behind this coup that need to be arrested and at last Hillary fits the bill and maybe Barack too. 

You think Jay H. Ell has gone to far and Mueller can just be axed and Trump can then continue like nothing has happene? Let us examine that option.

MUELLER IS AXED SO WHAT?

There are several variables to this scenario but if we let Trump be Trump he would axe Muller as soon as possible and declare the Russian probe dead. Trump would reckon that, like with the tax bill, he will persuade the faithful that this is for the best. He would gamble on the fact that the Republican leadership would fold and just would hang in there. His allies would move into a full court press that he had saved the nation and begun cleaning the institutions that were corrupt and “in tatters”.

His hope has to be that after the initial outcry there will be acceptance. There are the diversions of the Clinton “Uranium deal”, ( e - mails  and Benghazi are apparently forgotten), Representative Nunes investigation into the bias of the FBI probe and all those FBI, CIA conspirators to focus on as well. 

Besides the media going ballistic the public reaction will be on a scale that will dwarf the Vietnam protests of the sixties. This is not a guess, massive countrywide outpourings into the streets have already been organized in the event of Mueller being axed. Remember these protests are open-ended there is no cut off date and they will go on and on. Their will be town hall meetings and all this is bound to have a lowering impact on Trump’s ratings. Trump’s approval ratings are in the low thirty percentiles and are getting close to unsustainable levels. Once they get into the twenties he is in Nixon territory. All this has to have an impact on the Congress.

WHAT CONGRESS WILL FACE

Besides the public pressure Congress has to face realities and cannot wish it all away. The biggest problem is that this is to far gone just to carry on as usual. There are already two indictments of no lesser figures than Trump’s campaign manager and his deputy. He needs the recused Sessons to axe these law suits or he has to issue pardons. His national security advisor has turned State’s Witness and presumably has spilled the beans. There are grand juries that have heard a ton of evidence. There are probes in several jurisdictions some of which are State probes over which Trump has no control. More than likely Mueller has his tax returns and has investigated all those bank connections and Donald Junior’s proud boast of their enormous Russian business. 

There will be FBI and Justice Department resignations. The gloves are off. The Washington Post and the New York Times alone have hundreds of reporters with even more contacts - and the evidence will be all over the place. Trump has to replace those resigned and those that he will fire. Sessons will have to go. The POTUS has already been told by the Republican Senate they won’t vote for a replacement if he axes him as they consider Sessons one of their own. 

Trump has thrown this into the political arena and his achilles heel is the Senate where there is now a slim Republican majority of two. The latter body faced the full weight of their constituencies over ObamaCare and folded. They rushed the Tax Reform Bill through without one town hall meeting but this they cannot wish away and while Trump may be right that McConnell will not move there are potentially at least ten Republican Senate members who have “agendas” including a few that are ready to run against Trump in the Primaries in 2020. 

So while the House may remain supportive the Senate will not be able to withstand the pressure to either expand their own investigation or even appoint Mueller to continue. 

AT THE END OF THE DAY

The Democrats just have to wait till November next year and they will then be in control. Republican congress representatives have to start thinking of their own survival. What do they owe the abusive Trump? It is reasonable to assume that in the Senate, at least, Senator Warner had assurances from some Republicans that they would back him if Trump axed Mueller.

Trump is keeping the pressure up by upping the anti even further claiming that the FBI are tools of Hillary Clinton, having used her paid for fake news Russian dossier to launch an investigation into him. Fox News’s response was to congratulate the POTUS for putting Xmas back into Xmas.

Unless Trump backs off he is heading for disaster and a scenario where even he can’t win. He should follow the hypocritical McConnell who spent two terms in the Senate refusing to work with the Obama Democrats and to date has shunned any Democratic involvement. The beleaguered McConnell claims that from now on they need to have a bipartisan approach as, “There is not much that can be done with a 51 - 49 majority”. He is not kidding. What has changed is not the loss of one member it is the electorate that that member from Alabama represents - the heart of the Republican South. The polls point to a decisive swing against the Republicans and their President who to put it kindly can be labelled as “unpopular”. Machiavelli McConnell must be desperate if he sees his only survival hope is to work with the Dems as he knows better than anyone that, “Trump will be Trump”.