????? Gate

You put a name in front of the word “Gate.” We’ve had many since Watergate. There are plenty that have gone on during the Trump presidency. And there’s another one at the top of every news story now. Here’s a quick recap:

• RussiaGate:  That one began with the infamous Steele dossier that supposedly chronicled salacious activities on the part of then Candidate Trump and others in his campaign that involved working with the Russian government to collude on actions to destroy Hillary Clinton’s chances to win the 2016 presidential election. There were plenty of players in that debacle, most of who were in senior positions in the Obama Department of Justice — specifically the FBI. Then FBI Director James Comey seemed to spearhead the collusion farce in conjunction with former CIA Director John Brennan, DNI Director James Clapper, and a plethora of second-level officials at the FBI and the DOJ.
• ObstructionGate:  When it became obvious there was no meat on the bone in Trump Campaign collusion with the Russians, Trump-detractors shifted to his actions that were “obvious and blatantly” Obstruction of Justice. Those included Trump’s efforts to remove Special Counsel Robert Mueller who led the charge in the entire post-election investigation which included collusion obstruction, and conspiracy. This investigation is yet complete, not because of loose-ends regarding the President, but because of Inspector General and Federal Attorney investigations of alleged wrongdoing by those who were out to get President Trump and were planting false information regarding Mr. Trump, hoping in doing so to prompt impeachment proceedings.
• CohenGate:  Michael Cohen — longtime business and personal attorney for President Trump — was caught up in the Mueller investigation and a parallel investigation by the Southern District of New York Federal Attorney’s office. In that investigation, some irregularities were uncovered  Eventually, Cohen was indicted, pleaded guilty in a plea deal, and is now in jail. In open court, Cohen acknowledged that he violated campaign finance laws by paying hush money to two women “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office.” That candidate was obviously Mr. Trump. Trump denied the allegations and no evidence was found to corroborate Cohen’s claims. But there’s another part of CohenGate: Buzzfeed News reported that President Donald Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress–under oath–over negotiations with Russia about a Trump Tower project in Moscow during the 2016 campaign. If found to be true, Trump detractors claim his doing so could amount to several obstruction of justice charges.
• EmolumentGate: This is a tricky legal quagmire that could take years to undo in a court of law (and it bears noting that the standards of evidence in a criminal court vs. a trial in the U.S. Senate are worlds apart), but basically, Trump’s ownership of businesses in foreign countries puts him in violation of a Constitutional clause that prevents him from earning money from foreign sources while he’s President. President Trump obviously owns scads of companies and properties in foreign countries. His opponents claim his being President affords opportunities to parlay his office to intice foreign companies and governments to conduct business with his entities in return for favorable consideration on matters that could directly or indirectly push business activities to his properties. It’s a longshot, but EmolumentGate is one possible allegation for his impeachment from the “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” verbiage of the Constitution.
• SharpieGate:  Yes, this refers to the track of Hurricane Dorian which attacked the southeast and east coast of the United States with torrential rain, flooding, and devastatingly high winds. The Trump controversy in this (SharpieGate) resulted from the President showing in an interview the projected path of Dorian through the southern U.S. that included part of the state of Alabama. Trump haters went nuts. They actually began reporting that in doing so, the President was proving claims of his “likely” mental deficiencies since no official government map of Dorian’s projected paths included such a jaunt through Alabama. However, it came to light later that the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) had actually issued projections of Dorian with a 5% chance Bama would be impacted. The President had seen that projection and included it in his map by marking it with a Sharpie.

We could go on and on listing other examples of ????? Gate claims against President Trump. It’s pretty obvious (at least so far) that Mr. Trump has gotten angry at the non-stop attacks against him, lashed out in anger sometimes when those attacks are made, and as most Queens successful businessmen will do, verbally attacked those who make unverified and unsupported claims against him. But I don’t think his doing so is evidence of “Treason, High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” which are prerequisites for the impeachment of a President.

So what’s going on?

