Let's Assess the President's Legitimately Hilarious Tweet

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Let's Assess the President's Legitimately Hilarious Tweet 'Totally' Clearing Himself of Crimes

After a weekend in which experts from all over suggested he is set to be indicted.


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By Jack Holmes
Dec 10, 2018

For all he's wrought on this nation and the world, Donald Trump is capable of some very hilarious things. That was scarcely ever more true than on Friday.

The president endured another catastrophe of a week, as the twin Justice Department filings on his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, and campaign manager, Paul Manafort, confirmed the walls truly are closing in on him. In the former, Trump appeared in the sentencing memo repeatedly as an easily identifiable "Individual-1."

Yet here was Trump's snap reaction to it all:

Totally clears the President. Thank you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2018

This is genuinely funny. Guests on Fox News this weekend were saying Friday's filings suggested the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York is preparing to indict Trump for his alleged role directing Cohen to violate campaign finance laws with secret hush-money payments to Trump's various mistresses.

(Here, we might do a quick reminder that Trump repeatedly and haughtily denied any of this ever happened until Rudy Giuliani admitted it on national television—with or without Trump's prior approval.

Now Trump happily admits he paid off Stormy Daniels, but that it was a "simple, private transaction."

The Manafort filing does nothing to exonerate the president, and in fact devotes significant space to his former campaign manager's violations of his plea agreement and attempts at witness tampering with the help of a suspected Russian spy.

Yet, at perhaps his darkest hour so far, Trump declared victory—and graciously thanked the people who may well intend to indict him for a federal crime.

It was a dalliance with the legitimately absurd, a great encapsulation of why so much comedy in The Trump Era has become simply repeating what he already said. How can you practice satire in a time when reality is already stretching the bounds of human understanding and belief?

You can't exaggerate this extended outbreak of public insanity. It's like trying to stage a one-man show while Barnum and Bailey is playing next door.

“Democrats can’t find a Smocking Gun tying the Trump campaign to Russia after James Comey’s testimony. No Smocking Gun...No Collusion.” @FoxNews That’s because there was NO COLLUSION. So now the Dems go to a simple private transaction, wrongly call it a campaign contribution,...
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2018
Smockin!

In form and substance, though, Friday's bit more closely resembled the legal advice Trump dished out after Cohen flipped on him in August:

If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2018
Fantastic.

Still, it's worth remarking on the fact that nothing happened this weekend to validate the president's delightfully outlandish assessment of things.

It wasn't just that Fox News contributor. By Monday morning, former Obama Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal was on CNN suggesting Trump's "future looks like it's behind bars." Katyal is not particularly known as a knee-jerk partisan, and actually backed Neil Gorsuch's Supreme Court bid early on—if only because he anticipated arguing cases before the Court.

Many of the assessments now raining down have found that the Southern District would not have targeted the president in their Cohen sentencing memo if they did not have him dead-to-rights on a federal charge. After all, the office is run by a Trump appointee. And if you come at the king, you best not miss.

The debate over whether a sitting president can be indicted is intensifying, though the growing consensus seems to be that while he could be, the case would not go to trial. Indictment means prosecutors file charges, but the Constitution may well come down on the side that subjecting a president to trial proceedings along with all his official responsibilities would be an undue burden on the national government.

It seems extraordinarily unlikely that Trump will be commuting from the Oval Office to a federal courthouse anytime soon. At the very least, the Supreme Court majority now populated by two of his appointees may decide that's where the Constitution comes down on things.

The bigger problem facing this president is that impeachment is not a legal exercise, but a political one. While it is reserved for "high crimes and misdemeanors," it is up to the United States Congress to determine whether those have been committed.

Ultimately, then, Trump's survival in office will be predicated on whether he continues to enjoy the support of the Republican base and, thus, enough Republicans in the Senate. It will also be hugely significant whether Trump merely catches a charge for campaign finance fraud (which is still not definite), or whether he is also faulted for obstruction of justice, or whether, in the worst case, he stacks up those and is also accused of participating in a campaign conspiracy with the Russian government—the collusion we've all heard about for going on two years.


Based on their track record so far under Trump, Senate Republicans will likely let him slide for the campaign finance violation. They may even show cowardice on the obstruction charge, even if that's what ultimately sunk President Richard Nixon.

One would hope outright conspiracy with a hostile foreign government would defibrillate some Republican consciences, particularly if it emerges that a major reason Trump was so Russia-friendly was that members of his company—particularly Michael Cohen and the felonious Russian national Felix Sater—were secretly seeking a deal to build a Trump Tower Moscow while their boss ran for president, and Trump was fully aware of these efforts.

Cohen pled guilty to that effect at the end of last month. This would be one of a seemingly endless parade of conflicts-of-interest that may indicate Trump violated the Constitution's Emoluments Clause, the subject of a separate active civil case.

If it does emerge that Trump participated in a conspiracy, though, it may be more realistic than it seems that his allies in the Senate will abandon him.

As commentators have cited more and more these days, Nixon enjoyed the full support of the Republican Senate majority until he didn't.

The landscape has changed since, in that Trump has an entire conservative media ecosystem that will never admit he's done wrong—or at least, that he's done anything Democrats don't do, And, to repeat, congressional Republicans have shown the utmost cowardice in their unwillingness to provide any oversight of this administration. But it's possible.

What's also possible is that the United States president will be running for re-election while under federal indictment, and that his liberty may well be tied to whether or not he wins. If Trump were to lose, federal prosecutors could choose to press the hypothetical charges they could have filed against him.

That's an extraordinary scenario, but it's just another possible act in The Greatest Show on Earth. If Trump finally does, for the first time in his life, face consequences for his decades of lawless behavior, though, we can all expect a snappy one-liner that he's only partly aware is a world-historical joke. The Smocking Gun heard 'round the world. Thank you!