gracchusdixit

Forty-eight hours ago, the Congress of the United States adjourned for its summer recess.  By all accounts, members of both the House and the Senate, particularly those on the Republican side, were relieved to escape not only the notoriously oppressive summer weather of the nation’s capital, but even more so the stormy weather emanating from the increasingly chaotic and floundering presidency of Donald J. Trump.

Their respite will not last long.  In little more than a month, lawmakers will return to Washington to face solemn and inescapable decisions—about the fate of a sitting president, about the survival of our democracy, about the future of the nation itself.  They will be returning to face nothing less than a constitutional crisis, the likes of which we have not seen since the Civil War.  For Democrats, the task will be easy.  For Republicans, who control both Houses of Congress and thus the future of our republic, the opposite will be the case.  They will need to decide, once and for all, whether they intend to act as partisans or as patriots.

It doesn’t take a fortune teller to foresee the onset of this crisis, because the auguries of what is to come are abundantly clear to anyone who is willing to open his eyes.  It is clear, for example, that Robert Mueller, the special counsel appointed to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, is homing in.  From the résumés of the legal team he has assembled, we can deduce that Trump’s entourage and almost certainly Trump himself have become targets of investigation, not only for possible obstruction of justice, but for financial crimes and, in particular, financial crimes involving Russians.  And from Mueller’s recent impaneling of a special grand jury in Washington, we can conclude that criminal indictments are sure to follow.

Trump’s spokespeople and spin-masters would like us to believe that the impanelment of a new special grand jury signifies nothing unusual or surprising, was only to be expected, and may well lead to nothing.  Such claims are either delusional or designed to distract.  The notion that Mueller’s grand jury may fold its tent and go home quietly, having accomplished little of consequence, may theoretically be the case.  In practice, however, more than 99 percent of federal grand juries return criminal indictments.  Trump’s lawyers surely know this and no less surely have communicated this knowledge to their client.

This is Donald Trump’s worst nightmare.  For 30 years, he has been chiseling and double-dealing, defrauding his investors, lenders, contractors, and employees.  He and his family members have grown rich by accepting millions from, and laundering the millions of, countless Russian mobsters and oligarchs.  There is little doubt that they have bribed foreign officials or have been bribed in return, and that, in all likelihood, is why Trump has refused, and still refuses, to release his tax returns.  Buried in all that paper are too many telltale breadcrumbs.

Robert Mueller is now following those bread crumbs, one crumb at a time.  His newly impaneled grand jury can, and undoubtedly will, subpoena Trump’s financial records, including his tax returns, along with the financial records of everyone connected with Trump and his family.  This will begin the unraveling of decades of deceit.  Trump’s record of corruption and criminal behavior will be exposed to the sanitizing sunlight, and he will shrink and shrivel as a result.

Donald Trump knows this.  Which is undoubtedly why he has become so desperate.  Which is why he is doing everything in his power to stop Robert Mueller in his tracks.

Trump’s strategy for accomplishing that purpose is already clear.  He and his surrogates have launched a relentless attack on the integrity of Mueller himself, the team he has assembled, and the FBI as an institution.  To his rabid followers, Trump has proclaimed that he is the victim of a “witch hunt,” and that they are being “cheated” by an unnamed cabal of elite Washington insiders, determined to overturn the results of the 2016 presidential election.  To those who leak to the press, and to journalists who report those leaks, Trump and his Attorney General are now delivering threats of subpoena, arrest, and prosecution.

Let there be no doubt that, in these machinations, Donald Trump is laying the groundwork for the eventual firing Robert Mueller.  Despite all the admonitions of the political establishment, despite warnings from Republican Senators like Lindsay Graham and John McCain, despite the conventional wisdom that Donald Trump could not, would not do the unthinkable, he ultimately will do precisely that.  Because, in the final analysis, he will have no choice.  Donald Trump cannot allow the Mueller investigation to go forward, because he, and he alone, knows where it will lead.

And that is why, in five weeks’ time, Republican lawmakers will return to Washington, confronting a constitutional crisis.  Whether they are up to the challenge remains to be seen.  But if they fail, if they decide to circle the wagons around Donald Trump for partisan advantage, if they refuse to put the country first, they will go down in history as cowards.  We can only hope that the country does not go down with them.