Donald Trump prepares to roll out one big final distraction as he circles the drain
Donald Trump’s presidency was already dying when the day began. Now that Gordon Sondland has delivered utterly devastating impeachment testimony, Trump’s presidency is on life support. He’s much closer to prison than he is to reelection. So naturally, here comes the big ugly distraction that he’ll try to use as a last ditch attempt at sowing chaos.
Lindsey Graham announced tonight that the Department of Justice will release an Inspector General report on December 9th on the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. This is the part where Donald Trump and Bill Barr spew a bunch of tinfoil hat lunatic conspiracy theory nonsense about how the FBI, the CIA, and the Democrats were somehow working together to force Donald Trump to collude with Russia.
There are a few things here that stand out. First, the fact that Lindsey Graham is the one announcing this? That tells you all you need to know. He’s a Senator, not a member of the Department of Justice, so this means he’s been conspiring with Bill Barr to try to craft and time this nonsensical report. Second, the DOJ is releasing the report, not the Inspector General himself, which means Barr will dishonestly edit it.
Third, this will go nowhere. It’s the kind of nonsense that’ll make Donald Trump look desperate, and guilty, and it won’t gain him a single vote. Trump is going to simply keep pandering to his lunatic base to the bitter end, even though it’s nowhere near large enough to save him. He’ll still be pandering to his base when he’s gone from office and on criminal trial. That’s his problem: he has no awareness that he needs to expand his support if he wants to avoid going from the White House to the big house.
