WHY DO WE NEVER GET AN ANSWER WHEN WE'RE KNOCKING AT THE DOOR
I married fairly late in life. Fortunately, I was lucky. Recognizing the role that luck plays in the life of a marriage, I will resist the urge to take pleasure in the news that Vanessa Trump has filed for divorce from Donald Trump Jr. I will admit, however, that the fact that she hired a criminal lawyer makes it more difficult to avoid schadenfreude. I can’t help but wonder if Vanessa wants out of the marriage right now because she has reason to believe that there’s an asset forfeiture conviction in Don Jr’s future.
I haven’t used this maxim in several months, but it’s truer than ever – everything Trump touches turns to shit. I wonder how many Trump marriages will survive this presidency. If you were betting on the next Trump divorce, though, the best odds would probably be on the POTUS and FLOTUS.
Word on the street is that the Trumps intended to divorce in 2016. Melania had done her duty as a trophy wife, but after eleven years, she was getting a bit long in the tooth. Allegedly, she and Donald had a pre-nuptial agreement, a non-disclosure agreement, and were planning to file right after Trump lost the election. And then disaster struck – for Melania, as well as for the entire country. This scenario would certainly explain Melania’s sour look in so many photos over the past fifteen months.
Then, as if the normal FLOTUS obligations weren’t enough, the Stormy Daniels story broke last month. Daniels has treated Trump like Trump treats everyone else. She and her attorney, Michael Avenatti, are playing Trump like a fiddle, dropping new hints and allegations every couple of days. Does Donald Trump like to be spanked? Did he maintain contact with Stormy even after he moved into the White House? How many other women did Trump cheat with?
Avenatti told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that six additional women have contacted him with stories similar to the one Stormy tells about Donald Trump. He noted that those stories haven’t been vetted yet, but in Trumpworld, that doesn’t matter. Whoever these women are, they’re now a part of the Trump narrative, just like his boasts about lying to Justin Trudeau and his crazy story about Japanese auto manufacturers using a bowling ball to test the durability of cars.
But I digress. I was talking about adultery. As of mid-March, we know about Trump’s adulterous relationships with Stormy Daniels, with 1998 Playmate of the Year Karen McDougal, and with Avenatti’s six anonymous women. Now we’re up to eight adulterous affairs during Trump’s third marriage. The Rev. Franklin Graham will have to work overtime at the mulligan factory to keep up with these new revelations.
On the one hand, it’s hard to imagine that Melania was surprised by her husband’s infidelity, or even that she cared much. She knew what she was getting into when she married Trump, except for the part about having to be First Lady. On the other hand, it can’t be pleasant to have your husband’s affairs rubbed in your face on a daily basis, especially if you’d expected to be a free woman by now.
Maybe as a part of Donald Trump’s spring White House personnel shakeup, he’ll let Melania go as well. She’d probably be grateful.
While Trump doesn’t want to talk about Stormy Daniels, he’s decided it’s time to talk about Robert Mueller. For the first time in memory, he used Mueller’s name in a tweet: “Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently added...does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!”
Donald Trump wants answers, and I’m here to help. Let’s analyze that tweet.
I’m not sure what a “hardened Democrat” is. It sounds kind of Freudian, especially coming from Trump. But he’s wrong about there being “Zero” Republicans on the Special Counsel’s team. You know who’s a Republican? Robert Mueller, that’s who. The decorated Marine, career FBI man, and Republican. The same Republican Robert Mueller who was appointed by Republican Rod Rosenstein, who was in turn appointed by Republican Donald J. Trump. For a full rundown on Mueller’s team and their political affiliations, see the link below.
Next, Trump asks if anyone thinks this is fair? The answer to that is yes. I think it’s fair. And I’m not the only one. As the Washington Post notes, “The special counsel team is composed of veteran white-collar lawyers and prosecutors who are among the most respected in the legal world. They have a broad range of experience in fraud, public corruption, cyber and terrorism cases. Legal analysts have said previously that they could see no significant legal or ethical concerns with the team members' political giving, and they noted that Justice Department policies prohibit discrimination in hiring for career positions on the basis of politics.”
Trump closes his tweet with “there is NO COLLUSION!” I say BULLSHIT. There was obvious collusion, including a public statement from Donald Trump, Jared’s attempts to establish backchannel communications, and Don Jr’s emails – all matters of public record. As if that weren’t enough, for crying out loud, Mueller has already obtained guilty pleas from members of the Trump campaign.
Beyond that, in using the word “collusion” (even in all caps), Trump is employing a semantic dodge. “Collusion” isn’t a legal term for the purposes of this investigation. Mueller’s team is trying to determine whether the Trump campaign received any illegal foreign donations of money and/or services, and whether anyone from his campaign or one of his businesses collaborated with Russians during the election. The answer is almost certainly yes.
With “COLLUSION” being pretty much a done deal, we should also turn to the other main focus of Mueller’s investigation, which Trump conveniently avoids mentioning – obstruction of justice. Evidence for obstruction includes: Trump asking James Comey to drop his investigation of Mike Flynn, firing Comey when he refused, bragging to Russian agents that he fired Comey to take pressure off the “Russia thing,” helping Don Jr. lie about his meeting with Russian agents, publicly shaming his Attorney General for refusing to fire Mueller, and tweeting a continuous barrage of demonstrably false statements about the Special Counsel’s investigation.
Frankly, WHAT Trump and his minions did is pretty obvious. They’re not very bright, and they left a trail of clues that was easy to follow. My sense is that Mueller has largely wrapped up the WHAT part of his investigation and is now focused on WHY they did it, and why Trump has tried so hard to stop the investigation.
As I understand it, in order to bring a successful obstruction of justice case, Mueller has to provide evidence that Trump knew that his actions were wrong or illegal. That’s why the Trump Organization’s financial records are relevant. That may not be where the answer lies, but Mueller has to check. Checking takes time. I’m as anxious as anyone for more indictments, but I trust Mueller.
Now that I’ve answered Donald Trump’s two questions, I have a couple of my own.
If you don’t believe that the evidence shows that Trump was attempting to obstruct justice, tell me this. If he were trying to obstruct justice, what would he do differently?
If Trump is innocent, why does he act so guilty?