One of the most compelling stories about the 2016 election was the epic story of hubris wrought from the media bards about the hero, Hillary, who would have been President, but for her emails. Her Republican challenger, Donald Trump, who won the electoral vote (albeit, it must be pointed out, not the popular vote) was a known scumbag. He was a dodgy, several-times bankrupt businessman, a more or less open racist, a conspiracy theorist, and a probable sex pest. But, we were supposed to understand, the utter wretchedness of setting up a private server, even if no wrongdoing concerning it could be established, was entirely enough to dog her candidacy. Because using private email, even if it was done by previous Secretaries of State, was made a retroactively radioactive thing, and it should follow, therefore, that subsequent practitioners of the art of politics of the White House and environs should, obviously, practice extraordinary scruples regarding their email activity.
Or, well no, of course, the "smart one:
Ivanka Trump, would not be fully compliant with email regs because
no one in the Trump Administration was expected to. The laws pertaining to transparency, retention, etc., were for Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State
ex post facto, but not going forward for people who were Team Trump. Or so Trump would care to allege, maintaining that Ivanka deleted nothing, even if she withheld rather a lot of her email output and influx.
One might wonder, what with all this Ivanka email-business, what Trump's Acting AG might have to say about it--and if this were about Hillary Clinton,
Matt Whitaker would obviously be down with prosecution. Which seems so convenient, because Donald Trump would have actually very much wanted someone to head his Justice Department who wanted
to prosecute Hillary Clinton, and actually, while we're at it, James Comey. Of course,
intelligent legal folks like Don McGahn drew up reasons why this would be probably obstruction of justice and seriously impeachable.
Which is no reason to believe Trump thought these advisors were right in that he might be liable. After all, as I've mentioned before, in Trump's mind, he isn't a public servant himself, and other public servants should serve himself as being the sort of CEO of America Inc. He's never really grasped that the oath of office he took was more than a formality, or that acting in pure self-interest was in any way a conflict with his greater duty towards the Constitution and the nation for which it stands.
But his man, Whitaker, does seem to be some kind of conflicted--in that
he was the sole employee of a PAC funded by dark money, that paid him really big bucks for what I have to assume was the political equivalent of wet work. Basically, he was a central casting "leg breaker sent from Back East"--a guy who could be counted on to do political assassinations.
I can see why this guy appeals to Trump. He gets the dynamic. But I don't think he sees where the naked, throbbing, political boner for his enemies of it all, is probably not on his side, legally. Because this is still all of a piece with his obstruction of justice bullshit. Because he likes to talk about "law and order!", but he does not know what that even is.
Speaking of which, he made an abundantly dumb and sort of self-revealing statement about KSA's rogue Prince KSA and the likely
murder and mutilation of the journalist Khashoggi. "It is what it is." It's a nasty world, anyway. Isn't the Saudi government paying already to be absolved for these things because
of figures Trump has entirely made up?
It looks like Trump believes in Law and Order for people he doesn't find politically useful, and maybe there is leeway for people he does find politically useful.
He has no moral center. He could very well be selling out all sides.
