FATHER LEFT, HE NEVER EVEN MARRIED MOM
In a week of surprises, the most surprising news might be that there is at least a semi-credible possibility that Donald Trump fathered a child “out of wedlock” with his housekeeper back in the 1980s. That would have been when he was married to his first wife, Ivana. I’m not surprised that Trump committed adultery. He seems to have done that regularly, whichever wife he happened to be married to at the time. I’m not surprised that some of his liaisons resulted in pregnancies. That’s what happens when you refuse to use condoms. No, the only surprise is that the mother resisted the pressure from Trump’s fixers to abort the child.
(I put the phrase “out of wedlock” in quotes because it strikes me as incredibly quaint. But it’s better than “love child” because I seriously doubt that any love was involved. And it’s better than “illegitimate child” or “bastard,” because those terms are pejorative, and imply that the kid was to blame somehow. Donald Trump is the only bastard in this scenario.)
I’m not surprised that Donald Trump was willing to listen to Steve Bannon’s harebrained scheme to declare Trump’s only real lawyer, Ty Cobb, to be incompetent. After that, Bannon said, Trump should claim that because he got bad legal advice, Mueller shouldn’t be able to use the emails and other documentation the White House turned over to the Special Counsel. Instead, Trump should assert a retroactive claim of executive privilege over everything. And then basically burn the Department of Justice down to the ground. Fire Sessions, Rosenstein, Mueller, and even Trump’s handpicked FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Cooler heads seem to have prevailed, at least for the moment. But Trump issued an expression of confidence in Ty Cobb, which is often the kiss of death. If Cobb is kicked to the curb, Trump’s entire legal team will consist of his New York fixers and Fox News commentators.
I think what Trump would really like is to fire James Comey again. I’m a little surprised that after hearing about the possibility of issuing retroactive orders, it hasn’t occurred to Trump that he should fire Comey retroactively as of January 20, 2017, and then declare that the whole obstruction of justice narrative has just been invalidated. So far, though, Trump has settled for calling Comey an “untruthful slimeball.”
Takes one to know one, as kids used to say.
And while we’re on the subject of Trump’s tendency to project, I’m also not surprised to learn that Michael Cohen is threatening to plead the Fifth Amendment in future legal proceedings against him. Ah, the good old Fifth Amendment. Perhaps you remember that Donald Trump said at two separate campaign rallies in September, 2016, “If you are not guilty of a crime, what do you need immunity for? The mob takes the Fifth Amendment. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”
It probably won’t make much difference if Cohen takes the Fifth. What the hell, big fella, take all the amendments you want. Take the entire Constitution. You were dumb enough to tape your conversations, and now the FBI has those tapes. You’re screwed.
(And oh, by the way, it’s a matter of public record that Donald Trump pleaded the Fifth Amendment 97 times in 1990, in legal depositions related to his divorce from Ivana. I have a feeling that won’t be the last time Trump pleads the Fifth.)
The truth is, Trump and his legal advisors are grasping at straws. They’re reduced to floating every crackpot idea they can think of. They know that Fox will parrot the party line, and that national news outlets will at least repeat their talking points, even if they balance their reporting with skepticism from legitimate legal scholars. They’re down to one strategy – obfuscation. Cry fake news at every opportunity to keep the Base on your side, and count on the Base to keep congressional Republicans cowering in their offices.
It’s a strategy that has served them well so far. The depressing thing is that a third of the electorate believes whatever Trump says. On the other hand, that means that two thirds of the country knows bullshit when they hear it.
Speaking of which, here’s the latest from our very stable genius of a president: “DOJ just issued the McCabe report - which is a total disaster. He LIED! LIED! LIED! McCabe was totally controlled by Comey - McCabe is Comey!! No collusion, all made up by this den of thieves and lowlifes!”
Takes one to know one, as the kids used to say.