The Fix Was Always In

Today’s news is replete with reports that some staff members of Special Counsel Robert’s Meuller’s team are very unhappy with Attorney General William Barr’s “Summary” of the delivered report; that the full report is actually damaging to President Donald Trump. Is anyone really surprised by this? The fix was always in.

First, Trump appointed lifelong racist Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. Sessions, in an unusual display of legal decency, accepted the advice of Justice Department Ethics Advisors to recuse himself from the Meuller Investigation. They must have told him that a person who worked for the Trump campaign cannot oversee an investigation of it. Sessions, enduring continuous public castigation from Trump,  lasted for 21 months before being fired in November 2017.

Trump, looking for someone to protect him from Meuller, selected Matthew Whitaker to be acting Attorney General. Derided on Twitter as Acting Attorney General “Meatball,” Whitaker made a fool of himself appearing before Congress. All of his dodgy past came to light. He once represented a patent scam firm that claimed it had solved “time travel.” While Whitaker might have provided some intelligence to the White House, he was either unable or afraid to help Trump.

Now Trump was desperate, knowing that Meuller had damaging information on him and his grifter family. He needed a real Attorney General who would protect him, be his new Roy Cohn. Up steps William Barr, a former Attorney General in the George H. W. Bush Administration. A staunch Conservative, Barr had the experience as former Attorney General as well as other Justice Departments jobs. He had also sent an unsolicited memo to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein saying effectively that a President can’t obstruct justice. Finding that out, Trump must have said: “THAT’S MY GUY.”

Obviously, Barr pressured Meuller to complete the report quickly and deliver it to him. Barr then produced, in a couple of days, a four-page summary reporting that nothing prosecutable was found concerning the Trump campaign being in cahoots with the Russians and that Meuller chose not to prosecute Trump on obstruction of justice. Meuller had noted that he was not exonerating the President either.

Of course, carnival barker Trump immediately boasted that he was completely exonerated of everything and began a week-long victory lap, with all Republicans joining in, demanding apologies from the vile Democrats.

Previously, Trump stated in TV interviews that he was OK with releasing the full Meuller Report. Today, he reversed course and claimed that releasing the Mueller Report unredacted would be a “disgrace.” Now we all can settle back in our comfy chairs and watch the unfolding “Battle of the Potomac” as Democrats attempt to get the unredacted Mueller Report by subpoena and court action, and the Justice Department throws every roadblock they can.

Can Trump win this battle? Sure, he has been packing the courts with conservative stooges, especially his two Supreme Court selections (one’s a stooge and the other is an attempted rapist – they both owe him).

The only way to rid ourselves of Trump is the 2020 election. With all the Republican gerrymandering and intentional vote suppression, I still think he can win. In any case, it will take decades to repair the damage Trump has done to our democracy.