Fear and Loathing in the Trump White House

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Donald Trump is off to Paris, where he will attend Bastille Day events with Emmanuel Macron, the new President of France. But, even four thousand miles away, he won’t be able to escape the continuing fallout from the news that his son, Donald Trump, Jr., met last year with a Russian lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya on the promise of obtaining dirt on Hillary Clinton.

On Wednesday afternoon, Chuck Grassley, the Republican head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced that he and Dianne Feinstein, the committee’s ranking Democrat, had agreed to subpoena Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, to appear at a public hearing next week. “He”—Manafort—“was present at the meeting that we’ve all read about,” Grassley said by way of explanation, referring to the meeting with Veselnitskaya on June 9, 2016, which Manafort had attended, along with Trump, Jr., and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. There was no immediate word about whether Manafort, who had previously offered to testify in a closed session, would agree to answer questions about the sit-down, or whether he would take the Fifth.

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican from South Carolina, pressed Christopher Wray, Trump’s nominee to replace James Comey as the director of the F.B.I., to say that Trump, Jr., should have informed the F.B.I. that he’d been offered information from Russia. Although Wray wouldn’t use the exact words that Graham demanded, he did say, “Any threat or effort to interfere with our elections from any nation-state or any non-state actor is the kind of thing the F.B.I. would want to know.”

To be sure, there is still no sign that Republicans in Washington are breaking from Trump in a meaningful way. The typical Republican member of Congress might privately wish that Vice-President Mike Pence could replace Trump, but is still far too wary of alienating Trump’s core supporters (and Fox News) to get out in front of the pack. But the e-mails that Trump, Jr., released this week prompted a reaction unlike any prior development in the Trump-Russia story. Even Representative Trey Gowdy, the Party attack dog who orchestrated some of the Benghazi hearings during the Obama Administration, cried foul. ”Here we are beginning another week, this one in July, with a new revelation about Russia,” Gowdy groused on Fox News on Tuesday night. He went on to lament that people close to Trump have had “amnesia” about their dealings with people connected to Russia, and, to the evident surprise of the show’s host, Martha MacCallum, he added, “This drip, drip, drip is undermining the credibility of this Administration.”

Gowdy’s words shouldn’t be interpreted as a moral condemnation, or even a tacit admission that there has been wrongdoing. They are all about politics. Republicans such as Gowdy aren’t upset about the confirmation that Trump’s son, son-in-law, and campaign manager all leaped at the chance to acquire kompromat about Clinton. Instead, they’re dismayed that the White House has failed to come up with a Russia story it can stick to—one that G.O.P. politicians can defend publicly without having to fear, every day, that it is about to be debunked by the Times or the Washington Post.

In short, there is a Republican crisis of confidence in the Administration—and it’s no wonder, given the portrayals of life inside the White House that have appeared since the Trump, Jr., story broke. From the very beginning, of course, the Trump White House has been characterized by internal divisions, backbiting, and dysfunction. But in recent days things appear to have gotten ever worse. Here’s the scene, according to Politico:

One Trump adviser said the White House is “essentially helpless” because the conduct happened during an “anything goes” campaign that had few rules. This person said he had spoken to several people in the White House on Tuesday and that “none of them knew anything about Donald Trump Jr.’s meetings,” despite the fact that top adviser Jared Kushner was also present for the controversial Trump Tower sit-down.

As I noted yesterday, the White House conspicuously failed to rush to the defense of Trump, Jr., on Tuesday after he posted a self-incriminating e-mail chain about his meeting with Veselnitskaya. It was only on Wednesday morning, after Trump, Jr., had appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, that his father came to his defense on Twitter, writing, “My son Donald did a good job last night. He was open, transparent and innocent. This is the greatest Witch Hunt in political history. Sad!” Later in the day, Trump told Reuters, “I think many people would have held that meeting.”

Politico reported that Trump has been “using his relatively light schedule” this week “to watch TV and fume about the latest scandal.” No big surprise there: indeed, those words could have been written at virtually any point since January. However, in addition to berating his enemies in the ”fake news” media, Trump has also “trained his ire on Marc E. Kasowitz, his longtime lawyer, who is leading the team of private lawyers representing him,” the Times reported. The President, the newspaper said, “has grown disillusioned by Mr. Kasowitz’s strategy.”

The Times story also contained a potentially ominous development for Trump: “The strain, though, exists on both sides. Mr. Kasowitz and his colleagues have been deeply frustrated by the president.” And the lawyers’ feelings toward Kushner, the paper reported, appear to have moved well beyond frustration. “The president’s lawyers view Mr. Kushner as an obstacle and a freelancer more concerned about protecting himself than his father-in-law,” the story said. “While no ultimatum has been delivered, the lawyers have told colleagues that they cannot keep operating that way, raising the prospect that Mr. Kasowitz may resign.”

Obviously, it would be embarrassing for Trump if his longtime counsel, who has represented him for years on tricky issues including Trump University, were to bolt for the hills, forcing him to hire somebody else. But that isn’t the only big change that could be in the works. Also on Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and the First Lady, Melania Trump, “have been privately pressing the president to shake up his team—most specifically by replacing Reince Priebus as the White House chief of staff.” The story said the Trump family members are “especially concerned about the steady stream of unauthorized leaks to journalists that have plagued the administration over the nearly six months that President Trump has been in office,” and the clear implication was that they hold Priebus, a former head of the Republican National Committee, responsible, either directly or indirectly.

After the Post published the report, a White House spokesman denied it, saying, “Jared and Ivanka are focussed on working with Reince and the team to advance the President’s agenda and not on pushing for staff changes.” For now, Priebus’s job appears safe. But with the pressure on Trump mounting by the day, it seems likely that something will eventually give.

The demand for an end to all this—from Trump, his family members, and senior Republicans—is perfectly understandable: the Administration is on the brink of paralysis. It’s doubtful, though, whether personnel changes or a change of lawyers would ultimately make much difference. If these past few days have confirmed anything, it is this: there is now no escaping the Russia story.

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