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Regarding Giuliani’s traveling clown show of interviews on Monday, Chris Cillizza makes an important point. 

“The biggest misconception surrounding the special counsel probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election is that it will likely end in some sort of legal proceeding involving President Donald Trump. It won’t — for a bunch of reasons, the most important of which is that Robert Mueller, who is running the investigation, doesn’t seem to believe a sitting President can be indicted.”

“The much more likely outcome is that Mueller releases the findings from his investigation sometime this fall — and lets the chips, as they relate to Trump, fall where they may. Which means — and this is what Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani have understood for months — that, ultimately, this isn’t a legal fight, it’s a public relations one.”

Cillizza is correct-Trump and Giuliani aren’t playing a legal strategy but a political one. On the indictment there is some debate if a ‘President’ can be indicted-it’s not clear actually that s/he can’t be, just that until now it’s been the practice-the precedent-that they haven’t been. On the other hand, I do agree that the ultimate verdict on Russian interference in our 2016 election and the Trump campaign’s role is for Americans themselves to make.

As Giuliani himself has been saying for months, the real question is to impeach or not to impeach. 

UPDATE: So I wrote this back in early August 2018 and over a year later-today is August 11, 2019 Cillizza was correct-Mueller indeed didn’t believe Trump-or even a legitimate President-can be indicted because of the-quite dubious-DOJ regulation. Mueller did not render his verdict in the fall but the following spring but Cillizza was right on substance.

I do think too much of the #Resistance failed to manage expectations-you can see from the record-the chapters I wrote long before Mueller finished that I never invested too much hope in the idea that after the SC submitted his report the fake ‘President’ would be escorted out of the WH in handcuffs-as pleasing and poetic as this scenario is for a guy who lead Lock Her UP chants against Hillary Clinton the night we learned his own #MagaBomber had sent Clinton a pipe bomb.

Indeed, the case that the President-or ‘President’ can’t be indicted is not very compelling either legally-and even less morally.  But it was pretty clear Mueller would never stand against DOJ precedent that aggressively.

And by fanning the flames that Trump or even his kids were imminently going to prison, the very fact that this didn’t happen was treated by the Ken Dilanians of the world as TOTAL EXONERATION TOTAL VINDICATION NO COLLUSION NO OBSTRUCTION!

Again that Don Jr didn’t go to prison doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have-and it remains an unanswered question-Mueller wouldn’t touch it at his hearing-as to why Jr was not charged for what seems like a clear campaign violation-the notion that he didn’t realize it was against the law is odd as a basic legal premise of our system is that ignorance isn’t an excuse. 

Indeed, Mueller would never answer this question but nevertheless it needs to be asked and analyzed: did Mueller essentially decide that the DOJ precedent against indicting a ‘President’ extended to his namesake son, daughter, and son-in-law?

The big picture is, however, is that this was always about impeachment not indictment-and rightfully so. One big difference I-the Impeachment Train guy (find link)-had with many in the #Resistance is that I’ve always believed impeachment is more important-an indictment is about Trump the so-called man but impeachment is about his so-called Presidency-which is what matters to us as Americans-what he’s done to the Office more than Individual One. Again this is not because I don’t think he deserves to be indicted-I like the noises Kamala Harris has made here-if he’s out in 2020 he should be charged-as he directed Michael Cohen who carried out his schemes not for his own benefit but for the fake ‘President.’

End of UPDATE.

 

Back to Cillizza:

“Like Giuliani more or less admitted in a May interview that ‘Spygate’ may have been fake news but it’s import was influencing public opinion. In this sense there are two ways of looking at the Mueller investigation. When Trump calls it a ‘witch hunt’ this is literally, factually, totally false. But the other track-and this the one Trump and Rudy care about-is the political track. Calling it a witch hunt is empirically false and despicable but if they can convince enough Americans of it then their work is done.”

Cillizza argues that their strategy to delegitimize the Muller investigation in the eyes of public opinion is working. 

