 
Johnnie Never Had A Chance To Grow Up

by Paul Covell

ゥ Paul Covell 2020

Smashwords Edition

***

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Trump Thinks He Did Nothing Wrong.

Chapter 2 Three (or more) Faces of Eve.

Chapter 3 Hysteria Presents a Hall of Mirrors.

Chapter 4 Trump's Fixation on Reelection.

Chapter 5 Senate Pretend Imeachment Trial.

Chapter 6 Mary Anne MacCleod Meets Fred Trump.

Chapter 7 President Spoke Nice to Congress 2/4/2020.

Chapter 8 Democrats Will End King Trump's Reign.

Chapter 9 Trump Packages Soviet-Style Propaganda.

Chapter 10 Hillary Clinton Won A Plurality in 2016.

Chapter 11 Corruption Leads in the White House.

Chapter 12 Lower Standard for Moral Behavior.

Chapter 13 Trump Scandal After Scandal

Chapter 14 Trump Cripples U. S. Intelligence.

Chapter 15 Sparation of Powers Stops Tyrants.

Chapter 16 Time to Repeal the State Elector System.

Smashwords Edition Books by Paul Covell.
Foreword

President Trump forced out Joseph McGuire, Acting Director of National Intelligence ("DNI"), and installed U. S. Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, a loyalist without intel qualifications. Grenell's No 2 was Kashyap (Kash) Patel, a GOP acolyte, whose previous mission was to denigrate the Russia Investigation for Rep. Devin Nunes, then Chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Psychologists and psychiatrists, not to mention the untrained public, generally should not volunteer personality analysis where not requested. When in the course of human events the world and one of its most advanced Nations are experiencing tumult and disruption that may be traced to one self-proclaimed Stable Genius, it behooves us to examine the Nature of the Stability and the Quality of the Genius.

This writing is not intended to provide answers, but to raise questions that others may resolve. Is today in reality the year 1933 redux, and the dawn of a new era, where Soviet-style Disinformation, Propaganda, and mind Control are blended with the Teutonic oppression of jackboots and ethnic purification. Is President Trump only trolling? Did he learn his lesson from the Russia Investigation and the Impeachment as suggested by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Susan Collins (R-ME)?

Only too well did the Leader of the most powerful country in the world learn that his tormented former lawyer, Roy Cohn, was right. Never apologize. Never admit wrongdoing. Always deny, deny, deny, and counterattack with force! Against a government run by pencil-pushers and paper-shufflers, the energetic mailed fist will outlast the languid bureaucracy. Candidate Trump blew away the Republican Primary Field with contempt and scorn. "Little Marco", "Low Energy Jeb", and "Lyin' Ted", were no match for the juggernaut from Jamaica Estates, Queens, N.Y. Trump and Lindsey Graham called each other Idiots. Trump won by giving out Graham's cell phone number to the public. The People elected Hillary Clinton by a plurality of nearly three million, but Trump corralled a majority of State Electors by scarcely winning three Battleground states, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

To take the heat off the Investigation of Russia's Election Interference in 2016, Trump bypassed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who recused from the probe, and fired FBI Director James B. Comey. Shocked, but not stopped by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's appointment of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller to take over the Russia Investigation and prosecution of related crimes, Trump soldiered on in his quest for more power. He fired John Dowd, his first private Attorney as President, for deviating from the Roy Cohn Playbook by recommending cooperation with Mueller. Rudy Giuliani sandbagged Mueller for a year of delay on the issue of the President's testimony, until it was too late to seek a Court Order. Trump came through the Mueller Investigation personally unscathed, and learned a lesson.

Mueller could not indict President Trump under Justice Department Rules that take the Unitary President theory to its illogical extreme by immunizing, say, even a Russian Agent in the White House, from the law, but not from Impeachment. Donald Trump, Jr, met with the Russians in Trump Tower in June 2016 to get "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in violation of Campaign Finance law. Mueller should have presented the facts to the Grand Jury for Indictment. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein doubtless would not allow an "attack" on the President's family. Pussyfooting with Authoritarians is futile. Conventional Republican Wisdom was that Trump would sooner or later learn his lesson from the 448 Page Report by Special Counsel Mueller, or certainly from the Impeachment.

Strong-willed Leaders, however, are not easily dissuaded. Trump is out of control. History teaches that the worse is yet to come, whenever an Authoritarian Leader seizes power. Past is prologue.

In response to Hitler's continued disruption and clamoring for power, President Hindenburg, who viewed "der Fuehrer" as a dangerous upstart, gave up on January 30, 1933, and appointed Hitler as Chancellor. The Plan was to appoint Franz von Pappen Deputy Chancellor to keep an eye on Hitler. In the Night of the Long Knives, June 30 to July 2, 1934, when Hitler crushed all resistance, killed SA Leadership, and imprisoned SA Chief Ernst Roehm, the SS also murdered some of von Pappen's associates. Von Pappen got the message. Hitler seized and held Supreme Power for the next eleven years, and destroyed Germany in the process. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell needs to bring his Chamber back to Article I of the Constitution, and agree with the Speaker of the House on a joint plan to control the Executive. Voters could help by retiring McConnell.

Just as in the United States today, the German Reichstag was full of legislators, who had no patriotism beyond party servility, and who betrayed their Country by ceding power to an out of control Executive . *** "[T]he poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall...the eyes following you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran. ***At the apex of the pyramid comes Big Brother...infallible and all powerful. Every success, every achievement, every victory, every scientific discovery, all knowledge, all wisdom, all happiness, all virtue, are held to issue directly from his leadership and inspiration." ***George Orwell 1984.***

One of the pretexts the U. S. Big Brother offered for relief of Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovich, was the claim that she failed timely to display in the Ukraine Embassy the official portraits of Big Brother Trump and Mini-Me, Vice president Mike Pence. Attorney General Barr is feeling the heat. More than 2,000 former Justice Officials demand his resignation after a year of Barr's bending Justice to protect the President and his associates, in jail, and awaiting sentencing. Barr enlisted U. S. Attorney, John Durham, to investigate the Origins of the Russia Investigation.

Barr recruited U. S. Attorney, Jeffrey Jensen, to investigate the Origins of the Investigation of Trump's National Security Adviser, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Michael Flynn. One of Barr's first official acts was to falsely suggest that the Mueller Report exonerated Trump. In early 2020, Barr reversed line prosecutors' recommendation of 7 to 9 years for Trump guru Roger Stone, and recommended probation for Stone and Flynn. Barr requested Trump to stop tweeting about Justice cases, so Barr could play favoritism without the glare of publicity that comes with Trump's incessant tweets.

The greatest disappointment is Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, who could not find a conspiracy that a 12th grader could find by connecting the dots. At the end of March 2016, Trump recruited replacement Campaign Manager Paul Manafort, former adviser to Viktor Yanukovych, Vladimir Putin's hand-picked president of Ukraine from 2010-2014. In June 2016, Paul Manafort, Donald Trump, Jr, and Jared Kushner met in Trump Tower with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Moscow attorney with connections to the Kremlin, to get "dirt" on Hillary Clinton that Don, Jr, expected from the Russian Government. In July 2016, Candidate Trump broadcast at a rally at his Doral Resort, near Miami, a call for Putin's help. "Russia, if you are listening, I hope you will be able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing." Russia's Military Intelligence started hacking into Democrats' computers the same day.

In August 2016, Manafort delivered detailed internal polling data of the Trump Campaign to former aide in Ukraine, Konstantin Kilimnik, a graduate of Russia's Spy School, presumptively to assist Russia's Military Intelligence and the Internet Research Agency in Leningrad to use Face Book and Twitter to spread Disinformation and Propaganda to persuade U. S. voters in Battleground States to choose Trump over Hillary Clinton. After the election, National Security Adviser Flynn telephoned Sergey Kislyak, Russia's Ambassador to the U. S. to assure Russia that Trump would lift sanctions imposed by President Obama. When questioned by the FBI, Flynn denied speaking with Kislyak. A half dozen Trump insiders, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions also falsely denied speaking with the Russians.

Trump's appointment of Exxon Mobil Chairman, Rex Tillerson, as Secretary of State pleased Vladimir Putin because Tillerson guided through the Exxon bureaucracy two multi billion dollar contracts to help Russia with oil exploration and development, for which Putin awarded Tillerson Russia's Medal of Friendship in 2013. Trump and Putin viewed NATO as obsolescent. Trump disrupted U. S. relations with NATO and traditional allies, including England, France, and Germany. He stood next to Putin at Helsinki in 2018, spurned U. S. Intelligence Reports, and lamented, "I do not know why it would be Russia that interfered in 2016". Trump, Barr, and U. S. Attorneys John Durham and Jeffrey Jensen are Re-Writing History to exculpate Trump, Putin, Manafort, Roger Stone, and Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Michael Flynn, and to inculpate Ukraine, Obama, Clinton, Comey, McCabe, and former CIA Director John Brennan.

Except for the evolving plot to Re-Write History, Special Counsel Mueller was aware of the foregoing facts but could not connect the dots. Mueller could not have indicted the Sitting President because of Justice policy. Mueller and Rosenstein have to answer for not indicting Don, Jr, for seeking help from the Russians. If they thought the President had learned a lesson of forbearance, they were sadly mistaken. Donald Trump, like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, respects only power. Big Brother is Watching. "What you are seeing, and what you are reading is not what is happening." The Party of Trump will tell us what is happening.
Chapter 1

Trump Thinks He Did Nothing Wrong.

Lindsey Graham may be right. "Donald Trump did nothing wrong, in his [self-absorbed] mind." Trump's call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky July 25, 2019, was "perfect". Trump pressured Zelensky to run a "domestic political errand", in the words of Dr. Fiona Hill, National Security Council, Russia Expert, to force Ukraine to announce an official investigation of Hunter Biden and former Vice President Joe Biden. Donald Trump shows no remorse for trying to "dirty up" the Bidens by alleging that Joe Biden forced out corrupt Ukraine Prosecutor General, Viktor Shokin, in 2014 to block investigation of Hunter Biden as a Director of Burisma Holdings, a Ukraine Natural Gas Transmission Co. Others saw the call as extortion or bribery against a vulnerable ally in a hot war with Russia.

Lindsay Graham accidentally raised the question of what is going on in Trump's mind. Trump wanted to be a disrupter in 2016. He attracted beyond the box strategists like the perennially conflicted, Stephen Bannon, and the political trickster and later convicted, Roger Stone, each of whom distrusted the Deep State and longed to fashion their own Deeper State, headed by their impressionable Authoritarian Narcissist. Trump attracted White Supremacists like Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and his Right Wing, Racist, former Communications Director, Stephen Miller. He attracted a bellicose Campaign Manager, Corey Lewandowski, and a shady successor Manager and later convicted, Paul Manafort, advisor to dictators. Trump's strategists had a way to make this bitter medicine go down easily for concerned American voters.

Bring on the Generals to project, if not enforce, a semblance of orthodoxy in the Trump Cabinet of worrisome Advisers. General John F. Kelly, a former four-star Marine, would bring respectability and stability to Homeland Security. General James N. Mattis, another former four-star Marine, would anchor Defense. Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Michael Flynn signed on to bring military establishment respectability as National Security Adviser, until Flynn ran afoul of the law. Gradually, all of the Generals disappeared from Trump's orbit, with Flynn first out the door after serving less than a month. Kelly transferred from HLS, and rose to Chief of White House Staff before Trump froze him out.

Kelly started cleaning house, dumping Omarosa Manigault Newman, former guest on Trump's The Apprentice Show, and firing the endearing eleven-day Communications Director, Anthony Scaramucci, before getting the ax himself. Mattis resigned when Trump's disjointed Defense Policy became unmanageable. The Authoritarian Narcissist did not want to pay staff handsomely to tell him what he could not do. So he forced out the orthodox. Trump dislikes confrontation, and tries to have his henchmen do the dirty work. How to fire the White House Chief of Staff, who ordinarily handles staff firings? The Chief of Staff travels with the President. Trump directed a Secretary to call the Travel Office to inform them that Kelly would not be onboard for the upcoming trip. Kelly got the message, and packed up his kit.

Trump had to fire Flynn after acting Attorney General Sally Yates informed White House Counsel, Don McGahn, that Flynn was a Security Risk because the Russians knew Flynn lied when he claimed he did not talk with Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, about reversing Obama's sanctions. Before firing Flynn, Trump fired Sally Yates, a hold-over from the hated and feared Obama Administration. Commentators searched endlessly for an explanation for the chaotic struggle in the White House, which took on an eerie resemblance to the bar in Star Wars. An observer never knew who or what might not only walk in or drift by, but also rise to prominence as the President's adviser for the day, week, or month.

Trump enjoys competition among his staffers, so he let the factions form and play out. It's the Darwinian Theory of Evolution at its best: the survival of the wiliest, or most cunning. No one, however, should get more press attention than the Boss, a lesson not learned soon enough by first Press Secretary, Sean Spicer. and Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci. There can only be one Queen Bee per hive. Challengers must be dealt with harshly, by ejection from the inner sanctum. Humans, as all placental mammals, have a corpus callosum, the bridge between the two semi-independent hemispheres of the brain, which harmonizes potentially conflicting urges that might originate in one hemisphere but be countered by the other hemisphere.

If the corpus is damaged, disharmony or mixed messaging can replace harmony or integrated messaging. Thus, an impaired individual could meet someone with an outstretched right hand in greeting, while the left hand raised a stick menacingly. Having two independent brains in one body can result in confusion of strategy, tactics, and movement. The root meaning of schizophrenia comes from the Greek for "split mind", not to be conflated with bipolar disorder or dissociative identity disorder. One explanation for Trump's chaotic behavior could be that he has Multiple Personalities.

