How Much Bigger Will Putin-Gate Be Than Watergate Was? Mucho Bigger

Trump didn't take Mueller seriously-- just another prop in Trump world who he could write out of the script with some loathsome tweets... and move on to the next season. But even Trump must realize the problem is now about reality, not reality TV. I wonder if the thought of asking Putin for asylum has crossed his mind yet. That thing in Time by Spiro Agnew's attorney a couple days ago must have gotten his attention. Trump's an ignorant imbecile, but he remembers Spiro Agnew and how he was forced to resign as Nixon's vice president for taking kickbacks years before from building contractors... after someone flipped on him. You may not remember-- or have even been born at the time-- but in 1973 George Bell, the U.S. Attorney for Maryland accidentally stumbled on a bribery scandal involving Agnew.

Lester Matz's engineering firm was served with a subpoena for documents, and through his counsel he sought immunity in exchange for cooperation in the investigation. Matz had been kicking back to Agnew five percent of the value of contracts received through his influence, first county contracts during his term [as County Executive] and subsequently state contracts while Agnew was governor.

...In June, Matz's attorney disclosed to Beall that his client could show that Agnew not only had been corrupt, but that payments to him had continued into his vice presidency. These later payments would not be barred by the statute of limitations; Agnew could be prosecuted... Agnew had already met with both Nixon and Haig to assert his innocence. On August 1, Beall sent a letter to Agnew's attorney, formally advising that the vice president was under investigation for tax fraud and corruption..Matz was prepared to testify that he had met with Agnew at the White House and given him $10,000 in cash. Another witness, Jerome B. Wolff, head of Maryland's road commission, had extensive documentation that detailed, as Beall put it, "every corrupt payment he participated in with then-Governor Agnew."

[Attorney General Elliot] Richardson, whom Nixon had ordered to take personal responsibility for the investigation, met with Agnew and his attorneys on August 6 to outline the case, but Agnew denied culpability, saying the selection of Matz's firm had been routine, and the money campaign contributions. The story broke in the Wall Street Journal later that day. Agnew publicly proclaimed his innocence and on August 8 held a press conference at which he called the stories "damned lies". Nixon, at a meeting on August 7, assured Agnew of his complete confidence, but Haig visited Agnew at his office and suggested that if the charges could be sustained, Agnew might want to take action prior to his indictment. By this time, the Watergate investigation that would lead to Nixon's resignation was well advanced, and for the next two months, fresh revelations in each scandal were almost daily fare in the newspapers.

Under increasingly immense pressure to resign, Agnew took the position that a sitting vice president could not be indicted and met with Speaker of the House Carl Albert on September 25, asking for an investigation. He cited as precedent an 1826 House investigation of Vice President John C. Calhoun, who was alleged to have taken improper payments while a cabinet member. Albert, second in line to the presidency under Agnew, responded that it would be improper for the House to act in a matter before the courts. Agnew also filed a motion to block any indictment on the grounds that he had been prejudiced by improper leaks from the Justice Department, and tried to rally public opinion, giving a speech before a friendly audience in Los Angeles asserting his innocence and attacking the prosecution. Nevertheless, Agnew entered into negotiations for a plea bargain, and wrote in his memoirs that he did so because he was worn out from the extended crisis, to protect his family, and because he feared he could not get a fair trial. He made his decision on October 5, and plea negotiations took place over the following days.

...On October 10, 1973, Agnew appeared before the federal court in Baltimore, and pled no contest to one felony charge, tax evasion, for the year 1967. Richardson agreed that there would be no further prosecution of Agnew, and released a 40-page summary of the evidence. Agnew was fined $10,000 and placed on three years' unsupervised probation... [He] sent a letter to Nixon stating he was resigning in the best interest of the nation. Nixon responded with a letter concurring that the resignation was necessary to avoid a lengthy period of division and uncertainty, and applauding Agnew for his patriotism and dedication to the welfare of the US.

What Trump has faced this week can't have not reminded him of what first Agnew and then Nixon went through leading to their resignations. In his article for Time, Agnew's attorney urged Trump to resign. And that was before it hit the news that Allen Weisselberg, the CFO of the Trump Organization, was granted immunity to testify in the Michael Cohen scandal, let alone Trump crony David Pecker-- the guy with the Vault filled with Trump papers-- or Dino Sajudin, the Trump Tower doorman with the story of yet another affair and another Trump child born out of wedlock. And that brings to the corner rat theory.

