I guess we can get back to impeachment.
Donald Trump announced the Iran crisis was over Wednesday, adding that Americans “should be extremely grateful and happy.”
It’s not entirely clear who he wants us to be grateful to. God? Fate? The ayatollah?
Let’s take a wild guess that the answer is living in the White House.
It was a very short talk — less than 10 minutes — but the president still managed to give himself multiple pats on the back. (“Over the last three years, under my leadership, our economy is stronger than ever before. …”)
And, naturally, blame everything bad on Barack Obama. Trump threw in one whopping inaccuracy — this would be our friendly, peace-loving version of “big fat lie.” He is going to spend the rest of his life claiming the Obama administration paid Iran billions of dollars to get the nuclear peace accord.
Utterly false, but you will never talk Trump out of it, any more than you’ll convince him that
windmills don’t cause cancer or that he didn’t really win the popular vote.
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Dark, suspicious minds wondered if the president had started the whole Iran crisis to get Americans to stop thinking about the impeachment story. Certainly possible. This is a guy who knows how to distract. He golfs, he tweets, he creates crises.
If Trump thought there was any chance of actually getting kicked out of office, God knows what he’d do. Invade another country? Arrest Nancy Pelosi? Pretend to adopt a pet?
Fortunately for him — if not for us — Mitch McConnell is running everything. The House impeachment vote is, of course, a done deal. The bill is going to reach the Senate sometime soon, and the majority leader has been dropping tiny hints that he’s leaning toward giving Trump a pass. (“I’m going to take my cues from the president’s lawyers.”)
During their deliberations, the senators apparently won’t be hearing from John Bolton, who’s now jumping up and down and waving his hand in an effort to
volunteer to serve as a witness. Bolton would be the ideal person to ask about Trump’s plan to trade military aid to Ukraine for political dirt on Joe Biden. Granted, he’s a little late out of the gate. Probably been busy searching his conscience. Can’t possibly have anything to do with having a book coming out.
Doesn’t matter. McConnell has expressed zero enthusiasm for the idea of letting Bolton come — unless Donald Trump decides that the Senate’s top priority should be an unconstrained search for the truth. Hehehehe.