Indeed, Trump presents as diametrically opposed personalities. He struts onto the stage as the conquering hero of Valhalla, but unexpectedly slinks off, whining as if the abused oaf. He vanquished the Republican presidential field in 2015-2016 as a giant swatting pygmies, often dispatching would-be opponents with a single word, phrase, or sentence. "Little Marco" left no doubt in voters' minds about the junior status of Senator Marco Rubio (FL). "Low energy" took the wind out of the sail of Jeb Bush (FL). Some fought back. Lindsey Graham called Trump every name in the book, but the juggernaut kept coming. Lyin' Ted Cruz lasted the longest, having executed a non-aggression pact with Trump. At the end of the day, Trump said he saw Cruz' father in a photo with Lee Harvey Oswald.

Candidate Trump cleared the Republican field by making the contest a New York Bar Fight, which the others were not prepared to wage. The least qualified Republican candidate won handily, and had to take on the most qualified Democrat in former Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton. Given his disruptive agenda and abusive affect, Trump would never attract more than 47% of the electorate. Clinton had a chance to collect 51% of the voters. Republicans started "dirtying up" Clinton as soon as she resigned as Secretary of State in 2013 and talked publicly about her Campaign for president. First they struck with the phony Benghazi Hearings, chaired to no avail by Mad Dog Trey Gowdy (R-SC), and later by an equally phony email investigation instigated by Republicans and taken over by the FBI.

Trump and his guru Roger Stone (complete with Tricky Dick Nixon's face tattooed on his back) came up with a brilliant, unpatriotic, and unlawful strategy to pick up the cudgels from the Republican Smear and Slime Tag Team. Like a Relay Team racer, Stone picked up the baton from the GOP muckrakers, did not lose a stride, and worked seamlessly with the Russians and WikiLeaks to cap off Hillary's "dirt bath" , and to assist publication of thousands of emails stolen from Democrats' computers by Russia's Military Intelligence Directorate (the "GRU"). Trump the Bold did not hide the Conspiracy, which Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein could not find.

In July 2016, Trump announced at his Doral Resort rally near Miami, "Russia, if you are listening. I hope you will be able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing." What conclusion could be drawn by the U. S. Government, the GOP, and the voters? Trump, the Joker? Nevertheless, Mueller was blind to Trump's collusion with the Russians. Mueller could not indict Trump under Justice Department rules. If the Special Counsel found that Trump conspired with Russia, he could not do anything about it, so Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein looked the other way, rather than antagonize the Boss. For the same reason, Donald Trump, Jr, could not be indicted for meeting with the Russians to get "dirt" on Clinton. Mueller's failure is proof positive that investigations of the Executive cannot be performed by the Justice Department. Independent Counsel must report to the Judiciary.

Skilled in Soviet-style Disinformation, Propaganda, and Mind Control, Trump hid his assault on the Nation's psyche in plain sight. If a bank robber televised the heist, does the publicity provide immunity? At all events, the government, the press, and the people mostly slept through the assault on the U. S. electoral system by the Axis Powers of Trump, Putin, Stone, and Julian Assange (on behalf of WikiLeaks). Oh sure, the FBI and CIA heard rattling on the front porch and put on the light, but it was only the Russians involved in a non-nuclear caper. No worries. Obama complained, and CIA Director John Brennan told the Russians to "cut it out". Obama did not want to be blamed for stacking the deck against the most unqualified presidential candidate in U. S. history, so no one authorized Candidate Trump's arrest for collaborating with the Russians.

Everyone in every Political Party was convinced that the American People would never elect the Reality Show huckster. There was no need for an arrest that would have been controversial, and condemned as the Nanny State's castration of the big, blue eyed, blonde-haired, Aryan, Alpha Male. Confused by a torrent of Disinformation and Propaganda on Facebook and Twitter, much of it crafted by the Internet Research Agency in Leningrad, the American People staggered to the polls, and, remarkably, a plurality of nearly three million elected Hillary Clinton despite the deluge of anti Clinton bias on Social Media. A majority of the State Electors, however, were constrained (by what?) to select Donald Trump. Aside from lacking any qualifications, Trump was totally unprepared. There was no transition team. Chris Christie had no list of candidates. Team Trump expected to lose.

As election day drew near, Trump the Bold became Trump the Whiner, because he feared he would lose. His new mantra was, "The system is rigged against me." Obama bent over backwards to avoid a lot of publicity about the inevitable investigation of Russian Interference and Team Trump's collusion with Russia. In short, the public did not know what Trump, Putin, Manafort, Flynn, Stone, and Assange were doing. Not satisfied with the odds provided by Russian Disinformation, Trump enlisted his "dirt bag" pal, David Pecker, Editor of the National Enquirer, to run sleaze stories and doctored photos of Hillary Clinton to suggest that she was dying of cancer. To further complicate things, FBI Director James Comey volunteered that Hillary would not be prosecuted for mishandling emails at State, but that she was sloppy and grossly negligent in dealing with intelligence. Comey re-opened the investigation eleven days before the election to look at a new-found batch of emails. Republicans rejoiced. Democrats despaired.

When the FBI finally closed the case eight days before the election, Hillary was wondering what else could go wrong? With Jill Stein and the Green Party siphoning off votes, and with the Disinformation Campaign by Putin, Trump. Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, and Fox news, taking its toll, the race was too tight for comfort. Once Trump realized that the Electoral College selected him as President, he promptly fired his erstwhile Transition Manager, Chris Christie, and started to recruit his cabinet. He bypassed an aspiring Rudy Giuliani, and appointed Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, Secretary of State. Putin was pleased, as he had awarded Tillerson Russia's Order of Friendship Medal in 2013 for guiding through the Exxon bureaucracy two multi billion dollar contracts for development of Russia's petroleum assets.

The Russia Investigation was worrisome to Putin and to Trump. President Obama imposed sanctions, which hit Russian Oligarchs, as punishment for Russia's invasion of Crimea in 2014, and for election interference in 2016. Something had to be done to derail the Russia investigation and to lift sanctions. Trump installed his new puppet, Senator Jeff Sessions, as Attorney General, but, in a fit of orthodoxy, Sessions recused from all matters relating to alleged campaign violations. This left the puppet-master unable to directly control, deflect, and quash the Russia Investigation. Trump would somehow have to get to the FBI. Previously, Trump asked FBI Director Comey if he could "let go" of the investigation of Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Michael Flynn. Comey refused to play ball, so Trump knew what he had to do. He asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to write a memo that would attack Comey.

In May 2017, Trump fired FBI Director Comey, then, purportedly for mishandling the investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails, later, purportedly because he was a "dirty cop" all along. A chastened Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, who wrote the memo used by Trump to fire Comey, saw the chaos he precipitated at Justice and FBI, and anxiously appointed former FBI Director, Robert S, Mueller, Special Counsel to take over the Russia Investigation and to prosecute related crimes. Trump celebrated his dismissal of Comey by inviting Russia's Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, and Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, to the Oval Office to a meeting, from which U. S. journalists were excluded. The Russians were delighted that their asset was fighting the Deep State. Russia's Tass New Bureau later supplied photos of the meeting, so U. S. journalists could enjoy a glimpse of the camaraderie they missed.

Trump railed for fifteen months at the hapless Jeff Sessions for recusing from the Russia Investigation, frequently lamenting, "I do not have an Attorney General", and, "If he told me he would recuse, I would not have appointed him". Trump threatened to fire Rosenstein and Mueller. When the heat from the Mueller probe turned up, Trump ordered White House Counsel, Don McGahn, to fire Mueller. When McGahn balked, reportedly complaining to former Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus, that Trump "is asking me to do crazy shit", Trump forced McGahn out. Trump forced his harried Attorney General out in November 2018, after the Republicans took a shellacking in the midterm election, and, ominously for Trump, lost control of the House of Representatives. Two momentous and countervailing things happened in January 2019. Trump found his Roy Cohn by appointing William Pelham Barr as Attorney General. Democrats took control of all investigative committees in the House, which guaranteed that oversight of the President would soon start up in earnest.

Trump "Played Nice" at the State of the Union Address on Tuesday, February 4, 2020, as shown in Chapter 7, below. He soon reverted to form. On Wednesday, the Senate Republicans, all, except Mitt Romney (UT), voted to acquit the President of High Crimes and Misdemeanors for extorting Ukraine to help "dirty-up" former Vice President Joe Biden. On Thursday, the devil, the paranoia, the vindictiveness, and the out of control narcissism were back in the saddle. Trump spoke from the East Room of the White House, a venue usually reserved for more dignified events. The President said he went through "hell" in the Impeachment, which he characterized as "bullshit". The House Speaker was evil. The FBI were "dirty cops". The "Deep State" was trying to take the President down.

It was Classic Trump as victim, complete with Show and Tell. Trump held up newspapers to flaunt the headline, "ACQUITTED". Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, National Security Aide who testified against Trump, was fired and frogmarched out of the Executive Office Building and off White House grounds the next day. His identical twin brother was fired. Why did Trump fire the twin brother? He could not tell them apart (in his mind)! European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who testified against Trump, was fired. Trump did not offer to repay Sondland the one million dollars the Portland, Oregon, real estate developer contributed to defray expenses of Trump's Inaugural Extravaganza. Laura Ingraham, Fox News Contributor, was delighted that Trump was clearing out the Doubting Thomases. Der Fuehrer was exercising his Authoritarian muscle to eliminate critics.

From past twitter tirades it is clear that to exculpate Trump, and Re-Write History, it is necessary to denounce President Obama, Vice President Biden, FBI Director Comey (along with other top Bureau and Justice officials, attorney Lisa Page and counter-terrorism fighter Peter Strzok), Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, CIA Director Brennan, DNIs Clapper and Coates, CNN, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and anyone else who criticizes Trump. The Whistle Blower committed treason and was fed false information by spies, according to the President. Trump has special hatred for Adam Schiff, House Intelligence Committee Chair, who managed the Impeachment and continues to speak truth to power.

Fox Business host Lou Dobbs observed that, "The man obviously is confused ... operating as if he had multiple personalities". No, not Trump! Dobbs referred to Senator Mitt Romney for voting to find Trump guilty of Abuse of Power. Fox & Friends, and presumptively, Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, want Romney drummed out of the Republican Party for telling the truth about Trump.
Chapter 2

Three (or more) Faces of Eve

Eve was a young girl, whose mother reportedly forced her to kiss the corpse of her dead grandfather. The girl was terrified, and likely projected the frightening prospect of death from her grandfather's body to her own frail body. The trigger for the macabre projection likely was the act of kissing the dead body that her mother forced her to do. Eve planted the kiss as demanded, and the kiss planted the seeds of multiple personality disorder, which would torment Eve well into adult life. She had guilt and remorse for resisting her mother's request. She also had a generalized fear and foreboding that floated like an ominous fog through the recesses of her mind. It was all too uncomfortable and frightening to ponder, so Eve had to suppress the traumatic experience.

Helped by her psychiatrist, the real Eve supposedly surfaced with an integrated personality, married, and lived happily ever after. At least that is what the 1957 movie suggested, with Joanne Woodward playing the part of Eve. The New York Times later reported that Eve was not cured, went through a destructive marriage, and was treated by anther psychiatrist, who identified as many as twenty personalities lurking in Eve's subconscious. The movie version of the mother forcing Eve to kiss the corpse of her deceased grandfather may have been the movie's shorthand way of showing that Eve had been through a series of traumatic events. None of this may have any pertinence to Donald J. Trump. While he has exhibited many facets in ranges of his behavior, it cannot be shown definitively that he suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder. Maybe he is not suffering at all? Maybe he enjoys it?

Trump's behavior, however, is bizarre. What is more bizarre is the legion of apologists, who claim that the President's worst deeds, tweets, and statements are explainable either as appropriate, or merely as a joke, or a way to rile Democrats and other critics. Separating children from their mothers, and putting them in cages, however, is not amusing. Such a policy is calculated to appeal to White Supremacists, such as Trump's Domestic Adviser, Stephen Miller, who won praise from White Nationalist, Richard Spencer. Miller contributed to the drafting of the Muslim Travel Ban. Dr. David Glosser, Miller's Uncle, wrote a piece for Politico noting that Trump and Miller are using NAZI-style tactics to dehumanize immigrants and minorities, and that the Nation benefits from immigrants.

Trump has committed so many offenses that it is difficult to blame them all on one very busy personality. Rep. Adam Schiff, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee summarized at Trump's Senate Impeachment Trial by noting to the effect that, "If we lose sight of what is right, We are lost". How can the Nation know what is right when Trump insists that the people disbelieve their lying eyes? The people are buffeted by Soviet-style Disinformation and Propaganda, some of it propagated from the Internet Research Agency in Leningrad, and some disseminated from the White House, and by Newspeak from George Orwell's 1984. "What you are seeing, and what you are reading, is not what is happening." "The Press is the enemy of the People." This is not Orwell, but Trump, trolling.

Contrary to the opinions of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Trump is not joking. "Trolling" can mean a deliberately provocative post. It also means carefully searching for something. Trump is not joking. At best, he is looking for support from Neo-NAZIS, White Supremacists, White Nationalists, and Alt-Right extremists. In 2020, however, Trump will be all things to all men and women. He needs support from all voting blocs to be reelected. So, Trump will play nice for four months to reach a favorable (for him) 47% support. Rudy Giuliani and the GOP Smear Team will bring the Democratic Candidate's number down to 47% by "dirtying up" the Democrat. We have seen how the smear campaign worked in Ukraine with corruption of the Bidens alleged but not proved.

It is difficult to analyze the 2016 campaign in terms of the voice of the People. Which candidate did the People chose? Clearly, the U. S, electorate chose Hillary Clinton by a plurality of nearly three million. Whom did the People elect? The State Electors chose Donald Trump because he won Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania by slim margins. From the Democrats' perspective, did the People make a mistake in 2016. The plurality of the People in the Nation did not make a mistake. A slim plurality of the People in the three States, of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, made a mistake. How should the Democrats campaign in 2020? To win, Democrats must campaign in and carry the Battleground states.

