Day 981: Trump handling rising prospect of impeachment with all the grace and decorum expected

Donald Trump seems increasingly likely to be impeached and soon. Amid a scandalous call with the Ukrainian president that showed Trump pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his family, and a whistleblower complaint dealing more impropriety, other dominoes have started falling and more information is being exposed.

Back in 2017, when Trump had a highly scrutinized meeting with Russian officials in the Oval Office, it turns out Trump all but congratulated them for election meddling. Trump’s comments were quickly covered up by a number of aides to prevent bad press.

President Trump told two senior Russian officials in a 2017 Oval Office meeting that he was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because the United States did the same in other countries, an assertion that prompted alarmed White House officials to limit access to the remarks to an unusually small number of people, according to three former officials with knowledge of the matter.

The comments, which have not been previously reported, were part of a now-infamous meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, in which Trump revealed highly classified information that exposed a source of intelligence on the Islamic State. He also said during the meeting that firing FBI Director James B. Comey the previous day had relieved “great pressure” on him.

White House officials were particularly distressed by Trump’s election remarks because it appeared the president was forgiving Russia for an attack that had been designed to help elect him, the three former officials said. Trump also seemed to invite Russia to interfere in other countries’ elections, they said.

These are the types of conversations that an impeachment inquiry will reveal. Each one will trigger subpoenas for witnesses and documents and lead to additional areas of inquiry. Democrats are not going to simply stop at a phone call with Ukraine and move to impeach on that alone. Trump likely spoke and acted in the same manner with other governments.

For instance, Russia is warning Trump not to release their phone calls.

And Trump is openly admitting to speaking about the Biden family with China.

The whistleblower complaint has already detailed that the swamp exists for Trump’s 2020 election meddling. But the question remains just how boggy it is.

Trump is taking in all of the damage and responding in his typical way: circle the wagons and deny. Republicans have largely played ball, pretending that an antidemocratic conspiracy that ensnares the attorney general and Trump’s personal lawyer is not a concern.

Trump is looking to cut deals, including with the NRA: support and cash for legislative help.

President Trump met in the Oval Office on Friday with Wayne LaPierre, the chief executive of the National Rifle Association, and discussed prospective gun legislation and whether the N.R.A. could provide support for the president as he faces impeachment and a more difficult re-election campaign, according to two people familiar with the meeting.

It was not clear whether Mr. Trump asked Mr. LaPierre for his support, or if the idea was pitched by the N.R.A. During the meeting, Mr. LaPierre asked that the White House “stop the games” over gun control legislation, people familiar with the meeting said.

It was unclear what the N.R.A.’s financial support would look like, and whether it would pay for ads, as it did during Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump is facing the possibility of being impeached for corruption. The NRA wants to make weapons end up in more Americans’ hands by any means necessary. In theory, both sides have nothing to do with the other here, but they’re each looking to help the other anyway.

Trump is also, predictably, rage tweeting. A lot.

He repeatedly and nonsensically called the July 25th phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky “perfect.”

Believing he could call a conversation one thing while it was another, Trump uncompellingly tried spinning it as “very legal and very good.”

There were plenty of similar all-caps, deranged and libelous tweets to accompany the ones above.

Perhaps none were more intellectually embarrassing, however, than Trump revealing that he:

a) doesn’t know the difference between a hyphen and an apostrophe,

b) thinks “Liddle” is some type of used or acceptable change for “Little”,

c) thinks a hyphen or apostrophe should follow the invented word “Liddle”,

d) watches and cares what CNN says, and

e) thinks a chyron writing “Liddle” instead of “Liddle’” matters to understand the context of the tweet or the intellect of himself.

Trump is continuing to publicly unravel as his private corruption is getting exposed. This is only going to get as the House’s impeachment inquiry moves forward.

981 days in, 481 to go

Follow us on Twitter at @TrumpTimer