Donald Trump tries to hurry up and finish cashing in before his time is up

| 11:46 pm EDT April 10, 2018
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Donald Trump is officially on the clock. The FBI raid against his attorney Michael Cohen is a signal that his scandals are closing in on him so rapidly, questions about his potential resignation are now being raised during White House Press briefings. How much time does he have left? We can’t put a time stamp on it. But Trump seems to understand the clock is ticking, because he’s now trying to hurry up and cash in on his office while he still can.

That’s the only logical way to interpret the fact that Trump is suddenly meeting with the Emir of Qatar at the White House. Their joint press conference was little more than a dog and pony show, but by now we know how these things work. It’s previously been reported that Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner sought personal loans from Qatar and, after having failed to receive them, sought to punish Qatar politically with a naval blockade.

After the story became public, the government of Qatar more or less publicly admitted that the Trump administration had tried to blackmail it, but also made clear that it would refuse to cooperate with any investigation. This was a pretty strong sign that Qatar had decided to go along with the Trump family’s pay-to-play schemes after all, and sure enough, now the Emir of Qatar is posing for pictures with Donald Trump in the White House. This is after Trump had previously all but accused the government of Qatar of being a terrorist group.

It’s not difficult to see what’s going on here. For all his bluster on Twitter, Donald Trump has been taking next to no action to try to fend off the Trump-Russia investigation or put together a coherent defense. Instead he’s investing his remaining time in trying to cash in while he still can.