Calling into his buddies at Fox & Friends, President Trump went off on an epic, multi-topic rant this morning, with ramifications that will probably haunt his presidency for as long as that presidency lasts.
How epic was it?
It was so epic that with the president of the United States rambling on in anger and frustration, making dumpsters-full of breaking news on Fox News air, it was panicked host Steve Doocy who finally intervened to cut the segment short, as if to rescue an increasingly frantic president from his own worst instincts.
Listening to that performance, listening to Trump lie and deny and make voluntary, damaging off-the-cuff admissions, you also began to get a sense of the scale of disaster that Trump would create in an interview with Robert Mueller. That too would be epic.
For example, until now Trump has denied having any knowledge or involvement in Michael Cohen’s controversial negotiations and payoffs to porn star Stormy Daniels. Cohen has taken a similar position, claiming that he had used his own money to fund a $130,000 payment to Daniels and that Trump had no knowledge of what was going on.
In his Fox interview this morning, Trump trashed that entire narrative. Without prodding, he acknowledged that Cohen had represented him, as his attorney, in this “crazy Stormy Daniels deal.” In the later words of Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, that was a “hugely damaging admission” and “a gift from the heavens” for his case.
Among other things, the admission could end up getting Cohen disbarred. The rules of the American Bar Association and New York Bar Association are very clear:
“While representing a client in connection with contemplated or pending litigation, a lawyer shall not advance or guarantee financial assistance to his client...”
Then there’s the Russia thing. In his memos produced immediately after meeting with Trump, then-FBI Director Jim Comey writes that Trump had repeatedly, forcefully denied spending a night in Moscow in 2013. If that claim were true, the implication is that Trump could not have dallied overnight with prostitutes, as was claimed in the notorious Steele dossier.
I don’t know or even care much whether those specific charges are true. But we do know, based on flight logs and eyewitness testimony, that Trump did indeed stay at least one night in Moscow and perhaps two. Confronted by that proof, Trump now says that he never denied staying overnight to Comey, insisting that Comey made it all up.
In other words, we are asked to believe that the sitting FBI director invented Trump statements about his Moscow stay on the spot, immediately after his meetings, and that he then memorialized those claims in memos knowing that he could weaponize them 15 months later. Let’s just say that explanation asks an awful lot of those hearing it.
The president also took the opportunity to rant angrily about the Mueller investigation, again hinting strongly at a deep-state conspiracy against him and suggesting he may take action soon to protect himself.
“I‘ve taken the position -- and I don't have to take this position, and maybe I'll change -- that I will not be involved with the Justice Department,” Trump said, adding later that “I have decided I won’t be involved. I may change my mind at some point because what is going on is a disgrace.”
Trump also took no blame whatsoever for the failed nomination of Dr. Ronny Jackson, who had officially withdrawn as secretary for veterans affairs a few minutes earlier. According to Trump, Jackson is a completely innocent victim of Democratic lies and character assassination, a charge that again flies in the face of established truth.
The truth is that Senate Republicans, notably Sen. Johnny Isakson, chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, have also been deeply dubious about the Jackson nomination, which has been doomed for a while now. Furthermore, according to Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, the ranking Democrat on that committee, "23 colleagues and former colleagues of Rear Admiral Jackson, most of whom are still in uniform, have raised serious concerns about Jackson's temperament and ethics."
Those military colleagues described multiple cases of drunkenness, including one overseas trip when Jackson was needed but was found passed out in his hotel room. They claimed that he had prescribed himself prescription drugs. As to his management style, Jackson was described by his military underlings as “the most unethical person I have ever worked with,” “flat-out unethical,” “explosive,” “100 percent bad temper,” “toxic,” “abusive,” “incapable of not losing his temper” and “the worst officer I have ever served with,” among others. He was also described as a “suck-up to those above him and abusive to those below him” and a “kiss-up, kick-down boss.”
Those are simply extraordinary comments from active-duty military personnel to congressional investigators about a high-ranking officer. They certainly do not depict Jackson as someone capable of managing a bureaucracy as large and troubled as the VA. If Tester and the Democrats did indeed stop Jackson’s confirmation, as Trump alleges, then they have done a huge service to this country and to the veterans who have helped to defend it. Even with the withdrawal of Jackson’s nomination, the charges leveled against him are so grave that he should be suspended from duty as White House physician until they can be fully resolved.
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