Everything Trump Touches Dies is the name of a book by Rick Wilson, a Republican commentator who frequently appears on CNN and MSNBC. The name also applies to the Donald Trump White House. Take the president’s former personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, who is facing three years in federal prison. Another example is Trump’s younger brother, who used to work in the family business but escaped to a farm in upper New York. There are more bodies lying in plain sight, tossed away when they were no longer useful.
As soon as Trump’s hand-picked, Roy Cohnesque Attorney General William Barr’s interpretation of the Robert Mueller report came out, POTUS was delighted. He tweeted:
‘Only high crimes and misdemeanors can lead to impeachment. There were no crimes by me (No Collusion, No Obstruction), so you can’t impeach. It was the Democrats that committed the crimes, not your Republican President! Tables are finally turning on the Witch Hunt!’
‘The relevant precedent is the Clinton impeachment. By that standard a number of obstruction counts are appropriate in an impeachment.’
‘I admire the advisers he’s chosen, like Larry Kudlow and David Malpass, and I admire his choice of VP.’
The new man tweeted:
‘I have a lot of admiration for Vice President Pence, I think he’d make a great President, and I think he can see the country and the Republican Party through this trying time.’
That response provided him one of the first 16 transition team jobs, deputy director of economic policy.
Verret disagreed with Trump about financial regulation, immigration, and trade. Campaign Manager Paul Manafort’s hostility toward Russian sanctions was off-putting, too. Later, Trump’s people offered the pre-transition-team member a job at the White House, but he left in October under good terms. Verret tweeted:”
”Finished a second read through the Mueller Report. I don’t say this lightly, as a life long Republican, former R Hill staffer, and someone who has worked on every R campaign and pre-transition team for the last ten years. There is enough here to begin impeachment proceedings.”
‘The Mueller report was that tipping point for me, and it should be for Republican and independent voters, and for Republicans in Congress. In the face of a Department of Justice policy that prohibited him from indicting a sitting president, Mueller drafted what any reasonable reader would see as a referral to Congress to commence impeachment hearings.’
‘This elaborate pattern of obstruction may have successfully impeded the Mueller investigation from uncovering a conspiracy to commit more serious crimes. At a minimum, there’s enough here to get the impeachment process started. In impeachment proceedings, the House serves as a sort of grand jury and the Senate conducts the trial. There is enough in the Mueller report to commence the Constitution’s version of a grand-jury investigation in the form of impeachment proceedings.’
The law professor continued:
‘That does not suggest what the outcome of such a proceeding will be, impeachment is only the beginning of an inquiry. Analogous to a grand jury investigation. But it’s time, it really is.’
Verret also noted that the Republicans seem to be “spellbound by the sound bites of Twitter and cable news.” He called the president “a born wizard:”
‘(I)n time, we can help rebuild the Republican Party, enabling it to rise from the ashes of the post-Trump apocalypse into a party with renewed commitment to principles of liberty, opportunity, and the rule of law.’
Twitter world caught fire. Check out some of our favorites below:
