Trump Is Losing It

(Door Hugo Kijne te Hoboken USA)

According to the latest leaks out of the White House, President Trump is obsessed with Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the US elections and possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign.  It has reached the point where Trump spends a significant amount of time every morning at 6:30 am calling his lawyers and ranting about Mueller’s probe.  His staff appears to encourage this ritual, thinking that as long as Trump is on the phone he is not tweeting, and as long as he is speaking with his lawyers he is not talking to the press.   The president, however, still has enough time left in the day to do serious damage to himself.  Yesterday, meeting a deadline of the House Intelligence Committee, he finally tweeted what everybody already knew: that there are no tapes of his conversations with James Comey.  Later, in an interview with Fox News, he explained that he had suggested that there might be recordings to affect Comey’s testimony to Congress and the FBI, an attempt at witness intimidation that is illegal per US Code 18 section 1512.

So instead of helping himself Trump confessed to at least a misdemeanor, but the damage doesn’t stop there.  Comey has already testified that because of the possibility there might be tapes he leaked one of the memos describing his meetings with Trump to the New York Times, revealing that Trump had attempted to obstruct justice by asking him to ‘let go’ of Michael Flynn.  By firing Comey Trump’s obstruction of justice became public, and by using a memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as the reason for firing Comey he caused Rosenstein to appoint Mueller as Special Counsel.  Not surprisingly, Trump is not happy with Mueller.  He calls the investigation a ‘witch hunt’ and Mueller’s friendship with Comey ‘bothersome.’  According to Trump all the lawyers Mueller has hired to conduct the investigation are Clinton supporters who donated heavily to Democratic candidates, something Trump himself did to the tune of at least half a million dollar.  And as stupid as it would be, there is still a chance that Trump will try to have Mueller fired.

In the meantime more information about the Russian interference has become available.  According to the highest classified US intelligence Putin himself gave the instruction to skew the election in Trump’s favor by doing maximum damage to Hillary Clinton.  As Comey revealed, Trump never showed any interest in the facts about this attack on US democracy.  He called it ‘a hoax’ and only asked for public statements denying collusion.

Collusion may never be proven, in spite of Flynn’s, Sessions’s and Kushner’s frequent contacts with Russians, but that may not be Trump’s main concern.  Mueller’s team will also investigate the financial ties between the Trump Organization and Russia, and may very well uncover money laundering schemes in which Trump’s oldest children played a part.

With so much to worry about Trump has no time to govern.  He has delegated all military decisions to Mattis and health care to Mitch McConnell, who drafted a law that breaks every promise Trump ever made.  Jared Kushner is responsible for the rest of the world.

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