Occam's Razor

If it’s true that thirty Senate Republicans would convict Trump in an impeachment trial (if a secret vote were allowed), then perhaps what’s needed is a plausible reason they could openly vote to convict Trump. The obvious reasons don’t appear to be enough. Senate Republicans don’t seem to be bothered by his grifting, and likely won’t be the least bit fazed that he’s decided to host the next G-7 meeting at his money-losing Miami resort either. It appears that in general Republicans are on board with using public office for private gain.

They also probably won’t be bothered by what Trump’s chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, openly confirmed today: that aid was withheld from Ukraine specifically to force Ukraine to look into possible Democratic misdeeds there, misdeeds that only appear in the fevered imaginations of the rightmost of the right wing. That’s open lawbreaking, but is most likely wholly excusable by Republicans.

But Trump’s decision to abruptly withdraw our special forces from Northern Syria, in the process abandoning allied Kurdish separatists who were instrumental in neutering the Islamic State, well, that might do it. Hard to say yet but as bad as this is, it keeps getting worse. Turkish president Erdogan wasted no time in sending in paramilitary forces when our troops started to withdraw, and had them throw some volleys near our troops too for good measure too. The House voted 354-60 to condemn Trump’s actions in Syria. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is holding up a similar vote in the Senate, which would likely attract an even higher share of Republicans.

Trump is basically saying to Congress: Impeach me! I dare you!

His lawbreaking is open; the case irrefutable, and it will rest entirely on whether Republicans will put country over party. Right now that looks like a losing bet. However, this Kurdish mistake might be the fig leaf Republicans need. The scope of this disaster is just starting. It’s likely to get much worse.

For example, it looks like we have nuclear weapons in Turkey, a disclosure we only know about because Trump has seemed to confirm it, a breach of long-standing policy. We rent these bases from Turkey, but Turkey essentially control our forces there. Which means that Turkey might grab our nuclear weapons. Oops.

So it’s possible that Turkey would seize these weapons and once seized who knows where they might end up? Presumably it would be very hard to trigger one of these weapons. I hope all sorts of specially encrypted codes would be required, but who knows? They could probably be disassembled and, worse, reengineered. It’s not clear if there is anyone left in the Defense Department agile enough to get these weapons out of Turkey.

There is that plus a whole host of other bad things there that are underway. The Kurds were one of our few allies in the region, and now they are aligned with Syria and Russia simply to survive. There are already atrocities being committed against Kurdish fighters and civilians by Turkish paramilitary forces, if not the Turkish army itself. Hitherto, national security has been the Republican Party’s strong suit. Trump is rapidly making our country less secure. From this vote in Congress, it’s clear Republicans are deeply worried by Trump’s actions.

Trump gets more Captain Queeg-like every day. His latest meeting with Congressional Democrats was described as a Trump meltdown. Trump is pretty obviously cracking, if he hasn’t cracked already. I wonder if like Richard Nixon during Watergate he is talking to a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Not likely. If talking to any portrait, it would be one of Andrew Jackson.

As Gallup pointed out, when a majority of Americans polled said Nixon should be impeached and removed, Nixon resigned. Trump has already met that milestone. This suggests that Trump’s resignation should also be forthcoming. Like Nixon, there would be no doubt that he would be impeached. It’s much less likely he would actually be removed from office, but that may be changing.

Our genius president would be wise to seriously consider resigning. That’s what most geniuses would do, looking at the bad hand of cards he has served himself. Many believed that Nixon made a secret deal with his then vice president Gerald Ford to pardon him for his offenses before resigning, which Ford did sometime later. A more rational Trump would be looking for a similar exit strategy. It’s really his best hope as his prospects for winning a second term diminish.

Why? Because of that darn U.S. Constitution, which he obviously hasn’t read. Article 2, Section 2 says that the president’s pardon power is unconditional, except in the case of impeachment. So a President Pence could not pardon a former President Trump who is impeached, convicted and removed from office by Congress. This means that after his trials for his many misdeeds are over, Trump would likely spend the rest of his life in prison.

Trump’s vanity and boundless ego probably won’t entertain such a suggestion, and it’s doubtless anyone on his staff has the spine to suggest something pragmatic like this. Nixon was rational enough to know when to resign. It’s unlikely Trump will ever see the bad hand he dealt himself.