Andrew Sullivan looked at it for New York Magazine Friday: Here’s Where Things Get Dangerous With Trump. That's not for for Trump, that's with Trump. Sullivan raised the specter of having reached an "inflection point" in which "all of Trump’s lies, scams, cons, and crimes finally sink in with Republicans, and the cult begins to crack." Not so fast, warns Sullivan. He wrote that we're "entering the most dangerous phase of Donald Trump’s presidency. We always knew this would happen-- that the rule of law and Trump would at some point be unable to coexist-- but we had no idea how it would specifically play out. Now we see the lay of the land a little more clearly... What we’re about to find out is if Trump can pull off all his usual tricks, and face no serious political or legal consequences for this. I’d say that question remains nerve-rackingly open."

And how has Trump responded to these developments? Not well. We are told by observers of the royal court that he has raged and vented and snapped at staff. His rally in West Virginia-- where he barely mentioned the cascading bad news-- was relatively subdued. And at 10:10 p.m. on Wednesday night, after news broke that even David Pecker, the National Enquirer Trump propagandist, had turned on him, Trump tweeted: “NO COLLUSION-- RIGGED WITCH HUNT!” He now puts the word “Justice” in quotation marks when referring to his own Department of Justice. In the last few months, he has directly attacked Robert Mueller, accusing him of shilling for Democrats. He has called for an investigation of the Clinton campaign for collusion with Russia. He has railed against the FBI for being a “disgrace” and a Democratic Party front. He is still incensed at his attorney general Jeff Sessions for his recusal in an investigation of a campaign in which he would have been a witness. The entire notion that one of his appointees actually swears loyalty to the Constitution, rather than personal fealty to Trump, is incomprehensible-- no, infuriating-- to him. Almost every day, we are told, the tangerine tyrant vents about Sessions, one of his very first high-profile supporters, for following the rule of law and the norms of Western justice. (Trump’s first two congressional supporters, Chris Collins and Duncan Hunter are under indictment.)

As for Paul Manafort, a man convicted of massive tax fraud, a sleaze merchant of legendary proportions, now facing another trial for, in part, a conspiracy to defraud the United States? Here’s Trump’s response: “I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family. ‘Justice’ took a 12 year old tax case, among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him, and unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to ‘break’-- make up stories in order to get a ‘deal.’ Such respect for a brave man!” While Manafort awaits another trial, the president is not dismissing the idea that he could be pardoned, and in fact, reports surfaced that he had asked advisers about the possibility of pardoning Manafort some time ago. His statements this week are obviously an attempt to persuade Manafort to say nothing-- an outrageous attempt at obstructing justice that at this point is merely white noise.

Trump has also revealed himself this week to regard Watergate hero John Dean as a “rat” for defending the rule of law under Nixon, a view that even Nixon never expressed in public. And he holds the views of a mob boss when it comes to the idea of plea bargains as a way of shutting down organized crime: “I know all about flipping. For 30, 40 years, I’ve been watching flippers. Everything is wonderful and then they get ten years in jail and they flip on whoever the next highest one is or as high as you can go … It’s called ‘flipping’ and it almost ought to be illegal.” Almost.

Who else, by the way, do you know has spent four decades of his life “watching” the intricacies of mob round-ups? Yes, I know Trump made his fortune in part through the mob. They were regulars at his Taj Mahal casino, which was found to have “willfully violated” the money-laundering rules of the Bank Secrecy Act, was the subject of four separate IRS investigations for “repeated and significant” deviations from money-laundering laws, and was forced to pay what was then an industry record for the largest money-laundering fine. The Russian mob was critical to buying his real estate in secret as well. This is a president who has surrounded himself with criminals, especially Russian criminals, for decades. But still: the man who took an oath to enforce the laws of the land is openly touting the logic of mobsters in their battle with law enforcement. Before this presidency, that would have been inconceivable.

...A republic cannot be governed by a man who acts like a mafia boss, following mafia rules. The minute that happens, the corrosion begins. Every day such a crook holds the highest office in the land represents yet another crack in the law of the land. If this figure decides to wage an actual war on the rule of law, and retains the solid support of his own party, all bets are off. And it is a staggering fact that in the wake of this week’s verdicts and Trump’s responses, no Republican leaders have yet decisively called their president out, and no right-wing media outlet has sounded any kind of alarm. It has fallen to Jeff Sessions to issue a statement defending the DOJ.

