The release of emails by Donald Trump Junior confirming the content that had already been leaked to the New York Times would seem to be slam-dunk proof that principals of the Trump campaign and the subsequent Trump regime were eager to obtain help from Russia against Hillary Clinton, and willing to lie about it. It would also appear to confirm Russian intent at the highest levels to sabotage the Clinton campaign, despite Putin’s denials — and that the Trump campaign knew exactly who they were dealing with. As yet, there’s still no evidence that they actually got anything useful, or that they did anything with it, or so they claim...
At this point in the movie, the heroes would all be congratulating themselves and the bad guys would be looking at serious consequences.
But this isn’t a movie.
The leadership of the GOP shows no interest in pursuing any of this, and is trying to downplay it. (Here, and here.) I listened to Sean Hannity on drive time talk radio today; he read through the memos on the air, dismissed them, and then went into a furious diatribe about Crooked Hillary selling a quarter of America’s uranium to Russia, Obama sending agents to Israel to disrupt their last election, Bill Clinton’s failure trying to bribe North Korea out of building nuclear weapons and ICBMs that are going to kill millions in Japan, China, the U.S. and nobody is paying attention or doing anything about it, and (liberals? the press?) are ignoring all these real problems, content to let millions of Americans suffer in poverty etc. etc. etc.
And then he said something interesting. If I heard him correctly, Trump Jr. is going to be on his show tonight and will explain it all. Hannity promises to kick butt, take names, ask the questions nobody else will, and will get at the truth in his interview — because HE’s not part of that ‘journalist’ crowd that hates Trump. Hannity was also promising his opening commentary is going to be as big or even bigger than the interview. (The butt kissers in the studio had him going back and forth over what would be more important.)
This set off alarm bells in the back of my mind.
Maxim 17:
The longer everything goes according to plan, the bigger the impending disaster
There are things about this that raise questions. The revelations about Trump Jr. have been dribbling out one day at a time. This has the effect of drawing attention to him and the developing story. So, who is doing this, and why? It has to be coming right out of the White House. Pierce wonders:
Almost all of the recent Times exclusives were sourced to what appeared to be people within the White House or, at least, to people close enough to it to know the details of a very closely held meeting. Is Team Jared out for blood? Is there some sort of weird Oedipal thing playing out with Junior? Is Tiffany behind it all, bred from birth for vengeance like Mordred to Marla Maples' Morgan Le Fay? The boggled mind further boggles.
Kevin Drum was also asking questions, earlier in the saga:
There’s something crazy going on here, and not just the fact that Don Jr. met with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer. Let’s face it: he’s plenty dumb enough to do something like that. The crazy thing is that someone—or multiple someones—really has it in for Junior. They’ve been releasing information to the New York Times in very, very carefully staged tidbits designed to (a) get Don Jr. to lie on the record, and (b) keep the story going. At this point, Don Jr. has no idea what evidence these folks have, so he has no idea what it’s safe to lie about.
But why? Why is someone going after Don Jr.? He’s not involved with politics and Don Sr. doesn’t seem to rely on him for anything. So why destroy him? Is it just a way of going after Don Sr.? If so, who’s doing it?
There’s a scenario that might explain this. Yeah, it’s pretty CT at the moment — but how much else about Trump was dismissed as CT stuff? I’m wondering if this is an attempt to set up the Times and everyone else following this. Remember the guiding principle of the Trump regime:
Maxim 31:
Only cheaters prosper
Or as Kaff Tagon observed, “You cheated” is loser-speak for “I didn’t see that coming.” The thing to remember is that nothing is normal any more. The old rules are completely out the window, up is down, facts are whatever someone wants to believe, and the truth of those facts is measured by how strongly they believe them.
The Trump family are sociopathic serial liars — all of them — and they’ve surrounded themselves with more of the same. Trump’s closest advisor is Steve Bannon, a man expert in propagandizing, coming from a media environment where generating fake news isn’t a crime — it’s a career.
So here’s the scenario. Maybe someone in the White House knows all hell is about to break loose and they want a diversion. Maybe they just want to change the subject. Trump Jr. doesn’t have an official position (AFAIK) so it’s difficult to see what he could be charged with. It’s not illegal (yet) for private citizens to meet with an agent of a foreign power.
The meeting was probably real. The emails? That’s where it gets tricky. Without access to the systems where they were generated and received, how can the Times verify them, other than relying on highly-placed anonymous sources? Sources from an administration of liars?
So, what if the email trail was faked, and the sources deliberately lied to the Times about them?
