1/ Most revealing in today's big WP story: "Trump, appearing frustrated and at times angry, has complained to confidants and aides in recent weeks that he does not understand why he cannot simply give orders to "my guys" at what he sometimes calls the 'Trump Justice Department.'"
2/ But this anger & frustration w/ DOJ/FBI aren't "recent" phenomena. They've been apparent in tweets & interviews & speeches ever since he fired Comey, and Rosenstein appointed Mueller, and the investigation got worse for him. As @benjaminwittes wrote: lawfareblog.com/saddest-thing-…
3/ What is remarkable, as many have now noted, is that despite the President's threats over many months to fire Sessions, or Rosenstein, or Mueller, they ignore him, and DOJ and FBI keep plodding along. Trump's threats are amazingly ineffectual.
4/ Indeed, McGahn essentially ignored Trump's order to fire Mueller. nytimes.com/2018/01/25/us/…. McGahn told WH officials he was confident "that Mr. Trump would not follow through on the dismissal on his own." Trump seems like all bark and no bite even to his closest aides.
5/ Or perhaps as former Trump aide Barry Bennet said in the WP story today, too many confound Trump's threatening bark for his bite. "Trust me, everybody on the campaign was 'fired' more than once, but it never really happened." washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…
6/ I've noted before the remarkable degree to which Trump's senior officials "act as if Trump were not the chief executive. Never has a president been so regularly ignored or contradicted by his own officials." lawfareblog.com/our-non-unitar…
7/ Hard to know what's more notable: (a) The president threatening DOJ/FBI over and over in gross violation of independence norms; or (b) DOJ and WH officials ignoring his threats or threatening to resign over them, and Trump backing down.
8/ The growing and dizzying array of threats by Trump, and threats by officials to resign in response to Trump's threats, suggest that this is not a stable situation (how could it be?).
9/ The overt disrespect that top folks in WH and DOJ have for him indicate that if and when he actually follows through again with a bite akin to the Comey firing, they will not be with him.
10/ That may the lesson (and the point) of the McGahn threat. When Trump finally gets tired of being ignored and follows through on something stupid, the Executive branch meltdown will be severe, to his enormous detriment (and hopefully not the country's). END.