“In a CBS News poll released earlier this week, 70% of Republicans described the Mueller probe as a “witch hunt.” That same poll showed that more than nine in 10 “strong Trump supporters” trust Trump for “accurate information” as compared to 63% who trust “family and friends” and 11% who trust the “mainstream media.”

“Need more? In March, roughly three in 10 Republicans approved of Robert Mueller in CNN polling. By May, that number was down to 17% approval. That data is backed up by other polls. Last July, a Politico/Morning Consult survey showed that 27% of Republicans had an unfavorable view of Mueller. By this June, that number was 53%.”

“Mock all the “no collusion” and “collusion isn’t even a crime” comments if you want. But remember that a big chunk of people already believe — before Mueller has released a single final finding — that his whole probe is a partisan witch hunt that should never have been started in the first place. Short of Mueller producing an email from Trump saying “Yes, let’s collude with Russia ASAP!” those people will not change their view — either on Mueller or Trump. (In truth, even if Mueller did produce an email from Trump that clearly showed collusion with the Russians, I’m not sure that would change the base’s view.)

“That’s the secret Trump and Giuliani know — and have been executing against for months. And like it or not, it’s working.”

I agree with Cillizza’s analysis-clearly this is the game they are playing: of ‘alternative facts’ of ‘our facts vs your facts’ of as Rudes puts it ‘we both have our own version of events and we’ll see what the American people say.’

But it’s too soon to yet say if it’s working or not. Ok, clearly it’s working with Trump’s base. Lately you’ve heard a lot about the opinion of Trump’s base. As Nate Silver noted recently, in 2016 everyone was talking about the independents but now it’s all about Republican voters. So no matter what the latest bombshell, many in the MSM right away pivot to asking if this will move the Trump base. The answer is that by definition no-the Trump base will always be with Trump-just as Nixon’s base was always with Nixon-but that what you define as his base is fluid. Often you hear that 40% of the country is with Trump. But I don’t believe that  the entire 40% that at least somewhat say they approve of Trump are really his base.

Much of that 40% is soft support. Indeed, the reason Trump’s approval has hovered around 40% rather than 30% or 20% is largely thanks to the GOP that-before they simply shutdown the Russia investigation and declaring ‘there was no evidence of collusion’ though they didn’t even look-conducted it totally behind closed doors-and what they did there wasn’t much of an investigation. Their method for determining if collusion happened was to ask Donald Jr, Jared Kushner, or Michael Cohen colluded and when they denied it concluded ‘Well there you are Democrats-we investigated it and there was no collusion.’

But unlike Watergate, Iran-Contra, and even fake scandals like Whitewater, Benghazi, etc-the hearings were totally behind closed doors. And this has no doubt kept Trump’s numbers from sinking too far. Adam Schiff related to Rachel Maddow back in early March that after Comey publicly revealed the counterintelligence investigation into Trump/Russia in a House Intelligence Committee hearing , to a man, the GOP members all one by one came to him and complained that it was an awful day. What made it so awful? Because it embarrassed and hurt so-called ‘President Trump’ politically.

That’s when Devin Nunes-unfortunately the Chairman of the intel Committee-sprang into action, colluding with the WH on leaking classified info in an attempt to accuse Susan Rice of doing something wrong, somehow-the ‘unmasking’ furor, though she went by the book.

After that there were no more public hearings on Trump-Russia. And this has worked, if you wonder why Trump’s approval is 40% rather than 30% or 20% a major part of it is that the investigation was kept behind closed doors before it was prematurely shutdown.

UPDATE: My conjecture would be borne out by the exit polls from election day as we saw in (Chapter A). While 43% approved and 54% disapproved of Trump per exist polls, 46% disapproved strongly while only 22%  strongly approved. 