I think you know: from the top-down of the political class in Washington, almost to a person they hate Donald Trump. Why? Mr. Trump represents in every action he takes, every word he speaks, every rally that he attends, the direct opposite of “quid pro quo” in Washington that has become a society unto itself. And that society has its own sets of rules, regulations, morays, values, and operating procedures which Donald Trump from the beginning of his campaign until today ignored.

This group does not consist of Democrats alone. Among its numbers are a large group of Republicans who have been given a name themselves by Trump’s ardent supporters. They’re called “Never-Trumpers.” These consist of Republican career politicians who have been part of the Washington D.C. societal class for decades. They detest President Trump because Mr. Trump refuses to play the game of D.C. politics by “The Rules.”

“The Rules” are the do’s and don’ts of serving in a national elected office or even in an appointed position in the federal government. Here’s how it is supposed to work:

1. D.C. is not about which political party is in control. Everyone knows that the White House and Congress will be controlled by one political party in the majority for a while, then the opposing party will win control and maintain it for a while.
2. That fact dictates that both parties find ways when in the minority to work closely with members of the other party so as to not make waves and anger the opposition. They all know the other party will win control sooner at later: “Quid Pro Quo.” So, they pacify constituents of their own party by offering and sometimes even passing legislation that supports positions of the minority party. “We’re trying, but without control of government we just can’t get legislation passed and signed into law that we want.”
3. Why do they do that? The most important thing about being a career politician is to understand keeping the status quo the status quo. What’s the meaning of that? Formerly D.C. was all about money. Now it’s all about power. Whoever controls Congress and the White House pretty much has all or most of the political might. Of course, with that, they control federal dollars. But they control so much more.
4. When those in the majority lose control because they have diligently maintained a balance that carefully “looked” to their constituents that they accomplished some good things did NOT upset the opposition. Then when they become a minority, they’ll be treated the same way.

Summary

Do you think the laundry list above of the “Gates” will be the only ones during the Trump presidency? Absolutely not! The latest was opened up in the last few days by a report from “unnamed sources” (surprise, surprise!) that purports that a federally protected whistleblower from an Intelligence agency filed a claim of wrongdoing against Mr. Trump. The claim is that on a phone call between President Trump and the president of Ukraine, Mr. Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden for his unethically (and illegally) pressuring the Ukrainians for the benefit a company owned in part by Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. And, supposedly, the allegation is that during that phone call, President Trump threatened to withhold foreign aid from the U.S. for Ukraine that had already been approved by Congress. If true, this would be a blatant example of the violation of the office of president and certainly would be sufficient to initiate articles of impeachment by the House.

Since that story first appeared, it, just as has every other previous story of impeachable Trump activities, began unraveling, one layer at a time. At the writing of this story, it has been reported and confirmed the whistleblower was not present on that call and someone just said Mr. Trump had done so. Further, when the claim was made, the Department of Justice in its determination if the DOJ should forward the claim to Congress, the Inspector General when reviewing all of the supporting information said the claim did not “meet the standards required to involve the Congress because there was a lack of evidence.”

I forgot about something: this is another “Gate” claim against Mr. Trump. We’ll call this one “UkraineGate!”

I’ll summarize this quickly: Does anyone believe that these impeachable claims against Donald Trump are over? Don’t be so foolish! As long as he serves in office, whether it’s until January of 2021 or January of 2022, the claims against him will continue. No matter how good is the American economy, no matter the U.S. gets along with its allies around the world, no matter how denuclearization talks with North Korea and Iran go, no matter if the illegal immigration dilemma is or is not resolved, the members of the Establishment Washington D.C. political society will continue to push actions to remove Donald Trump from office. Why is that? He spoiled their gravy train! As long as he is in office, their ability to control the U.S. at every level has been if not removed, seriously diminished. They will not stand for that. Their taste of power in Washington and their all-consuming thirst for it to continue will drive this ship to ultimate victory in which they regain control. Should that not be fulfilled, they will do anything to try to regain it, even at the cost of crashing the ship — the United States of America — on the rocky shores of devastation.

“The State acquires power…and because of its insatiable lust for power, it is incapable of giving up any of it. The State never abdicates.”

That’s sad: the power doesn’t belong to the State or those who serve in it. The power of government in the United States has always, now, and in the future belonged to the People.

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