Donald Trump has now totally sullied the workplace of the presidency.
I’m not speaking concerning the Oval Workplace, with its new, gaudy gilt trappings that appear to unfold by the day, as if the famously nocturnal president multitasks there whereas others sleep, tapping out his nasty late-night social media screeds between making use of extra layers of the gold leaf match for a king. These golden geegaws are merely Trump’s literal stain on the Oval Workplace.
I’m speaking concerning the figurative taint: What Trump does and says there by day, in full view of the media cameras, reporters and fawning retainers invited for his performances. With that habits he besmirches not simply the precise Oval Workplace however the very thought of the workplace of the president of america.
Who can neglect, as a lot as one want to, Trump’s bullying humiliation of Ukraine’s war-hero President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, and, in Could, his premeditated assault on President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, with false claims of that nation’s genocide in opposition to white Afrikaner farmers?
However Trump’s performative energy play on Tuesday arguably tops all of them for disgrace. Alas, this time his goal — President Obama — wasn’t current to push again. The bully wouldn’t dare get in Obama’s face, understanding his predecessor’s counterpunch in opposition to the lies could possibly be a knockout. (In Obama’s presence, the truth is, Trump is all cringey banter and bonhomie, as at Jimmy Carter’s funeral earlier this yr, when the opposite former presidents snubbed him.)
The phrase “unprecedented” is used rather a lot, justifiably, to explain Trump’s actions, however by no means was it extra apt: The sitting president baselessly alleged that the previous president was “treasonous” — against the law punishable by demise — and all however ordered his law-enforcement minions to arrest, prosecute and imprison the person.
(Apparently Trump, convicted fraudster and adjudicated sexual abuser, forgot that final yr — to keep away from pre-election trials tied to his alleged crimes involving Jan. 6 and categorized paperwork — he’d persuaded a respectful Supreme Courtroom to give presidents digital immunity from prison prosecution. Narcissist that he’s, maybe Trump thinks the egregious ruling solely utilized to him, to not Obama and each different president previous and future.)
“He’s responsible. This was treason,” Trump pronounced of Obama, falsely reviving conspiracies that the then-president and his interior circle lied about Russia’s pro-Trump meddling within the 2016 marketing campaign as a approach of undermining Trump’s legitimacy. However for eight years, Vladimir Putin’s 2016 election interference has been a well-established reality, documented by a number of investigations, together with one led by then-Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who’s now Trump’s secretary of State.
As Trump fulminated in opposition to Obama, seated beside him within the Oval Workplace’s acquainted wingback chairs was yet one more international dignitary, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., making him simply the most recent witness to how absolutely Trump has extinguished america’ beacon as a worldwide exemplar of democratic norms and peaceable transfers of energy.
Sure, Trump’s rant in opposition to Obama in addition to Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and different Democrats was yet one more of his manic makes an attempt over the previous three weeks to distract from the morass of his dealing with of what’s often called the Jeffrey Epstein recordsdata — recordsdata wherein his identify seems, the Wall Avenue Journal reported Wednesday. The administration’s refusal to launch federal data of the pedophilia and sex-trafficking investigation of the late billionaire and Trump pal — regardless of previous guarantees from Trump, Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and Patel deputy Dan Bongino — is a large number of their very own making, and the primary to attract condemnation from Trump’s in any other case loyal base. That’s what’s so unnerved the president.
And sure, we must always keep away from taking the bait of Trump’s distractions.
However… For a president in energy to falsely allege {that a} former president is a traitor, and to counsel that his lickspittles on the Justice Division and FBI ought to act in opposition to that former president, is a distraction that should command Individuals’ consideration.
Actually Obama, who’s lengthy annoyed Democrats by his reticence about criticizing Trump, thinks so. On Tuesday he had a spokesman subject a stinger of a assertion.
“Out of respect for the workplace of the presidency,” it started, “our workplace doesn’t usually dignify the fixed nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White Home with a response. However these claims are outrageous sufficient to benefit one.” It pointedly alluded to Rubio’s supportive and bipartisan 2020 report to mock the “weird allegations” Trump is lodging.
The premise of Trump’s claims of Obama’s treason is a report launched Friday by his Director of Nationwide Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, the conspiracy-minded former Democratic congresswoman. Not coincidentally, Gabbard these days has been determined to get again in Trump’s good graces, having fallen from favor in latest months. Her report, alongside together with her prison referral to the Justice Division in opposition to Obama and others, appears to have performed the trick, at the least for now. Trump is singing her praises.
Gabbard outlined what she calls a “treasonous conspiracy” by Obama and Democrats to bury findings that Russia did nothing to change the 2016 end result — Trump’s victory — and to advertise the “hoax” that Trump owed his election to Russia. However Obama and his aides repeatedly assured Individuals that Russia didn’t manipulate the precise 2016 vote by hacking election equipment. As a substitute, Obama and his crew constantly held, together with subsequent investigators, that Russia’s interference was restricted to an internet-based marketing campaign of trolls and bots selling Trump and denigrating Clinton to U.S. voters. They by no means claimed that meddling decided the election end result.
Right here’s the irony: Trump is constructing a false case in opposition to Obama to distract his restive base from the very actual case involving his pal and fellow playboy Epstein, one wherein he could or might not be implicated in wrongdoing, and from his failure to deliver Epstein’s elite accomplices to justice. But by doing so, Trump is once more organising his followers for disappointment and disillusionment. As a result of there isn’t any Obama case, and so no “justice” for the salivating base.
It’s a sordid quandary that Trump deserves. Too unhealthy he’s introduced it into the presidency.
Bluesky: @jackiecalmes
Threads: @jkcalmes
X: @Jackiekcalmes
