As outwardly obstinant as they may be, Trump insiders are getting increasingly uncomfortable as the sheer number of accusations and volume of evidence of criminality come at Trump, some of them self-proving.
Last night, Lindsey Graham went on Fox and delivered a sly threat. He said that if Trump is charged, there will be “riots in the streets.” Graham’s threat is both terrifying and telling. It is terrifying because we sense the deep truth in the statement. It is telling in that Graham and team Trump sense the likelihood that DOJ files charges, and if DOJ prosecutes, then one can be assured that they have overwhelming evidence, the type of evidence that nearly convicts in the criminal complaint. The U.S. Justice Department has a 95% conviction rate, which should embarrass them a bit; it means that they’re not taking enough hard cases. But with respect to Trump, it means that they don’t charge regular people unless they know they will get a conviction. That is a regular person. If they charge an ex-president, the evidence must be so compelling that even Trump’s people will be… uncomfortable.
According to Axios co-founder Mike Allen, the people around Trump are feeling that discomfort already:
There is a second reality here. As I talk to people close to the president, former President Trump, over the weekend, they are queasy about the facts now that are coming out. People defended him reflexively, defended him all these many years, suddenly, there’s a lot of concern about the facts.”
If you watched the Sunday shows, they were near bereft of Republicans out defending Trump. Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri was the lone exception, and when he appeared on “This Week,” he was forced to admit that Trump should have turned the documents over.
“One of the biggest things, Joe, is just the volume that you’ve been highlighting in that graphic. You think about the person in the bar test: they look at the number of boxes, the number of documents. Joe, I can tell you that there’s some short-term, within the Republican party, political bump maybe for Donald Trump, but the long-term really looks bad.
Of course, the volume of boxes increases the likelihood that some atrocious secrets were hauled out and left unguarded and illegally held for reasons we’ve yet to learn.
You talk to people who know how the Justice Department works, how DOJ, operates — look at this,” he added. “They knew that he had documents they asked for them back. There’s a lot of sign in these documents that he was not forthcoming about them, to say the least. And that’s kind of textbook of how DOJ operates.
DOJ operates like the DOJ. The FBI is so good that they know the answer to the question they ask before they even approach the person. They know the evidence they’ll find before they get the warrant. And they know they’ll convict before they charge someone (Again, that’s not necessarily something to be proud of, sometimes, one has to take a run at a hard case). But that’s how DOJ operates, and though Trump may not know it, the people around Trump are sophisticated enough to understand the reality. This is how DOJ goes about enforcing the law, and the Trumpers should be queasy.
It is terrifying that their best defense seems to be the promise to tear the country apart should he be charged.
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