Aileen Cannon’s corrupt deal
First a bit of history. Stop me if you’ve heard this one. At the height of the collasal paranoid cluster-fluck that came to be known as “Watergate,” on a night that came to be known as “The Saturday Night Massacre,” Richard Milhous Nixon, then president of the United States, fired the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Well, Nixon didn’t exactly fire him, he couldn’t. He lacked the Constitutional power. So instead he ordered his attorney general, Eliot Richardson, to fire Cox for him. Richardson refused and resigned on the spot.
Nixon then ordered the deputy attorney general William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus refused and likewise resigned on the spot. Nixon then ordered the third man at the Justice Department, Robert Bork, to fire Cox. It turned out that Nixon didn’t have to work his way down to the DOJ’s head janitor after all. Bork clicked his heels together and did as he was told.
Like I said, that was what came to be known as the Saturday Night Massacre, to be specific, October 20, 1973, 51 years and 5 days ago, as I write this. That night redounded through history as one of the most iconic and shocking days in the history of the presidency — until Donald Trump came along and made it seem rather pedestrian by comparison.
Nevertheless, not to be outdone by any bad boy president of the past, Donald Trump just promised, if elected president, as one of his first “official acts” (more about this later), to fire special counsel Jack Smith. Like Nixon, Trump lacks the power to do so. He might have to get his attorney general Aileen Cannon (more about this later) to do it for him.
Now, it’s not actually clear whether or not Donald Trump knows what the Saturday Night Massacre was. He is, after all, the stupidest and most ignorant man by far to ever occupy the presidency. Even though he lived through it in real time, was in fact a full grown adult of 27 at the time it happened, he is so addle-brained and stupid I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he doesn’t remember it or didn’t even notice it when it happened.
Either way, if Trump were to, by some miracle of hell, become president once again, he probably would fire Smith himself, Constitutional power to do so or not. He would be breaking the law if he did, but that’s okay, because it would be part of his “official duties” and the Supremely Stupid Court has recently decreed that the president of the United States is free to cluster-fluck the law whenever he wants as long as it’s an, ahem, official duty.
Now, what’s this stuff about “attorney general” Aileen Cannon? Well, it turns out that Trump’s favourite concierge judge was recently placed on a short list as a candidate for the top office of Attorney General in Trump’s first cabinet, should hell perform the requisite unthinkable miracle and make the fascist asshole president again. All of which begs the question, did Trump pick her because she dismissed the documents case, or did Aileen Cannon corruptly agree to dismiss Donald Trump’s documents case in exchange for the top job at the DOJ?
We may never know for sure. But either way, in a ghastly, unthinkable hypothetical, should Trump become president and want to fire Smith, I have little doubt that Aileen Cannon will zealously do it for him. Trump would be free to save his lawbreaking for other matters, beginning with unlawfully imprisoning or murdering American citizens. Let’s make sure that it never happens, that he never gets near the White House again. Unless, obviously, there’s some federal prison nearby and he’s sentenced to it. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.