In a piece describing Donald Trump's incessant whining to his staff about election woes and his staff's continued efforts to gaslight him into thinking he's ahead in the polls rather than face another one of his screaming fits, the Trump whisperers at The New York Times bring us this tidbit from inside Trump's team: "In unguarded moments, Mr. Trump has for weeks told advisers that he expects to face intensifying scrutiny from prosecutors if he loses. He is concerned not only about existing investigations in New York, but the potential for new federal probes as well, according to people who have spoken with him."
Yeah. Ya think? Ya THINK?
There's all the investigations that Attorney General William Barr has personally squashed or slow-walked in an attempt to let Trump's various crime-doing loyalists off the hook. There's four years worth of press reporting on things in Trump's taxes that look, smell, and taste like fraud. There's the charges brought up in impeachment—which implicate a few of Trump's cabinet members in an international extortion scheme, and that’s not going to just go away if Trump slouches off toward Mar-a-Lago.
Unfortunately for Trump, even though he knows that keeping the presidency is the only way to hold back a tide of criminal investigations, he's still too scatterbrained and incompetent to mount a reelection bid not dependent on mass public delusion. Yeah, that stuff is going to come up just as soon as you lose presidential immunities. Golf clap for you, buddy, for figuring it out.
If Trump loses, and let us presume for a moment that he does, it seems almost certain that his close-of-office action will be blanket pardons to himself, his family, everyone he knows, and anyone who's ever cut him a check for eeeeeverything. That'll be what's on the pardon proclamation: "I pardon myself and these other people for absolutely all crimes, including all the stuff nobody found out about yet."
It might actually work, for federal crimes. The states? Not so much.
I still say there is a damn good chance Donald J. Trump becomes the first American president to flee prosecution and ask for foreign asylum. Air Force One could make it to Moscow without refueling, right? Honestly, we'd probably tell Putin to keep the plane while he's at it—we'd just be that thrilled to be rid of him.
Then again, there are other possibilities as well:
That seems literally too stupid a premise to believe, but this is Donald Trump we’re talking about. He is an accused rapist, tax cheat, pedophile, money launderer, and extortionist already; using the U.S. Army to hold the nation hostage for immunity negotiations isn’t quite out of the realm of possibilities for this fascist jackass.