Donnie Two Scoops gets permission for the hit
by digby
My Salon column this morning:
One of Donald Trump's alleged charms is that he talks like a regular guy. His voters like that he doesn't put on airs or act as though he is better than they are. As he said at the Republican National Convention, "I am your voice." If that's the case, the Trump voters of America all sound like none-too-bright TV mobsters lately because President Trump has been doing his best impression of Tony Soprano. Not for the first time, of course. Trump has often copped the attitude of a mob boss, but he's really ratcheted up the gangster talk lately, and with good reason. The feds are breathing down his neck.
It started last week with a tweet responding to the news that his White House counsel had been interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller's office for 30 hours:
Since then, Trump has made statements obviously designed to reassure his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort that if he keeps quiet he may receive a presidential pardon for his multiple felony convictions. Trump even went so far as to have his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor who made his bones putting away mobsters in New York, send a message through the Washington Post that Manafort's up for a pardon once Mueller delivers his report:
Trump’s lawyers counseled the president against the idea of pardoning anyone linked to the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, according to Giuliani, saying Trump should at least wait until special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has concluded his probe.
He might as well have been blinking morse code: "just hold on, Paulie, the boss'll spring you once he takes care of Bobby the Gumshoe" (The question of why Trump would consult with his personal lawyers instead of the White House Counsel or the Department of Justice pardon office for advice on this issue answers itself.)
Trump himself has made it clear exactly what he expects:
You'll note that he's not fond of his former goombah Michael Cohen whom he sees as having stabbed him the back. The feeling is mutual. Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis said Cohen would not accept a pardon from Trump which is probably another appeal to the special prosecutor to offer him a deal and reduce his sentence, but it's pretty bold nonetheless. He undoubtedly realizes that Trump will never pardon a rat like him.
But perhaps the most telling mafioso-style comment came in a Fox and Friends interview in which Trump claimed that "flipping" (known to non-criminals as "cooperating with the government") is unfair and should be outlawed. He said he's had many friends suffer from its use, which says a lot about the company he keeps. And he once again went on and on about how he believes in omertà or as he calls it "loyalty." He was especially upset --- again --- at Attorney General Jeff Sessions. When asked if he was planning to fire him he said:
We have somebody that they seem to like to go after lot of Republicans...I put in an attorney general who never took control of the Justice Department. Jeff Sessions, never took control of the Justice Department. It’s sort of an incredible thing. It’s a very, very sad day. Jeff Sessions recused himself, which he shouldn’t have done or he should have told me,” Even my enemies say that Jeff Sessions should have told you that he was going to recuse himself and then you wouldn’t have put him in. He took my job, and then he said, "I’m going to recuse myself." I said, "What kind of man is this?"
He also insulted the Department of Justice and the FBI, implying they are all a bunch of partisan hacks even as he said that the rank and file of the FBI are all his supporters.
It's long been obvious that he's desperately trying to get Jeff Sessions to quit so that the GOP Senators who have told him that he will face big problems if he fires him can be appeased. ("What'd I say?") With the exception of one early resignation attempt which Trump grudgingly rejected, Sessions has been stoically absorbing Trump's insults in order to carry out their mutual agenda. But this time he was forced to respond, likely because the department demanded their leader defend them and make clear that the Department of Justice isn't Trump's personal goon squad and protection racket.
Sessions said that the "Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations" and that "no nation has a more talented, more dedicated group of law enforcement investigators and prosecutors than the United States." Then he pointed out that he really was doing Trump's bidding by enacting their antediluvian policies to take America back to the 50s --- the 1850s.
It appears that he needs to hurry if he wants to get it all done, however. Shortly after he released his statement, Senators Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) made it clear that their previous commitment to protecting Sessions, and by extension the Mueller investigation, was no longer inviolable. In fact, they provided a roadmap for Trump to end his nightmare at long last.
Graham told Bloomberg that President Trump is "entitled to an attorney general he has faith in, somebody that’s qualified for the job, and I think there will come a time, sooner rather than later, where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the Department of Justice." He went on to make clear that he shouldn't be fired before Brett Kavanaugh can be jammed through confirmation and the midterms, pretty much giving the green light for him to do it in November.
Grassley, who had previously said he wouldn't schedule any confirmation hearing to replace Sessions, indicated he now thinks he could fit them in. Trump doesn't actually need a replacement to take out Mueller. He can just put a previously confirmed consiglieri in the job on a temporary basis and he will make him an offer he can't refuse.
Trump is so overwrought that it's likely they realize he's going to do it and they are simply trying to hold him off long enough to get their Supreme Court Justice and hopefully hold on to their slim majority in November. They will sell their souls for those two goals. And even if they lose their majority, their help with this little problem will turn them into made men who will go to the mattresses to fight an impeachment conviction against the big boss. It's all in the family.
.