How did Trump win in 2016? The People in the Midwest and South saw Trump as a strong leader. His character trait of dominance outweighed his character flaws of narcissism, racism, white supremacism, and carefully concealed lawlessness. Could Hillary have won if she chose a Vice President from the Midwest, say a Senator Amy Klobuchar (MN), or Sherrod Brown (OH)? We will never know, because it was not field-tested. Hillary made a mistake of bowing to caution. Senator Tim Kaine is moral, courageous, and well grounded, but likely did not win one electoral vote. A Midwest Vice President might have made the difference. Trump spooked Clinton, just as he did on the debate stage when he stalked her. A minority of the People fell for it, and voted for the specter looming large over the victim.
Chapter 3

Hysteria Presents a Hll of Mirrors.

Men have been lording it over women for centuries, and the medical profession formerly was a bastion of male supremacy and prejudice. "Hysteria" derives from the Greek for "womb". Cf. hysterectomy. Gentlemen physicians were certain that hysteria was a woman's disease or weakness. Loosely defined, hysteria is a physical infirmity with roots tied to emotional trauma. Sigmund Freud, the father of Psychoanalysis, reported numerous case studies that invariably involved sexual embarrassment, fear, or revulsion, that adversely affected the body. Freud found that men suffered from hysteria, but that twice as many women suffered from physical manifestation of hysteria. If the sexual trauma could be surfaced, and brought into the conscious state, it could be unpacked and defused by counseling.

The lay definition of hysteria is display of exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement, especially in a group setting. (mass hysteria, for example). Psychiatrists see a generalized psychological disorder (not a single definite condition), whose symptoms include conversion of psychological stress into physical symptoms (somatization), selective amnesia, shallow volatile emotions, and over dramatic or attention-seeking behavior. In 1980 the American Psychiatric Association abandoned the term "hysteria", and focused on its components, or consequences. Mostly male psychiatrists determined to cut the cord, and flee the womb.

All of these characteristics of classic hysteria help to explain Donald Trump's puzzling behavior. "Selective amnesia" might explain how he forgot that for years he was a Democrat in his outlook. "Shallow volatile emotions" looks like a descriptor of Trump. "Over-dramatic and attention" seeking behavior is quintessential Trump. If Lindsey Graham were asked if Trump is suffering from classic hysteria, he would say."No". The President is not hysterical, conflating the colloquial understanding with the psychiatric. Freud may have found the reason for Donald Trump's troubled personalities. He was pulled in various directions by his tyrannical father, the theatrics and forgiveness of his mother, and the relentless demands of the real world.

***"The poor ego has a still harder time of it; it has to serve three harsh masters, and it has to do its best to reconcile the claims and demands of all three.... The three tyrants are the external world, the superego, and the id." ***Sigmund Freud, from New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, (1932).***

Whether his superego and id are or were involved in Trump's psychology, or not, it is clear that he continually is pulled in diametrically opposing directions. Fred Trump, father of Donald, appears descended from a long line of pure bred German Authoritarians. Fred laid down the household law, and Donald did his best to bend the law to accommodate creature comforts. Fred forbade side trips to Manhattan. Donald disobeyed, and Fred sent the adolescent to New York Military Academy to learn a lesson. Mary Anne MacCleod, Donald's mother, likely tried to save her son from the harshness of Fred's dictates. What Trump learned at the Academy was that there were still pleasures to be discovered, and that resistance, passive or active, and perseverance, not at hard work, but at ego gratification, was reward enough.

What Trump learned from his earliest days was that rules were written for lesser mortals. In a fit of childlike naivété, Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) offered that President Trump learned his lesson from the Impeachment, and, presumptively, from Special Counsel Mueller's 448 page Report on Russia's 2016 Election Interference, Team Trump's collusion, and Trump's Obstruction of Justice and Obstruction of Congress. The lesson Trump learned was that the Justice Department could not indict him no matter what, that Attorney General Barr would collaborate with most of his schemes, and that the feckless Republicans in the Senate would not hold him accountable even when the House adopted Articles of Impeachment against him on solid grounds.

The reason Trump's conduct is disjointed is that there are warring factions in his head pulling him in different directions. His mother taught him orthodoxy and hair styling. His father taught him The Art of the Deal. Roger Stone taught him that he could present as a Democrat or a Republican. InfoWars' huckster, Alex Jones, taught him the power of Conspiracy Theories. Roy Cohn taught him to never concede error, to deny, and to counterattack the accuser or claimant. It is not evident who taught him the paralyzing fear of losing, of coming in second, but it affects his every endeavor. He could not bear the thought of losing to a woman, so he asked Russia to help him beat Hillary Clinton. "Russia, if you are listening, I hope you will be able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing."

He feared appointment of Special Counsel Mueller, because he dreaded a finding of a conspiracy between Team Trump and Russia. But what did he think the conclusion would be about his misadventure with Russia, that it was a joke, that he was trolling? Why would Roger Stone risk forty months' imprisonment rather than admit he was the point of contact between the Russian, who would hack into Democrats' computers, and WikiLeaks, who would publish the stolen emails? The only question is whether Trump is a Russian Agent or merely an Asset. What is truly frightening is not the conflict between the hemispheres, or the paralysis from suppressed trauma. The most frightening thing of all is that Trump can win reelection by fooling a mere two percent of the American Electorate in a handful of Battleground States a second time.

If Dr. Jekyll plays nice to the People before November, Mr. Hyde will take over in earnest after election day. It seems that Mr, Hyde comes out whenever Donald Trump survives a crisis. He executed on his Ukraine plot to "dirty up" former Vice President Joe Biden, one the day after Mueller testified before Congress, by asking Ukraine President Zelensky to announce an investigation of the Bidens. After the Senate held a mock trial and acquitted him, Trump fired Lt. Col. Vindman, who testified honesty to Congress, his twin brother, who committed no offense, and Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, who also testified to Congress, first guardedly, and then more truthfully.

Louis the Fourteenth, King of France, famously said, "L'état, c'est moi." "I am the State." Other quotes attributed to Louis are, "It is legal because I wish it", which sounds like Nixon or Trump, and "Has God forgotten everything I have done for Him", which is pure Trump. Henry VIII is a good example of an English King run amok, so Henry and not Louis is the model fro Trump's behavior. Senate Republicans acquitted Trump out of fear. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was a Trump critic until a 2018 poll showed Graham barely reaching approval of 50% of voters in the 2020 election. Graham became a true, hypocritical, Trump, believer after 1/1/2019.

Freud looked for repressed trauma associated with sexual abuse as the cause of hysteria. Psychoanalysis relieves the paralysis or other physical infirmity by raising the memory from the unconscious to the conscious, where the debilitating fear can be delevered. As described by one of Freud;s patient's, the process was "the talking cure". Trump's problem is that he is coiled up like a spring. His phobias are in control. He views the world and its challenges only as they affect him. He has no empathy for victims of the corona virus. The threat is that he could lose the 2020 election. If the stock market crashes, it could cause him to lose. If Biden sweeps on Super Tuesday, Trump is compelled to attack. Divide and conquer is the rule, so Trump asserts that the Democrats are unfair to Bernie Sanders.
Chapter 4

Trump's Fixation Reelection

Once Trump is set on a course by suggestion of advisers, and affirmation by the influential, it is virtually impossible for him to let go of the lure. Russia's game plan is obvious. Putin, Dictator for Life, has an irrepressible urge to reconstitute the Soviet Union, in part by bullying into submission former Republics such as Ukraine, Georgia, and Belarus. Putin and his ally, Viktor Orbán, the Prime Minister of Hungary, whisper in Trump's ear that Ukraine is not a real country. Since they are Strong Men, Trump believes them. The fallen former Mayor of New York's game plan also is obvious. Rudy Giuliani wants to make money by wielding Trump's power. Giuliani whispers in Trump's ear that Ukraine tried to take Trump down by interfering in the 2016 election.

Trump is convinced that Ukraine is not legitimate. The fiction that it was Ukraine, and not Russia that interfered in the 2016 election, is useful to Putin in that it takes Russia off the hook for its broad and deep interference in the U. S. election in 2016, and weakens Ukraine for takeover or dominance by Russia. Trump promotes the fiction because it takes him off the hook for colluding with Russia in 2016, and gives him an excuse for holding up appropriated Ukraine aid in 2019. The trump card is that the President can continue to smear Joe Biden by claiming he held up aid to Ukraine to investigate corruption of Hunter Biden.

Everyone wins, except Ukraine, the Bidens, and the American People. The Republicans in the United States Senate continue the smear, for which the President was impeached by considering calling Hunter Biden as a Trial Witness. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), Chair, Homeland Security, plans to call Hunter Biden as a hearing witness. The smear is back on full bore, as Joe Biden wins the South Carolina primary, and emerges again as Trump's likely opponent in 2020. Whether the search is for the Healthcare Plan of Republicans or the rationale for the Trump Campaign in 2020, the answer is always the same. "Hunter Biden" is the answer, delivered by nervous Republicans like Ron Johnson, who mumble the magic words, "Hunter Biden", and then retreat into the anxious fog where Republicans seek to hide.

The wild card in the smear conspiracy is the U. S. voter. Will Americans fall a second time for Disinformation and Propaganda propagated by Putin, Trump, Giuliani, and the Republican Party? Trump is betting that the smear will work. If the Democrats nominate Biden, the smear is Trump's only way to win. The 47% candidate must "dirty up" the potential 51% opponent. It is the same smear that Putin, Trump, Giuliani, and the Republicans organized in 2016, only this time the stakes are enormous. If Trump loses, he could be indicted by February or March 2021. If Trump loses, Republican hacks like Senators Lindsey Graham , Ron Johnson, and Ted Cruz could be voted out of office. Trump is confident that he can beat most of the other Democrats in the running for the nomination, but he will smear them all.

Rudy Giuliani, who also risks indictment if Trump loses, worked full time to smear Joe Biden, since Biden announced his candidacy on April 25, 2019. Rudy chased "dirt" on Biden all over Europe from Madrid and Kiev, where he met with Ukraine officials and former disgraced former Ukraine Prosecutors General Viktor Shokin and Yuri Lutsenko, to Vienna, where he met with Dmitry Firtash, upper echelon Ukraine mob boss, under house arrest on a U. S. indictment for bribery in India.

Giuliani, who abandons principles like unwanted wives, returned from Europe on one trip in 2019 waiving an affidavit signed by Firtash, and allegedly attesting to corruption of Joe Biden. Considering that Giuliani was once America's Mayor for his steadfast performance after 9/11, even Trump must be embarrassed by his acolyte's fall from grace. Firtash is not an incidental figure in the conspiracy. Putin made Firtash Russia's bag man in Ukraine by giving him a license in effect to earn a royalty on all Russian pipeline gas sent to Ukraine. This license accumulates tens of millions of royalty dollars to Firtash's account. Much of the money funneled to and through Giuliani, in his Ukraine caper, comes from Firtash.

When Lev Parnas had to explain the origin of a million dollars under his control, he explained that Firtash made a loan to Parnas' wife. The FBI arrested Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman in 2019 on an indictment handed up by the U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York ("SDNY") alleging Campaign Finance Law violations. Parnas, Fruman, and their employer, Rudy Giuliani also may be concerned about money laundering charges. The Senate dd not want to hear testimony from Parnas.

If Trump is re-elected, the Five-Year Statute of Limitations will in effect forgive federal crimes relating to 2016. The Senate Impeachment Trial of President Trump is a spectacle to behold. All Senators of either party know the President is guilty. Trump ordered Majority Leader McConnell not to allow witnesses or evidence to be presented, making the Trial a farce. Former National Security Adviser, John Bolton, who recently wrote a book on his Trump years, offered to testify at Trump's Trial. Mick Mulvaney and other officials in the Office of Management and Budget should also testify. Republicans decided that they would acquit Trump no matter what. There were no witnesses at the farce-trial.
Chapter 5

Senate Pretend Impeachment Trial.

Benjamin Franklin advised the American colonials, "Hang together, or hang separately", as an admonition to join the fight against the British, or succumb one by one to British dominion. It is ironic to see Republicans coalesce protectively in 2020 around President Donald Trump, a man whom they universally despised as a primary candidate in 2015. Politically, Republicans cannot afford to convict and remove their leader. What most do not realize is that politically they cannot afford to acquit him, either. Whatever happens, the Republican party will suffer long term damage from their unflagging support of the most unqualified President and most profane man in America. If they made an honest mistake, and acquitted the President after a fair trial, the public could forgive their mistake.

Trump's Senate Impeachment Trial had no chance at fairness. Republicans fought the investigation and the Impeachment at every step in the proceedings, and falsely claimed that the President's due process rights were not protected. Contrary to Republican propaganda, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tamped down calls from the progressives for Impeachment starting in 2017. Pelosi exerted the same moderating influence in 2003, when George W. Bush invaded Iraq. "Impeachment is off the table", she said, noting that Impeachment is not appropriate for "policy differences". More than policy was implicated, however, when drilling down would show that Bush and Cheney dictated to CIA Analysts "findings" of Weapons of Mass Destruction by Saddam Hussein to justify the Iraq Invasion.

A Whistle Blower Complaint filed in August 2019, in response to the President's extortion of Ukraine to announce an investigaton of the Bidens, triggered the Impeachment of Donald Trump. The Inspector General for the Intelligence Community found the Complaint credible, urgent, and not based on policy differences. Instead of forwarding the complaint to the Intelligence Committee of the Congress, the Director of National Intelligence ("DNI") alerted the White House, which immediately tried to quash the Complaint and throttle the Whistle Blower. When the People's House announced hearings based on press reports of the Complaint, the DNI sent the complaint to the Congress. When things heated up, the White House released Minutes of the July 25, 2019, telephone call between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. The minutes proved the President's guilt.

