Donald Trump gets desperate
Last night Donald Trump filed suit to try to block the National Archives from releasing his White House records to the January 6th Committee. There’s been something of a race among pundits to see who can assign the most secret evil genius plan possible to Trump’s actions. But in reality, there’s no plan – only desperation.
The popular theory is that Trump has figured out how to delay the release of the records until after the Republicans take control of the House, so they can shut down the entire probe. But here’s the thing: even if the Republicans do win the House, they won’t take control until the start of 2023. This is still 2021. Trump isn’t going to be able to magically delay the inevitable records release for that long, simply by filing a meritless can’t-win case. Yet if you look at the punchline-level lawyers Trump is using for this filing, it’s clear that nothing is going to be expertly or magically dragged out until the year after next. This will fail.
So what’s Trump really doing? What he always does. What we spent the previous four years watching him do. He’s simply flailing, in desperate fashion, to try to keep his head just above the water line for a day longer. There’s never a plan with this guy, never a strategy. He proved this when he had four years to come up with a coherent plan to win, rig, or steal reelection, only for his “strategy” ended up being nonexistent, and he lost in a pathetic seven million vote blowout.
The pundits have long had a tendency to assign a secret evil genius strategy to Donald Trump’s every hapless, strategy-free desperation move. But Trump’s own ongoing and worsening failures always make clear that there is no such strategy. Trump’s latest suit is nothing but short term desperation to stave off the inevitable for a day. It won’t help him any. It never does.
