Who the hell is the President of the United States tonight?
Last we checked, Donald Trump is still occupying the office of President of the United States. We all expect him to be ousted and brought to justice eventually. Some of us expect it to happen sooner than others. But if there was one thing we could all agree on, its that Donald Trump wasn’t going to be replaced as President by Don McGahn. Yet here we are, with McGahn reportedly giving orders to the FBI that Trump’s own countermanding orders supposedly haven’t been able to override.
The sequence of events has been profoundly confusing. Last night NBC News revealed that someone in th the Trump regime – widely assumed to be Don McGahn – had secretly told the FBI to severely limit the scope of the FBI investigation into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. This instantly exploded into a scandal, and Donald Trump quickly tried to put it to bed by posting a tweet instructing the FBI that it was free to use its own discretion without limitations. Regardless of the ridiculous delivery method, the tweet was a legally binding order, which according to legal experts, the FBI is legally required to follow.
So this was settled, right? Wrong. This afternoon NBC News posted an article with this headline: “Limits to FBI’s Kavanaugh investigation have not changed, despite Trump’s comments.” The claim is coming from “a senior U.S. official and another source familiar with the matter.” Wait a minute, what? Trump’s tweet wasn’t a “comment” – it was an order from the President of the United States. So how can the FBI decide to ignore the President’s order, in favor of abiding by a previous instruction from Don bleeping McGahn? It can’t. Therein lies the pandemonium.
The central question here is whether the NBC report is legitimate. That would require knowing who the inside source is. If this story is coming from McGahn, it could be an attempt on his part at confusing the FBI into ignoring Trump’s order. If the source is Trump, then who knows what he’s trying to accomplish. If the source is the FBI, it’s entirely possible that they’re trying to confuse Trump into believing that Kavanaugh is being protected, so he’ll stop interfering.
The problem is this: the “President” of the United States – illegitimate as he may be – gave an order to the FBI in plain view. Now a major news network is reporting that the President’s order is being ignored, because the White House Counsel had already given the FBI contradictory instructions. If this story is accurate, then Don McGahn is now the de facto President of the United States, giving orders to the FBI that Donald Trump can’t override. What the hell is going on?
