Trump Saved by His Amateurism?

New public hearings Tuesday and further news that seems to have come straight from the head of a filmmaker whose consumption of illicit substances is out of control.

Once more, it has been noted that the president and his entourage display deep contempt for facts and institutions. We have also noted that the “nebulous Donald Trump” was at work before, during and after the assault on the Capitol.

A Dysfunctional Mafia

Thus, there followed snippets of sad clowns or professional agitators like Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Alex Jones or Roger Stone. The latter was in thick with the Oath Keepers for quite some time. What a nice crowd.

Not only are the main actors in the January 2021 drama nearly all a nasty bunch, but they knew perfectly well that what they were instigating was utterly illegal.

It is sufficient to listen to the testimonies of former Attorney Gen. Bill Barr or those of former White House counsel Pat Cipollone to be convinced of this. Cipollone repeated on multiple occasions that there was no evidence of fraud before telling commission members that he had had to advise Trump against seizing ballot boxes!

Barr, Cipollone and Eric Herschmann are Republicans. All very conservative, they knew quite well that the president and his henchmen were setting about to breach a line that no other administration had approached.

We have known for several weeks already that the 45th president and his closest aides attempted to modify the normal course of events. Pressures exerted on state legislators, repeated bumbling appeals before the courts, disinformation on steroids, an obstructionist plan devised with House members and an attempt to force the vice president to overstep his authority.

Is that to say that the entire Trump presidential entourage and Trump himself will necessarily be charged by the American legal system? No. I certainly hope so, but when one wishes to attack the executive branch in that way, the bar is set high.

If it is clearer than ever that Trump knew what he was doing, it now must be shown that the entire sequence of events resulted from a plot contrived by the president. Paradoxically, it is perhaps the obvious amateurishness of the impulsive populist that will permit him to avoid prosecution.

A Plot?

Trump has often acted impulsively, rolling the dice, scraping together here and there half-baked theories or improvised maneuvers. Will we manage to draw out a plot structure where chaos and improvisation prevailed?

There may be another take on Trump, and it was Liz Cheney who presented it on Tuesday. Trump attempted to reach a witness whom we have not yet seen or heard during the hearings. He could be found guilty of witness tampering. The committee has relayed this information directly to the Department of Justice.

I won’t miss the next public hearings. Will you?