New Yorker: The Ineptitude of Donald Trump's Co-Conspirators

[teach1st]

The Ineptitude of Donald Trump’s Co-Conspirators
The New Yorker, Adam Davidson, 12/8/2018

It is no longer journalistically sound to report on the Trump investigation as if it is a matter that may, or may not, yield damning information about the President. In a series of filings that came Friday night, the office of the special counsel Robert Mueller, and a separate group of federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, laid out evidence that, taken together, leaves little doubt that Donald Trump sought to use his candidacy to enrich himself by approving a plan to curry political favor from Vladimir Putin in exchange for a lucrative real-estate opportunity.

It may be only part of the full story, but what we now know is a powerful tale that combines elements that are familiar from other Trumpworld scandals. It is, at once, shockingly corrupt, blatantly unethical, probably illegal, yet, at the same time, shabby, small, and ineptly executed.

...

There is much discussion about the fact that Trump’s core followers and, therefore, nearly all Republican elected officials, will support him no matter what. That may be true, though polling data does suggest that, when the public learns of bad acts, Trump’s support falls, and, when things are quiet for a while, it rises. There are complex political and even psychological processes that will determine whether Trump will be removed from office in disgrace or will go on to a second term.

Mueller’s filings do mark a different sort of end. We are at the end of reasonable debate about whether Trump is hopelessly compromised. As Mueller’s filings encircle the President, the special counsel surely knows he is at ever-greater risk of being fired. Presumably, he wouldn’t have released memorandums as damning as these if he weren’t prepared to make a fuller case. Each filing fills in the over-all picture in ever more granular detail. It seems reasonable to assume that we haven’t yet learned the most disturbing facts. But, even if we learn nothing more, we are already in an unbearable condition. The President of the United States knowingly and eagerly participated in a scheme with a hostile foreign leader who he knew was seeking to influence the Presidential election. Trump sought to profit politically and financially, many of his closest subordinates executed this effort, and he then was aware of and, it seems likely, encouraged an illegal effort to hide these facts. His reckless, unpatriotic actions have left him compromised by at least one but likely many foreign powers and have left his election open to reasonable questions about its legitimacy. And, every day, he sets policies and makes decisions that have an impact on the lives of all Americans and the fortunes of the very autocrats who hold sway over him. It cannot stand.

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[PJMcK]

1. This is a powerful condemnation of Trump

I highly suggest reading the full article. It's detailed and compelling.

Thanks for the link, teach1st.

[teach1st]

2. You're welcome, PJMcK

[YessirAtsaFact]

3. Nice read, confirms a lot of what I've thought from the beginning

This is one inept bunch of gangsters surrounding Trump.

And Trump is completely compromised by the Russians and God knows who else.

[FailureToCommunicate]

4. Good read, thanks!

[dalton99a]

5. Great article

Even if we never learn another single fact about Trump, his business and campaign, and any collusion with Russia, it is now becoming clear that Trump’s bid for the Presidency was almost certainly designed, at least in part, to enrich Trump, and that he was willing to pursue the political interests of a hostile foreign power in order to make money. This scheme was executed ineptly and in ways that make it highly likely that the intelligence agencies of Russia, as well as several other nations, have been able to ferret out most of the details. This means that Trump and the people closest to him have been at enormous risk of compromise.

[EndGOPPropaganda]

6. Adam Davidson is great.

Listen to him w Josh Marshall here

Link to tweet

?lang=en
W Ezra Klein here
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/vox/the-ezra-klein-show/e/55606470


And this was great, from the spring: MUST READ

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/michael-cohen-and-the-end-stage-of-the-trump-presidency
The narrative that will become widely understood is that Donald Trump did not sit atop a global empire. He was not an intuitive genius and tough guy who created billions of dollars of wealth through fearlessness. He had a small, sad global operation, mostly run by his two oldest children and Michael Cohen, a lousy lawyer who barely keeps up the pretenses of lawyering and who now faces an avalanche of charges, from taxicab-backed bank fraud to money laundering and campaign-finance violations.

Cohen, Donald, Jr., and Ivanka monetized their willingness to sign contracts with people rejected by all sensible partners. Even in this, the Trump Organization left money on the table, taking a million dollars here, five million there, even though the service they provided—giving branding legitimacy to blatantly sketchy projects—was worth far more. It was not a company that built value over decades, accumulating assets and leveraging wealth. It burned through whatever good will and brand value it established as quickly as possible, then moved on to the next scheme.
...
Of course Trump is raging and furious and terrified. Prosecutors are now looking at his core. Cohen was the key intermediary between the Trump family and its partners around the world; he was chief consigliere and dealmaker throughout its period of expansion into global partnerships with sketchy oligarchs. He wasn’t a slick politico who showed up for a few months. He knows everything, he recorded much of it, and now prosecutors will know it, too. It seems inevitable that much will be made public. We don’t know when. We don’t know the precise path the next few months will take. There will be resistance and denial and counterattacks. But it seems likely that, when we look back on this week, we will see it as a turning point. We are now in the end stages of the Trump Presidency.

[JudyM]

7. Kicking this quality OP.