Heather Cox Richardson thinks we're at an inflection point in the Trump scandal
It feels like things are starting to happen. Robert Mueller, the Special Counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election, is negotiating to interview Donald Trump himself. Mueller's interest in the pond's biggest fish suggests that his investigation is in its final stages. And Trump's sudden, angry tweets and other legal moves designed to shore up his base suggest that he knows the net is tightening, and he is trying to get out of it either by claiming the president is above the law, or by discrediting the legal process. Either one of these approaches will make bad trouble over the next few months.
None of us knows what cards Mueller is holding, but the indictments handed down so far by the grand jury have suggested that he knows a whole lot more than what is showing up in the news. The February indictment of 13 Russian nationals, for example, was remarkable. In it, on page 24, was the news that American investigators had actually read the private personal emails of some of the Russians involved in disrupting the American election. That extraordinary reach, plus the fact that the government now has the potential ability to read everything Trump's fixer Michael Cohen had in his possession, plus the fact that it seems clear that a number of key players on Trump's team have flipped to cooperate with Mueller's investigation, means that anyone who cooperated with Russians in any illegal scheme must be very nervous right now.
Trump is showing signs of fear. He has followed up last week's unhinged call to Fox & Friends with a number of frantic tweets, and his legal team has made some interesting lunges in the past two days.
Those efforts fall into two categories, and neither is good. First, Trump has begun to sound like he wants dictatorial powers. Today his lawyers tried to get a case accusing him of violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution dismissed, arguing that the president has "absolute immunity" from lawsuits (courts have denied this immunity). Trump has also tweeted that he has "unfettered power" to fire anyone in the Executive Branch (this is not true), and that he might have to "use the powers granted to the Presidency" to shut down Mueller's investigation (this is an overreach).
Second, Trump and his people are clearly trying to discredit the investigation and the media that publicizes it. Yesterday, Trump was scathing about the "disgraceful" leaks of questions Mueller wanted to ask of him, only to have it seem increasingly likely that the leaks had actually come from his own camp precisely so he could discredit Mueller's team. The words "Russia witch hunt," heard so often from the president, today became the official statement of the White House upon the hiring of Emmet Flood, an impeachment lawyer. Trump's attacks on the media are ratcheting up, and he is appealing to the worst in his base, as witnessed by his extraordinary speech on Saturday night.
It seems likely that Trump sees that he will have to testify in front of the grand jury one way or another, but he will probably have to take the Fifth-- to refuse to answer questions on the grounds that it might incriminate him-- and then will try to skate by insisting that he refused to testify because the investigation is tainted. He is banking that his supporters will back him up.
The twists and turns of politics today are enough to exhaust anyone. But hang in there, because stepping back to look at the whole picture shows that this moment is a crisis for American democracy, perhaps THE crisis for American democracy.
This nation was founded on the principle that all men are equal before the law. While that principle has often fallen down in practice, we have never denied the principle; we have never set up certain men to be above the rules by which the rest of us live. That is precisely what Trump is trying to get us to do. And if we lose that principle, we lose our democracy. We become a nation of castes, an oligarchy in which certain of us are better than others.
In the coming months, when the fight over whether or not Trump has committed crimes becomes a vicious tug of war, it will be important to remember that what is at stake is not the future of Donald Trump, who is, after all, only one man-- and a pathetic figure of a man at that-- but the very principle on which this nation stands.
The primary question over the next few months is not "Is Donald Trump guilty of a crime?" but rather "Should any American be above the law?" On that question hangs no less than the fate of our country.