October 27, 2017--Trump's Get Out of Jail Free Card

Up to now here's how I thought Donald Trump's presidency would end:

For many months I've been writing that the real threat to him is not the ideological split among Republicans, the opposition of the Democrats, his failure to accomplish anything, or his intemperate and outrageous behavior. Like the sort of things he said recently about John McCain, Senator Bob Corker, and gold star families, among the many targets of his ire.

Most perilous, I have felt, would be the looming findings of the investigation being directed by special council Robert Mueller. This, I thought, will turn out to be the ticking time bomb that would bring him down before the end of his term. 

We would learn about collusion between Trump and the Russians who worked together to doom Hillary Clinton's candidacy, Trump's corrupt business practices in Moscow and elsewhere, illegal money-laundering activities that would be discovered through an examination of his personal finances, and his various efforts to obstruct justice as this investigations unfolds.

That the weight of evidence would turn out to be so overwhelming that he would either be impeached and voted out of office by the Senate or, like Richard Nixon, be forced to resign.

None of this is any longer likely.

No matter what Mueller finds it will be at most a one-week story.

Here's why--

Trump and his enablers have come up with a winning defensive strategy. Much of it focused on Hillay Clinton, the Clintons (plural) and Trump's favorite nemesis, Barack Obama.

They are working on three themes--

First, they are in the process of turning the focus of the collusion-with-the-Russians narrative from Trump to Hillary. Earlier this week Trump and his people basked in the revelation, reported in the fake-news Washington Post of all places, that the infamous BuzzFeed dossier that outlines in literally explicit detail Trump's nefarious business activities with Russian oligarchs and frolics with prostitutes was largely paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee. More than $10 million worth.

People close to Hillary Clinton acknowledged this, claiming that it was routine opposition research. Everyone does it they blandly said. Well, that may be true, but from a political perspective it is ruinous to any attempt to use the dossier revelations as part of a case against Trump. Now the whole episode will become a case against Hillary. Slimy political jujitsu at its best.

Then there is the uranium flap. 

This was reported by the New York Times many months ago and at that time I had a few things to say about it. The paper of record alleged that at the behest of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton herself while Secretary of State and Barack Obama was president approved the sale to Russian business interests of the Canadian company that produces of 20 percent of our uranium supply. 

Bill Clinton was shown to be in the middle of this--he was paid $500,000 to deliver a speech in Russia after which more than $100 million was donated by Russians to the Clinton Foundation. These, it is speculated, lubricated the approval process by U.S. governmental agencies, including Hillary Clinton's State Department. 

Republicans at the time did not make that big a deal of it. They were focused more on pillorying Hillary about Benghazi. But periodically during the campaign Trump alluded to it. Now, reprised earlier this week by Trump's Minister of Propaganda, Sean Hannity on his radio and Fox TV shows, it is proving to be another effective diversion from the Mueller investigation, which reportedly is moving along quickly.

Then, to finish the trifecta of Trump preemptive defensive strategies there is the slow boiling process of sliming Robert Mueller. 

Again, Fox News and Trump himself are beginning to bring up things, I should say, make up things in an effort to undermine Mueller's reputation. They are saying he was and is chummy with fired FBI Director James Comey and that he has ties to the law firm that was paid by the Hillary people to come up with the BuzzFeed dossier. Thus, they are asking how can we trust anything Mueller and his staff uncover.

Couple this with a large part of the public's disinterest in anything critical of Donald Trump and the very recent reports that Republicans in Congress are rolling over for Trump and giving him standing ovations, afraid that if they don't Steve Bannon and his people will come after them with pitchforks and toss them out of office, putting all of this together, I am coming to think that whatever Mueller reports and recommends will be largely ignored, except on MSNBC.

With the resignation of congressmen such as Jeff Flake and Bob Corker, the Republican Party is in the process of becoming the Trump Party. 

He may be all the things critics say about him, but one thing he surely is--when it comes to fighting back he's shameless and effective.