Welcome to the resignation stage of Donald Trump’s downfall
In an attempt at proving he wasn’t the ringleader in the Ukraine treason scandal, Rudy Giuliani posted a tweet last night which exposed his conversations with the State Department’s Kurt Volker. Then today, the House impeachment inquiry subpoenaed Volker to be interviewed about the scandal. This evening, Volker resigned.
It took less than twenty-four hours for a key player in this scandal to be fully taken down. Moreover, now that Volker’s job is gone anyway, Donald Trump doesn’t have much leverage over him – meaning Volker is free to fully cooperate with the House, in an effort to either clear himself if he’s innocent, or avoid prosecution if he’s guilty of something.
The thing is, Kurt Volker won’t be the only one to resign over this. Consider it the first domino. Earlier today, the House subpoenaed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for the Ukraine-related documents, under threat of being prosecuted for obstruction when this is all over. If Pompeo doesn’t cooperate, he’ll be earmarked for prison. If he does cooperate, there’s a good chance he’ll have to resign as well.
This comes even as Bill Barr is almost comically hiding out in Italy, instead of trying to deal with the fallout from the scandal. Barr is going to face huge pressure from the GOP establishment to recuse himself and appoint a Special Counsel to take over (oh the irony) – and if Barr does that, Trump will be so enraged him, Barr may have to resign as well.
Then there’s Mike Pence, who right now is provably trying to decide whether to stick around and try to inherit the presidency for a hot minute before ultimately being taken down for his own role in the Ukraine scandal, or whether he wants to cut an immunity resignation deal now while he still can. We can’t predict who will resign next. But we expect more resignations soon. The dam has broken.
