A Warning: A senior Trump Administration Official by Anonymous

Author:Anonymous
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9781979637336
Published: 2017-11-09T03:51:05+00:00

Tipping the Scales

The American judicial system was designed to straddle two branches. The executive branch investigates and prosecutes crimes, and the judicial branch determines guilt and innocence in the courts. The distinction is irrelevant to Trump. The president tries to browbeat the lawyers defending him, seeks to influence investigators investigating him, and attacks the judges judging him. As a result, he has undermined all aspects of the justice system in an effort to “tip the scales” in his favor.

When it comes to manipulating the system, Trump’s first instinct is to force the answers he wants from his lawyers. He pressures them daily, and they feel the heat. He will berate them to their faces for not seeing the law the way he sees the law, and he cannot stand it when they tell him “No,” which they incidentally have to do all the time. He presses them to get to “Yes” on issues where doing so would appear wholly inappropriate, even to the most uneducated listener. Trump tells agency heads to fire their lawyers and get new ones if they aren’t getting the right results. If the American Bar Association could see it from the inside, they’d have a field day.

The president’s former White House counsel, Don McGahn, had the backbone to stand up to Trump, which cannot be said of everyone. That’s what is so concerning about his handling of government lawyers. Trump drives them to the edge of what’s reasonable or legal and then badgers them until they take the plunge, bringing the administration along for the fall. It’s an attitude that would be unworthy of a small-town mayor, and which is remarkably unbecoming for an American president.

We can tell when Trump is preparing to ask his lawyers to do something unethical or foolish because that’s when he starts scanning the room for note takers.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he shouted at an aide who was scribbling in a notebook during a meeting. It’s not uncommon for advisors to write down reminders during conversations with the president. How else are they supposed to record all of his marching orders?

The room went silent. The aide seemed confused about what was wrong.

“Are you fucking taking notes?” Trump continued, glaring.

“Uhh…sorry,” the aide said, quietly closing the notebook and sitting up straighter in the chair.

His paranoia is the best evidence of a guilty conscience. After a particularly bad series of leaks from the White House, President Trump inquired about the possibility of surreptitiously monitoring the phones of White House staff. To avoid veering into “illegal” territory, staff interpreted this as the president asking for better “insider-threat detection” systems, a common practice in businesses or agencies working to prevent unauthorized disclosures. Here was a man who was apoplectic at the (completely false) theory that Barack Obama had his “wires tapped” at Trump Tower, but who was more than happy to tap those of the people around him.

The president won’t let the cautiousness of government lawyers stop him from doing what he wants.

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