There is no Republican Party after Russia campaigned for the GOP candidate. There is the Party of Trump, who has destroyed the GOP. The Party showed its racism in 2010 by unanimously boycotting the Affordable Care Act because it was sponsored by President Obama. For ten years, Republicans promised but failed to present a Republican Healthcare Plan. Trump promised to deliver his Plan after the 2020 election. Gradually, Trump has taken over and corrupted the major Departments of Government. The State Department is hollowed out, with many senior positions not filled. Secretary Pompeo stood by silently as Trump allowed Rudy Giuliani to vilify U. S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. Justice is cowed by threats of retribution for those who worked on the Russia Investigation, and found that Moscow supported Trump.

The FBI knows that if it reports Russian Assistance to Trump in 2020, the Boss will be unhappy. CIA officials and analysts are in the same predicament. The giant eraser will try to obliterate what happened in 2016. Attorney General Barr and U. S Attorney John Durham, armed with a Grand Jury, are investigating the Origins of the Russia Investigation. Whoever criticizes Trump must be wary of perjury and other offenses. Andrew Wheeler, a coal company lobbyist, is Head of the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA"). The Interior Department is infested with oil company lobbyists. If Trump is reelected, he will do lasting damage to the United States and its institutions and norms. Senate Republicans found him "Not Guilty" at their peril. The People will hold Republicans accountable.
Chapter 6

Mary Anne MacCleod Meets Fred Trump.

Mary Anne MacCleod, wife of Fred Trump and mother of Donald J. Trump, was an ideal immigrant to the U. S. She was born and raised on the Island of Lewis, next door to the Isle of Harris, in Scotland's Outer Hebrides, from where Harris Tweed is made and exported. Most residents are dirt poor, and can seek advancement mainly by emigration to Canada or the U. S. Nearly eighteen year old Mary took the boat to New York to live with her sister on Long Island, arriving May 11, 1930. She worked in the U. S. as a domestic, and visited her ancestral home in Scotland on occasion. She was an attractive young lady, who met Fred Trump at a party. Fred's father was an immigrant from Germany. Fred and Mary Anne married and they had five children, including the future President of the United States.

Fred, of course was an Authoritarian, like his German forefathers and like his son Donald. Fred forbade his daughters lipstick, and everyone snacks between meals. The boys were taught responsibility by running a paper route. If the weather was a problem, Fred would arrange for the limousine to help them make deliveries. Fred worked his way up in the construction trade to become a builder of mostly apartments in Brooklyn and Queens. Fred drove a hard bargain, and made a bit too much money on FHA-insured projects. Congress complained about profiteering in federally insured construction. Fred was investigated by state and federal authorities, but not charged. He and Donald Trump were later charged civilly with housing discrimination against African Americans by the U. S. Justice Department.

The suit was settled by a consent decree without admission of guilt. It is not known if Fred taught Donald the art of lying, but Fred was a competent liar. During the war years, Fed Trump would claim to be from Sweden to hide his German ancestry. Ironically, Donald later claimed his father was born in Germany despite the father's birth in the Bronx, New York. Mary Anne would wear her hair in a reddish swirl. Donald inherited his Authoritarian ways from his father, and the theatrical and orange hair from his mother. Fred kept to his construction in Brooklyn and Queens, and never ventured into the "Big Time" in Manhattan. Donald could not wait to get to Manhattan. His forays to the City as a teen or preteen led to Fred's enrolling Donald in the New York Military Academy.

Fred's attempt to instill discipline into Donald was not a total success, and Donald soon learned how to keep his stern taskmaster of a father content. Donald was not exactly born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but the family was upwardly mobile. It was one example of the American dream. Fred joined his mother Elizabeth in a family real estate business started by Fred's German immigrant father, Because Fred was a minor when he joined with his widowed mother, the style of the business was E. Trump, likely because the initial could signify male ownership. Donald joined Fred in managing the family business, rising to President under Fred as Chair. As Fred aged out, Donald took over with what ultimately would become reckless abandon.

Donald claims that Fred advanced $1 million, only, to give Donald a start. It likely is closer to $200 million, counting the inherited business and real property. Whenever Donald painted himself into a fiscally challenging corner, Fred would be there with another million, and another million after that. Donald liked bright lights and publicity. When the allure of Manhattan dimmed, Donald became fascinated with gambling in New Jersey. In Las Vegas, Casinos attracted big name performers like Frank Sinatra. Why not Atlantic City? Donald overpaid for half a dozen Casinos and Casino Hotel properties, and nearly lost everything. Trump survived by filing half a dozen bankruptcies for his companies, never personally, and by welshing on obligations of the Trump Organization.

Trump did not discriminate in spreading dishonored contract obligations. He stiffed big New York Banks and small contractors and suppliers alike. When sued, he counter-sued, and advanced specious counterclaims to offset valid claims against him or the Trump Organization, or both. He saved millions by his unethical tactics. The New York Banks blackballed him. Only Deutsche Bank ("DB") kept coming back to contribute more. When DB sued to collect on his note, Trump countersued by claiming that DB caused the 2008 Recession, which reduced the value of Trump's real estate holdings. The Courts apparently put up with Trump's antics, because he kept abusing the judicial system.

Courts can stop frivolous claims and defenses, by imposing substantial money penalties on counsel and parties, for making frivolous pleadings and practices.
Chapter 7

President Spoke Nice to Congress 2/4/2020

Well, almost nice. He refused to shake House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's outstretched hand. At the end of the Speech, she openly tore up the copy delivered to her because Trump "shredded the truth". The Speech, however, was a rousing Campaign Speech, calculated to ensure the President's reelection. The tone sounded a bit like Muhammad Ali, "I am the greatest". The U. S. has the world's soundest economy, the strongest military, the lowest unemployment rate, in general, and for minorities, and everything is coming up roses. Republicans jumped to their feet clapping like seals a couple of dozen of times. Democrats, for the most part, sat on their hands. To the GOP, it did not matter if the President was fibbing a little or a lot, or Abusing Power. At one point it sounded like the President claimed ICE arrested 2,000 murderers.

It did not matter what he said, Republican lawmakers were enthralled at their forever-impeached leader. The Senate voted him "Not Guilty" on February 5, 2020. For three years, Republicans urged him to talk about the economy, and not about his disruptive social themes. On this day, he was on message. He was nice to almost every group, except illegal immigrants. Few groups endorse unlawful immigration? The high point for the Right Wing, and the low point for progressives and moderates, was the award to Rush Limbaugh of the Medal of Freedom, the highest U. S. civilian honor. This was not an announcement of a future event. Melania happened to have the medal in her pocketbook, and draped it around Limbaugh's neck in the balcony.

No one was certain what good deeds Limbaugh ever did to merit the award, other than acting as a Right-Wing flack Radio Host for the President. Sean Hannity must be wondering where his award is. After a half hour of 'We are the Greatest', the address pivoted to Show and Tell. Trump had loaded the balcony with a half dozen honorees, many of them minorities, to demonstrate that Trump is not a White Supremacist. There was the one hundred year old former Tuskegee Airman in uniform. The President had recently commissioned him a Brigadier General. There was an African American mother and daughter, who wanted to be enrolled in an honors school. Trump announced her admission. There was an Hispanic Border Patrol Agent, honored for guarding against intrusion by other Hispanics.

Show and Tell went on for over half an hour. The President's popularity surged to 49%, showing how easy it is to fool most People. What happened to the mean, old Donald, the Disrupter. Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, and Stephen Miller would not recognize the nice, new, Donald, the Compassionate, more of a Mensch even than George W. Bush. It will be interesting to see if Soviet-style Disinformation, Propaganda, and Playing Nice will fool the American People a Second Time. The reason Trump spurned the Speaker's hand was not anger. The Senate has effectively repealed Article I of the Constitution. Legislative Oversight of Government Operations no longer has the sting of Impeachment, where Senate acquittal is a foregone conclusion. Trump no longer views the House Speaker as a Power Center. Like Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin, he respects only Power. Voters have power, so Trump will court voters until November 3, 2020.

The new President Trump will be a much more formidable opponent than Candidate Trump was in 2016. With the power of an Incumbent President and the tail wind of a prosperous economy, Trump will be a daunting challenge for any Democratic nominee. Trump transformed the State of the Union forum into a Reality Show venue. Trump's lies seem to float by without serious challenge. Since Inauguration, Trump has spewed out about 15,000 lies, exaggerations, or misleading statements. Trump bragged about his protection of health care coverage for preexisting conditions at the same time his Justice Department is in Court seeking to declare the entire Affordable Care Act unconstitutional.

Trump suddenly discovered that African American registered voters are 13% of the electorate nationally, and up to 30% in some southern States such as South Carolina. Show and Tell purposefully featured numerous African Americans benefiting from Trump's largess. The State of the Union address was not only similar to a Campaign Speech. It was the Campaign Speech that Trump will give weekly until Election Day. Trump will do whatever it takes for re-election. There will be many quid pro quos, some of them lawful. He may not publicly call again for Russia, Ukraine, and China to help "dirty up" his opponent, but he will accept help, lawful or unlawful, from any quarter.

A developing pandemic of corona virus, and a collapse of more than 3,400 points in the stock market in the last week of February 2020, are worrying Trump. The pandemic will run its course. The sickness in the White House will run its course. The American People are patient, to a fault. There is a limit.
Chapter 8

Democrats Will End King Trump's Reign.

Number One in every Democrats' mind is that they must pick a candidate, who will beat President Donald Trump. There are headwinds that make the Democrats' objective difficult. The more Democrats talk and strategize over how to beat Trump, the less the are discussing policies, plans, and laws that will convince the electorate to vote for the Democrat. Despite the fact that the Obama Biden Administration did the heavy lifting on rescuing the economy from a severe Recession from 2008 to 2016, President Trump is claiming bragging rights for any good results in the economy. Anything bad, he will blame on Obama Biden. The numbers present problems. Tallying Electoral Votes by States won instead of the popular vote allows an unpopular Demagogue to win by fooling a plurality of the voters in a handful of Battleground States.

Contrary to Conventional Wisdom, Trump does not start the 2020 race with a flagging base of 39% to 41% of the Electorate. As the candidate of a major political party, Trump, the Untruthful, starts with 45% to 47% of the voters. The 2020 election is not a question of how could Trump possibly fool the American People a Second Time. It is not, Fool Us Twice, Shame on Us. Trump does not have to fool a majority of the American People. He does not even have to fool a plurality of the Electorate. Trump will be reelected if he fools a plurality of voters in a handful of Battleground States. Once a charlatan is elected, the odds favor reelection. Incumbency delivers a powerful advantage to the occupant of the White House.

Voters in the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas, will probably continue to vote for the Republican candidate and incumbent, Donald J. Trump. Southern States will conform to the Southern Strategy of Richard Nixon, but Virginia will vote for the Democrats. North Carolina may be a Battleground Toss-Up. Kentucky, Arkansas, and Tennessee are likely Republican States. New York, New England, California, and the West Coast will be for the Democrats. Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin likely will decide the election. A lot will depend on whom the Democrats nominate. Voters under age forty may not have a problem with a gay nominee. Voters over age forty may not be ready.

What happens if the Democrats nominate Bernie Sanders, who is a Socialist. It is ironic that President Trump and Fox News have already referred to Sanders as a Communist, because it is Trump who is a Russian Asset. It was Trump who asked for Russia's help to beat Hillary Clinton in 2016. "Russia, if you are listening, I hope you will be able to find the 30,00 emails that are missing." It was all of Trump's Inner Circle, who lied to the FBI about having contacts with Russia. It is Trump who has favored Russia in his policies and public statements. Despite denials, it was Trump who tried to lift sanctions against Putin and other Russian Oligarchs. It was Trump who stood beside Putin at Helsinki, and, contrary to the findings of the CIA, FBI, and DNI Dan Coates, bleated out, "I do not know why it would be Russia that interfered in 2016".

Sanders has not done a good enough job of explaining how the Nation will pay for Medicare for All and Higher Education for All. Even with Sanders in the White House, conservatives of both parties in Congress will resist deficit spending. Elizabeth Warren lost all momentum when she tried to outdo Sanders in promising freebies to voters. Warren might do better to forget the far left lane, and concentrate on the progressive center, where Amy Klobuchar is slowly gaining ground. The reason former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg entered the race is to bring the Democrats back to the Center. Democrats will do well to nominate a centrist, and utilize Bloomberg's promised financial assistance to clean up the White House.

It is Conventional Wisdom that the Democrats should not form a Circular Firing Squad in the Primaries. If the Democrats' nominee is not pretested in the Primary, however, President Trump likely will tear the Democrat apart in the General Election. Someone in the Primary Debates has to ask Mayor Pete Buttigieg how the Nation will accept a man as First Lady. Someone has to ask Sanders how he intends to pay for the freebies he promises to provide to the American People. Sanders is right in principle. The cost of medical care and higher education is astronomical in the U. S. A large proportion of bankruptcies in the U. S. are the result of an uninsured illness. In Europe and Japan, it does not cost $200,000 U. S. Dollars to obtain a college degree.

Michael Bloomberg is taking hits for his former support of "Stop and Frisk", a policy of search and seizure not supported by a search warrant. Stop and Fisk was found constitutional in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S 1 (1968). A police officer observed two men case a store in broad daylight by walking by half a dozen times, and conferring briefly with a third man. The officer approached, and asked their names. The two men mumbled something, and the officer spun Terry around and patted down a bulge in his clothing disclosing a handgun. The problem is that once Stop and Frisk is made an official police department policy, it is used indiscriminately to replace search warrants. In Floyd v. City of New York, 959 F. Supp.2d 540 (2013), the District Court declared the New York Stop and Frisk Policy violated the Fourth Amendment because blacks and Hispanics were stopped more frequently.

