Trump threatens 30-day reign of destruction on
the way out of office
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated
1059 GMT (1859 HKT) December 22, 2020
Former CIA
chief: Trump realizes Russia helped him so he gives them a pass
(CNN)Joe
Biden will be president in 30 days. Until then, the question is how much damage
can be done by a vengeful, delusional soon-to-be ex-President swilling
conspiracy theories, whose wild anti-democratic instincts are being encouraged
by fringe political opportunists.
Donald
Trump will retain the awesome powers of the presidency until noon on January
20, and there's never been a time when he has been subject to as few
restraining influences or has had a bigger incentive to cause disruption.
The
President is spending day after day in his White House bunker, entertaining
crackpot theories about imposing martial law, seizing voting machines and
staging an intervention in Congress on January 6 to steal the election from
Biden.
Surrounded
by the last dead-end loyalists, Trump is flinging lies and political venom like
King Lear in a crumbling Twitter kingdom, alarming some staffers about what he
will do next.
On Monday,
he huddled with a cabal of Republican lawmakers who plan to challenge the
election on baseless claims of fraud at a special session of Congress to ratify
the results on January 6.
Two ways Trump can hurt America
Trump can
further damage the United States in the coming days in two ways -- by
aggressive design and by his passive neglect of his sworn obligations to lead.
His
attempts to crush American democratic traditions by claiming a landslide
victory in an election that he lost and that was not especially close fits into
the first category. The President's behavior has sown huge mistrust of the
fundamental underpinning of the US political system -- fair elections -- among
millions of his voters and threatens to compromise the legitimacy of Biden's
White House.
Trump's
indifference to multiple crises stirred by his rule make up the second category
of his political vandalism. This includes his apathy about a raging pandemic
that has infected 18 million Americans and killed nearly 320,000 as an aching
nation marks its darkest holiday season in generations.
There is no
substitute in the US governing system for the engagement of a President during
a massive national enterprise. But there is also no sign that Trump cares to
offer leadership to ensure the success of the mammoth vaccination program that
holds hope of eventually ending the pandemic. This after his denial of the
virulence of Covid-19 undoubtably worsened the death toll.
Trump is
also running interference for Russia, prioritizing the interests of an
adversary over America's after a massive cyberattack blamed on the Kremlin.
These
infractions add up to the dereliction of presidential duty on a grand scale. It
is impossible to imagine any other president of the modern era behaving in such
a way or for either of the political parties to tolerate his abuse of power.
Former President George W. Bush's neglect during Hurricane Katrina in 2005
seems tame by comparison.
The current
President's anti-democratic behavior since the election is validating the fears
of critics -- and more than 80 million Biden voters -- who worried about his
unchained behavior in a second term. Like many fading strongmen leaders, his
antics are becoming more unhinged as the prospect of losing power becomes
tangible.
Madcap schemes
Even
Trump's White House staff is concerned about what happens next, at a time when
Washington is already braced for a flurry of politically self-serving or
legally dubious presidential pardons in the coming weeks.
"No
one is sure where this is heading," one official told CNN's White House
team on Monday in a disturbing behind-the-scenes glimpse at the mayhem
unfolding in the West Wing. "He's still President for another month."
The madcap
schemes of some of Trump's acolytes -- such as retired Gen. Michael Flynn's
mooted plan to send troops to battleground states to redo elections that the
President lost -- have no chance of playing out. Even if Trump's renegades had
the competence to mount such a threat, the courts have shown zero tolerance for
the President's autocratic attempts to destroy US democracy. It is unthinkable
the military would deploy to reverse a popular vote on US soil.
Trump's
extremism is also unfolding in the context of a landmark election after which
the safety valves of the courts, the electoral safeguards in the states -- and
eventually on parts of Capitol Hill -- stood firm in defense of democracy.
But the
fact that a defeated President is even hearing theories about imposing martial
law in the Oval Office is unfathomable in the world's oldest, most influential
democracy.
Were it not
for the outrageous assaults on the rule of law over the last four years and the
evidence of a presidency tethered to the erratic personality of Trump, it would
not be at all believable.
