HOW FAR WILL TRUMP BE WILLING TO GO TO WIN IN 2020?

…Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani

Trump has no respect for the “rule of law”, and he feels that the government exists only for serving the president.

According to the Washington Post, “If you thought Donald Trump ran a rancid campaign when he was trying to make it to the White House, just you wait until he’s fighting to preserve his power.”

Just as he did at the end of his campaign in 2016, Trump is again saying “the system is rigged,” and he is threatening to not concede if the numbers show the Democrat winning in 2020.  According to some White House insiders, Trump is very aware as to how he barely won in three key states by only 70,000 votes.  He is also aware that he lost the popular vote by a record 3 million votes.  (Of course, he still falsely says he won by a record amount; that there were 3 million illegal voters and that his inauguration crowd was “record breaking”.)  Actually, the only record that was broken, was how much smaller Trump’s inauguration was than Obama’s inaugural crowd.

It has become obvious that Trump is planning to use his campaign for promoting hatred and division.  The biggest question is, how will Trump us the resources of the US government for making sure that he wins the election?

We saw a hint of what Trump’s supporters will do, such as the Attorney General, William Barr, when he tried to answer questions from Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA).  She asked Barr, “Has the president or anyone at the White House either asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone?”  Barr sputtered and then asked her to repeat the question.  He repeated it to himself, then he gazed off into the distance, prompting Harris to say, “It seems you’d remember something like that,” which indeed you’d think he would.

After stalling for a moment on the nature of word, “suggest,” Barr gave up and gave no answer.

This suggested that it was likely that the actual answer is “yes.”   

This chief law enforcement official seems intent on incinerating his professional reputation.  The attorney general has now become Trump's lawyer and his credibility is shot.

Looking at what Trump has done in trying to interfere or completely stop the Mueller Investigation.  Do you really think that Trump would hesitate for an instant before telling Barr to open an investigation of the eventual Democratic nominee for president?  And given everything we’ve seen from Barr, do you really think he’d refuse that order?

That is highly doubtful.  Barr has already ruined whatever positive reputation he had from his first stint as the US Attorney General.

Trump may already be in the process of mobilizing the federal government to destroy his opponent, regardless of whomever it turns out to be. The New York Times has a new article featuring a real news story about a political rival passing damaging information to reporters.  This happens all the time, and it’s not illegitimate as journalism, if the information itself is relevant and the journalist does his or her own investigation to verify what they’ve been told.

In this case, the Times acknowledges the story’s nuance in the headline: “Biden Faces Conflict of Interest Questions That Are Being Promoted by Trump and Allies.”

This story is particularly weak in its implication that Biden did anything remotely wrong. What it comes down to is that, as vice president, he advanced the Obama administration policy by pressing the Ukraine to fight corruption, a perfectly worthy goal shared by lots of countries.

At the time, Biden’s son Hunter was working for a Ukrainian company called Burisma Holdings that was being investigated by the country’s chief prosecutor, who is widely believed to be corrupt.  

This brings us to the most critical part of this story, how Trump is already using his office to go after Joe Biden.  This is the Trump team’s efforts to draw negative attention to the Bidens’ work in Ukraine, which is already yielding coverage in conservative media such as Fox News, and it has all been led by Rudy Giuliani.  

Giuliani served as a personal lawyer for Trump in the Mueller investigation and Giuliani’s involvement raises many questions.  For example, whether the president is endorsing an effort to push a foreign government to proceed with a case that could hurt a Trump opponent here at home.

Giuliani has discussed the Burisma investigation and its intersection with the Bidens, with an ousted Ukrainian prosecutor general and with the current Ukrainian prosecutor. He met with the current prosecutor multiple times in New York, just this year. The current prosecutor general has told associates that, during one of the meetings, Mr. Giuliani called President Trump excitedly to brief him on his findings.

So, this is the president’s lawyer, with the direct involvement of the president himself, they are pushing a foreign official to open an investigation for the obvious purpose of embarrassing a potential rival.  All the while the president is pushing the Justice Department to act in ways that could harm that political rival as well.

Get ready, as Trump is going to order the Justice Department to launch an investigation of his opponent, actually, probably more than one opponent, and A.G. Barr will likely do so eagerly.  It doesn’t matter how trivial is the substance of the investigation.

Republicans will cry that whatever it is, it’s the “crime of the century”. The federal investigations will give it the look of legitimacy, and the media will dutifully cover it with all the speculation they can muster.  This won’t just be within the Justice Department.  Rest assured, right now in the White House they’re working hard to figure out how the entire government can be put to the task of re-electing Trump.

That should be a scandal in and of itself.  And this is only the beginning for Team Trump.

Please note:  Previous presidents have done this in small ways and all with limited effects. But Trump’s total corruption; his lack of concern for the “rule of law” and its norms; his contempt for the idea that the government exists for a purpose, other than for serving him, all of these issues are already more than apparent.

And we have yet to see just how far Trump is willing go to retain his personal power.

Copyright G. Ater 2019