Of all the bad news Trump could have received this New Year, the fact that his arch rival Mitt Romney is about to enter the Senate in 2018 has to be the worst. (Just in case this wasn’t bad enough Stephen Bannon, his guarantor for his alt right support, unleashed, in an about to published book, a string of devastating negative exposes on him and his family. This catastrophic turn around, for the moment, drowned the far more significant impact of the Romney news).
The POTUS had done everything to avoid the impending Romney disaster by pleading with the current Utah Senate incumbent Orin Hatch to run for another term. At taxpayer expense he schlepped the octogenarian around in Air Force One flattering and fawning as if he was a Russian oligarch customer interested in buying a Trump Tower in Siberia. Hatch reciprocated the largesse by publicly parroting Trump’s claim that he was the greatest President - up there with Jefferson and Washington but he said it was time to hang up his gloves.
The reasons for The Donald’s angst are Romney’s stature and gravitas within the old Republican Party and the threat he could represent to the looming possibility of impeachment. All this was coupled with the Russian scandal worsening rapidly and the accepted wisdom that the Democrats are going to win, at least, the House of Representatives. The Bannon threat is more immediate because his revelations impact on the President’s credibility and ability to run the country. Trump just tossed the disclosures off claiming that Bannon had lost his mind. He also issued a futile legal instruction to Bannon to “cease and desist” claiming that Bannon had violated a non disclosure agreement. The Romney announcement has far more long term danger to the President even though it has taken a back seat to the Bannon drama.The latter is in print in journalist Michael Wolff’s exposure of the Trump WhiteHouse entitled, Fire and Fury. Trump’s army of tired lawyers have warned the publishers of Wolff’s book not to release it thereby increasing its significance even more.
DEMOCRATS AND GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT.
Impeachment starts in the House Judiciary Committee and is controlled by the majority party in the House of Representatives. As matters stand at the moment, even without Mueller’s report, there is more than enough to impeach Trump. It is in the public square that if the Dems win Congress impeachment is the first order of business. Unlike Nixon you don’t need tapes to clinch the deal as Trump blurts out the incriminating evidence to the world. All that is then required is to provide corroboratIng evidence that Trump meant what he said.
Without going into too much detail let us see what is out there in the Obstruction of Justice charge. The POTUS maintained that he fired Comey because of “The Russian Thing”. Comey has detailed contemporaneous notes, that he shared, that Trump asked for personal loyalty which he refused. He asked the FBI Director to go easy on Flynn who was knee deep in “The Russian Thing”. This only after he had cleared the room of witnesses. (Flynn is now cooperating with Mueller’s investigation)
Again, without delving too deeply, there is more than enough out there to lay conspiracy charges in that he and his campaign conspired with Russia during the election. The wheels are coming off the POTUS’S “no collusion” Russian story and that Clinton paid for the dossier that started it all. An Australian diplomate indicated to the FBI that George Papadopoulos, a Trump Foreign Policy Advisor, had confided to him, months before the dossier’s existence, that he knew Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton. (Papadopoulos is cooperating with the State as a result of pleading guilty to a lesser charge). ).
It has also become clear that the reason that the FBI were interested in the Trump dossier was because it corroborated information they already had. One of the many of the dossier’s predictions that came true was that a quid pro quo that was asked for and delivered was the softening of the Republican Party’s policy on Russian involvement in Ukraine.
The owners of Fusion GPS, who had commissioned the Trump dossier, went public demanding that the Republican controlled Committees release the transcripts of their twenty - one hour testimony to them. Inter alia they brought to the Congressional Committees’ attention the need to investigate the bank records of Deutsche Bank and other banks where Trump did business. They claimed that Trump was involved with “dubious Russians” that “raised questions about money laundering”. Evidence was provided on Paul Manafort’s financial ties to Russian oligarchs. The Fusion GPS executives emphasized that their investigator Christopher Steele discovered that there were extensive Russian efforts to get Trump elected and that he, Steele, felt obligated to report this to the FBI.
