I wonder if Trump prefers checkers or chess?
(Did he ever win at either game? Is he even smart enough to play chess?)
The news today reminds me of the climax of the American Revolution–although in this instance the president appears more like the British General Cornwallis, who soon found himself up against Generals Greene and Lafayette at Yorktown.
The two men chased Cornwallis until he had nowhere left to maneuver by land. They forced him to occupy a nice deep hole from which he could not escape.
Whichever way Cornwallis tried to escape, he was blocked by land and by sea.
If President Trump refuses to answer questions from Mueller, a rather large crisis could ensue since “No man above the law” remains a cardinal principle well worth defending.
Not even Trump can blow apart the law, Congress, and the Constitution (though he may foolishly try). Nixon tried to do so and see what it got him!
Trump is short-sighted; he thinks he can bully and buy anyone and need not worry about a mere “piece of paper”—but the Constitution has great strength and will prove a formidable adversary, of that you can rest assured.
President Trump has two choices, neither of which augurs well for his future: to answer the Special Counsel’s questions or to fire the Special Counsel.
1) If Trump answers Mueller’s questions, voluntarily or via subpoena, he might very well say something demonstrably untrue. Uttered under oath, such falsehoods would amount to perjury and (quite likely) obstruction of justice.
2) If Trump tries to fire Mueller, his coat-tails will catch afire a la Nixon: shades of the Saturday Night Massacre!
Nixon’s attempt to short-circuit the investigation ushered in the beginning of the end for him—he was undone by his own ego, paranoia, and love of power gone mad.
It would be an awful case of “déjà vu all over again” as Yogi Berra once so comically phrased it.
Perhaps President Trump will make an all-out effort to avoid answering any questions but, in the end, he would lose in the courts, as Nixon did.
“No man is above the law”, not even the president of the United States.
Thus, whichever way he turns, Trump looks like a sea turtle on the beach digging a very deep hole. The president has no way to escape the closing circle.
As for British General Cornwallis, he lost the coming battle AND the war, you know–and finished in infamy. There were just too many Americans surrounding him who wanted a new and better country.
Checkers or Chess, Mr. President?
