Archives for 2020

“With four weeks left in President Trump’s term, he is at perhaps his most unleashed — and, as events of the last few days have demonstrated, at the most unpredictable point in his presidency,” the New York Times reports.

“He remains the most powerful person in the world, yet he is focused on the one area in which he is powerless to get what he wants: a way to avoid leaving office as a loser.”

“He spends his days flailing for any hope, if not of actually reversing the outcome of the election then at least of building a coherent case that he was robbed of a second term.”

Michael Gerson: “Looking on the bright side of a humiliating national disaster, the manner of President Trump’s departure from power has clarified why he must never hold power again.”

“On one side are the lunatics — among them Giuliani, Powell and Flynn — who want Trump to violate laws and assume authoritarian powers. On the other side are sycophants who supported Trump’s spurious legal challenges to the election result but apparently draw the line at treason. By most accounts, Trump’s sympathies lie with the lunatics.”

“Conflicting internal memos created confusion inside the White House on Wednesday about when staffers in the Executive Office of the President should begin preparing to leave work ahead of the transition next month,” Politico reports.

“In an email Wednesday morning from the White House Management Office, EOP staffers were instructed to ‘please disregard’ an earlier memo that had been sent Tuesday informing them that they ‘will start departing’ on the week of Jan. 4.”

Jonathan Bernstein: “Those Senate Republicans are the ones who could put a stop to it all. They could threaten to remove Trump if he persists. (Yes, there’s not enough time for the House to do a regular impeachment process and for the Senate to hold a full trial, but neither are required by the constitution — if the votes were there, both chambers could get it done in a week.) Such a threat might be enough to ensure they wouldn’t actually have to go through with it. Or they could follow up on what Thune said Monday and make a more public condemnation of the president. Even if that didn’t stop him, it might reduce the damage.”

“But it’s also not likely to happen, since attacking Trump would risk their own popularity and future re-elections.”

Bill Kristol: “It could, obviously, be kind of random–a date picked last week to allow Barr to get things in order, an accommodation of Barr’s family schedule, etc. But it could also be that Barr very much wanted to get out before Dec. 24, and/or that Trump wanted him out by then.”

“One obvious possibility discussed in the White House: Trump has spoken about a bunch of pardons on Christmas Eve. Some of the names may have been too much for Barr — so they agreed on his departure on Dec. 23. (Or the pardons will be a few days later, but the principle holds — Barr wanted out, or Trump wanted him out, first.)”

“But it could be more than pardons. Yesterday Barr suggested there were several things he wouldn’t do that Trump wanted him to do as ranging from appointing special counsels for Hunter Biden or election fraud, to giving a legal OK for seizing voting machines or for various types of Insurrection Act-type moves by the president. Can one be confident Barr’s successor as AG, Jeffrey Rosen, will also say no?”

More: “I’m also reliably told senior military officials in the Pentagon are more, not less, alarmed than they were a few weeks ago when Mark Esper was fired. The new crew of Trump loyalists in the most senior civilian positions don’t seem there only to burnish their resumes, as one person put it. They’re trying to figure out, in coordination with people in the White House, ‘how to make things happen.'”