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writing for godot

Kim & Cohen - Trump didn’t have a chance

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Written by Zepp Jamieson   
Thursday, 28 February 2019 23:04

March 1st 2019

It’s pretty easy to see how desperate and panicked the Trumpkins in the GOP are by the shrill screams of “liar!” they keep hurling at Michael Cohen. Two of the more prominent whores in Congress, Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows, asked the Justice Department to investigate Cohen for perjury, saying he lied during his appearance about his efforts to land a White House job and his work for foreign companies, among other topics. Most Republicans settled for screaming “He lied before! He lied before!” while carefully forgetting to mention that he lied at the behest of Party Leader Donald Trump.

The Republicans all attacked Cohen for attacking Trump. None of them could think of a way of defending Trump against any of the allegations.

Cohen testified today behind closed doors, and the reports leaking out are that his testimony was even more detailed and damning than the testimony he gave in public.

Some of the Trump whelps, Don Junior and Ivanka, may be called it to testify under oath as early as next week. I’m sure fearless leader does not regard that as a happy thought. Maybe he can get Congressmen Gaetz to arrange for them both to have skiing accidents before they appear before the Committee. And yes, I can say something like that: it isn’t a threat, it’s just “witness testing.” (Note to FBI: There’s also the fact that I want the whelps to appear before Congress, preferably in open session.)

Joe Scarborough, not exactly a gleaming bastion of liberalism, had this to say about the pathetic performance of House Republicans: "Republican members of the House Oversight Committee exposed themselves in plain sight...in plain sight...as a political party whose goal, whose purpose and whose central organizing principle...is to cover up for the illegal and immoral misdeeds of Donald J. Trump." Scarborough considered this a giant step toward political oblivion by the GOP. I hope he’s right. The GOP ceased to be a legitimate political party after the Ford pardon.

In just three sessions, the Democrats uncovered more illegalities and malfeasance on the part of the administration than were found by all the thousands of hours of Congressional time wasted on White Water, Benghazi, the emails, Paula Jones and Monica, combined.

The irony of Republicans attacking Cohen for lying on behalf of Trump wasn’t lost on Cohen, who told them, “Republican members of the House Oversight Committee exposed themselves in plain sight...in plain sight...as a political party whose goal, whose purpose and whose central organizing principle...is to cover up for the illegal and immoral misdeeds of Donald J. Trump."

This won’t stop the Republicans from their smear efforts, though. They are a party that lives in a world of lies, self-delusion, and the belief they can say anything and get away with it. They can’t even see the pieces of the temple falling around their own heads.

Perhaps the most horrifying thing Cohen said was after the second, public day of testimony: “Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power.” He knows Trump well. He probably knows whereof he speaks.

Trump must never be permitted to be in a position of trying to consolidate power in 2020. He must be gone from office before then.

It’s a deep shame that America must have to rely on the courage and patriotism of Republicans to ensure that. It’s like hoping the sewer rats will save your child from drowning.

Trump went to Vietnam to meet with Kim Jong Un, putatively to lend some credence to the vague and genial almost-agreement made in the first meeting but realistically to try to detract from the damage the Cohen hearings were sure to inflict.

Kim let Trump know that he would be willing to consider partial denuclearization in return for the US dropping all trade and economic sanctions against his country. Even Trump, hungry for any kind of event he could twist into a triumph of some sort, knew that was a non-starter and stalked away from the meeting.

It was, perhaps, the most total and abject humiliation of an American president in any international meeting. It was obvious to everyone that Kim knew exactly what he was doing, and that his intended aim was to humiliate Trump. There was no “misreading of signs” or any of that balderdash: it was deliberate.

Kim wanted to show the world that he could ride the paper tiger named Trump. He sent the seething American president away with the studied indifference of a hiring officer for a large corporation who invites someone to cross the country to apply for a position, only to tell him the job had been filled.

Korean attitudes toward “face” are quite similar to those of the Japanese, and even in South Korea, where people desperately wanted Trump to succeed with the reclusive dictator, respect for Trump all but vanished in the wake of this travesty. Even as they condemn the perfidy of Kim, South Koreans are asking why the American president didn’t come prepared for something like this—it wasn’t like Kim didn’t already have a track record—and counter measures beyond stalking away in a huff as a weak pretense that is was anything other than a shambolic retreat.

Trump went in needing a big, splashy win against a man whose record for bad-faith dealing and viciousness are about as bad as...well, Trump’s. But Trump was in the position of supplicant. Kim had nothing to lose from blowing up the talks. Trump had everything to lose.

China and the Japanese were secretly laughing and shaking their heads in disbelief. And 6,000 miles to the west, Putin was watching his morning news and smiling. America was weakened further.

Of course, it didn’t help that, in an effort by Trump to ingratiate himself with the North Korean dictator, he absolved Kim of any responsibility for the torture and subsequent death of the US student Otto Warmbier in a North Korean prison. Even Republicans were outraged by that.

And the great unraveling of the Trump regime continues.

 

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