ALARM BELLS AT THE WHITE HOUSE

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I keep using the word "scary" in describing the Trump administration, but it continues to fit.  And then some.

There appears now to be two main thrusts to the Mueller inquiry:

1.  It well established the Russians interfered in the 2016 election, and twelve Russian individuals have been indicted so far. Mueller is now working on the question of what, if anything, did Trump campaign team members know or do in that regard. This has become known as the "Collusion" inquiry.

2.  The second major thrust of Mueller's team is to determine what, if anything, Trump or his minions have done to interfere with, or "obstruct" Mueller's criminal investigation.

This week, new "defenses" on both questions were offered up by the public utterances of the now-pathetic Rudy Giuliani, who appears to have crossed into1984-land where fiction is truth and facts are irrelevant. But that seems to be playing well to the Trump "base." While that base is substantially less than 50% of the U.S. population, it wields leverage over the Republican congresspersons who depend on it for their jobs.  But pressure cracks are beginning to show.

Recent developments have now pushed the Trump team to new extremes on both Mueller issues:

I. Collusion:

When Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen (whose integrity Rudy Giuliani lavishly praised two months ago) recently revealed that he had informed Trump the Russians were trying to set up that June, 2016 meeting in Trump Tower to talk about their work in trashing Hillary Clinton, Cohen's admission surprised no serious observers. Trump nevertheless consistently denied any knowledge of the meeting. That was a key element to his "No Collusion" defense.

The Cohen revelation was harmful to Trump on two levels: i) it makes Trump out to be a liar, (the number of his lies is in the thousands) but ii) more importantly, the Cohen statement cuts the heart out of the Trump collusion defense. Alarm bells in the White House signaled a need to ramp up defense levels.

A brief history:

Defense Level 1. A firm denial that any Trump campaign team member ever met with Russians.

Defense Level 2. This was the "oops" stage. When it became clear that, in fact, many members of the Trump campaign team did meet with the Russians (Sessions, Donald Jr., Flynn, Page, Gates, Papadopoulos, Manafort, etc.), Sessions recused himself and Trump & Co. moved to, "Okay, they met, but there was "No Collusion."

Rx: repeat every four hours till the patient is better, or Twitter account is cancelled.

Defense Level 3. The "No Collusion" construct suffered a major fracture when the failing New York Times revealed that Donald Jr., Jared Kushner, and Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort had secretly met with the Russians in Trump Tower. Prescription: Lie about what happened at the meeting. Have the president draft a statement saying the meeting was not about helping Trump win the election, it was about adoptions.

 Defense Level 4. A member of the Trump team suggested it was a bad idea to lie about the substance of the meeting because the email history would expose the lie. Prescription:  Trump's Director of Communications team suggested the emails can be suppressed. That plan was dropped when the pesky NYTimes said it had the emails and was going to publish them, and Donald Jr. said "Okay, I will publish them before your paper comes out tonight."

Defense Level 5. No serious person believed Trump did not know in advance about the Russia meeting. Steve Bannon, who knows the players, said there was "ZERO CHANCE" that Jr. didn't tell his father. He even thought that Junior likely brought the Russians up to meet his father. Nevertheless, the prescription remained: Deny, deny, deny that Trump knew of the meeting attended by his team.

Defense Level 6. Enter Michael Cohen, former lawyer to Donald Trump. Cohen was involved in hiding Trump's adulterous affairs and failed to cooperate with government document requests. That resulted in a search warrant and government seizure of lots of stuff, including his non-privileged conversations directly with Trump. The materials made public by Cohen reveal that Trump lied about his knowledge of pay-offs to paramours (boring stuff by now, except maybe to Melania). But then Cohen revealed that PRIOR TO THE RUSSIANS COMING TO TRUMP TOWER TO TALK ABOUT HELPING TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN, COHEN DISCUSSED THE PROPOSED MEETING WITH TRUMP!  Alarm bells in the White House:  now we are getting deeper into the collusion issue. The prescription, elevate to Defense Level 7.

 Defense Level 7. Re-enter from stage right the demented clown Rudy Giuliani. In May, he called Cohen an honest person. In July, he says Cohen is a dishonest person. Oh, boy, a credibility contest between Cohen and the man whose lie total since inauguration is well in excess of 3,000!

 Defense Level 8. But attacking Cohen's credibility may not be good enough. This may not be just a "He said, he said"  contest, because Cohen also revealed that others were in the room when he told Trump of the Russian offer to help. The others include Trump's son, and his son-in-law, and more.  Now there is a substantial risk that a team member, who was either at that meeting with Trump, or was told about it, (including Manafort, who will be extremely incentivized to flip if convicted in one or both of his criminal trials) decides not to risk being indicted for perjury or violating U.S Penal Code Section 1001 (false statement to public official) and will confirm that Cohen is telling the truth. That would prick Trump's "hoax" balloon, and the collusion case becomes a burning issue for Trump. Rx: move to Defense Level 9.

