The Ever Expanding, Power Hungry Trump Presidency

The big headline today was Dr. Anthony Fauci’s testimony before Congress, where Republicans tried to put the public health expert on trial instead of holding a hearing about COVID. Fauci followed his lawyers’ advice and invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times rather than expose himself to the perjury trap that was lying in wait. As CNN put it, the point of the hearing was “that Republicans had hoped [it] would open him up to claims of perjury.”

In the wake of the bogus referral of Jack Smith to DOJ for prosecution, sent over by Jim Jordan, Fauci had little choice. Indeed, Senator Rand Paul vowed to hold a committee vote on referring Fauci to DOJ on contempt charges next week. Paul tweeted, “History will not be kind to Anthony Fauci for the role he played in the COVID cover-up.”

Of course there was irony. There always is with this crew:

But as disturbing as the hearing was and as difficult as it was to watch bombastic, grandstanding Republicans like Paul (“If there's one thing I wanted to make clear to Anthony Fauci, it's that he's culpable for the lockdowns we all endured”) and Ohioan Bernie Moreno (“My simple question for Anthony Fauci this morning: who the fuck do you think you are?”) lay into Fauci, the real story is their weak, spineless behavior in the face of Donald Trump’s efforts to grab still more power for himself. That is the real story today.

Trump isn’t worried about the presidency. Let’s get that straight from the start. He is not an institutionalist. This is about his personal power and how much of government authority and resources he can concentrate in his own hands. We see it with his ongoing assertion of control over elections, tariffs, immigration, the Justice Department and its conduct of his revenge agenda, going to and staying at war. The same Republicans who were upset Dr. Fauci took the Fifth have never demanded any answers from Donald Trump.

The Senate did adopt S. Res. 608 today by unanimous consent. That means every member was on board. It provided that there should be no pardon, commutation, or any other form of clemency for convicted Jeffrey Epstein coconspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. The resolution is non-binding and cannot prevent a pardon, but it’s still a major break with the president. Senators have far more tangible ways to express their disgust with Jeffrey Epstein, but they have chosen not to take them.

That takes is to the nomination of Todd Blanche to be Attorney General. Late today, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced Blanche would not receive his scheduled vote tomorrow. We’ve been discussing that prospect for as long as the vote has been scheduled, and now it has come to pass. The votes aren’t there to get Blanche out of Committee.

Although Senator Tillis asked Blanche to meet with Epstein survivors to earn his vote, that doesn’t seem to be the holdup. Tillis seems to have been mollified by the perfunctory meeting Blanche held, which Epstein abuse survivors characterized as “condescending,” “deflective,” and a “check-the-box” exercise. In a subsequent letter to Tillis, the survivors wrote: “Todd Blanche showed no remorse for the horrific release of materials that exposed survivors' identities and images.” But that doesn’t seem to have mattered. The performative meeting sufficed, just like the performative but ultimately meaningless vote today that rejected the idea of a pardon for Maxwell but has no teeth.

Instead, it was the administration’s failure to walk away from the collusive settlement to the lawsuit Trump filed against the IRS earlier this year, a lawsuit a federal judge has now suggested was not a real controversy between the parties and designed to allow Trump to exact just such a “settlement” as the one that set up a slush fund he could use to reward his supporters as well as protection from liability for back taxes and other investigations. It started with Texas Senator John Cornyn, and reporting over the last few days suggested Tillis, too, wanted to see a written agreement that the administration would limit those provisions before voting for Blanche, who was instrumental in permitting Trump to obtain them. The administration never delivered.

This is something we need to be clear about. It would have been easy to get this right if the administration truly intended to relinquish the bad deals Trump extracted from his Justice Department. The Judge in the case gave them the chance too—say in court or at least to Congress in writing that the slush fund is off and the settlement agreement is withdrawn. But all Blanche would do was to say at his confirmation hearing last week that wasn’t necessary because they were dead. And of course, there is no way Donald Trump is walking away from them, especially the personal protection from payment or prosecution, unless he’s forced to. The deal may be dead today in Blanche’s view but far too easily resurrected tomorrow by Trump, who has no problem with that sort of power grab.

That’s what all of this is about. Trump’s power grab and the acquiescence in it by Republican members of Congress and the Supreme Court. The question is whether there is actually some hope of change in the air. Backing away from the Blanche vote is a small thing in many ways. Even if he’s never confirmed, he is still the Deputy Attorney General and can be the acting Attorney General, perhaps until the end of Trump’s term in office. But it’s a rare moment where the Senate has told Trump “No.” The question is whether they mean to finally stand up to the president in a more sustained fashion.

That is not happening when it comes to the War Powers Act, which feels like a dead letter. Especially with Trump telling Fox News today that the United States would “respond with force after what he called a surprise Iranian missile attack on U.S. forces in Jordan, saying, ‘We're going to beat the f****** s*** out of them’ and warning Iran is ‘going to get a beating.’” Last Thursday, the House approved another War Powers Resolution by a 214-208 margin. The measure was rejected by the Senate a few hours later by a vote of 47-49, with only Susan Collins of Maine, who is facing a tough reelection battle, crossing over to side with Democrats. The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. Trump has claimed it by himself and seems poised to hold onto it.

The Constitution also gives control of elections to the states, a power Trump is trying to assume for himself for reasons that are increasingly obvious. On Monday, Trump called on Senate Majority Leader John Thune, yet again, to pass the SAVE Act, something Trump shows increasing desperation over.

Tennessee’s Marsha Blackburn jumped on board, tweeting, “Congress must pass a third reconciliation bill and include the SAVE America Act as @POTUS has requested.” The great constitutional scholar from Alabama, Tommy “Coach” Tuberville tweeted, “I don’t give a RIP about ‘Senate procedure.’ There is ZERO REASON to wait until Democrats take over and nuke the filibuster. Blow it up TODAY and pass the SAVE America Act, the NDAA, fund the government, and get every other WIN we can before it’s too late.” Utah Senator Mike Lee demanded that the Senate pass the SAVE Act and tweet this video, for some reason, along with it.

But Thune had a different reaction. “We could stay here until Christmas,” Thune said, according to multiple reporters. “The Democrats aren’t voting for this, I’m just telling you. And Republicans are not getting rid of the legislative filibuster.” He remains under pressure to cancel the August recess and pass it through reconciliation if the votes don’t exist to do it outright. But a few Republicans, like John Cornyn, seem disinclined to play along. They are all essential votes with the slim, Mitch McConnell-less majority Republicans hold in the Senate. It’s almost as though some Republicans are trying to grow the Senate a backbone despite itself, and even then, only because Trump has forced them out.

Beyond the SAVE Act, we are waiting on the Supreme Court to assess Trump’s efforts to enforce his executive order that would expand federal control over the election even as he continues to push states to turn over voter rolls to add in the administration challenging individual voters and commanding the Postal Service to prevent them from obtaining mail ballots. Trump’s intent to expand his control of government and country in ways the Constitution sought to prevent and explicitly prohibited should be the biggest story today, and every day. Don’t get distracted.

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We’re in this together,

Joyce