Trump Breaks Free of ‘Russiagate’

The U.S. president will profit politically from the indignation arising from having been persecuted and will gain the renewed enthusiasm of his electoral base.

In politics, high expectations almost never amount to dream results. Often they boomerang for those who cultivate them and are a powerful stimulus for the victims they intend to implicate. Exonerated by the Mueller report for conspiring with Vladimir Putin to sway the presidential election in 2016, Donald Trump is reborn from the supposed ashes of his presidency with the biggest political triumph since his arrival at the White House. Like Gene Kelly in “Singin’ in the Rain,” the 45th president of the United States can close his umbrella and tap dance to the lyrics “I’m happy again” as he is portrayed on the cover of Time magazine.

After 22 months of rigorous investigation headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the epitome of an upright man and a symbol of the rule of law, more than 2,800 subpoenas, 500 warrants and a similar amount of witness testimony, the final report saves the president. This gives the chaotic president a clean bill of health, strengthens the possibility of reelection and lays to rest the Democratic hopes of a final, dishonorable judicial ending before the end of his term.

Trump tweeted 181 times that the investigation carried out by Mueller, which looked for collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice by the president (the intent of which is very difficult to prove and the existence of which Mueller did not confirm or deny), was a witch hunt. The Economist provided a curious piece of information. The investigation has lasted the same time it took for Herman Melville to write “Moby Dick.” The whale in this case also escapes the harpoon.

Last Sunday, after finishing a golf game at his private Palm Beach resort, he learned the news. Erupting with joy over his “complete and total exoneration,” he confirmed that a great weight had been lifted. A White House spokesman began the counterattack. It’s outrageous that Democrats and the press have spent two years making Trump out to be a foreign government agent; “That’s equivalent to treason,” the spokesman said.

Trump has proven to be Harry Houdini, a magician able to escape the chains that trapped him inside a chest, padlocked shut. Now he will profit from the political indignation over the persecution he has suffered. It will renew the enthusiasm of his electoral base, which is uncomfortable with the trade wars. The president is aiming for a quick and positive conclusion to the trade war with China, with talks in Beijing revolving around compulsory technology transfers. In domestic policy he is relying on knocking down the health care reform of his predecessor Barack Obama by judicial means if it is taken up by the Supreme Court, which has cemented a conservative majority. It would take some time to straighten out his run-down foreign policy.

The road to impeachment is obstructed; Democrats, abandon all hope. Trump will have to be defeated at the polls, but will the voters do this or not? The real and final report on this unusual, deceitful and uninformed president will be delivered by the public on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020. But no one in the U.S., not even the president, is above the law.