To give us a hint of what’s coming, yesterday Senator Lindsey Graham, who had previously ruled out firing Sessions entirely-- “there will be holy hell to pay”-- announced a shift in his position: “The president’s entitled to an attorney general he has faith in, somebody that’s qualified for the job, and I think there will come a time, sooner rather than later, where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the Department of Justice … Clearly, Attorney General Sessions doesn’t have the confidence of the president.” On the same day, Senator Grassley also suggested that, after the midterms, his committee could find time to hold hearings for a new AG-- one who would inevitably be tasked with firing Mueller or killing the investigation.

But this is the beginning, not the end. Everything we know about Trump would lead you to believe he will defend himself, like every other mafia boss, to the bitter end. His current strategy is to dismiss the recent convictions as nothing to do with him, and nothing to do with collusion with Russia. “NO COLLUSION.” And that may well work with his base-- unless evidence does emerge of a knowing conspiracy with Russia, giving Mueller the goods without any serious doubt. Or unless we discover that Trump himself obviously used his constitutional powers to obstruct justice.

But if the evidence for one or both does come to light, that’s also when the implicit danger becomes explicit. At that point, Trump would have several options. He could fire Sessions and Rosenstein and others until he found someone who would fire Mueller. (And he has just signaled that that is exactly what he will do.) He could pardon everyone implicated by Mueller and declare the entire affair a travesty of justice.

But Trump could also launch a political campaign to purge the government of those he views as global elitists who have been trying to overturn the result of a democratic election since November 2016. He could perform, in other words, a mini-Erdogan, go to the country in 2020, and appeal for mass support against the “swamp.” He could double down on the populism. If impeached, he would encourage and foment what Rudy Giuliani called this week a “people’s revolt.”

He could also ratchet up the foul white-nationalist rhetoric he has been spouting for so long, seizing on events, such as the awful murder of Mollie Tibbetts, to generate anti-immigrant hysteria. Newt Gingrich, one of the most sinister figures in modern American politics, has openly mused about running a midterm campaign on fears of violence by brown illegal immigrants. Trump could tweet out scare stories about land reform in South Africa, raising classic fears of black violence against whites, in order to rally his base. He could openly allow Russia to interfere again with the elections, this time the midterms, and indeed his administration just blocked a vital new bill to provide support for election security.

He could launch a few missiles, or generate a wider trade war with China. He could direct a new attorney general-- or mere an acting attorney general-- to investigate the Clinton campaign for collusion with Russia. And in all this, he will have a completely shameless state propaganda network to amplify the message, and legitimize it.

I would like to believe that Trump would fail, and be removed from office, or, better still, voted decisively out of it. That would actually strengthen our liberal democracy. But it’s impossible to view the tribalism now defining our culture and the despicable character of this president and find this conclusion inevitable. The good news this week is that a poll shows growing support for the Mueller investigation, and a Democratic wave this November could force even this putrefying version of what was once the GOP to reconsider its options. But impeachment remains a very steep hill to climb and could easily backfire politically, if advanced prematurely or on dubious grounds. I still cannot believe that in this climate there would be 67 votes to convict the president in the Senate. I don’t believe any amount of evidence of even outright treason would be enough. The line will be a simple one: Yes, we knowingly got dirt on our opponent from the Russians. So what? Any campaign would do the same, given a chance.

Remember what he has already survived, largely unscathed. Trump’s remarkable consistency in the polls suggest that his base is highly unlikely to crack. His approve/disapprove in the spring of 2017 was around 42/53; in August 2018, after an avalanche of outrages and scandals, it’s around 42/53. The bond is a personal one, the cult is nonnegotiable, and the zeal more about the elites the heartland hates than the con man they support. As Salena Zito noted this week: “Right now the value of Trump to the Trump voter is he is all that stands between them and handing the keys to Washington back over to the people inside Washington. That’s it. He’s their only option. You’ve got to pick the insiders or him.”

But what if picking him over the insiders means picking autocracy over the rule of law? The next few months will tell us if enough Americans prefer a criminal president to a Democratic one. I’m genuinely afraid of what the answer may be.