"The
rest of the world is watching all this. It is just making people wonder. What
is going on in America?" an incredulous John Kasich, the Republican former
governor of Ohio, said on CNN's "The Situation Room" on Monday.
Trump's
loss of composure is grave enough from a domestic point of view. But it sends a
signal to US adversaries of a vacuum of leadership. His bizarre refusal to
endorse his government's assessment that Russia is behind the cyberattack
suggests there is a 30-day window of impunity for enemies dedicated to
tarnishing US national interests. The thought of an agitated, emotional
President faced with any sudden foreign policy crisis is not a reassuring one.
Barr breaks with the President
The extreme
nature of Trump's final days meltdown is best encapsulated by the fact that
Attorney General William Barr, who had accommodated many of the President's
political assaults on the spirit of the law, has comprehensively broken with
Trump as he prepares to leave office before Christmas.
Barr said
Monday that he saw no need to appoint a special counsel to probe baseless
claims of electoral fraud. He drew a similar conclusion about Trump's demands
for an investigation into Biden's son Hunter, who is already the subject of a
criminal probe into his business dealings. In his farewell news conference on
Monday, Barr said he saw no reason for the federal government to seize voting
machines, a step advocated by Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani. And he said the
massive cyber breach of the US government "certainly appears to be the
Russians."
Although
Trump's most fervent loyalists have turned against him for his political
apostasy toward the President, Barr remains a credible figure among many Senate
Republicans and his comments will have strengthened Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell's effort to stop any of his caucus seeking to mount a futile
challenge to the election during a joint session of Congress to ratify the
election result on January 6.
But Barr
will be gone in a few days, potentially allowing the President to lean on
Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who faces a tense few weeks leading the
Justice Department before Biden's inauguration. Should he refuse to bend to the
President's will, it is not impossible that Trump could fire him and seek a
willing accomplice for his assaults on the rule of law -- emulating President
Richard Nixon in the so-called "Saturday Night Massacre" in 1973.
In an
ominous sign for the days ahead, Trump told young conservative voters in
Georgia over the phone Monday that "we won this in a landslide" and
said he needed "backing from ... the Justice Department, and other people
finally have to step up."
Plotting a stunt in Congress
Trump's
meeting with Republican lawmakers on Monday was the latest troubling sign that
he is prepared to tear down the integrity of the US electoral system on the way
out of the Oval Office door.
The group
is preparing to "fight back against mounting evidence of voter fraud. Stay
tuned," White House chief of staff Mark Meadows tweeted, giving fresh life
to falsehoods comprehensively debunked by the Supreme Court, multiple judges
and Republican state election officials ever since the election.
The effort
will not succeed in invalidating Biden's election since Democrats control the
House of Representatives and there is no sign that a majority of Republicans in
the Senate -- most of whom are now acknowledging that Biden is President-elect
-- will play along. But the pro-Trump lawmakers can stage a stunt that would
make a mockery of democracy and further sow distrust of America's political
system among the President's fervent supporters -- a scenario that could cause
years of damage.
Fringe
figures around Trump besides Giuliani and Flynn include Sidney Powell, the
lawyer who only just a few weeks ago was ousted from his legal team over her
bizarre claims of a massive international plot involving the late Venezuelan
dictator Hugo Chavez, China, Democrats and the Clintons to steal the election.
Trump has
floated an idea of embedding Powell as a special counsel inside the White House
Counsel's Office to investigate claims of voter fraud. The current counsel's
office has pushed hard against the idea, sources told CNN.
"There's
a high level of concern with anything involving Sidney Powell," one source
close to the President told CNN's White House team.
Another of
Trump's conspiratorial fellow travelers, populist guru Steve Bannon, and the
hawkish trade adviser Peter Navarro also have the President's ear, the sources
told CNN.
"I
think we are seeing just how desperate Trump is becoming himself. And how
desperate the last remaining rats on the ship, if you will, are becoming
because of that," Lawrence Wilkerson, a former top aide to ex-Secretary of
State Colin Powell, said Monday on CNN's "OutFront."
.jpeg)
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário