House Democrats are playing rope-a-dope with Donald Trump’s kids
In the midst of a very bad week for Donald Trump, Donald Jr, and Ivanka particularly, considering her blatant security clearance lies, House Democrats are reportedly reluctant to pursue Trump’s family, at least for now.
Their reasoning is sound. “It gets real personal, real fast,” Virginia rep Gerry Connolly told Politico. “And it risks backfiring.” The gist is that it’s easy to lose political support taking the fight to any president’s family, even when the kids are almost certainly involved in dad’s crimes, and that House Dems would rather let federal and state prosecutors lead the way.
What’s less clear is why they would make these reservations public at all. It has the whiff of betrayal, or at least weakness, considering that what Americans voted for in large part last November is oversight into everyone involved with Trump’s prolific lawbreaking. Doesn’t that prove that investigating Trump and his family is exactly what we voted for, and thus your job?
The thing to consider is what effect a public statement like this might have, along with its timing. On the Mueller investigation or state-level pursuits in New York, where prosecutors are hot on the heels of the Trump Organization? This has no bearing at all. On the majority of us who are impatient for justice? Well, it’s certainly frustrating on its surface, but does anyone really think this will have a material effect on the outcome of any investigation? It makes no sense that it would, especially considering that Connolly acknowledged that the House may have no choice but to haul in a few tainted Trump offspring sometime down the line, depending on what comes to light. Considering the warp speed at which damning evidence is dropping from several angles, that schedule should accelerate in turn.
House Dems are best viewed as the political apparatus in this wide-ranging investigative operation. Their own investigative function is also crucial, but managing potential fallout from aggressive maneuvering against the president’s children, taking pressure off Mueller, is equally important. The most likely strategic reason for bothering with a public statement like this – besides the point that it’s still a legislator’s responsibility, in theory, to truthfully inform the republic about what they’re doing and why – is that it could lull a dope like Junior into a false sense of security, enabling him to tweet away that the libs stand in awe of his powers and his killer neckbeard, while possibly incriminating himself among the lolz.
Let him get comfy. One person who has no compunction about going after the family is Mueller, who did just that when he led the Enron investigation and busted Enron CFO Andrew Fastow’s wife for tax evasion on the way to a felony conviction of the CEO. With House Dems managing the politics, Mueller is in a much better position to take down another CEO, a.k.a. Individual-1, by leveraging Individual-2 ruthlessly.
Chuck is a former community reporter, columnist, and Army veteran