Audacity Abounds

One very nervous ex-president expresses his insecurities with bombastic offense. It's his go-to move.

“In my administration,” said Donald Trump on August 18, 2016, “I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.” 

Comical in its irony; damning in its foreshadowing, it’s exactly the kind of hypocrisy we’ve come to expect from him. The kind of rash statement that seems always to come back to haunt us rather than him. It’s the story I don’t want to write and you don’t want to read…again.

Quoting the indictment, we see the seriousness of the materials he variously denied having and/or refused to return: “Military capabilities of a foreign country and the United States,” “military activities and planning of foreign countries,” “nuclear capabilities of a foreign country,” “military attacks by a foreign country,” “military contingency planning of the United States,” “military options of a foreign country and potential effects on United States interest,” “foreign country support of terrorist acts against United States interests,” “nuclear weaponry of the United States,” “military activity in a foreign country.” 

Special Counsel Jack Smith put it starkly in his statement, “The men and women of the United States intelligence community and our armed forces dedicate their lives to protecting our nation and its people. Our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the United States and they must be enforced. Violations of those laws put our country at risk.” 

Kari Lake, the failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate at the Georgia Republican party convention Saturday: “I have a message tonight for Merrick Garland and Jack Smith and Joe Biden — and the guys back there in the fake news media, you should listen up as well, this one is for you,” not-Governor Lake said. “If you want to get to President Trump, you are going to have go through me, and you are going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me. And I’m going to tell you, most of us are card-carrying members of the N.R.A.” That is an unveiled threat of violence, and it’s how you get around the rule of law: maintain that no man is above law, but that law enforcement is corrupt. Never mind that in both the New York, and the federal indictments, the most damning evidence has come from his own lawyers.

As far as electeds go, so far only Mitt Romney and Chris Christie have had the courage to call him—and the party—out. One wonders how long what’s left of the Republican Party can continue this charade. How long can they join Trump’s aggrieved voice in playing the victim when he is so obviously the author of his own destruction. The victim schtick continues to be his go-to defense. His former defender, and former Attorney General, Bill Barr, may have said it best, “This idea of presenting Trump as a victim here is ridiculous.”

Trump supporters now fall into two distinct camps: Those who know what he is, and don’t care, and those who lack the perceptive ability to recognize an individual so flawed as to be unfit to hold office. Look closely and you’ll see that most of what our ex and his loyalists say is either projection or confession.

There a couple of certainties here. One, the Special Counsel knows the stakes. No way does he brings charges without a smoking gun. Apparently, Trump’s own recorded words will convict him. He knew what he had stolen from the American people, and told the folks he was bragging to that he should have declassified the items he was showing them when he had the chance, but since he was no longer president, he couldn’t. He showed them anyway, because ego-driven people can’t help themselves. This is not a surprise to anyone, and makes his party loyalists look weak and silly.

A curious and potentially upending aspect of the case is the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, who tried to help her appointer, Trump, early in the case when she named a Special Master to slow the investigation down, only to have the appellate court above her slap her wrist and remove her from the proceedings. Will she try this time to do more mischief, or will she obey the rule of law and let the trial proceed unmolested? If she tries to foot-drag will her superiors remove her again?

The prosecution wouldn’t have taken this unprecedented step if they didn’t have the goods, but will any of this be enough to keep the Grifter-in-Chief from getting reelected? I’m not so sure. Not even in the face of the new CBS News/YouGov poll that says 80% of Americans agree that he has put the national security at risk.

The Former Guy is a political Houdini.

We’ll see if this cat has used up his nine lives.

©2023 Jon Sinton