gracchusdixit

If the storm of scandal swirling around Donald J. Trump ever leads to the downfall of his presidency, the week just ended will be remembered as the moment in time when the storm clouds burst.  The first thunderclap came Tuesday, when the Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Sputtering with outrage, he condemned as an “appalling and detestable lie” any suggestion that he might have had something to do with Russia’s attack on the 2016 election.  Apart from this hissy-fit and pompous pronouncements about his personal “honor,” Sessions served up no credible defense for his previous lies.  He declined to answer straightforward questions about his interactions with president on the flimsy ground that Trump might someday wish to invoke “executive privilege”.  When that excuse ran out of gas, he slunk behind the arras of faulty memory, invoking the phrase, “I can’t recall,” more than 25 times.

Sessions was too dim-witted to realize that this is the oldest, and most transparent, dodge in the world.  When a person can’t respond to a “yes” or “no” question with a simple “yes” or “no” answer, you can be reasonably certain that person is hiding something.  During several hours of dodgy testimony,  Sessions revealed all too clearly that he has plenty to hide.  It is now all but certain that he, the chief law enforcement official in the land, will become a witness in, or even a target of, the FBI’s investigation.

Scarcely 48 hours after Sessions’ testimony, we confronted the stunning news that Donald Trump is himself under investigation for possible criminal obstruction of justice.  Not only did this revelation completely upend Trump’s claim that, no matter what his “satellites” may or may not have done, he is squeaky-clean; it also raised the possibility that anyone associated with Trump, his campaign, and his administration might soon be implicated.  It took less than a day for that prospect to become a reality.

Soon after hearing that Trump was being investigated, we learned that the FBI is also looking into the financial transactions of Trump associates and family members, including his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.  This turn of events may prove to be the most serious of the numerous threats to Trump’s presidency and his personal future.  He and his children have a long history of dubious financial connections—with Russian gangsters, the Mafia, and foreign banks suspected of illegal money laundering.  That, almost certainly, is why he has so stubbornly refused to release his tax returns.  Buried deep in all that paperwork must be thousands of clues and red flags.  Now, we know that the FBI will be examining each and every one.

Then, at week’s end, came the news that half a dozen Trump associates are “lawyering up,” anticipating that they will soon be drawn into the thicket of the FBI’s investigation.  Foremost among them is the Vice President of the United States, the Honorable (and always grinning) Mike Pence.  This can only mean that Pence believes himself to be in legal jeopardy.

The jeopardy isn’t going to stop with Pence.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has a brother, Eric Prince, who made a fortune by supplying private mercenaries to the Department of Defense.  Before Trump was sworn in, Prince arranged a secret meeting in the Seychelles to establish a “back channel” by which Trump and his minions could communicate with the Russian government without public scrutiny.  It is inevitable that Eric Prince and Betsy DeVos will be drawn into the FBI’s investigation.  They, too, will soon need to “lawyer up”.

In 2014, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross bought a controlling interest in the Bank of Cyprus, an institution that was, and is, notorious for laundering Russian money.  Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, once had more than a dozen accounts at this bank, chock full of money from God knows where.  As president of the bank, Ross installed the former head of Deutsche Bank, Josef Ackermann.  During Ackermann’s reign, Deutsche Bank was fined $630 million for—you guessed it—laundering massive amounts of Russian money.  It was also the only major financial institution willing to lend Trump money in the wake of the 2009 economic collapse, when his businesses were teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.  By all accounts, Trump still owes Deutsche Bank several hundred million dollars.  All of this, of course, may be coincidental and utterly innocent; it’s also possible that the tooth fairy will someday run for president.  Inevitably, Wilbur Ross will be drawn into the FBI’s investigation.  Like Betsy DeVos and her brother Eric, Ross will soon need to “lawyer up”.

Facing this unrelenting drumbeat of bad news, Donald Trump himself has responded like a cornered and wounded animal:  snarling, snapping, and lashing out.  His rage is palpable, and the sheer fury of his frustration is everywhere evident:  on Twitter, in his rare encounters with the press, in the ranting speeches he delivers at highly choreographed events with his still-adoring but dwindling “base”.  He complains about “witch hunts”.  He claims to be the victim of a conspiracy by the so-called “deep state”.  He demands to know why the FBI isn’t investigating his one-time opponent, Hillary Clinton, as if anybody any longer cared.

However psychologically blinkered and contorted he may be, Donald Trump must surely realize that reality is finally catching up with his fantasy world, that he is at long last going to pay a price for his behavior, that the noose is tightening.  It may take many months or even years, but the day is going to come when the metaphorical hangman presses the knot against Donald Trump’s throat and opens the trapdoor beneath his feet.   For the nation’s sake, that day cannot come soon enough.