With the January 6 Committee’s Monday recommendation to the Justice Department to prosecute Donald J. Trump on no less than four counts of insurrection, obstruction and conspiracy, he has gone from predator to prey.
Like Jay Gatsby who believed in the “orgastic future that recedes before us year by year,” he has never doubted in his abilities to gull the gullible, to fool the foolish. But his green light has now gone red as the greatest show on earth, or at least America, is about to come to an abrupt terminus.
Marooned on Mar-a-Lago, Trump can only rely on the loyalty of a dwindling band of faithful retainers, including a thirty-one-year-old named Natalie Harp, who the Washington Post reports helps prop up his faltering ego by supplying him with flattering press reports from the MAGA ecosphere.
Poor Trump! He is discovering that gratitude, a commodity he never specialized in, is an unknown category in the political world. The judges he appointed have almost universally handed down judgments against him. Most sane Republican politicians view him as a political liability, an avatar of destruction. About all he has left is the hardliners in the House of Representatives and former vice president Mike Pence who is trying to curry favor with the MAGA base.
On Monday, Pence obsequiously declared on Fox, “Congress has no formal role in Justice Department decisions. When it comes to the Justice Department’s decision about bringing charges in the future, I would hope that they would not bring charges against the former president.”
For the members of the January 6 Committee this is a moment of reckoning. California congressman Adam Schiff has been pursuing Trump almost since he swore the oath of office, pledging fealty to a Constitution he regarded as a mere piece of foolscap. Liz Cheney came later to the game. Not until Trump summoned his minions to do battle did she comprehend the depths of his malignity. The testimony aired today by the committee from Trump’s aides, including Hope Hicks who told him he was “damaging his legacy,” made it abundantly clear that the would-be El Jefe was aware that he had lost the election but viewed the vote itself as a pesky distraction when compared to the imperative of his retaining office. So he staged a March on Washington, a personal version of Onward Christian Soldiers.
The verdict of the committee deals a public relations blow to Trump. It will wound his amour prope. But it will also embolden the Justice Department to prosecute him even if it is on charges other than those the committee suggested. The truth is that the department may never take up the criminal referrals.
But make no mistake: the nimbus of invincibility that has surrounded Trump for decades is being dispelled. Trump, who portrayed himself as a master builder, is being deconstructed. The engineer of his fall won’t be the committee but special counsel Jack Smith.
