in his Washington Post column for Friday, whose title is the question, What if Mueller catches Trump — and it isn’t enough?
Here are his opening two paragraphs:
We need to prepare for the eventuality that the Mueller probe catches President Trump, family members and associates red-handed — and Republicans in Congress refuse to do anything about it.
This is beginning to look like a possible or even probable outcome. With a cravenness matched only by its arrogance, the GOP is Trump’s party now. It no longer has any claim to be Lincoln’s.
And before I proceed on this line, let me add some relevant breaking news:
We have to remember that Republicans still have control over most of the levers that could stop further action against Trump, and have increasingly been showing a willingness to pull them.
Robinson is writing in the context of Roy Moore and Trump endorsing him, and also of the Democrats drawing the line on their political office holders with issues of improper sexual actions while the Republican remain silent. As Robinson writes,
Given that context, it is naive to assume that anything special counsel Robert S. Mueller III uncovers will lead Republicans to choose principle over political advantage. Trump boasted during the campaign that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose support. As far as the GOP majorities in Congress are concerned, he may be right.
Robinson thinks Trump is counting on that, and looks to things in the President’s Twitter feed undermining Mueller (something that we see also in right wing media figures such as Hannity), to support that, as well as the statements by the likes of Trump attorney Jay Sekulow that collusion with the Russians would not be a crime (although I note that the simple act of receiving stolen electronic communications knowing they were illegally obtained would be).
Robinson goes on to address the ridiculous claim by Donald Trump Jr about privilege, and notes it may be a result of bad legal advice, while noting that others (notably the Attorney General) are simply stonewalling Congressional investigators. He goes on to say that the Congressional committees could compel testimony, but that given what we have seen from the Republicans in charge (even without Nunes), he would not hold his breath.
And, I ask, if Nunes goes back in charge of the Intelligence Committee?
Robinson thinks even in that case we have something to restort to — we can elect a Democratic Congress. But now, before I go to his final paragraph, allow me to offer a caveat to that proposition, or rather a series of caveats:
1. Would not Trump try to disqualify as many Democratic leaning voters as he could a la his commission headed by Kris Kobach?
2. Might Trump create a sufficient international incident (for example, starting a war with North Korea), to try to either get the country to rally behind him or even perhaps to use it as an excuse to declare a national emergency and cancel the elections while the Republican still hold power? Is that in fact so far fetched?
In my mind, the real barrier to that is that the current leadership of the military might not go along with any of that. And any attempt to cancel the election??? I suspect that enough Republicans in the House (where a discharge petition with 218 signatures can free up proposed bills) would join with all of the Democrats and impeachment might well become a reality. Getting to 2/3 in the Senate is a more difficult proposition, but one that I believe in such a case Mitch McConnell would be willing to pursue.
And now I return to Robinson, to his final paragraph, which contains a stark warning:
The Trump presidency poses a challenge beyond politics or policy. Wrongheaded trickle-down tax policy is a matter of arithmetic; it can be corrected by moving numbers around a spreadsheet. But once corruption has become established, it takes herculean effort to root it out; once respect for the rule of law is lost, it takes generations to restore.
We are seeing a massive expansion of corruption. It is political to be sure. It is also financial, given the actions being taken in tax policy, in rolling back environmental protections, and so on.
It is becoming a truly frightening time on this 76th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
And as I finish, Rachel is telling people that the Judge in the Flynn case is now recused from the case, but we do not yet know why.