AND NOW BANNON HAS JUMPED SHIP
If there is a canary in the mine as to the mess Trump is in, it is in the revelations by his guru, Stephen Bannon. The former Presidential Advisor and Chief Strategist had already prophesied that there was only a thirty percent chance that Trump would serve out his term. Now he has just let loose on the Trumps in a forthcoming book written by a Michael Wolff. Most damning was his corroboration of Fusion GPS’s claims of money laundering and Manafort’s role in relationships with the Russians. Bannon further maintained that the June 2016 meeting with the Russian operatives hosted by Donald Trump Jnr. and attended by campaign chairman Manafort and Presidential son in law advisor, Jared Kushner, was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic”. He also argued that the chances that the son did not run this by his father are zero thereby heralding another obstruction of justice charge. There is also more than a hint that the Trump Jnr statement, that his father was involved in composing, represented yet another instance of obstruction of justice.
Bannon has added to Trump’s woes in other dimensions. Not only has Trump a cleavage between him and the Republican Party establishment, a massive one is now looming in his base. This will be between him and the alt right that Bannon delivered. In addition Bannon has the ostensible backing of billions of dollars from the Mercer family who also supported Trump. It is unlikely that Bannon would have moved without their support. Bannon’s Breitbart news was one of the main barrel organs that backed Trump right or wrong and was, up till now, maintaining that the Mueller investigation was illegitimate.
SO WHERE DOES ROMNEY FIT IN?
The House may impeach Trump but it needs sixty - seven votes in the Senate to carry through with what in fact are indictments thereby removing Trump as President. The process thus has to be bipartisan. Romney may be able to do what Senator Barry Goldwater accomplished with Nixon.
Mitt Romney was the Republican nominee for President in 2012 and has always been regarded as a well respected leader of what used to be the Republican Party. He carries a lot of weight and could well meld the anti Trump dissidents into a cohesive force. What is more he is not just an operator like McConnell and has articulated a tough position on Trump from the word go. He pleaded for a combined opposition to him by Cruz and Kasich so as to stop The Donald from winning the Primaries. He advocated that the Republican Congress should not ratify the Trump nomination and then finally supported an Independent candidate in the Presidential Election. Mitt could not stop the thundering train but the latter has slowed down and is going uphill. What is more the future Utah Senator has been scathing in his criticism of Trump calling him a “conman - a phony whose promises are as a valid as a degree from the Trump University”.
There was an opportunity to heal the rift as Romney desperately wanted to be Secretary of State and Trump went through the motions. After rejecting him for the job he belittled the very proud politician claiming that Romney would have gone down on his knees and begged Trump for the nomination. To add to the insult Trump appointed Romney’s niece as head of the Republican Party National Committee on condition she dropped the usage of the family name Romney which she had always gone by.
So whether the Republicans or the Democrats control the Senate there still needs to be at least sixteen or seventeen Republicans to send Trump packing. This was more or less the situation with Nixon in Watergate when Senator Goldwater and the Minority Republican heads of the Senate and House went to Nixon and told him that there were not the votes to save him. Goldwater, who like Romney was a previous Republican nominee for President, added that that included him.
AT THE END OF THE DAY.
Trump, to quote Bannon is a street fighter and he has nearly a year to try and wreck Romney’s nomination in the Republican Primary process. His task has just been made that much more difficult with Bannon himself adding fuel to the fire. The latter has to believe that Trump has sold out on the populist cause with his grotesque Tax Bill and that “The Russia Thing” is no longer defensible.
The spirited effort by a number of Republican legislators to attack the FBI for fomenting a Trump coup de etat has to become more intense with the news that the anti Trump legislators have found a champion and that the POTUS can no longer rely on Bannon. Trump and his echo chamber will use every stratagem in the book to topple the Mueller investigation. If the Democrats win the House and Romney is in the Senate their efforts will be meaningless as the facts will all still be available. For example there is all that testimony to the Committees that Representative Castro claims reveals criminal activity, Furthermore does anyone believe the contents of the Mueller probe will stay sealed?
Bannon has been excoriated and smeared of the face of the earth by Trump - just another one added to the growing list. Romney might just have to wait his turn.
Trump has one devastating option to gain control and that is literally the nuclear option - a preemptive strike on North Korea. The Republican Congress better take his preemptive striking powers away or a nuclear war will make Mueller and everything else irrelevant.
And while they are about it they should protect Mueller if for the only reason history needs to know the full extent of the perfidy so, that like with Nixon, there can be closure.
Just when you think you have seen it all….
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