Bloomberg has apologized for his former support of Stop and Frisk. He is on tape with some remarks that appear racist, such as, you can xerox one case and give the details to all police, because its always young black and Hispanic men who commit the crimes in New York. He also said that to solve the gun problem, you have to throw young black and Hispanic males against the wall and take their guns away. Bloomberg has spent around $500 million on TV advertising.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who fits the middle lane as a progressive centrist, fell apart in Iowa and New Hampshire. If he cannot take off in Nevada, South Carolina, and Super Tuesday, he will be finished. It must be frustrating for Biden not to have the endorsement of Barack Obama, a man Biden served faithfully as Vice President for eight years. Obama, however, wants the Democrats to chose their nominee in the Primary Process from the bottom up, and not from the top down. Trump, from the White House, will be one of the most formidable opponents the Democrats have ever faced. He will take assistance from China, Russia, Ukraine, or anywhere else. He will smear whomever the Democrats nominate. If he has to, he will go directly to State Electors to borrow, beg, or steal the Electoral Votes necessary to win. No holds barred.

On 2/19/2020, Democrats held a ninth debate, this time in Las Vegas, prior to the Nevada caucuses. Elizabeth Warren tore into Michael Bloomberg on rumors of sexual harassment at his company, asking him to release women employees from their Non Disclosure Agreements (NDAs). Bloomberg refused on the grounds that the NDAs were consensual. It was obvious that Bloomberg had not debated in the past ten years. Pete Buttigieg tried unsuccessfully to take Amy Klobuchar down for not knowing the name of Mexico's President in a prior interview, as noted by one of the Debate's moderators, Telemundo's Vanessa Hauc. Warren, Klobuchar, and Biden improved their standing. Sanders was strong, but he and Buttigieg appear to be peaking out. Bloomberg appeared to go down a notch or two. James Carville, who coined the phrase, It's the economy, stupid", in 1992, warns that Sanders will not win by expanding the electorate in 2020. The middle of the road is where most voters are.

The South Carolina Democratic Primary set off a tsunami that changed the entire Democratic Field, and sent shock waves to the Impostor in the Oval Office. House Whip, James Clyburn, (D-SC) said a prayer, and endorsed Joe Biden for President. This quiet vote of confidence, expressed by the third ranking Democrat in the House, was like a stick of dynamite inserted into the wall of an earthen dam. The explosion released a flood of votes for former Vice President Joe Biden, who swept South Carolina. Democrats in South Carolina and throughout the Nation suddenly realized that Joe Biden was the consensus candidate, who would unify the Democratic Party. Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar dropped out of the race, and endorsed Joe Biden for President.

Beto O'Rourke endorsed Biden. Then came the victory of the underdog in Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Joe Biden won twice as many states and delegates as did Bernie Sanders, who was supposed to expand his base by bringing in new voters. It did not happen. Virginia had an all-tine record turnout of new voters and old voters. Biden won decisively. Bernie Sanders likely will struggle on. Michael Bloomberg, whose performance lagged the $230 million in ads bought just for Super Tuesday States, is locked in a stark inner struggle of when to drop out and endorse Joe Biden. Donald Trump is feeling the heat, and projecting his anxiety onto Democrats, noting how the Democratic Party is unfair to Bernie Sanders, Donald, the Tormented, claims the Democrats are crazy.

Democratic Party Leaders, and advisers like James Carville, uniformly contend that Bernie Sanders cannot beat Trump. They fear that the social programs aimed at workers, students, and those without health insurance will lead the Party down a Dead End. The answer is two words: "Reagan Democrats". If the Democratic Party addressed the concerns of workers over the past forty years, there never would have been the phenomenon called "Reagan Democrats". Super Tuesday raised questions about Sanders ability to expand the Democrats' voter base. Biden attracted record numbers of new young voters, especially in Virginia. Biden likely will ride the crest of the anti-Trump wave all the way to the White House. If Democrats continue to ignore workers progress, "Reagan Democrats" will defeat the Party.
Chapter 9

Trump Packages Soviet-Style Propaganda

Donald Trump knows how to pitch a Game Show or a Reality Show to the Lowest Common Denominator of an American television audience. He spent more than ten years dumbing-down The Apprentice to reach a larger audience, increase advertisers, and make more money. Whether the payoff is from a vote in an election or from advertising revenues, what matters is the per "pop" or "eyeballs" audience. A show or a candidate that pitches to the better educated audience usually falls flat. That is why Adlai Stevenson failed to win the presidency in 1952 and 1956. Communist Leaders would like to convince intellectuals, but they know it is far easier to fool the little people. When Trump readies propaganda for delivery, he aims at 5th graders. He uses short, easily understood terms, such as "Fake News", for the Mainstream Media, "Witch Hunt" and "Hoax", for the Russia Investigation. He dismissed Impeachment for his flaming Abuse of Power as "Bullshit".

He attacks the FBI, which ran the counterintelligence investigation against Russian Interference, as "Dirty Cops", because they heard Trump ask for Russia's help. Those who seek to enforce the law and protect the Nation are cast as a "Deep State" cabal that "is trying to take down a duly elected president". Legitimate critics are dismissed as "Never Trumpers" or "Trump Haters". To separate the voters from their news source, he offered, "The Press is the Enemy of the People", a phrase that goes back to Josef Stalin. When "Little Marco" claims Trump is joking, remember that "Little Marco" is an enabler. GOP R.I.P. The Republican Party is dead. It is now the Party of Trump. "What you are seeing and what you are reading is not what is happening. Trump was feeding his unknowing Base choice morsels from George Orwell's 1984.

+++"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.***And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed--if all records told the same tale--then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past', ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past'."+++ George Orwell 1984. +++Trump may by greater than Stalin because Stalin was unable to rewrite history, and make it take. Trump, Attorney General William Barr, and U. S Attorney John Durham, armed with a Grand Jury, will try to intimidate the CIA and FBI into agreeing that it was Ukraine and not Russia that meddled in the 2016 election, and that Trump and Putin are innocent. Trump is redoing the Origins of the Russia Investigation.

The old shibboleths are meaningless as guideposts for us today. In the 1950s, leftist meant Communist and rightist meant Fascist. Left was always the opposite of right. Communism, however, is not liberal in the real world. And left merges with right in the totalitarian state, where the vote can be tallied before cast. When Trump suggests that Bernie Sanders is a Communist, the President is playing on old fears and smears. Trump does not have to fool all of the People. He begins with support of 45 to 47% of the voters, merely for putting in an appearance as a candidate of a major political party.

All Trump has to do for re-election is fool 2 to 3% of the voters in a handful of Battleground States, an easy task for a compulsive liar with no moral compass. Is Putin's manipulation of an election any different from Trump's? The Party of Trump will give us the election results, and we will congratulate the Party's choice. Beware the appointment of a Trump sycophant, Richard Grenell, as Director of National Intelligence. See Chapter 13.
Chapter 10

Hillary Clinton Won A Plurality in 2016.

The United States has a unique electoral system, where the candidate for president with the most votes is not always the winner. At the end of the day, the person who has a majority of State Electors is the winner, with no minimum threshold on the number of popular votes the winner must take. The election for president is not a national election. It is a State by State election, where each candidate supposedly strives to win each state. Winning California and New York by 60% or more will not defray vote deficits in other states. The Electoral College reportedly protects small states. This, however, is a myth. No one campaigns in the Dakotas, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, or Montana. Candidates campaign in battleground states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Colorado, Florida, and Arizona.

It does not make sense to blame Hillary Clinton or the American People for the debacle we face. Hillary won the popular vote by nearly three million. Donald Trump criticized the Electoral College before 2016 because he assumed it would result in his defeat. As soon as the Electoral College catapulted him to the White House, he praised the process. Trump won a majority of the State Electors. Michael Moore estimates that Trump could win a majority of the State Electors in 2020, while losing the popular vote by as many as 5 million. This anti-democratic result is particularly destructive of the one person, one vote, principle, because of the Republican survival depends on a strategy to suppress voter turnout and purge voter rolls, particularly in Democrat Zip Codes, and, of course, gerrymandering election districts.

What Republicans are doing is laying the groundwork for revolution. Republicans cannot expect to stay in power through gerrymandering voter districts to favor election of Republicans, and, at the same time, purge voter rolls of Democrats, who are left out in the cold to become a rebel shadow like Ireland's Sinn Fein. The Supreme Court of the United States has refused to correct gerrymandering, because it is a political process, whose deficiencies should be addressed by the political class. So was the NAZI Party, Mr. Chief Justice. Republicans in North Carolina can be ashamed that they drew three of the most gerrymandered districts in the Nation. Maryland, controlled by Democrats, also has one of the most gerrymandered districts. With the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to review map-making, it is up to the People, State Courts, and Legislatures to combat gerrymandering.

What happens if no one wins an absolute majority of State Electors, which is 270. The House would pick the President, with each State delegation having one vote. A tie is possible in the election because there are an even number of 538 State Electors. The 2020 election will be one of the hardest fought and dirtiest elections in U. S. history. Trump is determined to stay in the White House. Democrats are dedicated to ending Trump's reign. In 1876, there was almost a tie when Rutherford B. Hayes (R-OH) won 185 electors and Samuel J. Tilden (D-NY) won 184, but took an absolute majority of votes cast. The odd number of electors, then at 369, saved the day. A tie was impossible in 1876. With 538 Electors, a tie is possible in 2020, which would make partisan rancor even more extreme, with each side crying 'foul play' by the other.

No one was happy with the close election in 1876. Tilden won the popular vote with 50.9% to Hayes' 47.9%. State Electors in several southern states were challenged as not lawfully appointed. Partisans threatened to resume the Civil War. A commission deadlocked on resolving the dispute. After months of wrangling, Hayes and Tilden made a pact with the devil. Hayes could be President, if Republicans would stop enforcing Civil Rights laws, including Amendments 13, 14, and 15 to the Constitution, enacted through the Civil War. Outright slavery did not come back in force, but Jim Crow set Blacks back for ninety years until the Voting Right Act of 1965. As soon as Democrats started talking about restoring Civil Rights for Blacks in 1948, Strom Thurmond (R-SC) stormed out of the Democratic Convention, along with the delegations from Mississippi and Alabama. Thurmond ran for President as a Dixiecrat, and won 39 Electoral votes, losing to Harry Truman (D-MO).
Chapter 11

Corruption Leads in the White House.

Nicolle Wallace, Deadline White House, during the later panel on the New Hampshire Primary on 2/11/2020, suggested that President Trump is tying to "erase" what happened in the Russia Investigation and the prosecutions by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller. Yes, the President is trying to erase what he and his acolytes did to the American People, because it reflects badly on the President. Nature abhors a vacuum, so there cannot be a blank space in the record. Big Brother will fill in the erased space with a spanking new history crafted with the generous help of our civic-minded Attorney General William Pelham Barr with the nervous assistance of John Durham, U. S. Attorney for Connecticut.

It all began quite innocently. The President thought some low-down Deep State People (like President Obama, the CIA, FBI, Justice, and news media) were out to get him from the start. He wanted to take a look at the Origins of the Russia Investigation, sometimes expressed by the President as "Oranges" as result of his warring hemispheres. The Justice Department took a look at the Origins in 2017 and 2018, and found that the Russia investigation was properly predicated. Justice Department Officials, however, did not see what the King saw, namely, that it was bad publicity for the Chief Executive to be accused of working with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton. The King asked for a rolling redo, until Justice could see the light. On December 9, 2019, Justice Inspector General, Michael E. Horowitz, released a comprehensive Report on the Origins of the Russia Investigation.

To the horror of the King, and All the King's Men, Inspector General Horowitz found that the Russia Investigation was properly predicated, meaning that Justice and its investigatory arm, the FBI, acted on probable cause in response to a very real Intelligence Threat from the Russian Federation, which had selected, and actively used espionage to campaign for, Donald Trump as its candidate for President of the United States. The FBI had made some mistakes, particularly in its Applications for FISA Warrants for Carter Page, a Trump Campaign Adviser, who focused on Russia. The FBI used unverifie information from the Steele Dossier, which was based on rumor accusations by the Russians. The later Applications had errors and did not disclose that the FBI found out that Page on occasion supplied information to the CIA. Page was never charged, and there was never a "smoking gun" revelation by Page that kept the Investigation fired up.

A duplicitous Attorney General Barr quickly pointed out that the Inspector General's thorough Investigation into the "Oranges" was parochial, in that it was limited to documents and interviews wholly within the Justice Department and the FBI. Barr and Durham would take a global approach, flying to Rome, Paris, London, and perhaps, Canberra, to ask America's allies if U. S. Officials in the CIA, FBI, and Justice were all mistaken about Russia's Espionage Campaign to undermine our electoral system in 2016. So far, no foreign intelligence services have taken the bait. Trump and Barr, however, are determined to intimidate officials in the CIA and Justice. To make testimony of dedicated public servants risky, Barr authorized Durham to convene a Grand Jury. The King's enemies are subject to prosecution for perjury or any other offense that Barr and Trump can conjure up after the fact.

If the King's Courtiers are imprisoned, it reflects poorly the King. Barr came too late to the scene to save Trump's Campaign Manager, Paul Manafort, from U. S. prosecution. Trump and Barr did pressure Ukraine to drop its investigation and prosecution of Manafort for bilking millions from Ukraine during Manafort's tenure from 2010 to 2014 as Resident Adviser to Viktor Yanukovych, Putin's puppet in Kiev. Trump personally intervened to ask FBI Director James B. Comey to "let go" of the investigation into National Security Adviser, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Michael Flynn. When Comey balked, Trump fired him, sparking the appointment of Special Counsel Mueller. Flynn has been waiting two years for sentencing. Justice originally recommended probation, because Flynn cooperated at first.

