Donald Trump’s bluff backfires

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Donald Trump is growing increasingly desperate. His unhinged behavior is clearly spiraling out of control with each new revelation that reveals Special Counsel Robert Mueller knows everything. Whether it is the decades of money laundering, selling out America to foreign adversaries to steal an election, or the pathetically transparent coverup, Mueller knows all, and Trump is terrified. Things are getting so bad for him, Trump cannot even make it through an entire Christmas tree lighting ceremony without panicking and running back to the White House without any explanation.

Trump’s desperation is even more evident in an interview he gave to the New York Post on Wednesday. Asked about how he will deal with the multitude of congressional investigations into his many crimes once Democrats take power in the House in January, Trump could not help himself and blatantly threatened anyone thinking about looking into his many crimes.

“If they go down the presidential harassment track, if they want go and harass the president and the administration, I think that would be the best thing that would happen to me. I’m a counter-puncher and I will hit them so hard they’d never been hit like that,” Trump claimed. Clearly not aware of the limits to his power, Trump even threatened to declassify documents from Mueller’s investigation.

However, it is evident that Trump is simply bluffing in the hope that his threats alone might save him. But I highly doubt soon-to-be committee chairs like Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters, Jerry Nadler, and Elijah Cummings will be scared off by an empty threat. When asked why he hadn’t already released the “devastating” documents, Trump claimed “It’s much more powerful if I do it then, because if we had done it already, it would already be yesterday’s news.” That’s clearly a lie. If Trump had anything he thought could hurt congressional Democrats he would have released it before the midterm elections, knowing that retaining control of the House was his last best chance at avoiding the coming onslaught of investigations.

John Dean, who served as White House Counsel under Richard Nixon, called out Trump’s bluff in a tweet, “This is pure bluff by Trump and shows how he doesn’t understand that he can’t declassify, for example, grand jury testimony or Court sealed documents. Come Jan. 3 Trump’s life is going to change with Congressional oversight.” If there’s anyone who has watched the downfall of a presidency first hand, it is John Dean.