Reince Priebus and the long list of political allies Donald Trump has left for dead
After having been exposed just before the weekend for having obstructed justice while trying and failing to make Donald Trump’s Russia scandal go away, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus will start the workday on Monday by trying to assess how much support he still has left in the building. He might find it from his White House allies. He shouldn’t expect any support from Trump himself. Don’t be shocked if Reince ends up resigning by end of day Monday – because it’s just how Trump does these things.
During his relatively brief time in politics, Donald Trump has demonstrated a remarkably consistent habit of leaving his own political allies for dead the minute they become too controversial – even if doing Trump’s bidding was what got them into trouble. Does anyone believe Michael Flynn was doing anything with Russia that he didn’t have Trump’s blessing for? And yet, four days after Flynn was publicly outed for it, he was gone. And he’s one of an increasingly long trail of political carcasses which Trump has left behind him.
It’s not just that Donald Trump has scapegoated hired hands like Corey Lewandowski for running the kind of ineffective campaign Trump asked him to run, and Paul Manafort for getting caught up in Trump’s Russia scandal. Trump has done this to his friends as well. Remember when Chris Christie was going to be in his administration? Trump dumped him the minute the bridge scandal got too hot. And even Rudy Giuliani, who appears to have illegally colluded with the FBI to rig the election in Trump’s favor, was shut out of a cabinet position after he made the mistake of bragging about his collusion.
And that’s just the short list of allies whom Trump has opportunistically left for dead as needed. What’s remarkable is that as of yet, none of these people have publicly turned against Trump. Lewandowski remained on the campaign payroll so he would stay loyal. Giuliani was given a minor job to keep him quiet. Christie has been conned into believing he’ll get a Trump White House job eventually. Trump has his ways of keeping some of the ghosts from telling tales.
But Flynn committed a felony by lying to the FBI about Russia. How loyal will he remain once he gets offered a deal to keep himself out of jail? And it appears Reince Priebus broke the law by leaning on the FBI. If Donald Trump scapegoats Priebus this week, and keeps scapegoating every one of his allies whenever it’s opportunistic to do so, it’s a matter of time before he has no allies left – and one of the scapegoats decides to take Trump down with him. At this rate, it may come sooner than you think. Contribute to Palmer Report
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