The Trial Judge early on informed Flynn that his offense was serious, and merited jail time. Flynn gradually drifted to noncooperation, ended up with a Fox News favorite, Sidney Powell, (author of Licensed to Lie, an indictment of the Justice Department), as substitute defense counsel, and moved to withdraw his guilty plea. The Justice Department withdrew its probation recommendation, but withdrew the withdrawal in January 2020. The King does not want Flynn imprisoned. Then the really bad stuff happened. Justice at first recommended seven to nine years for Roger Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress, Witness Tampering, and Obstruction of Congress. In a last minute filing in February 2020, Justice withdrew its jail recommendation for Stone. One Justice Department line prosecutor on the case resigned, and three others have asked go be removed from the case.

Morale is so low at Justice that Attorney General Barr gave a smokescreen interview to ABC to complain that President Trump's barrage of tweets is "making it impossible for me to do my job". Barr explained that the President is getting into the sentencing recommendations and criticizing judges in active cases pending before United States District Court Judges. Barr clearly was embarrassed by his own slavish obedience to the President's every wish, when the president's pals (co-conspirators), such as former National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, and long-time guru, Roger Stone, are brought to Justice. The essence of Barr's complaint was that, if Barr will take care of the President's collaborators, the President should have the decency to not tell the public all about it in those revealing tweets. What will Trump do? More of the same. He asserts the right to intervene, but professes he does not.

The Justice Department finally announced that there would be no prosecution of former FBI Deputy Director, Andrew McCabe. Trump reportedly was furious at the Justice department for passing on Comey and McCabe. To soften the blow, Justice announced that the U. S. Attorney for the eastern District of Missouri, at St Louis, Jeffrey Jensen, would investigate the origins of the prosecution of Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Michael Flynn, including the initial FBI interview of Flynn. What's going on? Trump wants to protect his friends and associates. If the FBI did not adequately inform Flynn that he did not have to talk, and that anything he said could be used against him, Justice might have grounds to allow Flynn to withdraw his guilty plea.

Two FBI Agents interviewed Flynn at the White House four days after the Inauguration. One of the Agents was Peter Strzok, lead counterintelligence agent, who Trump later had fired because of his text messages to FBI Attorney Lisa Page, both of whom used government devices to mock Trump as a presidential candidate. This allowed Trump to play victim, and complain that the Deep State was out to get him. Trump and Barr are trying to re-write history to show that Putin and Trump are innocent, that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election, that Ukraine interfered, and that Justice and the FBI are out to get Trump. So far Trump and Barr have enlisted U. S Attorney's John Durham and Jeffrey Jensen to help by Investigating the Investigators. Trump is seizing control of the U. S. Attorney Offices.

Big Brother has campaigned for more than two years to have Justice prosecute FBI Director, James Comey, and Deputy FBI Director, Andrew McCabe, who took over when Big Brother fired Comey. McCabe had the audacity to suggest that Comey had done a good job, and that the Russia Investigation was properly predicated. This made "Big Brother" look guilty by association. The poor impression had to be "erased". Trump initially appointed Jessie Liu as acting U. S. Attorney for Washington, D. C., which was fine until her office reached a non-prosecution decision on prosecution of Comey and McCabe.

Liu was acting U. S. Attorney pending her confirmation by the Senate as Under Secretary of the Treasury. Barr informed Liu that she had to transfer to Treasury immediately, and Trump withdrew Liu's nomination from the Senate, leaving her on the street. Trump appointed close Barr confidant, Timothy Shea, as U. S. Attorney for Washington, D. C. At the end of the day, Barr and Big Brother are determined to re-write history to "erase" embarrassing chapters. If Barr truly were concerned with morale at Justice. he could stop acting as the President's lackey. State might try the same remedy to cure the same malady. Staying in office to subvert the National interest by indulging an Authoritarian Narcissist is never preferable to resigning in protest.

Internet postings suggested that Barbara Ledeen, a Senate Staffer, complained about Liu to President Trump, and that Ledeen's husband, Michael, co-wrote a book with Lt. Gen (Ret.) Michael Flynn. Not wanting to deal in rumor, the author checked recently published books. Flynn and Ledeen wrote The Field of Fight, How We can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and its Allies. (hardcover, St. Martin's Press 2016, paperback, St Martin's Griffin 2017). Barbara Ledeen works for Senator Chuck Grassley on the Judiciary Committee, and does not know why people are bandying her name about. She also sparked a private investigation in 2015 into Hillary Clinton's emails to make sure Ledeen's children and others in the military were not put at risk by compromised intelligence. Sounds patriotic, but is it?
Chapter 12

Lower Standard for Moral Behavior.

Everyone is responsible for Lowering the Bar on Expectations for Moral Behavior in High Office, including and especially Attorney General, William Barr, Trump's Chief Enabler since 2019. No one expected much from Trump, who everyone viewed as the least qualified candidate in U. S. history. People excused Trump's failings in a rolling continuum of explanations and defenses, some of them downright silly. Trump could not recruit appointees for Cabinet Positions because he did not think he could win the election. Trump did not need to appoint many officials in the State Department because Rex Tillerson would take care of Russia, and Trump and Jared Kushner would take care of the Middle East and the rest of the world.

To show how intuitive, or obtuse, they are, in January 2020 Trump and Kushner came up with a Peace Plan for Israel without consulting the Palestinians. Defying all previous U. S. president's caution, Trump agreed to move the U. S. Embassy to Jerusalem with no provision to address the sensibilities of Muslim Arabs. Palestinians consider Jerusalem a holy city and their capital. In 1995 Congress passed a law requiring the U. S. to move its embassy to Jerusalem. but allowed a waiver, which every president has done every six months, until Trump announced the move in 2018. Trump could have cut the Gordian knot by proposing international status for Jerusalem to allow Israel and Palestine to have their capitals in the western and eastern sectors of the city, respectively.

Trump had the power to fire FBI Director James B. Comey, even though for a pretend reason (mishandling Clinton's email investigation), and even though Comey Reports to the Attorney General. Lindsey Graham initially thought it would be a bad idea, perhaps impeachable, if Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions. A year later, Graham thought, the President entitled to his own team. Gradually, the United States has ended up with a Teflon Don, a Mob Boss operating a criminal conspiracy from the White House with immunity and impunity. Pollyannaish Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Susan Collins (R-ME) thought Trump had learned a lesson from the Impeachment and Acquittal. They are right. Trump learned that he can do whatever he wants to do. He cannot be indicted. He cannot be prosecuted while in Office. And gutless Republicans of all stripes fear Trump's vengeance.

Trump is like a tenant that cannot be evicted. All Trump has to do to win reelection in 2020 is fool 2% to 3% of the voters in a handful of Battleground States a second time. As candidate for a major Political Party, Trump starts off with a Base of 45% to 47% of the electorate in dogged support. Trump can spend billions of dollars for military and civilian projects in early 2020, using taxpayer funds to keep the economy humming along. His budget for 2021 is a record 4.8 trillion dollars. The worst thing for the public is that collectively we have lowered the bar on our expectations for moral behavior in High Office so that Trump's bizarre performance is the New Normal. His assault on the citadel of Justice is just hitting stride.

As soon as Special Counsel Mueller testified before Congress, and nothing happened, Trump executed on his conspiracy to extort Ukraine President Zelensky by pressuring an investigation of the Bidens in return for delivery of appropriated military assistance funds. In response to Impeachment by the House, the Republican-controlled Senate, instead of holding Trump accountable, found fault with the House process. Instead of subpoenaing eye witnesses to testify, the Republicans rushed to find the President "Not Guilty", a careless act that may signal, the end of the Republican Party. Trump stated on 2/11/2020 that he does not interfere with Justice Department. The next day he wrote a tweet that praised Attorney General Barr for taking control of the Roger Stone case to ask for probation instead of jail time.

Trump tried to intimidate U. S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson with a critical tweet to try to leverage a probation sentence for Roger Stone. Unlike the Justice Department and FBI, the federal Courts are presided over for the most part by Article III Judges, who are appointed for life. The Founders knew the Judiciary would be the weakest Branch of Government, and that life-time appointment, subject to good behavior, would be the best guarantee for an independent judiciary. According to Harry P Litman, former U. S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General, President Trump is conducting a "Reign of Terror" by intimidating Officials in the CIA, FBI, and Department of Justice by criticism. by asking that former FBI Director Comey and former Deputy McCabe be prosecuted, and by the endless Investigation into the Origins of the Russia Investigation.

Roger Stone and Michael Flynn may get a surprise at sentencing. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan has denied various motions by Sidney Powell, Flynn's scorched-earth Defense Counsel, who claims that the federal government should turn over unspecified materials and documents that would result in dismissal of Flynn's case. Both men should go to jail. Flynn is a hothead, who resented President Obama's relieving him as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Flynn went on to become an unregistered foreign agent for Turkey, and accepted a speaking fee and expenses to attend the tenth anniversary of RT, Russia's soft propaganda arm. Flynn sat at the Head table along with Vladimir Putin and Green Party candidate for president in 2012 and 2016, Jill Stein, who accepted no fee or travel expenses from Putin.

Of the two convicts, Roger Stone is far the worse. Stone has done great damage to the Republic and the constitution. Stone faced seven to nine years in jail, according to the original recommendation of Justice, but was sentenced to forty months. Barr had the recommendation changed to probation at the last minute, prompting resignation of one Justice Attorney, and request for transfer by three other prosecutors. By lying to Congress, Stone allowed the Trump criminal conspiracy to continue. Roger Stone had urged Trump to run for President for the past twenty years, as a Democrat or a Republican. Stone knew the details of the Plan to have the Russians turn over to Wikileaks 30,000 emails stolen from Democrats computers. Trump can try to pardon Stone, Flynn, and Manafort at any time, but the Constitution provides that the pardon power shall not extend to impeachments.
Chapter 13

Trump Scandal After Scandal

If a Mob Boss decided to run a Criminal Enterprise from the White House, what would be the one essential condition for the Racketeering Organization to escape law enforcement action? A confused and divided public would help. A gutless Republican-controlled Senate, to cancel Oversight Powers of Congress under Article I of the Constitution, would be nice. The one sine qua non, however, would be to have as Consiglieri, a skilled veteran of the Washington Two Step, the hero of the Iran Contra Cover-up, the inimitable, resourceful, inscrutable, Defender of the Unitary Executive, Attorney General, William Pelham Barr. That is why many voices sounded a note of concern as soon as President Trump broached the idea of appointing Barr, who was not an unknown actor.

"The most significant single act of Barr's career in the Department of Justice was to advise President George H. W. Bush to pardon six officials from Ronald Reagan's administration, including Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, for crimes associated with the Iran-Contra affair." Noah Feldman, bloomberg.com/opinion, 1/10/2019. Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh viewed the pardons as the equivalent of a "Saturday Night Massacre", according to Feldman, who cited Walsh's statement on ABC's Nightline. where Walsh compared the pardons to Nixon's firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox on 10/20/1973 in the Watergate scandal. Where the President awards pardons liberally, and there is no one left to prosecute, the investigation disappears.

The problem with pardons from Trump's perspective is that the pardon does not erase the background facts of what happened. A pardon does not signify that no offense occurred. Quite the contrary, a pardon recognizes that a crime was committed and forgiven, at least as to punishment imposed or possible. Maricopa County, AZ, Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, reportedly did not want to accept a pardon from Trump for disobeying a Court order. Arpaio had no choice. A pardon is not an offer. It is an Executive Act that stops prosecution or punishment, or both. President Trump's target Event Horizon is a revision of history, an erasure of all memory of Russia's interference in the 2016 Election and the collaboration of Team Trump, so that a sufficient portion of the U. S. Electorate and a Majority of State Electors will be pulled inexorably into Trump's Orbit on November 3, 2020.

Trump's living eraser, of course, is Attorney General Barr, who wholeheartedly accepted the Boss's Mandate to re-write history. Being an adroit attorney, Barr recruited other loyal attorneys to help to erase the past and revise history. It is most appropriate that lawyers do the heavy lifting in this monstrous scheme, because the facts to be erased are inextricably bound up with espionage and other crimes against the United States. Barr knew instinctively what the Boss wanted. The Republican Senate found the President "Not Guilty" of Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress in connection with the extortion of Ukraine to force announcement of an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden. Acquittal was not enough. Dismissal of the Russia Investigation as a "Witch Hunt", a "Hoax", did not erase the memory of what happened.

Barr knew that Trump wanted the Justice Department, in the absence of cooperation of historians like Michael Beschloss and Jon Mecham, to re-write the history of his Campaign and Administration. Barr recruited John Durham, U. S. Attorney for Connecticut, and Jeffrey Jensen, U. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, at St Louis, to help with grammar, spelling, and predication. It all began as an innocent look into the Origins of the Russia Investigation. The Justice Department reviewed the matter a couple of times, and generally approved the action taken by Justice and the FBI to open a counterintelligence probe into Russia's 2016 campaign to elect Donald J. Trump President of the U. S. This is a startling statement that can be made only about one President of the United States.

What rankled Trump, Putin, and Sean Hannity was that the Deep State FBI used dubious information from the notorious Dossier prepared by a foreign national and former MI6 Official and Head of the Russia Desk, Christopher Steele, to slide multiple Applications by the FISA Court to obtain Warrants to conduct telephone call surveillance on Carter Page, an adviser to the Trump Campaign on Russia. Republicans fixate on the Dossier to the exclusion of the true Origin of the Russia Investigation. According to former CIA Director, John Brennan, a truth teller whom Trump hates and fears as a repository of fact-bound history, the true Origins started over drinks between George Papadopoulos, a Trump Adviser, and Alexander Downer, Australia's top diplomat in London in May 2016.

