Señor Trumpanzee Finally Gets His Witch Hunt

The most dysfunctional and chaotic regime in American history is now breaking down entirely, as Trump sets employees against one another, like some Orwellian nightmare. They are scouring Bob Woodward's new book, Fear, line by line to see if they can identify anyone who has been disloyal to the would-be Führer. Speaking of which, in 1934 there was no going back for Germany when Hitler changed the Reichswehreid, the military pledge , to the Führereid. The original:

I swear loyalty to the Reich's constitution and pledge, that I as a courageous soldier always want to protect the German Reich and its legal institutions, (and) be obedient to the Reichspräsident and to my superiors.

The shiny new authoritarian version:

I swear by God this holy oath, that I want to offer unconditional obedience to the Führer of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, the commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, and be prepared as a brave soldier to risk my life for this oath at any time.

Trump is going batshitcrazy over the Woodward book and is lashing out in every direction. CNN reported that "he's privately on a mission to determine who did-- and didn't-- talk to Woodward." Who's going to stop him? Lindsey Graham? Chuck Grassley? Ben Sasse? I wouldn't count on it.

Two officials who have spoken directly to the President say he is pleased with the denials offered by chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis.

In Trump's eyes, what makes or breaks aides who are reported to have made disparaging comments about him is how strongly they push back on the accusations.

But he is also taking note of the silence from several other former administration officials.



"He wants to know who talked to Woodward," one of the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity amid the highly tense atmosphere in the West Wing in the wake of the book.

The search for leakers inside the administration contrasts with the White House's defense that the book was fueled by "disgruntled employees," offered by press secretary Sarah Sanders and others.

One source close to the White House said people inside the administration are "frustrated because they know it's true."

Trump has talked openly with allies about his suspicion that former national security adviser H.R. McMaster cooperated, suggesting that McMaster likely turned over his notes to Woodward. The President has aired a similar belief about Gary Cohn, the former chief economic adviser.

Both men, of course, play key roles in the book.

The President is directing the response strategy personally, officials say, in consultation with top communications official Bill Shine and other aides. At this point, it seems unlikely that anyone is immediately fired because of the book, one official says, because that would "lend credence to a book he is trying to discredit."

...[T]he White House's emerging strategy to push back against Woodward's reporting seems to be going after those former officials suspected of sharing documents and stories, according to several people familiar with the game plan.

"You don't discredit Bob Woodward. You discredit the motives of the people" who provided the information, one person said.

Evidently caught off guard by the level of detail in the book, White House officials were soliciting advice from allies on how to respond to the book as recently as this weekend, a person familiar with those conversations said. One Republican who Trump doesn't think of as an ally-- although he votes for all Trump's crap, is Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse. He was on the Hugh Hewitt Show today: "The drama of this op-ed, the drama of the Woodward book, the drama of the Omarosa tapes, the drama of Cohen, the drama of Manifort, the drama of just the three-ring circus that is the White House almost every day, I think that it exhausts the American people. And I know that the founders would regard anything like this as you know, really unhelpful. You don’t run the country as a soap opera."