Last week I blew through Andrew McCabe's book, Threat. It wasn't that remarkable -- there was nothing as remarkable as this -- but this rang a bell in my head:
Is it telling that McCabe spends half a chapter early in #Threat explaining the genesis and utility of RICO?— Jason "Mar-a-Lago Delenda Est" Consolidation (@tgconsolidation) February 20, 2019
Back in the first few months after the election -- more than six months before Bob Mueller's investigation was a twinkle in Rod Rosenstein's eye -- there was a lot of talk in some of the not-so-credible corners of the Trump-Russia conspiracy theorizing Twitterverse of the entire Republican Party being taken down by RICO. As much sense as it made as the only solution to the looming metastasis of literal fascism in the United States, I couldn't believe it could happen because it seemed to me like Trump and his cronies were going to be able to prevent any attempts to investigate them and Putin-enabled authoritarianism was going to be the new normal. Those were incredibly dark days for me.
Today, largely due to Trump just being really, really bad at being a dictator (to paraphrase Homer Simpson, "I'M TIRED OF BEING A WANNABE DICTATOR! I WANNA BE A DICTATOR!"), there are at least 17 investigations into Trump and his associates, including several over which he has absolutely no authority. Sure seems like he's fucked. But what about the GOP, who follow him around with their noses in his ass? Could there be large-scale consequences for them? I'm going to say I still doubt it. I do think it's possible that certain Republican elected officials who are so deep into this massive scandal could be indicted -- Lindsey Graham, Dana Rohrabacher, Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, Mark Meadows, and Chuck Grassley come to mind -- however, could there be an effort to pull the entire plant out by the roots? Probably not, but...
About a year ago, in a post aptly titled, "Why I Watch (So Much) CNN," I explained, well, why I watch so much CNN:
Why do I bother? It's not like I'm going to learn anything there I'm not going to lean on the internet. In fact, cable news is, for the most part, months behind. I mean, it's been pretty apparent since late 2016 that Trump's campaign had colluded with Russia to steal the election, and we knew in October 2016 that the New York branch of the FBI was conspiring against Hillary. Most of the news hasn't even gotten that far. But that's why I watch CNN. I learn just how far the press has gotten in their willingness to call a particular spade a spade. In the case of Trump/Russia, the press would barely acknowledge it at all until Buzzfeed published the Steele "dossier." They were skeptical about it for a long time, but hookers and pee make for good TV. The next big milestone was probably the Comey firing, when the talking heads could start musing about obstruction of justice. However, almost no one would actually discuss WHY Trump obstructed justice. As more Russia news came out, such as the Trump Tower meeting, much of it was discussed as more or less as a series of isolated incidents.
Things are changing now. Trump's attacks on Mueller, particularly the revelation that Trump tried to fire him, is starting to elicit talk of Trump actually covering up crimes, and sometimes, the TV personalities will even allude to those crimes being Russia related. Occasionally, they'll discuss whether or not a sitting President can be indicted.
But they haven't gotten to where we were (though that could've changed tonight; I haven't gotten my nightly Lemon fix yet) in December of 2016. We knew that Russia had meddled in the election, with the help of the Trump campaign, and that the election was stolen.
I don't know whether they'll get there, but I'd say the next steps are for the CNN types to acknowledge, on air, that Trump cheated. Then they'll need to discuss what the consequences should be for stealing an election. Finally, and I don't think this'll happen, CNN panelists and perhaps hosts will call for an overturning of the election. That's what I'm watching for.
As we've seen since, things have continued to change. And tonight I saw something I hadn't seen before:
@vermontgmg reminded everyone tonight on @CNN @donlemon that no team is better than the @SDNYnews on the overlapping web of criminal behavior racketeering like by the Trump Organization and these are the RICO tools created under the leadership of @RudyGiuliani while US Attorney.— James Auld (@solarenvelope) March 1, 2019
That's the first mention I've heard of RICO on CNN in this context. Meanwhile, on MSNBC:
6. As I'm waiting @lastword, @DonnyDeutsch says this is just Cohen's opening act and talks about RICO.@Mimirocah1 picks up on Trump directing criminal enterprise.@TimOBrien focuses on Allen Weisselberg, Rhona Graff, Calamari in Trump Org.— Jed Shugerman (@jedshug) February 28, 2019
That's three times in ten days. Something's in the air...
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