WASHINGTON — A man is running to lead the government he tried to overthrow while running it, even as he’s running to stay ahead of the law.
That sounds crazy, except in the upside-down world of Donald Trump, where it makes grotesque logic.
The question now is: Has Trump finally run out of time, thanks to Jack Smith, who runs marathons as an Ironman triathlete? Are those ever-loving walls really closing in right now?
Or is it Smith Muellering?
We were expecting an epic shock when Robert Mueller was appointed in 2017 as special counsel to lead the investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russia and his possible obstruction of justice. He was the flamboyant flimflam man vs. the buttoned-down, button-down boy scout.
Mueller, who had been a decorated Marine in Vietnam, was such a direct arrow that he didn’t even stray to wear a blue shirt when he ran the FBI.
Amid the chaos of the Trump administration, Mueller ran a disciplined and secretive operation as special counsel, assembling a dream team of legal talent. But when it comes to obstruction of justice, the final report was flaccid, stammering, legalistic.
Now, Mr. Smith is going to Washington. (That classic movie recalls a time when politicians were embarrassed when caught doing something wrong. How quaint.)
This special counsel is another straight arrow trying to deal with a slippery razor: In a masterpiece of projection, Trump has been denouncing Smith as a “crazed prosecutor” and “a nasty, horrible human being.” Trump has been zigzagging his entire life and now, unbelievably, he is trying to zigzag his way back into the White House, apparently intent on burning down the federal government and exacting revenge on just about everyone.
So it will be interesting to see what the top lawyer with the stern expression makes of the bombastic simulator. Smith seems like a no-nonsense guy who works at his desk during Subway lunch, while Trump, of course, makes no sense, all the time.
Smith has a Herculean task ahead of him. He must present a persuasive narrative that Trump and his henchmen and his women (yes, you, Ginni Thomas) were determined to stage a coup.
His letter telling Trump he is a target of the January 6 investigation. reportedly it makes no mention of sedition or insurrection, leaving people wondering exactly what Trump will be charged with.
Of all the legal issues facing Trump, this is the case that makes us breathe.”Finallyas Susan Glasser put it in The New Yorker. It is, as she wrote, the heart of the matter.
The Times reported that the letter referred to three criminal statutes: conspiracy to defraud the government; obstruction of an official proceeding; and, in a surprise move, a section of the US code that criminalizes “conspiring to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person” in the “free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege guaranteed by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” Initially, the story explained, that last statute was a tool to go after the Ku Klux Klan and others who engaged in terrorism after the Civil War; more recently it has been used to prosecute voter fraud conspiracies.
On a radio show in Iowa on Tuesday, Trump warned that it would be “very dangerous” for Smith to jail him, as his supporters have “much more passion than they did in 2020.”
A trial date has already been set for May in Smith’s case against Trump for withholding classified documents, despite Trump’s efforts to keep it beyond the election. And Smith should have a watertight case for Trump defrauding America because defrauding is what he’s been doing since the cradle: lying, cheating and lining his own pockets, making fools of just about everyone while ducking out of trouble.
Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis, Trump’s closest Republican challenger, defended Trump on the Russell Brand podcast on Friday, dismissing the idea that there was an overt effort to change the 2020 election.
“The idea that this was a plan to somehow overthrow the United States government is not true,” DeSantis said, “and it is something that the media had made up just to basically try to make the most of it and use it for partisan and political purposes.”
DeSantis seems almost as delusional as Trump when he denies what we saw before our eyes in the weeks after the election.
Just ask the Georgia officials who were pressured by Trump to “find 11,780 votes” or the police officers who were injured on January 6. Remember the fake voters in Michigan and Georgia, among other places, and the relentless pressure on Mike Pence to invalidate the election results?
Trump may ultimately not be charged with organizing an insurrection or sedition. And that would be a shame. For the first time, a president who lost an election brazenly tried to hold on to power and nullify the votes of millions of Americans.
If that’s not sedition, it’s hard to know what is.