George casually remarked that the Russians have "dirt" in the form of emails on Hillary Clinton. Alex filed the information away in his memory. Two months later, the WikiLeaks stage of the Trump Putin conspiracy, to publish emails Russian Intelligence stole from Democrats' computers, hit the airwaves. Downer informed MI6, who informed the FBI, which opened a counterintelligence investigation, a month before the FBI had access to the first two sections of the Dossier, which FBI Agents in Rome reportedly received in August 2016. Papadopoulos denied telling Downer that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. That denial is belied by his Guilty Plea two years later. He served 14 days confinement. Upon release, he went on Fox News to denounce the Mueller Investigation.

To make the Investigation into the Origins of the Russia Investigation more than a patty cake peek, Barr added a Grand Jury to Durham's tool box. This meant that line professionals in CIA, FBI, Justice, and Homeland Security, had to be anxious about testifying under oath before a Grand Jury that could indict them for perjury or other crimes that might appear. They all knew what the Boss wanted, namely, that the Russia Investigation should go away. If the Russia Investigation was not well predicated, i e, not opened on Probable Cause that a crime had been committed, or was in process, the Russia Investigation just might go way, or at least be crippled in the mind of the Electorate. What Trump, Putin, and Barr fail to understand is that a counterintelligence investigation must continue until the threat is identified, quantified, and eliminated.

The Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures does not roll up a counter-intelligence investigation. If George Papadopoulos challenged evidence introduced at his trial in violation of the Fourth Amendment, he could file a Motion to Suppress. He could not rely upon alleged irregularities in the FISA warrants issued re Carter Page, who, by the way, was never charged. At all events, the investigation must continue. It is a Fools Errand for Barr to plug away at the Origins of the Russia Investigation. Assume for sake of discussion only, that the Russia Investigation was not well predicated. Imagine that it was all a "Hoax", a "Witch Hunt" at the start. That would not invalidate facts discovered later. Whatever is credible, urgent, and a threat to National Security must be dealt with.

Whoever is found to have violated the law could nevertheless be prosecuted. Defendants could still challenge evidence seized in violation of their Fourth Amendment rights, but that would not necessarily include all evidence later acquired lawfully in an investigation that opened in error. If the Russians interfered in the 2016 election, that is what counts, provided the evidence is credible. Benedict Arnold could not walk if he could show an error in the origin of the investigation. The circumstances of his abandonment of West Point and disappearance, and the capture of Major John André, demonstrated his Treason, despite Peggy Shippen Arnold's hysterical cover-up in front of George Washington. André hanged for wearing civilian cloths while spying. Arnold sailed away with the British, who did never took West Point.

Since we know that Barr is not a fool, what is the re-write of history intended to accomplish? Trump formerly scoffed at the State Elector system as "rigged" and not democratic. After corralling a majority of the State Electors in 2016 by eking out a slim plurality in three Battleground States, while losing the popular vote by nearly three million, Trump became sold on the State Elector system. Trump is betting his reelection and his freedom all on his ability to fool a plurality of the voters in a handful of Battleground States in 2020. He does not have to win a majority or even a plurality of the voters at large. A majority of the State Electors will do quite handsomely, thank you very much. The re-write of history by Trump, Putin, and Barr will help to confuse one percent of the voters in those Battleground States to allow Trump to win.

U. S. Attorney Jeffrey Jensen's job is to raise questions about the FBI interrogation of Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Michael Flynn, Trump's National Security Adviser. What if the FBI dd not inform Flynn that he did not have to answer questions, and that anything he did say could be used in Court against him. What if Flynn was"railroaded"? What if Flynn's guilty plea was not made voluntarily on an informed basis? Trump continues his attack on Justice by misusing his Attorney General, William Barr, who has been a willing collaborator (except for objections to the embarrassing tweets) to punish and intimidate critics and reward friends and associates of the President. The attack on the Citadel of Justice provoked more than two thousand former Justice Officials to call for Barr's resignation, and eleven hundred federal judges to call for an emergency meeting on February 19, 2020. Barr threatens to resign if the President's tweets about federal cases do not stop. The fear is that Barr will protect the President even without annoying tweets.

Pardon me, and me, and me, and mini me. Donald Trump, the real estate developer and casino owner, never answered to a Board of Directors. He acted always as the freest of free agents. He finds the Presidency confining. He started his reign with a scandal of immense proportions. Since Vladimir Putin and Russia's Military Intelligence campaigned vigorously and clandestinely to put him in the White House, Trump presents not so proudly as a Russian Asset. Not surprisingly, the antennae of U. S. Intelligence Community bristled with signals and human intelligence of the Russian Assault on the Essence of America's Freedom, the Right to Vote in a Fair and Free Election. Justice and FBI sprang into action to save America from Russia's subversion. FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation on Russia's Espionage, later expanded to include possible collusion of Team Trump.

Russia's Campaign for Trump succeeded beyond Putin's wildest dreams. Russia put their man in the White House. Trump swore revenge against his tormentors, former President Obama, FBI Director Comey, Deputy Director, McCabe, CIA Director Brennan, DNI Clapper, lead counterintelligence Agent, Peter Strzok, FBI Attorney Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr in Justice, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the man who appointed Mueller. Trump forced out Attorney General Jeff Sessions. who was a Trump lackey, but too mindful of Justice's respect for law. Trump started his presidency with three generals, Kelly, Mattis, and Flynn, who, along with White House Counsel, Don McGahn, were supposed to help Trump play by conventional rules.

Flynn fell into the casualty list of the Russia Investigation, and lasted only a few weeks. Trump forced McGahn out for refusing to fire Special Counsel Mueller. Mattis resigned when he could not smooth out Trump's disjointed military operations. Kelly advanced from Homeland Security to the inner sanctum as Chief of Staff. Trump felt as if in a straitjacket. It was like having a conscience with a megaphone. Trump replaced Kelly with Mick Mulvaney, who would let Trump be quintessential Trump. New White House Counsel, Pat Cipollone's favorite song is "Hail to the Chief". Trump still felt too restrained. He could appoint Supreme Court Justices, but could not tell them what to do. To enact legislation he would have to deal with the hostile House and the somnolent Senate.

The one area where Trump ruled Supreme was the President's unfettered Pardon Power. As matter of practice, most presidents ran pardon applications through a section of Justice to screen out the meritorious from the notorious, like Bill Clinton's pardon of fugitive Marc Rich. The Pardon Power, however, is conferred by the Constitution (except does not extend to impeachment), and not subject to administrative review or pre-approval. The Pardon Power was the one Power where Trump was King. He had his legal staff do a study on what restrictions, if any, applied to the Pardon Power. There were none (other than the impeachment prohibition), except, of course, it would be better if the president did not try to sell Pardons. But he could use Pardons to shore up his support. He could use Pardons to try to increase his anticipated share of State Electors in 2020. He consulted Electoral College Computers, mostly in his mind, about using Pardons to win reelection.

Who exactly are Trump's Base Supporters? As a group, the Base runs the gamut from slightly disgruntled to seriously pissed-off Dissenters. Not too concerned about cobbling together a Republican or Trumpian Healthcare Plan, Trump focused on exchanging Pardons for the chance to win a few more State Electors' Votes. In Trump's mangled thinking, doubtless the result of warring hemispheres, a disgruntled Poster Boy like Maricopa County, AZ, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, might rally other disgruntled folks to vote for Trump. After all, Sheriff Joe had been tough on immigrants, making Mexicans and the undocumented wear pink underwear in his jail. When Arpaio found out that the pardon is an admission of guilt, he spurned it. But he is pardoned, and cannot be prosecuted for defying a Court Order to desist from harsh treatment of prisoners.

Remember the Valerie Plame Affair? Her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, went to Niger to debunk the Bush Administration's Casus Belli that Saddam Hussein imported yellow cake uranium from Africa to make nuclear weapons. Vice President Cheney put his Chief of Staff Scooter Libby on the counter case, which involved Disinformation that the CIA, where Plame was a covert Agent, sent Wilson on a junket to Niger. Three members of the Bush Administration were involved in leaking Plame's identity to the press, which is a violation of the law. Carl Rove, known affectionately as Bush's Brain, escaped prosecution by nimbly fielding questions before the Grand Jury on five different occasions. Scooter Libby was indicted and convicted of perjury. Much to Cheney's chagrin, Bush commuted Libby's jail sentence but refused to pardon him. Trump granted Libby a Full Pardon fifteen years later.

As part of Trump's insane preoccupation with attacking Barack Obama, Trump commuted the prison sentence of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojavich for trying to sell Obama's Senate Seat. It is difficult to fathom what part of the Electorate will be moved by Blagojavich's commutation, but it will probably titillate Obama-haters. Trump pardoned Michael Milken, former junk bond sponsor. Trump supporter Sheldon Adelson is a Milken booster. Trump pardoned Bernie Kerik, friend of, and former Police Commissioner for, Rudy Giuliani, the President's not-jailed personal attorney. Giuliani need not fear SDNY prosecution. Attorney General Barr ordered the Southern District of New York's prosecutors not to make a move in the Case of Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman, and Rudy Giuliani without obtaining clearance from Barr, and, inexplicably, approval from the EDNY Chief in Brooklyn, according to Rachel Maddow.

Every time Trump grants a pardon, especially to a high profile white collar offender, it sends a message of hope to Paul Manafort, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Michael Flynn, and Roger Stone that Trump will protect them. It is comforting as well to Rudy Giuliani, whose exploits in Ukraine placed him in the cross hairs of a criminal investigation. Trump attitude to the Mueller extension of the Russia Investigation is that everyone convicted should be pardoned. With the help of Attorney General Barr and U. S. Attorneys John Durham and Jeffrey Jensen, Trump hopes to erase the past, re-write history, and exonerate himself and Vladimir Putin. Big Brother is Watching.

The Constitution provides that the pardon power shall not extend to impeachment. That should result in blocking the President from pardoning himself, Manafort, Flynn, or Stone. Senate Acquittal cannot remove the House Impeachment. Republicans will argue that the acquittal makes the Impeachment go away. The Impeachment never goes away. Attorney General Barr filed a Motion to Dismiss charges against Gen, Flynn, which is creating a storm of dissent in the District Court and Court of Appeals. On July 10, 2020, Trump commuted Roger Stone's prison sentence, setting off another storm of recrimination. Stone was the contact between Russia and WikiLeaks for the stolen Clinton emails. Barr sent Michael Flynn back to prison to prevent any comment on the commutation of Stone's sentence.
Chapter 14

Trump Cripples U. S. Intelligence.

Trump already has a male heir in Donald Trump, Jr. Trump's present obsession is not with succession. His fixation is holding on to the White House. For three years, Trump fought a rearguard battle to deny and destroy the very idea that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help their man beat Hillary Clinton. Out Damned Spot! Out, I say. Trump has his giant eraser in Attorney General William Barr and U. S. Attorney John Durham, who are investigating the Origins of the Russia Investigation. The Plan is to make the Russia Investigation go away. It was all a "Hoax", a "Witch Hunt". Trump's perceived enemies are U. S. Intelligence Agencies, who spread vile stories about collusion between Trump and Vladimir Putin. Trump has to quash anti-Trump intelligence, or his reelection in 2020 is in jeopardy.

On 2/19/2020 President Trump took a drastic step to assure his reelection. He appointed U. S. Ambassador to Germany, Richard Allen Grenell, Acting Director of National Intelligence ("DNI"). Grenell's main qualification is that Donald Trump, Jr, promoted him as a Trump loyalist. "Acting" means that Senate confirmation is not required. Grenell has no Intelligence experience, and no qualifications to take on Oversight as Director of Seventeen U. S. Intelligence Agencies. According to Wikipedia, Grenell is a disaster as Ambassador to Germany. He tried to dictate to German companies, threatening sanctions against constructors of Nord 2, the pipeline that will bring gas from Russia to Germany. He violated basic diplomatic norms by promoting one German political party over the party in power.

Grenell is active in social media, and appeared numerous times on Fox News, always supporting Donald Trump. The danger in appointing a political hack as DNI is that Grenell's loyalty is not to the Nation. He is loyal to Trump personally. Trump started his presidency as an enemy of the U. S. Intelligence Agencies, which reported that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to elect Trump. He fired FBI Director James Comey to stop the Russia Investigation. In Grenell, Trump has a tool that can mold intelligence to fit the goals of President Trump's reelection campaign. If Trump wants to exacerbate a crisis with North Korea or Iran, as part of an October surprise to stampede voters into "staying the course" with Trump, Grenell can write the script. Or he can hide emergent dangers.

To help Grenell throttle U. S. Intelligence. Trump transferred one of Devin Nunes lackeys to the No 2 spot at the Office of Director of National Intelligence ("ODNI"), Republicans took up the battle against U. S. intelligence early on. Devin Nunes was Chair of the House Intelligence Committee 2015-2018. Nunes abused his Office to undermine the Russia Investigation. He acted as a spy to keep Trump warned of emergent matters. His leadership was so flawed that he had to recuse for a time. Kash Patel was an aide to Nunes. Patel's job was to quash the Russia Investigation. Trump transferred Patel from the National Security Council to ODNI to help Grenell keep the Russian Genie in the bottle.

Former CIA Director John Brennan warns that the U. S. is in a "National Security Crisis". Russia is proud of their asset in the White House, and will continue to campaign actively to keep Trump President. The tip of the spear to protect the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic, are the antennae of the U. S. Intelligence Agencies, which act as early-warning radar. Trump does not want to hear about Russia's ongoing subversion of the U. S, electoral system to keep Trump in the White House. Trump sicced Attorney General William Barr and U. S. Attorney John Durham on the FBI and CIA by launching a third or fourth investigation into the Origins of the Russia Investigation. Armed with a Grand Jury, Durham could charge recalcitrant officials in CIA and FBI if they even whisper that Putin supports Trump.

