When the first question being asked of potential candidates for 2020 is “Do you support impeachment right now?” it seems like a good distraction is in order. Over the last few days, Trump has tried playing his hand with the same kind of blowhard bluster that has seen him through most occasions, even lecturing the kids who came to the White House Easter Egg Roll about how he had made the economy just ... the best. But with his poll numbers on a slide and the impeachment discussion moving from “if” to “when,” Trump clearly needs bigger, better distractions.
So on Wednesday morning, he ran through accusing the U.K. of spying on him, threatening war on Mexico, and promising to use the Supreme Court to solidify his position as a literally unimpeachable dictator. All of which the major media will now report as if it’s a partisan scuffle. Pass the popcorn.
Trump’s Wednesday morning tweets included an accusation that the U.K. had worked with President Obama to “Spy on the 2016 Trump Presidential Campaign.” The source for this claim was, incredibly enough, “Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson.” If that name rings an ugly bell, think of him as “Larry Johnson—that guy who said there was a ‘Whitey Tape’ featuring Michelle Obama.”
However, apparently worried that this level of crazy wasn’t crazy enough, Trump followed an hour later by declaring that “Mexico’s Soldiers” recently pulled guns on our National Guard Soldiers, probably as a diversionary tactic for drug smugglers on the Border.” The actual incident apparently involved two National Guardsmen who wandered south of the border fence, encountered a handful of Mexican troops, and had a discussion about whether or not they were still in Texas. One of the Mexican soldiers appears to have asked one of the guardsmen to hand over his weapon, which he put into the guardsmen’s vehicle. That’s it. But for Trump, it’s all the excuse he needs to threaten a literal shooting war with America’s southern neighbor, saying that he is sending “armed soldiers” to the border … while apparently failing to note that the guardsmen in question were already armed.
But then, as happens so often, Trump trumped himself. In a series of tweets about the Mueller report, Trump declared that if “partisan Dems” tried to impeach him, he would “head to the U.S. Supreme Court.” Because Trump now wants to take everything to Justice Beer.
Yesterday Trump tweeted that the Mueller report cost $30 million. Today he claimed $35 million. That’s quite a rate of inflation.
But it’s not as steep as the inflationary rate of Trump’s rhetoric. Included in his morning tweets were:
- “It is now finally time to turn the tables and bring justice to some very sick and dangerous people who have committed very serious crimes, perhaps even Spying or Treason.”
- “All of the Crimes were committed by Crooked Hillary, the Dems, the DNC and Dirty Cops - and we caught them in the act!”
- “We waited for Mueller and WON, so now the Dems look to Congress as last hope!”
Trump never makes clear just why he would head for the Supreme Court, but his position seems to be that since Barr gave him a waiver on obstruction and obstruction, and those precious DOJ rules spared him a charge of conspiracy, he could run to the court and it would tell the Democrats no, they are not allowed to impeach Trump.
This would be counter to a 1993 ruling that declared impeachment a political matter in which the court had no say. But since the court is now full of “traditionalists” who are willing to throw out every precedent, it’s not at all clear that that ruling or other past positions would keep Kavanaugh and Co. from declaring that Trump is literally unimpeachable.
