Donald Trump is a man who is unable to forgive any less-than-glowing comment, or overlook any perceived slight. His entire campaign was nothing more than payback for being made a press club punchline. The idea that someone is out there, collecting negative things about him, actually looking for those things, as a job, has Trump wandering the White House corridors like a reject from a John Hughes film, muttering “Mueller … Mueller … Mueller.”
The threat that Trump will go from everyday loony to explosively unhinged is worrying the staff.
The greatest threat to Trump and his presidency, say administration officials and outside advisers, comes from his own conduct and obsessive behavior after he took office. While congressional and FBI investigations may prove Trump or his team broke laws before he took office, his advisers say they’re more worried that the things he’s done since the inauguration may have left him exposed to obstruction of justice or other charges.
If firing Comey wasn’t enough to make those who job it is to produce semi-rational explanations for Trump’s actions, only to see Trump gleefully kick them over like a toddler set loose in a field of sand castles, cry in their beer ... wait till he fires Robert Mueller.
Whether Trump can fire Robert Mueller, technically, is beside the point. Knocking over the first domino in that chain would be enough to move the country from “hmm, we may be on the brink of Constituational Crisis” to “Not anymore.” And with his latest tweets and actions, Trump certainly seems to preparing to set that tumble off the legal cliff in motion.
Friday, Jun 16, 2017 · 1:27:37 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
WTH does this even mean?
Is Trump saying that he’s being investigated by Rosenstein? By Sessions? Does he think because the Deputy AG has the power to fire Mueller, that puts him in charge of the investigation? Or is Trump now fantasizing that Mueller came to him and told him to oust Comey?
Trump, for months, has bristled almost daily about the ongoing probes. He has sometimes, without prompting, injected. “I’m not under investigation” into conversations with associates and allies. He has watched hours of TV coverage every day — sometimes even storing morning news shows on his TiVo to watch in the evening — and complained nonstop.
The clearest sign that Trump is hovering one finger about the “Rosenstein” button that’s been installed next to that one that summons a Coke, is that he’s devoted much of his recent attention to the idea that the investigation has run its course.
Never mind where “7 months” comes from. Trump’s point is that this thing has gone on long enough. Sure. the Whitewater investigation wandered hither and yon for more than four years before Ken Starr found a blue dress, but that’s exactly the kind of thing that Trump wants to avoid. He wants to kill this thing now, before Mueller gets too deep into his finances and before the investigation recruits enough accountants and lawyers to really see how Trump’s numbers don’t add up. He wants it over. Now.
Just as he has done publicly on Twitter, Trump has told friends and associates that the investigation is a “witch hunt” and that others are out to get him. “It’s basically all he talks about on the phone,” said one adviser who has spoken with Trump and his top aides.
That obsession is why Trump Junior was quick to recommend this post yesterday.
Trump’s surrogates at all levels are pressing the paired ideas that Mueller is biased—he hired people who contributed to Hillary!—and that the investigation is a sham. We’re one uncomfortable re;lease of information away from Trump declaring the whole thing over, then devoting half the FBI’s resources into keeping an eye on the other half for potential leaks.
The idea that it’s politically a bad move, or at least potentially a bad move if one Republican in Washington could locate a Constitution under drafts of More Money–No Taxes, doesn’t matter. Because Trump isn’t running from a rational place. He’s not weighing the consequences or looking down the road. He wants Mueller gone, and there’s only so long his staff will hold him back.
They have urged Trump to stop meddling — but he won't. Under oath, Comey testified that Trump asked him to consider letting go of an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign in February. Trump ordered top aides to leave the room, according to testimony from Comey and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, before he made the request.