Week 68: The biggest fear of Trump's lawyer is revealed: the president under oath



[ad_1]

Bob Woodward, the human fly, has just returned from his fifth White House to file another report of a president in turmoil observed since an omniscient. This last flight, Fear: Trump at the White House, President Donald Trump struggles and suffers agony over the legal sentences the Russian investigation has inflicted on his administration, and perfectly explains why Trump's lawyers avoided exposing him to the interrogation requested by the advisor special Robert S. Mueller III.

In the afternoon of January 27, 2018, Woodward writes that Trump and his lawyer, John M. Dowd, met at the White House residence. Sitting with the president "at a table overlooking Washington and Jefferson memorials," Dowd proposed a review of the interview requested by Mueller – and continues to ask for it to this day.

History continues below

"I would just like to give you an idea of ​​what a testimony might be," Dowd told Trump, a man who has submitted to dozens of depositions during his long and contentious life. One of the most memorable, and damning for Trump, is the one he gave in his 2006 defamation suit against biographer Timothy O'Brien. As O'Brien wrote in Bloomberg in January, "Trump finally had to admit 30 times that he had lied over the years about all kinds of things: what was the amount of a big real estate project in Manhattan ; the price of one of his memberships at a golf club; the size of the Trump organization; her wealth; his speaking expenses; how many condos he had sold; his debts and if he borrowed money from his family to avoid bankruptcy. He also lied during the testimony about his dealings with career criminals.

The simulated interview with Dowd showed that Trump had not done much since then to improve his testimony game. On the one hand, Trump could not remember anything. "I'm not sure," Trump told a question about Michael Flynn. "I do not know," he said to another. "I do not know, I do not remember," he said to another question, to another question, "Trump said he could not remember." "You know, I do not know. not, "he said to another as if his memory banks had been dismantled.

But it was not the worst. In fact, Trump could remember certain things, and on those chosen things, he needed a perfect reminder.

"Why did you tell director Comey that … you sort of asked him to calm you down on Flynn," Dowd told Trump.

"I did not say that," protested the president. "John, I absolutely did not say that."

When Dowd pressed him, Trump did what he did when he was not blinded by the fog of memory or the seers: he blew up a style of Sam Yosemite, calling Comey a crook and a liar in his criticism well practiced. After a short interval, Trump quickly returned to yowl mode, making the next 30 minutes useless, Woodward writes. "It was quite a sight to see the president of the United States furious as an injured Shakespearian king," Woodward continues. "Trump has finally come down from the ceiling and has started to regain his composure," and Dowd tactfully explained that his ruthless nature meant he could not testify.

"I'll be a very good witness," Trump later told Dowd, but Dowd gave it without any details. "You are not a good witness."

Woodward's account and the scathing opinion of Anonymous published this week in New York Times confirms everything we've learned about Trump's relationship with the truth. In the president's version, he never committed a fault; he is the victim. He is imprudent and misinformed, as Anonymous says, an extraordinary flip-flopper. "Meetings with him are irrelevant and off the beaten track," Anonymous wrote, echoing Dowd's fictional testimony session.

To be a good witness, you need to stay consistent, but this skill is not in Trump's toolkit. In fact, he has made the art of contradicting himself. This week, one of his first responses to the anonymous piece was to call that phony. But even inside tweet, he demanded that the New York Times to entrust to him the identity of the author "for purposes of national security". On Friday, he called Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate the identity of Anonymous, although no laws were broken, for a lie tester to be administered. to suspected people write the op-ed. He also claimed that he was considering an action against the New York Timesbut did not say what kind of action. Trump too tweeted "The Woodward book is a scam" and he does not speak as he was quoted. New York Times Journalists Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman quickly proved his claim of how he speaks of falsity, showing that he had already used phrases such as "dumb sudherner" and "delay".

Trump's current lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, fully understands Trump's unique relationship with the truth, which is why he continues to block the question of an interview with Mueller. One minute he told the Associated Press that the president would not answer Mueller's questions about the obstruction of justice. The moment after, he told NBC News that these issues are not resolved. Because Mueller and his people do not talk to the press. Giuliani essentially plays tennis against the wall, hitting the ball more and louder and claiming that every call in his favor.

As Axios reported this week, Giuliani is essentially helping Mueller to summon the president, saying that the special council does not have moxie to question whether a president may be compelled to testify. In 1974, the Supreme Court ruled that President Richard Nixon had to give up the White House's recordings and documents, but never decided whether a president should testify. On Friday, Giuliani's hijinks continued, demanding to see a draft of Mueller's report before his release, so that his team could refute it at the same time. Some judicial authorities interviewed by Internal business basically said, Good try, Rudy, explaining that the future of the report really depends on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who named Mueller. "Expect the Mueller report to be stopped and based on proven facts," said Jeffrey Cramer, a former federal prosecutor. Internal business. "Expect the White House's response to be anything other than that."

Woodward turns from a house fly into a horse fly in the last paragraph of Fear as it offers the final Dowd assessment of the president. "Trump had a big problem that Dowd knew but could not bring himself to say to the president," You are a fucking liar. "

******

"The reason I'm talking to myself is because I'm the only one I accept the answers for," said George Carlin. Do you speak by email at [email protected]. My e-mail alerts float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. my Twitter Feeding is a louse My RSS feed is a new world worm.

Jack Shafer is politicoSenior Media Writer.

[ad_2]
Source link