Donald Trump is terrified | Salon.com

But keeping the base powered up has big drawbacks. He threw everything he could think on the wall, and the problem is that he is stuck and is now blocked. He can not dismiss Mueller because he insisted so much on the fact that Mueller's investigation is a "witch hunt" which, if he fired him now, would be an admission of guilt. Trump's almost constant attacks on Robert Mueller only made him feel like he was hiding something. He managed to get into a corner where he can not escape and he acted the same way he does everything else: with lies and an excessive ego.

Trump has the same problem with the appointment of Matthew Whitaker as Attorney General. He spent so much time shouting about Jeff Sessions recusing the Russian investigation that dismissal sessions are not just suspicious, it's another admission of guilt. Trump inevitably hinders Whitaker in the treatment of Mueller. Everything he touches will be suspicious. All because Trump lied and lied about Russia, and lied and lied about Mueller.

Whitaker is sitting in his large office at the Department of Justice, and he is surrounded by people who worked with and for Mueller when he was director of the FBI. He was director of the FBI from September 2001 to September 2013. 12 years. You make a lot of friends in 12 years. You generate a lot of loyalty. As director of the FBI, all these years of service in the country will not evaporate, because a pirate who owned retirement homes and sat on the board of directors of a fraudulent company specializing in patents has moved his two-door office.

Trump is painted in the same corner with his continuing lie about his willingness to be interviewed by Mueller and his investigators. In a scene of Bob Woodward's "fear", John Dowd, Trump's lawyer, submitted the president a fake interview on January 27 this year. Trump took it to himself after only a few minutes, enamelled by the kind of questions that would be asked by the special advocate Robert Mueller, calling the entire investigation investigation "super fucking hoax" ". Trump then told Dowd that he did not want to testify. In March, Trump had changed his mind and announced to Dowd that he would be "a very good witness" in an interview with Mueller. "I'm afraid I can not help you," Dowd told Trump, according to Woodward. He resigned the next day.

We now learn that Trump spent three days last week in "intense" meetings with his lawyers, who then wrote their answers to the written questions of Mueller's investigators. Trump told reporters at the White House last Friday that he was writing the answers to Mueller's questions himself. "My lawyers do not work on it. I write answers. My lawyers do not write answers. I answered the questions very easily. Very easily, "said Trump in response to a question raised after the signing of a bill. On Sunday, he told Fox News host Chris Wallace that he would probably not answer Mueller's questions in person.

Yes he goes. No, he will not do it. Yes he will probably do it. No, he may not do it. The man who repeatedly said he was not afraid to answer Mueller's questions turns out to be a man with a lot to hide.

The trap that Trump himself posed with Mueller is in the image of the trap in which he found himself just after his election. If so many people think that Trump has reached an agreement with the Russians to lift the sanctions in exchange for their help during his election campaign in 2016, this agreement died with his election. As the number of contacts between the Trump campaign and prominent Russians, such as Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, became known, Trump's chances of success on lifting the sanctions drew nearer and then vanished. . When he learned that Trump's campaign adviser, Michael Flynn, had promised Kislyak that Trump would lift the sanctions as soon as he took office, the deal was broken. As soon as Trump put an end to the sanctions, he would confirm his guilt by accepting the help of the Russians during his election. It was another trap of his own making.

And now, Trump is trapped not only by his own lies, but also by those of Vladimir Putin and Mohammed bin Salman. Trump is grappling with Putin's refusal to order the poisoning of two Russian dissidents in Britain last March, just like the fact that he denies that Russia has mingled with our elections in 2016. And he is struggling with the denial of Mohammed bin Salman about the murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi. The Saudis first claimed that he was still alive, then they died of an accident, and then they claimed that he had been killed by "dishonest agents". They are now obliged to deny that the assassination was ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Trump has been with them all the way. He has never accepted the assessment of his own intelligence agency that the Russians have interfered with our elections, and he will no longer accept the CIA report that Ben Salman has ordered the death of Khashoggi.

Why? Putin and bin Salman probably both have something on Trump, but that's not it. He is trapped by the lies of others, as well as by his own lies, because to admit that nothing at this stage is mortal. Donald Trump has good reason to be terrified. The sky is really falling.

Lucian K. Truscott IV

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a West Point graduate, has a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He has covered reports such as Watergate, the Stonewall riots and the wars in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five successful novels and several unsuccessful films. He has three children, lives in East Long Island and spends his time worrying about the state of our nation and scribbling madly in an unsuccessful attempt here to make things better. He can be followed on Facebook at The Rabbit Hole and on Twitter @LucianKTruscott.
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Lucian K. Truscott IV