Trump, Sessions and America's looming constitutional crisis (Edward Luce, Financial Times)

[swag]

Last edited Wed Jul 26, 2017, 02:33 PM - Edit history (1)

https://amp.ft.com/content/15120db2-71d7-11e7-aca6-c6bd07df1a3c

The guns of August are cocked and ready. Donald Trump is wondering aloud whether to fire his attorney-general, Jeffrey Sessions. Coming from the top, such speculation can only end in Mr Sessions’ departure. The US president is also musing about who will rid him of the troublesome special counsel, Robert Mueller. That, too, must eventually end in Mr Mueller’s exit. Both are a question of timing. My hunch is August. But it could be months away. Or tomorrow.

The point is that Mr Trump will do what he must to block the investigation. His latest escalation was triggered by Mr Mueller’s decision to broaden his probe to include the Trump Organisation’s financial dealings with Russia. Washington gossips have speculated that Vladimir Putin possesses lurid tapes of Mr Trump. The idea of such “kompromat” might ignite our prurience. But it always seemed far-fetched. In contrast, there is ample cause to scrutinise Mr Trump’s history of business dealings with Russian counterparts.

The further Mr Mueller progresses, the more Mr Trump panics. His reactions betray his motives. No reasonable observer could conclude that Mr Trump is willing to open his books. Having refused to release his tax returns, he risks a constitutional crisis to stop US law enforcement officers from looking into his business dealings. The two are obviously connected. Sooner or later, serious investigators end up following the money. Mr Mueller is nothing if not thorough. Mr Trump is nothing if not ruthless.

It can only result in a collision. The question is whether the US republic can walk away unscathed. Comparisons with Watergate are often facile. But Richard Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre” in October 1973 is too pressing a parallel to ignore. Elliot Richardson, his attorney-general, resigned after he had refused to dismiss the special prosecutor, Archibald Cox. Then the deputy attorney-general, William Ruckelshaus, stepped down for the same reason. Only on the third try could Nixon find an official pliable enough to do his bidding. That man was Robert Bork.

Mr Trump faces the same problem. Having recused himself from anything related to the Russia investigations, Mr Sessions does not have the authority to fire Mr Mueller. But his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, is unlikely to do so either. It was he who appointed Mr Mueller after having fired James Comey, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in May. Mr Trump is thus busy smearing both Mr Sessions and Mr Rosenstein. He is preparing his base for the purge to come. Say what you like about Mr Trump, but he is easier to read than a traffic light.

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[kimbutgar]

1. I see our government collapsing before 2018 and the constitution nullified

fulfilling the Koch wet dream.

Blue states will become independent of the federal government. 45 is the last POTUS of the US.

[Moral Compass]

2. Wish it was that simple

An edifice the size of the U.S. government doesn't just collapse and pieces of it reform into separate independent provinces.

There's a lot of people with a lot of guns, but aside from a few militias there's no organization out there to fill the vacuum.

We'll stay together but I'm afraid that it will be as a totalitarian autocracy with the families like the Trumps, the Kochs, the Gates, the Buffets, the Waltons becoming our aristocracy.

The Constitution will continue to be given lip service, but not really obeyed in any real sense.

I see a more extreme version of today emerging. It can all be traced back to a collapse of civic virtue in the rich and the death of shame.