The incompetence and corruption that is pervasive in the Trump administration was on full display yesterday.
Trump cancelled his highly touted summit with North Korea supposedly because he did not like the inflammatory language used by Kim Jong Un in his recent missives. This from the guy who called the North Korean dictator, “Rocket Man” while threatening to use his massive military force to wipe Kim off the face of the earth.
You may recall that Trump surprised everybody when he recklessly announced that he would meet with Kim without qualifications for the sole purpose of knocking the Stormy Daniels story off the front page of the New York Times and Washington Post. After a week of worry over whether he might be embarrassed if the summit went sideways, Trump made the impetuous decision to pull the plug. So concerned was Trump over Kim embarrassing him by cancelling the summit before he did, Trump cancelled the meet without notifying allies in South Korea and Japan who had worked tirelessly to put the meeting together. You’re not breaking up with me. I’m breaking up with you. Trump’s letter to Kim advising his decision was right out of a sophomoric high school breakup.
We are closer to a military conflict now than we were before the president jumped into this irresponsibly reckless publicity stunt. Commemorative coins are now available for sale on the White House website.
Then there was the public outing of an FBI source ordered by Trump himself. Trump’s “I hereby demand” ordering of the DOJ to provide congress with classified documents pertaining to an FBI source looking into Trump and his campaign is unprecedented in American history. A trashing of constitutional norms. No American citizen has the right to know the details of an FBI investigation into himself unless and until the individual is indicted. Not even the president.
Trump ordered the DOJ to provide the info to congress. Republican members only. Democrats need not apply. All in violation of constitutional norms that require such briefings to be bi-partisan and provided to the leadership of both parties. Fortunately, ranking House Democrat Adam Schiff ignored the slight and crashed the party. Another briefing to the bi-partisan Gang of 8 followed.
But Trump wasn’t done. In yet another violation of the law, Trump sent his personal lawyer and chief of staff to express his wishes to the attendees. Chief of Staff John Kelly and counsel Emmett Flood were shooed from the meetings but he impropriety was there for all to see. Trump’s TV lawyer, Rudy Giuliani later confirmed that the meeting was set up to find out what evidence the DOJ had on the president by way of the expected leak from the GOP attendees: “We’ll see what they found out.”
It should be noted that Trump isn’t alone in his bashing of constitutional norms. The members of the Republican Caucus have been complicit as well; demonstrating their lack of spine and propriety as they stand idly by while Trump runs roughshod over the law. Speaker Paul Ryan couldn’t even be bothered to sit through the Gang of 8 briefing; leaving early to attend a fun raiser. Raising campaign funds more important than Russian meddling, collusion and corruption in the eyes of the Republican third in line for the White House.
The day before the inauguration Trump told his staff that they would treat each day as an episode in a reality TV show where he vanquishes his rivals.
This is bad television…and dangerous.
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