Every time I see a poll showing Trump retaining a roughly 40-percent job approval rating, I pull myself from the resulting acute depression by therapeutically recalling that we always have Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The NY Times reports that he has asked the White House to turn over all documents about "Trump’s most scrutinized actions since taking office," including the firing of national security adviser Michael Flynn, the firing of F.B.I. director James Comey — Trump's most flagrant, on-the-public-record act of obstruction of justice — as well as the Apalachin-like meeting between the president and Russian diplomats, in which Trump bragged about having whacked a top, American law-enforcement official.
If the documents don't nail Trump, his mob associates — who would rat out their mothers to save their own hides — will. And what a clever bunch those associates are. I especially liked this passage from the Washington Post, reporting on Paul Manafort's emailed offer to peddle campaign information to a Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin. "The notes appear to be written in deliberately vague terms, with Manafort … never explicitly mentioning Deripaska by name. But investigators believe that key passages refer to [Oleg] Deripaska, who is referenced in some places by his initials, 'OVD.'" Now there's a cryptological brain-teaser.
Manafort is to Trump what "Sammy the Bull" Gravano was to Gotti.
Still, the question looms. Will the party that impeached Bill Clinton for lying about sex now argue that Trumpian obstruction of justice and virtual treason were but frivolous, run-of-the-mill political acts? For a party altogether void of ethics and a deontological mindset, what should be a rhetorical question is, rather, a clear, present, and dangerous potential of national betrayal.