July 26, 2017--"I Know You're Going Crazy"

Skipping the hello, that's what Jack said.

"I'm sure you're calling out of concern."

"Of course. You know, 'Do unto others' and all that. I'm a very compassionate fellow. I know you're an atheist, but even you know about the Golden Rule." Chuckling, he sounded especially chipper.

"I'm not an atheist and if you're calling to torture me just tell me so I can hang up."

"Don't hang up. Really, don't. I know you're very upset and since I actually like you I want to share some things with you that might make you feel better."

"Share away, but I doubt it. And I'm busy." I really wasn't, but I was very upset. Not crazy, but almost.

"It's about the pardons, right, that Trump was talking about over the weekend?" I didn't say anything, but Jack knows me well enough to know what was making me crazy. "OK, no need to say a word. Just listen. I'm about to enlighten you. About how my boy operates and what's behind this latest flap."

I may have mumbled. In any case, he said, "Let's start with Jeff Sessions and then we'll move on to the pardons."

At that I did mumble something incoherent. "Good," he said, "you're still on the line and from the sound of you presumably alive." He liked that. "I read what you wrote on Saturday. That's how I knew you were upset. You never write anything on Saturday. Am I right?" I managed not to utter a sound. "About how Trump seemingly just figured out--as if he's that out of it--the connection between Sessions recusing himself from the Russia stuff and the Mueller appointment. If he hadn't recused himself, he would have been able either not to appoint a special prosecutor or if he did to find someone who would go easy on Trump. Including not subpoenaing his tax records. Because you're right. If there's a smoking gun in this it's about, as you put it, the money. Donald Trump money."

"You read my stuff?" I broke my silence.

"Every day. Even on Saturday if you post something. But though you wrote about how this is unfolding you didn't give Trump enough credit for thinking three moves in advance. Like a chess player. Sessions did recuse himself. That's a done deal. And because he did so his deputy secretary, Rod Rosenstein, is the one in charge of Mueller. Rosenstein is the one who would have to do the firing. But if Trump can get Sessions to resign, and I see that happening in a few days or at most a week or two, Trump appoints someone else who isn't recused who then takes control of the investigation. He doesn't even have to fire Rosen-whatever.  The new attorney general would do the firing."

I let him continue, "I know you're skeptical that Trump could find someone to do that because he or she wouldn't want to ruin his reputation. But remember how Nixon, who was in even more do-do, got Robert Bork to file special prosecutor Archibald Cox? You can always find someone to do anything. Even commit a murder. Just ask the Clintons," he paused, "Of course about that I'm joking. . . . Sort of."

"That would be the end of Trump," I said.

"Oh, really? People thought he was dead 20 times during the campaign from slurring John McCain to the pussy business to saying he could shoot someone and it wouldn't make a difference. But there he is in the Oval Office."

"This is crazy," I said.

"All right, let's forget Sessions and Mueller because Trump may not want to mess with them, especially with Mueller who is equally respected by Republicans and Democrats. But he floats these kinds of ideas out there through his tweets as versions of trial balloons. To see how they go down and if they do to follow through."

"You're exhausting me," I said.

"Five more minutes," Jack promised, "Let's move on to the pardons. At the end of last week as if out of the blue he began talking about them. I think it was the Washington Post that reported about that, that he was exploring with his lawyers what his pardon powers are. And then over the weekend, again by tweets, he signaled he has wide latitude even to pardon family members--did you hear that Jared, Ivanka, and Junior? He even said he believes he has the power to pardon himself."

"I wrote about all of this on Saturday. And now you're parroting it back to me. I thought you had something new to say."

"I'm getting to that."

"Please, I'm tired of all this. Which I know is part of the point. To get people to give up in exasperation."

"But in what you wrote you didn't say why he began to talk about pardons."

"True."

"So here's my point. Why I called. He did it to preview his thinking about pardons. To have them batted about for a few days in the press so that when he finally begins to issue them it's no longer breaking news. Half the people who are out to lunch will think he already pardoned everybody and will blame the liberals and the media for picking on him again. The now familiar FAKE NEWS defense. So he takes a few days of heat, the ground prepared by his previewing his thinking, and then everyone will move on to something else. Likely something he does that's intentionally outrageous to help change the subject. Like bombing North Korea."

"What?" I shouted, "Bombing North Korea?"

"About that I'm half joking," Jack said, which didn't reassure me, "But at changing the subject he's a certifiable genius. I mean, he does that two, three times a day."

"To me," I said, "he's a certifiable something else."

"Have it your way," Jack said, "You've been wrong about him before. Actually, almost always." He roared with laughter and hung up the phone.