“Trump Eats Your Soul in Small Bites”!

Wow! That was the core of James Comey’s memorable self-quote during a CNN town hall, describing Trump’s insidious corrosive effect on the ethics, if any, of everyone who remains in his immediate orbit long enough. He described people, including himself for a time, “finding themselves trapped” in an amoral sociopath’s web of constant lies and unable or unwilling to openly resist or quit, thereby being led to become complicit. This explains but certainly does not excuse the behavior of disgusting Donald’s cadre of flunkies and apologists, which is predicated on the insufficiently strong moral/ethical character of those who allow themselves to be so corrupted. I wonder whether many of them will ever recognize, let alone regret, this process and its effects on both themselves and the country. However, this psychological excuse probably can’t be claimed by most congressional Republicans who continue to either vociferously or passively defend Trump, mostly for purely political self interest, given Trump’s continued amazingly high approval ratings with his base. Disturbingly, Trump’s national approval rating has risen to 46% in one recent poll! Another highlight of Comey’s comments is that he agrees with the now about 800 former federal prosecutors, both Republican and Democrat, that if Trump were not president, he would definitely have been indicted on multiple counts of obstruction of justice based on the facts in Mueller’s report!

Meanwhile, the showdown between House Democrats and Trump et al continues to seriously escalate, with Trump, at the request of AG Barr, now claiming executive privilege over the entire Mueller report, as well as threatening to block ALL House committee requests and subpoenas for witnesses and documents! This has already led to the Judiciary Committee’s vote to hold Barr in contempt of Congress, and will certainly lead to multiple protracted court battles. Unfortunately this is a potentially highly effective strategy to block or at least blunt and seriously delay the Democrats’ aim of swaying public opinion in favor of impeachment by holding public House committee hearings on issues related to obstruction of justice and other potentially politically damaging topics such as Trump’s tax returns. Without such hearings, given the tiny fraction of people who will actually read the Mueller report, there is currently simply not the necessary public support for impeachment, hence the reluctance of Nancy Pelosi and many other Democrats to begin impeachment proceedings. However, as I previously suggested, and as now articulated by Nancy Pelosi, it appears that Trump is actually trying to goad the House Democrats into beginning impeachment hearings, which he apparently thinks would be politically advantageous for him, allowing him to more convincingly play the victim, which he so relishes! Ironically, beginning impeachment hearings would actually strengthen the House Democrats’ already good chances of eventually prevailing in their court cases against the administration’s claims of executive privilege, etc. This might also even expedite such court proceedings. Of course, none of this will change the certain outcome of Senate acquittal if he were impeached in the House. Another interesting development is the surprising revelation of the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee’s subpoena issued over two weeks ago to Don Junior for his return to testify! Of course it is no coincidence that committee chairman Burr is not running for reelection, so like a few other previous lame duck Republican senators, he can afford to show a trace of independence, unlike most of his colleagues, some of whom have criticized his actions. The most likely outcome is that Junior will either ignore the subpoena or show up and plead the fifth amendment, neither of which would look great for Daddy, so in his impromptu press conference today, Daddy was already making Junior out to be a totally innocent victim of the big bad political system. At least he couldn’t specifically blame this one on the Democrats! If he does refuse to show up, Junior knows the Senate will certainly never vote him in contempt, so there will be no repercussions at all. However, one or more of the House committees can also subpoena him, and the House would vote him in contempt if he ignored it. All of this feels like a scary slow motion train crash into a constitutional crisis, even though the large majority of Americans probably still wouldn’t care at all unless it affected their daily activities!