SOMEONE'S GOT IT IN FOR ME, THEY'RE PLANTING STORIES IN THE PRESS

I like humor as much as the next fellow, but I’ve never been all that fond of jokes.  Recent events, however, have reminded me of a now-obscure genre of jokes from my childhood – the “little moron” joke.  (An example: Why did the little moron take a ladder to the tavern?  Because he’d heard that the beer was on the house.)

Rex Tillerson was arguably the worst Secretary of State in the past hundred years.  History will likely give him credit for only one positive achievement during his year in office – calling Donald Trump a moron.  That was last July.  It took Mr. “You’re Fired” eight months to work up the nerve to fire an incompetent subordinate who called him a moron.

There is a growing consensus that Trump has decided he’s sick and tired of his minions challenging his opinions.  He’s ready to replace all of the independent voices on his leadership team with sycophants and courtiers who either agree with him or will pretend to agree with him in order to win a seat near the Sun King.  The New York Times put it more politely: “After a year of chaotic on-the-job training, Mr. Trump has developed more confidence in his own instincts and wants aides and cabinet members with whom he has good chemistry and who embrace his positions.”

In other words, expect to see an influx of Fox News talking heads and other conservative media personalities.  It would be particularly worrisome if Trump replaced his only two competent appointees.  H.R. McMaster (Director of National Security) and Jim Mattis (Secretary of Defense) have functioned as the adults in the room for the past year.  If Trump fires them, their replacements will probably be war criminals from the Bush era, the geniuses responsible for the Iraq War.  There are a lot of those folks still around, and they haven’t learned from their mistakes.  They’re itching to start a war somewhere, anywhere, that they can finally win. 

In all likelihood, Jeff Sessions will be gone soon.  Sessions is a singularly unlikeable character who will go down in history as one of our worst Attorney Generals, although Richard Nixon’s AG’s set a very high bar for corruption and criminality.  Like Tillerson, Sessions will be remembered as a man who did exactly one thing right.  He recused himself from the investigation into Russiagate and withstood intense pressure from his boss to put an end to the Mueller investigation.  His replacement will have no such compunctions.  If Sessions is kicked to the curb, Mueller’s days are numbered. 

Until then, though, the Special Counsel just keeps on doing his job and ignoring attempts to intimidate him.  On Thursday, the New York Times reported that Mueller has subpoenaed records from the Trump Organization – the business, not the campaign.  It wasn’t a simple request: “Hey, when you get a minute, would you mind turning over, like, all your records pertaining to Russia?”  Instead, they opted for a legal demand.  I interpret that as a signal from Mueller that he’s ready to play hardball.    

Trump fans will surely complain that this subpoena proves that Mueller is engaging in mission creep.  What, they’ll ask, do Trump’s business records have to do with Russian interference in the 2016 election?  Here are a couple of possibilities.  Maybe Mueller is looking for evidence that the Trump Organization collaborated with Russia on behalf of the Trump campaign.  Or maybe the issue isn’t collaboration, but obstruction of justice.  Why has Trump been so eager to shut down the Russiagate investigation?  Are there clues in his financial records?  Donald Trump is not a great compartmentalizer.  Neither he nor his family separate their business interests from their political interests.  Mueller would be remiss if he failed to look for evidence in such an obvious place.

In addition to the ongoing purge in the politburo, there’s another exodus from the White House in progress.  That one involves Trump loyalists with legal issues hanging over their heads, or maybe a history of infidelity, spousal abuse, or garden variety racism.  Is it fair to disqualify job seekers for doing exactly what their prospective boss has done all his life?

Donald Trump doesn’t think so.  Most of the folks in the second exodus will stay on the payroll as members of the Trump 2020 presidential campaign.  Rumor has it that Jared and Ivanka are headed that way.  Trump obviously enjoys campaigning more than presidenting, so maybe the second group of exiles are the lucky ones.