Maxim 65:
After the toss, be the one with the pin, not the one with the grenade
It would be just crazy enough for Trump Jr. to go on Hannity tonight and ‘reveal’ that the Times emails were all faked — by the White House. Trump and right wing media have been hammering the message all along about “fake news from the liberal press”. Trump Jr. could claim they set this up to “prove” the media was out to get them, that they’d run any story that looked like it would hurt Trump — and this clinches it. And that could be the biggest lie of all!
The truly evil thing about this scenario is that the emails could still be perfectly legitimate — but while the Times scrambles to answer a claim that they were faked, Trump, the GOP, and the right wing media will all be running with the “Fake News” meme. Even if the Times burns its ‘sources’ by revealing their identities, all they have to do is repeat the lie about the emails being fake to prolong the doubt and confusion.
The GOP has been beating on the “liberal media” for decades now. The credibility of the press is at an all-time low. One of the relevant findings of this Pew poll is how the media is regarded — not good for a system of government that depends on a free press to keep things on the level. Any further revelations about the Trump regime will be colored by how people respond to this one. Think of it like setting of a backfire, to try to control a fire burning out of control.
The Trump dead-enders are not going to be convinced by anything they hear from media they don’t trust. It will allow GOP spokespeople to blather on about “reasonable doubt”, “getting to the bottom of things”, “there are other questions” and so on.
Still, there are alternative scenarios to consider. (Is that good news, or bad news?)
Maxim 42:
“They’ll never expect this” means “I want to try something stupid.”
One is simply that the White House is really and truly gob-smacked by this. Why would anyone think putting Trump Jr. on the air with Sean Hannity is a good idea? He just got a lawyer — if this is the legal advice he’s getting, one can only wait and see what else he’ll do. Josh Marshall has what he calls “Trump’s Razor” which states:
According to Trump’s Razor: “ascertain the stupidest possible scenario that can be reconciled with the available facts” and that answer is likely correct.
Digby reports on what seems to be an emerging strategy by picking up on an observation by Axios:
There's an emerging strategy to turn this back around on the Democrats.
An extreme example of this approach is Roger Stone, who texted Axios: "The president can turn the tables and dominate the dialogue by ordering the indictment of [James] Clapper, [John] Brennan, [Susan] Rice and [former president Barack] Obama for the wholesale unconstitutional surveillance of Americans... I would seriously arrest [and] perp walk every one of these criminals, making as big a show of it as possible."
Although Stone is a longtime confidant of Trump, this in no way reflects the strategy preferred by current White House staffers.
With that said, there are already internal conversations about turning this into a conversation about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and the way they handled sensitive intelligence.
Whether or not they can pull this off remains to be seen. We’re not out of woods — we probably haven’t even hit bottom yet. The importance of continuing to resist remains paramount.
Maxim 37:
There is no “Overkill.” There is only “Open fire” and “Reload.”
As for the likelihood of this or any other revelations leading to impeachment, Digby cites Ezra Klein to say nope, not going to happen.
...For Trump to fall, for a scandal to end his presidency, what’s needed isn’t a new, massive scandal. What’s needed is for Ryan and McConnell to decide that investigating and prosecuting Trump is important, and the right thing to do. I hope they make that a priority. I hope they give Mueller greater statutory powers, including protection from removal, and push through impeachment charges if Mueller deems them warranted.
But the matter is in Ryan and McConnell’s hands, and no one else’s. As long as they remain on Trump’s side, the president is going nowhere.
My money's on them continuing to back Trump no matter what until it takes them down with him. So far Republican voters love Trump and don't care at all if he was working with the Russian government to beat the witch Clinton. They would have sold the country out to ISIS if they would help them do that. It's what they live for.
So, I don't see this as being something that leads to"the end." Their own voters don't care. Why should they?
In other words, it ain’t over till it’s over, and maybe not even then. Charles P. Pierce sums it up for the moment with:
There's a great unfolding treason now—not just the precise constitutionally defined treason, but a general betrayal of reason, of self-government, of honesty and of high office. They are now committing treason against themselves, grim betrayal winding around itself in coils ever tightening until there is nothing but the foul exhaling of the final breath of things that once belonged to better people than them.
UPDATE: Oops — just noticed I transmogrified emails to memos in the poll. My bad. In any case, IF Trump Jr. shows up on Hannity tonight, and it’s still mind boggling to contemplate as Pierce notes, it will be fascinating to watch. For a certain value of ‘fascinating’ that is. This really is an unfolding horror story. I’m wondering if 45 presidents is some kind of limit before it all falls apart.