Page 35 - The Economist

The Economist December 9th 2017 United States 35

Lexington The limits of the law

Anewbooksuggests thatthe Trump campaign was too chaoticto pull offa conspiracy
hinted that he might shut it down, asked Republican leaders to
quash three related congressional probes and helped draft an er-
roneous explanation of a meeting that his son, son-in-law and
other senior advisers held with a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer
who isalleged to have offered them dirton HillaryClinton. Those
are notthe actionsofa blamelessman. Nor, especially in the light
of Mr Flynn’s plea deal, was Mr Trump’s attempt to warn James
Comey, his then FBI director, off pursuing Mr Flynn over some
surreptitiousconversationswith a Russian diplomat—and hisde-
cision to sackhim when he demurred.
Atthe same time, the chaosin MrTrump’steam suggeststhat it
might have been incapable of the organised collusion with Rus-
sian spies many Democrats are willing Mr Mueller to uncover. At
the least, it seems the feuding, amateurish Trump team would
have struggled to keep such a plot under wraps. And the curious
terms of Mr Flynn’s plea deal may also point to that conclusion.
The disgraced former military intelligence officer has been ac-
cused ofa lotofshadyactivitysince hissacking—including unreg-
istered lobbying activity for the Turkish government, a kidnap-
ping plot, a plan to flog nuclear power technology around the
Middle East, as well as lying to the FBI. As Mr Trump’s main for-
MID the spicy anecdotes, superficial insights, sycophancy, eign-policy adviser during the campaign, with pro-Russia views,
Ascore-settling and casual loutishness displayed in a new he might additionally be expected to have known about whatev-
memoir of Donald Trump’s election campaign, “Let Trump be ercollusion was afoot. Yet his plea deal mentions only the lies.
Trump”, by Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, the two es- That would normally imply Mr Mueller had not been able to
sential characteristics of Trumpland shine through. One is a per- stand up any of the other charges: prosecutors tend to cram
manent state of confusion, and sometimes chaos, attending a everything they have into such deals, to show the strength of
campaign that initially did no opinion polling, had no detailed their leverage and intimidate other targets. As this does not seem
policies, setits communications strategy by whatevercrazy thing to square with MrFlynn’sspicyrecord, orthe factthathe issaid to
Mr Trump had just made up, was mainly staffed by people who be deeply demoralised and almost bankrupted by legal bills,
“wouldn’t know the difference between a caucus and a cactus”, many have assumed Mr Mueller has additional aces up his
and whose top logistical priority was co-ordinating the tycoon’s sleeve, which he is concealingto keep MrTrump and his advisers
post-rallyreturn to hisplane with the arrival ofa warm BigMac. It guessing. Maybe he has. But there is no obvious prosecutorial
fell to Mr Lewandowski, as campaign manager, to perform that precedent forthis. Without knowingwhat wrongdoingMrFlynn
task, which he considers “asimportant as any otheraspect of [Mr has confessed to, it is meanwhile impossible to surmise how
Trump’s] march to the presidency”. He had it lucky. The cam- much Russia-related trouble MrTrump is in.
paign’s press secretary, Hope Hicks, who is now the White House
communications director, was charged with steaming Mr Obstructionschmuction
Trump’s trousers, while he was wearingthem. There are perhaps three ways this could play out. Mr Mueller
The othercentral ingredientofTrump world ischutzpah on an could end up exonerating the president. He could accuse him
epic scale. A lifetime of cutting corners, a businessman’s con- of—or conceivably, though legal experts consider it unlikely,
tempt for the political realm and an insight that voters would charge him with—colluding with Russian spies. Or he could pro-
welcome his boorishness as straight-shooting, encouraged Mr vide evidence to suggesthe wasguiltyofthe arguablylesser, orat
Trump to transgress every democratic norm he encountered. His least more explicable in a blundering political amateur, offence
policy pronouncements were nonsense and he lied all the time. of obstructing justice by leaning on and sacking Mr Comey in a
His advisers were complicit in this, either because they were en- bid to cover up the sordid, but not treasonous, sorts of collusion
raptured greenhorns like Mr Lewandowski: “Only Donald between his advisers and Russians that have already come to
Trump could get away with what he got away with,” he coos. Or light. Based on what is now known, the third scenario seems
because theywere MrTrump’schildren (one ofwhom had MrLe- most likely. It is also in a sense the most troubling.
wandowski frogmarched out of Trump Tower, after concluding That is because there is both a clear historical precedent for
he was no good) and doubly compromised, by a sense ofentitle- oustinga presidenton the basisofobstruction, the charge thatdid
ment and filial deference to MrTrump. for Nixon, and at the same time little prospect of a repeat perfor-
For players of Washington’s favourite parlour game—predict- mance. Mr Trump will not step aside as Richard Nixon did. Con-
ing where Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged collusion gress, though it may impeach him, looks too divided to remove
between Mr Trump’s campaign team and Russia might end up— him. The Republican Party, rallying behind a man campaigning
this combination of rule-breaking and chaos looks apposite. Mr for the Senate in Alabama who is accused of molesting teenage
Mueller is giving nothing away. Yet even before he revealed de- girls, looks too morally compromised and afraid for its future to
tails of a plea deal with Mike Flynn, Mr Trump’s first national-se- turn on him. The result would be yet anotherTrump-sized excep-
curity adviser, he seemed to have somethingon the president. tion for behaviour Americans used to consider unconscionable.
Mr Trump has lambasted the investigation as a “witch-hunt”, This is what it means to let Trump be Trump. 7