Donald Trump is rapidly hastening his own demise
Earlier in the week, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi uninvited “President” Donald J. Trump from giving his State of the Union Address as scheduled on January 29th. As only the #PetulantOrangeTantrumpUnhingedSpecimen can manage, he turned into a five-year-old, “It’s not fair,” child. Trump retaliated by firing off a letter to “Madame Speaker” (of course misspelling), stating, “I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan was postponed.”
By issuing the letter, Trump disclosed that Pelosi (and a bipartisan contingent) would be stopping in Afghanistan, while also disclosing the rest of the itinerary. The purpose of the trip was to reassure our NATO allies we valued them and to give moral support to the military fighting to protect us and our allies. All of that behavior is reprehensible. In the meantime, the #FlauntingLiarOfTrumpUnionShuckster smiled as she boarded a government plane at the tune of $840,000 to get away to Mar-A-Lago for the weekend.
But what is most reprehensible, and potentially criminal, is what Trump did next. In his letter to Pelosi, Trump suggested she fly commercial. Never mind the danger of doing so, Pelosi made such plans. But the Trump administration leaked the commercial travel plans, thus effectively cancelling the trip. Putting your political rival’s life in danger is criminal- period. There is no excuse for this conduct. One would think Trump would be figuring out what the hell he is going to do in light of the bombshell reporting that he told Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, something that William Barr assured Senators Lindsey “KomproGraham” and Amy Klobuchar would be a crime.
Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff Drew Hammill issued a statement about the reprehensible conduct of Trump: “The United States Congress is a co-equal branch of government in our system of checks and balances. The Congress has a constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight in the war zone where our men and women in uniform are risking their lives every day … This morning, we learned that the Administration had leaked the commercial travel plans as well. In light of the grave threats caused by the President’s action, the delegation has decided to postpone the trip so as not to further endanger our troops and security personnel, or the other travelers on the flights.”
Yes, Trump is a criminal. Reckless endangerment to start, but suborning perjury, lying, and more to come. KomproGraham and GOP will try to spin, but we must call bullshit. Enough.
Daniel is a lawyer writing and teaching about SCOTUS, and is the author of the book “The Chief Justices” about the SCOTUS as seen through the center seat.