Donald Trump can’t win and he knows it
Earlier today Donald Trump leaked to the New York Times that he was considering firing Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, in what would be retaliatory and plainly illegal move, after Atkinson dutifully gave the whistleblower report to the House. Now Trump is floating the notion of firing someone else.
Donald Trump is now leaking to the Washington Post that he wants to fire his Acting White House Chief Mick Mulvaney. This is particularly surreal, considering that if Trump fired Mulvaney right now, it would likely cause Mulvaney to figured out that he’ll never magically be pardoned, which could prompt Mulvaney to decide to testify against Trump in the House impeachment hearings.
What stands out here is that Trump keeps floating the notion that he’s going to fire this or that person, without actually doing it. In this instance he’s reportedly holding off on firing Mulvaney for now because his babysitters talked him out of it, but he might still fire Mulvaney next month. As per usual, Trump’s bark is bigger than his bite. Moreover, in both instances, he’s suddenly talking about firing people for things they did a long time ago. Trump supposedly wants to fire Mulvaney now for his press conference debacle four weeks ago. Why not fire these people back when they did the things that Trump considered to be fireable offenses?
Therein lies the problem. Because impeachment is about to hit the airwaves and the entire nation will be watching his every move closely, Donald Trump doesn’t exactly have any viable path for scapegoating anyone. If he illegally fires a plainly innocent person like Atkinson, it’ll be seen as further evidence that Trump is criminally out of control. And if Trump fires a plainly guilty person like Mulvaney, it could result in additional insider testimony against him.