Defense Level 9. Clown Rudy calls the failing New York Times  and says, "Collusion? Who cares? COLLUSION IS NOT A CRIME!"  This bizarre statement is immediately supported by several Republican members of the House of Representatives! 

We need to unpack that remarkable contention. Giuliani & Co. are now selling to the public the proposition that if the candidate for President, or members of his campaign staff, cooperated in Russian interference of our election process, if the campaign knowingly received things of value from a foreign person or government, and not only didn't report it, but hid it and lied about it, that might be collusion (or depending on your choice of words, conspiracy, or misprision of felony, or felony accessory-after-the-fact,) but when the Trump team did it, it wasn't a crime. So the new defense is, "Well, it may be collusion, but is that wrong?"

That assertion is preposterous, and also avoids the question of a treasonous injury to our Democracy.

2. Obstruction of Justice: 

Defense Level 1. Charges of obstruction were first aired because of the Comey firing. First, Trump denied he asked Comey to go easy on Flynn, and denied he knew Flynn was under investigation for lying to the FBI. That was shown to be a lie.

Defense Level 2. Trump fired Comey and said it was because of his poor work on the Clinton email investigation.  That too was a lie. As he soon thereafter told the Russian Ambassador, he fired Comey because of "The Russia thing."

Defense Level 3. When it became clear from Trump's own statements, and those of his lawyer, that firing Comey was indeed related to "The Russia thing," Trump brought out Dershowitz to say on TV that the President cannot obstruct justice. That is to say, he can obstruct justice, but when he does it, it is not a crime. When pressed, The Dersh would mutter, "except if he did it corruptly," hoping the microphone did not pick it up. After a while, the networks, the Trump team, and Dersh's neighbors in Martha's Vineyard tired of Dersh, and he hasn't been heard from in a while.

Defense Level 4. Trump, under pressure of the Mueller inquiry, i) publicly humiliated Sessions for his recusal from the Russia inquiry, (though Sessions' recusal was required by DOJ guidelines); ii)issued an order to White House counsel McGahn to fire Mueller, but McGahn refused to obey the command, doubtless because he did not want to see his name in the caption of an obstruction indictment; iii) repeatedly made public statements that Republican Mueller was biased against him; and of course, iv) publicly called the Mueller inquiry a "a hoax," a witch hunt," "rigged," etc., etc.

Defense Level 5. The Trump team refused to agree to an interview with Mueller, thereby risking a subpoena. Giuliani tried to negotiate an interview if Mueller promised not to inquire about Obstruction of Justice. (How remarkable is that for what that says about the Trump team's concerns about that subject?) But of course Mueller said "Are you fucking kidding me? No deal." (My words, not his!)

Defense Level 6. Yesterday Trump added to the obstruction count against him by going on a tweet rampage, saying Sessions "should fire Rosenstein and Mueller!"

Defense Level 7. Giuliani takes to the airwaves, calls the NY Times, and goes public with a sales pitch that this is not obstruction. Giuliani says that while Trump has the undoubted power to fire Sessions, telling Sessions he should fire Mueller was not obstruction because Trump was just exercising his First Amendment Right to express an opinion!  Ya know, free speech, like when a person goes into a bank, points a gun at the teller, and says, "You should give me all the money in your drawer!"  No crime, no foul, just free speech.

Defense Level 8. The "free speech" defense was parroted by Huckabee Sanders. "Just an opinion," she says.  But in case you are skeptical, Giuliani proceeded to the next stage.

Defense Level 9. Rudy tells the TV audience that Trump is not guilty of obstruction of justice because his allegedly obstructive statements and conduct were public. To be guilty of criminal obstruction, says Rudy, you need to do the deed secretly! That may be the single most ridiculous thing Rudy has ever said in his life. Even in his addled state, he must know that is false. He knows it is false because no lawyer and few other sentient adults could fail to grasp the illogical nature of the claim. He is saying that if two people conspired to burn down the White House, but they did on an open Facebook account, or Twitter, or YouTube, it would not be criminal because the conspiracy was open to public view. Or if a terrorist publicly threatened to kill a physician if she performed a legal abortion, that is not a crime because it is "pasteurized" by the lack of secrecy.

And oh yeah, the settled law makes clear that Rudy is full of shit, because other defendants have made that claim and the courts, including the Second Circuit, have said the claim lacks merit.

........................

So much for Defense Level 9 on both the collusion and obstruction fronts. I can only guess what Level 10 will be. For sure, it will further demean our democratic ideals and mock the principles of our Constitution.