And this brings us to November’s upcoming election. It is the most important of our lives-Joe Scarborough is right:

Cillizza’s claim that Rudy and Trump’s alternative fact campaign is working is premature. The verdict will be in November, you can make the case that the true verdict for the Mueller investigation will be what happens in November. If, God forbid, the GOP retains the House-and Devin Nunes remains Chairman-then you can say Trump has won. Then you can be sure that whenever Mueller’s report is released the GOP will say ‘Ok, good thorough job, but there is no evidence of collusion’ and file it away and that will be the end of that-Trump’s illegitimate reign will be consolidated.

On the other hand, if the Dems take the House then Trump sees his worst nightmare come to pass-Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler on the House Judiciary Committee getting subpoena power. Ted Lieu having subpoena power.

Which is why we simply can’t fail in November-we can, we must, and because we must, we will win the House, we will have a check on Trump, we will follow the facts where they lead in the investigation, and we will #MakeAmericaLegitimateAgain.

Like President Obama warned in 2016 but this time we must heed ‘democracy is on the ballot!’

UPDATE: I think it’s fair to say that on balance Trump’s strategy hasn’t worked as Americans voted to empower his opposition who can now partner with Mueller in investigating what happened in that election.

P.S. Avenatti also saw Cillizza’s piece.

And all of this is not to say that Giuliani is not a train wreck. He most certainly is and in a way that could really hurt illegitimate ‘President Trump.’

UPDATE: Ok so over a year later how do things look? First of all-even I now have to admit it, Avenatti turned out to be a trainwreck in his own right. Still the legacy of Avenatti and Stormy Daniels itself is important-it was Cohen’s payments to Daniels-and Karen McDougal-that sent Cohen to prison for three years and leave Trump an unindicted co-conspirator-will he ever be indicted? He needs to be by the House whatever Pelosi’s political consultants are telling her.

We got our Democratic Congress we got Nadler-Schiff-Lieu their subpoena power yet many of us remain frustrated as the Dems overall haven’t moved that aggressively-which is not to say the chief blame resides with trifecta above-Schiff did a masterful job in the HSPCI hearing with Mueller and Nadler is clearly now full speed ahead on impeachment-but how much is Pelosi still holding tying his shoes together?

To use Alanis Morissete’s words isn’t it ironic that the only Mitch McConnell and Trump himself seem less interested in impeaching the MFer than Nancy Pelosi?

Is she simply setting herself up as the reluctant impeacher so that when they do impeach it will maximize moral authority or is she America’s Neville Chamberlain to Trump’s Adolph Hitler?

Again it’s clear to an illegitimate ‘President’ that Nadler is there-he’s now pushing the gas on impeachment. 

We’re right in the middle of it. But what about the Speaker? Is she determined to run out the clock her indignant denials notwithstanding?

 

It’s clear that whatever her feelings or ultimate plan is, she’s given her blessing to this kind of ‘Don’t call it an impeachment inquiry it’s an impeachment investigation.’

But the very fact that they really are now in the middle of an impeachment inquiry but the headlines and the mood of the MSM totally belie it make you ask if they’re doing it wrong. One of the virtues of an impeachment inquiry is that you take back the media cycle-but clearly Trump is dominating the cycle as much as he ever has-this is due to the clandestine, guilty way the Dems are proceeding-they are doing an impeachment inquiry but don’t want anyone to know it.

As for my own conjecture which I made a number of times in this book-that public hearings will cut his support from the low 40s to the low 20s time will tell. No doubt many pundits would presume at this point that’s a fantasy-clearly nothing will move his numbers which are completely priced in.

This is empirically false-when Trump forced that destructive and absurd government shutdown in January it did hurt his numbers so it’s not true to say nothing will move the needle. Now wether or not a concerted and targeted impeachment inquiry with public hearings can move the needle remains to be seen-my hypothesis is that it will. But this question can’t be answered either way until these public impeachment hearings actually begin.

So far we’ve had two meaningful public hearings-Michael Cohen in March and Mueller’s testimony in July. So to say that my conjecture has been disproven is premature-to prove public impeachment hearings-that don’t totally disguise themselves-can’t hurt Trump’s numbers you actually need to have the hearings first.

 

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