Report: White House staffers are discussing when, not if, Donald Trump will resign
Donald Trump is holed up in Camp David this week, a place he hates, and is reportedly refusing to meet or speak with anyone on his staff. This comes at the end of a week in which he was exposed as being under criminal investigation, and responded by exploding on Twitter in self incriminating fashion. Now comes word that Trump’s staffers are expecting him to resign.
That’s the word from political insider Jon Cooper, who has shared the following: “WH source: Alarmed Trump staffers are starting to talk about WHEN (not if) Trump will resign. Wondering if Pence will be forced out, too.” (link). No specific timetable is known to have been discussed. Rather, by framing it in terms of when and not if, White House staffers are expressing their expectation that Trump’s resignation is now inevitable (keep in mind that inevitable does not mean imminent).
This raises the question of why some of Donald Trump’s staffers are now expecting him to resign, rather than merely expecting that he’ll be ousted through impeachment or the 25th Amendment. His staff has been working closely with him on a daily basis for half a year, and they may now be interpreting his latest words or behavior as a sign that he knows it’s time to bail out before things get worse. Or they may have heard him say as much. It’s also notable that the White House staff thinks Mike Pence may also be a goner.
Pence recently hired an attorney to personally represent him in the Russia probe. He’s also launched a fundraising PAC which appears aimed at paying his legal bills, suggesting that he expects to be a central target of the investigation in prolonged manner which will result in massive attorneys fees. Former FBI Director James Comey confirmed during his recent testimony that Pence knew early on that Michael Flynn was dirty, suggesting that he may have been in on the coverup.
