Thinking he would be exonerating himself, Trump released a summary
of a phone conversation he called “perfect” with the Ukrainian president
in which Trump illegally requests foreign help to dig up dirt
on the son of one of his potential 2020 electoral opponents.
The summary is classic mob boss-speak:
we’ve been good to your people and now I am asking you
a favor if you want more—find me dirt on Bidens!
Even if you have to make it up!
Is Trump losing his nerve or his mind?
Does he always resort to mob-speak in a panic,
finding himself losing badly in the polls? A panic noticed so clearly
by key aides that his extortion conversation was quickly locked up
in a top-secret server in a buried concrete vault. Having committed
a large wrestling ring’s worth of constitutional and human rights crimes,
does Trump harbor an unconscious desire to get impeached and convicted—
able to rationalize a return to his lazier landlord overseer life? And why the hell
is New York’s former mayor, Giuliani, undertaking Ukraine shakedowns
for Trump? What old secret NYC campaign favors does the mayor owe?
Days later, Trump demands the right to meet his accuser
and promises Big Consequences!–as well the crazier threat
of an actual civil war. It is he who released the evidence-filled
phone call summary to the press! Look in the mirror, Mr. President!
Your accuser is there, staring into a pair of sociopathic eyes.
Eliot Katz, 2019