"We are now in a full-blown national security crisis. By trying to prevent the flow of intelligence to Congress, Trump is abetting a Russian covert operation to keep him in office for Moscow's interests, not America's", Brennan said. This crisis had been simmering for three years. The trigger that brought it to a boil was the briefing about 2/12/2020 of the House Intelligence Committee by Shelby Pierson on behalf of Acting DNI Joseph Maguire. Russia is actively campaigning for Trump's reelection in 2020. Trump was livid when he learned of the briefing. He removed Acting DNI Maguire, and installed Acting DNI Richard Grenell as a puppet. Shelby Pierson is America's first Election Security Czar (an unfortunate choice of words in view of Russian subversion of the U. S. electoral process).

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered....." Thomas Paine, The Crisis.

What will Republicans in Congress tell their children and grandchildren? We knew Trump was corrupt, but we were afraid to rein him in.
Chapter 15

Separation of Powers Stops Tyrants.

President Trump is a living exemplar of the Founders' Fears. He has arrogated to himself the sole power of governance. He has crowned himself a King, and he eschews the advice of Cabinet and Congress. He has corrupted the Government, starting with Justice and the FBI, and continuing on to the CIA and Homeland Security. No one may mention election interference on penalty of banishment. HLS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen asked Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney for a time to speak with the President about election security in 2019. Mulvaney's advice. Don't do it, because the Boss will come off the rails. The latest victim is former Admiral Joseph Maguire, DNI, who had Shelby Pierson brief Congress on Russia's current interference in the 2020 election. Trump mistakenly thought Pierson gave info to Adam Schiff to use against Republicans.

Trump forced out Maguire on 2/21/2020, and sent in a puppet, Richard Grenell, Ambassador to Germany, to clear out most senior management at ODNI. The President does not want continuity, or preservation of the historical record. The Congress is flying blind, without visual or instrument guidance on the assault on the U. S. electoral system, because the President is suppressing intelligence of emergent and continuing security threats. The Congress will be helpless to rein in a despotic President until the Senate starts to cooperate with the Peoples' House. The struggle between the Executive and Legislature, exacerbated under President Trump, will result in a pull back of government power from the White House to Capitol Hill.

Congress is empowered to take the decennial census, but has allowed the Executive to take over implementation of the national headcount. The Census is especially sensitive because the count of inhabitants is used to apportion Representatives in the House, which directly affects electoral votes allocated to each State, as well as other federal benefits. If the Census is politicized by one party, it could be used to diminish the count of inhabitants of States that tend to vote for the other party. Congress must pull back the powers delegated to the Executive, or lose its status as a co-equal branch of government as established by the constitution. The mock Impeachment Trial of President Trump by the Senate in January 2020 accelerated the demise of Congress as a check on the Executive.

The Executive has trampled on the constitutional right of Congress to declare war. President Truman declared the Korean War a "Police Action" . Congress never declared the Vietnam War. President Johnson utilized the dubious Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to expand U. S. "advisory presence" in South Vietnam that was simmering since President Eisenhower's initiative after France lost the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. It was Eisenhower's CIA that gave President Kennedy the Battle Plan for the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba.

The problem with President Trump is that he wants to be a one-man-show. From his earliest days in Fred Trump's household, Donald had to kowtow to his martinet father. Donald resisted as best he could, but he never dared to directly confront his father's suffocating grip on the son's development. Donald would divert to Manhattan as a young teen. The disciplinarian's answer was to pack Donald off to New York Military Academy. Gradually, Donald advanced through High School as a Cadet, and graduated from college, after fits and starts. He joined the Trump Organization, and continued to bow to his father. Fred Trump limited his real estate ventures to Brooklyn and Queens, and never tried to build anything in Manhattan.

Donald Trump, in one of his greatest understatements, claimed his father gave him one million dollars to get him started in business. No one knows the amount for certain, but Two Hundred Thirty Million Dollars would be much closer to the truth. As Fred Trump fell victim to Alzheimers, Donald became the tyrant. Donald knew the value of money from the earliest days. Without money, he would have to go to work. He thought how wasteful it would be to pay New York a large inheritance tax on his father's estate. In the last two years of Fred's battle with Alzheimers, Donald pulled up to a few hundred million dollars out of his father's estate, and placed the property or funds in entities controlled by Donald. This likely was fraud on New York, and on Mary Trump, Donald's niece, who received far less as an heir of Fred's emaciated Estate.

Mary, a clinical psychologist wrote a book, Too Much And Not Enough, How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man. Donald does not take kindly to criticism, and tried unsuccessfully to ban publication of the book. He was able to enforce a gag order, lifted on July 14, 2020, the day before publication and allowing Mary to speak about her book. Donald has always used the Courts and the Law as a shield to ward off creditors and a sword to punish critics for alleged defamation. Donald placed his companies in bankruptcy six times. New York State shut down his charity as a scam. Trump University was shut down as a fraud. He hired Andrew Wheeler, a coal lobbyist, to head up and hobble the Environmental Protection Agency. The Interior Department is run by oil executives.

Donald must have been either a terribly-acting two-year old, or a terribly-repressed two-year old. Whatever happens, a pandemic that threatens death, or the resulting business recession, the peril is always all about Donald. The rest of us are merely impediments to Donald's achieving his goals. Since January 20, 2017, his preoccupation was reelection and not giving Vladimir Putin provocation to disclose whatever secrets Putin has on Trump. Donald increasingly mouths infantile whimpers. If the Supreme Court decides a case that displeases the child, he mutters, "They do not like me". Trump supporters paid for a section of border wall that is not the same high-tech black as the Wall he put up, he cried, "They do not like me". The adults in the room will be stifled by the child in the room.

As the Nation hurtles toward Election Day, November 3, 2020, there are five things that will always be true. (1) Candidate Donald John Trump asked for Russia's help to win the 2016 election. "Russia, if you are listening, I hope you will be able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing." (2) Russia's Military Intelligence (the "GRU") hacked into Democrats' computers, and stole thousands of emails. (3) Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort delivered internal polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik, a graduate of Russia's Spy School and Manafort aide in Ukraine. (4) Paul Manafort, Donald Trump, Jr, and Jared Kushner met with the Russians in Trump Tower to get "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. (5) President Trump asked Ukraine and China to help his reelection in 2020.
Chapter 16

Time to Repeal the State Elector System

Where the People elected Hillary Clinton by a plurality of nearly three million, and the State Electors foisted Donald Trump upon a startled Nation, it is time to look at the Origins of the State Elector System. What did Madison have in mind when he and the Delegates crafted the provisions that subjected the vote of the People to the dictates of the State Electors as Agents of the Ruling Class. The United States was not a Nation that evolved naturally over centuries, as did England, France, and even Germany and Italy. It took fourteen years for the idea of a Nation to evolve though the Revolutionary War and the Articles of Confederation to reach the Constitutional Convention of 1787-1789. The United States was an artificial construct, not imposed, but adopted by formerly separate Colonies of Great Britain that, upon issuance of the Declaration of Independence, became separate Sovereign States.

It is interesting to follow the allegiances and alliances of James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, to see how his political thinking evolved. He was first and foremost a son of Virginia, a newly emancipated Sovereign State with a proud 150 year history, before the United States was conceived. Madison must have thought twice about subjecting Virginia to a federal government that had no history. How could the States control this beast without losing their hard-fought freedom? Lest the reader view the scene through a modern democratic lens, it is important to note the restricted class that enjoyed this freedom. White, Male, Property Owners, and many Slave Holders controlled the Governments of the Colonies, the newly Independent States, and the proceedings at the Constitutional Convention.

That left slaves, indentured servants, tenants, sharecroppers, virtually all workers, minors, seniors, and women in an inferior position, subject to White, Male, Property Owners. After the Civil War, Southerners uniformly promoted the fiction that the South did not fight to preserve Slavery. The War was necessary because Northerners did not appreciate the genteel ways of the South. Six hundred thousand Americans died over manners. The Founders, however, viewed Slavery as an economic necessity, not a social grace. The Founders themselves were mostly Slave Owners, except for Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. James Madison, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson, all owned Slaves.

It was fortunate for the Federalists that, at the beginning, Madison and Hamilton became collaborators in advocating the federal scheme, if not life-long friends. There were strong voices against the sort of union that was under consideration, namely, the imposition of a Superior Federal Government over the Governments of the Independent Sovereign States. Quite naturally, whoever strongly advocated States Rights, was saddled with the negatively sounding term, "Anti Federalist". Hamilton and Madison, with a minor assist from John Jay, wrote the "Federalist Papers", which sold the idea of union to a skeptical public and ruling class, alike. Madison took on the patina of a true, blue, Federalist. No sooner had the union been adopted, than Madison drifted back to Jefferson's side, from which he seldom departed.

What did the Founders envision for the future of the United States? Few looked forward to a true democracy. where women and "freedmen" voted, and the teeming masses acclaimed by Emma Lazarus would come to our shores for freedom. The Founders, God forgive them, wanted first and foremost to protect and perpetuate Slavery. If the Founders wanted to end Slavery, they could have done it at the beginning, without the sacrifice of six hundred thousand lives. There was fear that, without Slavery, there would be no Union, because Virginia, Georgia, the Carolinas, and perhaps Maryland and Delaware would have voted against Union. It was easier to protect the economic and political benefits of Slavery than to end an evil practice.

Madison and the other drafters or contributors to the final document that became the Constitution wanted a mechanism to allow a measure of State control over the federal government and a political weapon that would allow White, Male, Property Owners in the South to exert control in support of Slavery. The Electoral College did nothing for John Adams and Massachusetts, or for New Hampshire or Connecticut, as far as Slavery is concerned. In 1789, there was not the sanguine feeling about Democracy that the People, in the sense of the public at large, will do the right thing and wisely choose the best candidate for pubic office. The Public at large were not enfranchised to vote by their State, which defined who could vote, namely, White, Male, Property Owners, and Slave Holders. There was no federal right to vote.

The State Electors were supposed to be wise men, who could choose the president without falling for a demagogue or succumbing to mob pressure, as explained in Federalist No. 68. Intervention by State Electors, however, never happened. State Electors followed the popular vote, except where the winner won a majority of State Electors by barely winning the popular vote in a handful of Battleground States and losing by larger numbers in many other states. The State Elector System has no federal control, and is ripe for manipulation by candidates with no moral compass. The House could Impeach a candidate for bribing a State Elector to win the presidency, but there is no relief where the Senate is afraid to convict a candidate of the majority party in control of the Senate.

Inhabitants of the District of Columbia, Washington, D. C., originally had no right to vote because they were not citizens of a State. In 1961, the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution granted all citizens in Washington, D. C. the right to vote. Because voting is inextricably tied to Statehood, Washington's three Electoral Votes are counted as part of the Maryland Vote. The politics of 1789 revolved around the battle for supremacy between North and South. To make certain that the struggle would be anything but democratic and fair, the Slaveholders inserted a provision in the constitution that gave Southern States phantom seats in the House through a credit of 3/5's of a Representative for each Slave owned. The more Slaves Southerners had, the more power they wielded in the House.

This had to change. The Civil War did not end the phantom representation in Congress, because Jim Crow prevented Black voting until the Civil Rights Act of 1965. Who should choose the President? The Constitution places the power to choose in the State Electors, who are under State control, not voter control. The idea of direct popular election by the People was not a concept that the Founders deemed safe. As originally specified in the Constitution, the State Legislatures were empowered to appoint Members of the U. S. Senate. Popular vote for Senators had to wait for the 17th Amendment in 1913. The Constitution allows the States to choose State Electors for president in any manner the States choose. This dangerous situation, which was designed to protect Slavery. has saddled the Nation with a corrupt President, who could seek reelection by bribing or extorting individual State Electors in 2020. It is essential to rid the Nation of the State Elector System.

Trump continues to manipulate the American People with Soviet-style Disinformation, Propaganda, and Mind Control. When asked in February 2020 about Russia helping with his election, Trump used ridicule, another tried and true Soviet deception. How could you ever think that Russia would campaign for Donald Trump? Trump continues to corrupt U. S. government day by day. Trump enlisted Attorney General William Barr and U. S. Attorney John Durham to re-write history to show that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, and that Trump and Putin are innocent. Trump fired Acting U. S. Attorney Jessie Liu because prosecutors in her Washington, D. C office declined to charge former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

Trump fired Acting DNI Joseph Maguire because in January 2020 he sent Shelby Pierson to brief Congress on Russia's continuing interference in the U. S. electoral process. In response to their testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, Trump fired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and U. S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. He fired Col Vindman's twin brother for no reason. He interfered with line prosecutors' sentencing recommendations for his pals Roger Stone and Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Michael Flynn. He requested Obama-appointed Supreme Court Justices Sotomayer and Kagan to resign. He criticized the Judge and Jury Foreperson in the Roger Stone case. The worst is yet to come. The Nation must take protective action. When someone tells us what they are, we must believe them, or suffer the consequences. (Maya Angelou)

If Trump is reelected by the State Electors, there will be Show Trials where Attorney General William Barr will make Stalin's Prosecutor General, Andrey Vyshinsky, look like a Boy Scout. Whoever criticized Trump, or suggested that the Russians helped Trump's election in 2016 or reelection in 2020, will be subject to a Show Trial prosecution.

+++The End+++

Smashwords Edition Books by Paul Covell

Picking Up The Pieces, How Republicans Enabled Trump To Fragment Democracy

McConnell's Travesty, the Senate Impeachment Trial of President Donald J. Trump

The Manchurian Candidate, Part 4, The Impeachment of President Donald J. Trump

The Manchurian Candidate, Part 3, Trump & Barr Kill the Mueller Report

The Manchurian Candidate, Part 2, Trump Seizes Power As Komrad Kompromat

The Manchurian Candidate, Part 1, Putin Plays His Trump Card

GOP Frankenstein, Tearing Down Our Government

The Horror of Hannity

Train Wreck 2016

Vote! Impeach the Koch Brothers & The Do Nothing Congress

D'Souza's Delusion

The Hail Mary

G.O.P. War on U. S.
