It’s not the mistakes we make in life - it’s what we do to fix them that really matters.
D. J. Trump has an uncanny ability to step in the deepest shit imaginable and then to speak and act in public as if he doesn’t smell bad —not because the shit doesn’t stick or stink — but because in his mind, it never happened.
While off stage and behind the scenes he is furiously lathered in perfumed hand sanitizer and a host antiseptic steam cleaners go to work to preserve his illusion that it never even happened. This ability to misstep and then cover his tracks is arguably Trump’s greatest strength. This is not teflon — its magic.
The July 25th phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is a prime example of Trump misstepping and then immediately behind the scenes taking furious deliberate action to try to clean up the mess he has made. This time it may not work.
We have not yet seen the whistleblower’s complaint about Trump’s call to Zelenskiy, but the gist of the matter seems to be Trump actively holding back US military aid to Ukraine in exchange for a Ukrainian investigation of the Biden family. The subtext seems clear — that military aid would be held back pending the manufacture of politically useful dirt on Trump’s leading Democratic challenger. That seems like the sort of ‘deal’ Trump would try to make. Reports suggest he insisted on that ‘about 8 times’ in the call.
When the call was over, someone must have told the pResident that his attempt to strong arm his Ukrainian counterpart was problematic — that someone on the national security staff who overheard the call could report Trump’s abuse of power to congress.
Three days later, on Sunday July 28th the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats was fired. Coats deputy Sue Gordon was the next in line for the job, but Trump angled to bypass Gordon and attempted to install a loyalist, John Ratcliffe, a third-term Republican from Texas. That ploy quickly foundered as the former prosecutor lacked the required National Security experience. Gordon the acting DNI was then compelled to resign. Coats and Gordon were subsequently replaced with Joseph Maguire, who assumed the role of Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on Aug. 16, 2019.
The whistleblower complaint was filed on August 12th.
Coats and Gordon conveniently out of the picture.
John Bolton is fired (or resigned) as National Security Advisor on Sept 10th. Makes me wonder if the whistleblower was a member of his staff.
On Sept. 13, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff issued a subpoena to Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to compel the production of a whistleblower complaint.
DNI Coats was probably on his way out anyway, but the timing of his dismissal and Gordon’s is perhaps telling. The DNI is the one person who could quash the whistleblower complaint and Trump’s hand picked replacement in consultation with AG William Barr has done just that.
Trump is not smart enough or knowledgeable enough to have fixed this problem on his own. Barr appears to be his fixer and enabler in chief.
This abuse of power and the coverup are in my view two clear and unambiguous reasons to immediately impeach both the pResident and the Attorney General.