in a piece for his Daily 202 email, which is also available online. It is titled Wiretapping allegations accomplished what Trump wanted – but may backfire bigly
Hohmann contends that what Trump did was deliberate and as a way of attempting to distract attention from what Sessions had done in lying in his confirmation. To quote
But the press didn’t spend this weekend talking about Sessions. He had confirmed to attend the Gridiron Dinner in Washington on Saturday night, but he skipped it and flew to Florida to be with Trump. The Sunday shows did not dwell on debates over the AG’s duplicity. Instead, everyone talked about whether Obama wiretapped Trump Tower last October.
And Trump was happy as a clam about that. A White House official told The Post that the president was in a brighter mood on Sunday morning than he was on Saturday because he was pleased that his allegations against Obama were the dominant story on cable and led the newspapers.
Hohmann then provides an extensive list of how often Trump has played the press by saying something outrageous to distract from something he views as more damaging, as we read in the next paragraph:
The president knows the media cannot ignore him when he says something so inflammatory, and he believes there will be no real consequences for him if it turns out that everything he said was nonsense. After all, there haven’t been up until now.
Hohmann gives five previous examples of this kind of behavior:
- After struggling during the first GOP primary debate to explain his disparaging comments about women, he attacked Megyn Kelly. “There was … blood coming out of her wherever,” he said, ensuring that the media focused on the new Trump-Kelly “feud.”
- When the 2005 Access Hollywood video came out, he brought Bill Clinton’s former accusers to St. Louis as his guests to the second debate.
- In November, the morning after agreeing to settle a fraud lawsuit against Trump University for $25 million, he demanded that the cast of “Hamilton” apologize to Mike Pence.
- Days after firing Michael Flynn, he held a rambling 77-minute press conference because he knew that it would get the Flynn story out of the news.
- Perturbed when critics pointed out that he lost the popular vote, he claimed that three million to five million people voted illegally.
He then explores Trump’s relationship with Roy Cohn as critical to understanding what Trump is doing, noting in passing
-- Cohn’s creed was to always be on the attack, to counter-punch whenever punched and to never apologize. Never, ever, ever apologize. He believed that you never yield an inch, even if you’re in the wrong, because your opponents will take a mile.
There is a TON of material giving you perhaps a more complete understanding of how deep Cohn’s relationship with the Trumps was, including representing them in their housing discrimination case brought against them by the Federal government, where they eventually settled but WITHOUT admitting guilt, which according to Hohmann they considered a win because of the lack of admission of guilt.
We also learn if we did not know it that Cohn provides the nexus that connects Roger Stone with Trump:
Roger Stone, his longtime political consigliere, first met Trump through Cohn.
But lest you think the Hohmann is dismissing the importance of what has happened, he makes a major pivot, as we can see here:
BUT, BUT, BUT:
-- Here’s the rub: Trump is not as cunning as he thinks. He’s playing checkers, not chess. (Or maybe it’s Connect Four.) While he’s proven adept at manipulating the New York tabloid world for decades, as the first president in American history with no prior political or military experience, he’s a rookie at playing the inside game. And it is coming back to haunt him. Bigly.
Cohn eventually got disbarred. But even before then he was driving out of DC because President Eisenhower went after him (and his mentor Joe McCarthy was censured by the Senate and died an alcoholic).
Hohmann then lists SIX ways the wild claim about wiretapping could come back to haunt Trump.
Let me just list the six, as Hohmann uses each as the lead of a section discussing that particular point.
1. Turning the FBI director against him
2. Prodding the White House counsel to take risks he otherwise would not
3. Trump has become the boy who cried wolf
I am going to come back to the point anon
4. Making his White House look dysfunctional
this is a point about which there has been increasing commentary, including from some who originally supported Trump
5. Emboldening conservatives to call for a full investigation
6. Ensuring, more broadly, that the Russia connections continue to overshadow his domestic agenda
Hohmann suggests this should make for very interesting hearings on the nomination of the #2 for the Department of Justice, as we will see tomorrow.
I said I would return to point 3, about Trump being the boy who cried wolf. Of course, as Hohmann notes, there is Trump’s longstanding birtherism. But he also offers these points:
Among the other fallacious claims that Trump made during the campaign which he never offered any substantiation for:
- The IRS might be auditing his tax returns “because of the fact that I'm a strong Christian.”
- He suggested that Ted Cruz’s father was somehow involved with Lee Harvey Oswald.
- He said there’s something "very fishy" about Vince Foster's death.
- He trafficked in rumors that Antonin Scalia may have been a victim of foul play. “They say they found a pillow on his face,” Trump said in one radio interview, “which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow.”
- He said vaccines may cause childhood autism.
- He maintained that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated the Sept. 11 attacks.
- He insisted that a man who charged the security barricades at one of his rallies in Ohio was a member of the Islamic State. He based this false statement on a hoax Internet video he and his staff saw online.
What was clear to many who opposed Trump from within the Republican party during the primary season is now being amassed with even more detail as the President’s behavior continues to astound some and shock others who perhaps on the record should not have been surprised.
I have offered as much as I have because I believe this is something critical, with tons of well-sourced information that will be a useful source as this process goes forward.
To where, through what?
At this point I have no idea, but we are already on a very bumpy ride.