Trump White House just launched a desperate last ditch attempt at finding a scapegoat in its ranks
Donald Trump’s “Plan A” in his whistleblower scandal consisted of releasing incriminating evidence against himself and then claiming it didn’t happen. His “Plan B” consisted of attacking the people who came forward to rat him out, until too many of them were coming forward to count. Now he’s on to “Plan C” which is to formally pick a scapegoat within his own ranks, in the hope it’ll somehow magically save him.
Mick Mulvaney – who is headed to prison – and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone have jointly decided to launch an “internal review” of Donald Trump’s Ukraine phone call so they can determine whose fault it was, according to the New York Times. Spoiler alert: it was Donald Trump’s fault. He’s the President of the United States (for the moment). He made the call. But that’s not the conclusion that Trump and his remaining loyalists want America to come to, so here goes some nonsense.
Mulvaney and Cipollone are both obviously confident that the “internal review” won’t finger them as the guilty party, or they wouldn’t be promoting this idea. This means they and Donald Trump probably already have a designated scapegoat in mind. It won’t be enough to just sacrifice Rudy Giuliani, because he wasn’t in the White House. So who else is going under the bus?
The NY Times article in question mentions Gordon Sondland twice and Rick Perry once, but interestingly doesn’t mention Mike Pence or Mike Pompeo. Our guess is that, because Sondland has agreed to testify to the House impeachment inquiry this week, and Perry is reportedly resigning, the Trump White House has decided to have its “internal review” conclude that they’re at fault for Donald Trump having picked up the phone and committed treason. No one will buy it.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report