[ Reviewing the most recent, fact-based tell-all about the twisted
psyche and criminal incompetence of the U.S.s arch reactionary chief
executive.] [[link removed]]

PORTSIDE CULTURE

A VERY STABLE GENIUS: DYSFUNCTION AND DISASTER AT THE COURT OF KING
DONALD  
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Lloyd Green
January 19, 2020
The Guardian
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_ Reviewing the most recent, fact-based tell-all about the twisted
psyche and criminal incompetence of the U.S.'s arch reactionary chief
executive. _

Donald Trump speaks in Bossier City, Louisiana., Photograph: Mandel
Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

 

In January 2018, Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury
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headlines as it depicted a president out of control
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a White House that careened from crisis to crisis. Donald Trump
threatened legal action against author and publisher. He also lauded
himself and his electoral college victory
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“I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius … and a very
stable genius at that!”

Trump’s outburst confirmed what many already feared. In the
aftermath of the firing of FBI director James Comey in May 2017, Rod
Rosenstein, then deputy attorney general, reportedly
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secretly recording the president with an eye to removing him from
office under the 25th amendment.

Now Philip Rucker [[link removed]] and Carol
Leonnig
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the Washington Post offer A Very Stable Genius
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As befitting Pulitzer winners for investigative reporting, their book
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richly sourced and highly readable.

It sheds new light on how the 45th president tests the boundaries of
the office while trying the patience and dignity of those who work for
or with him. It is not just another Trump tell-all or third-party
confessional. It is unsettling, not salacious.

Trump himself was quick to criticize the book, calling its authors
“two third rate Washington Post reporters”. In a tweet on Saturday
night, the president said the book was “all for the purpose of
demeaning and belittling a President who is getting great things done
for our Country, at a record clip”
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A Very Stable Genius:Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America
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By Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker
Penguin/Random House; 480 pages
January 21, 2019
Hardback:  $30.00; E-book, $15.99
ISBN:9781984877499
ISBN: 9781984877505

 

Penguin/Random House
Rucker and Leonnig lift the curtain on internal battles over
immigration and the attempt to replace John Kelly with Chris Christie
as White House chief of staff. It also closely examines the scrum
between Bill Barr, the attorney general, and Bob Mueller over Barr’s
handling of the special counsel’s report on Russian election
interference and links between Trump and Moscow. 

Trump’s West Wing is tantamount to a family business and everything
is personal

Trump’s West Wing is tantamount to a family business and everything
is personal. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump obtain security clearances
because they are kin.

After publicly punting the issue to Kelly, Trump is described as
applying pressure privately. “I wish we could make this go away,”
he reportedly told Kelly. “This is a problem.” Said differently,
protocols and national security were treated as impediments, not
safeguards, when Javanka got involved.

When Trump cuts Kelly loose, Kushner and Ivanka are depicted as
coveting the job. Their ambitions go unfulfilled but they continue to
lurk in the background.

Told by Rudy Giuliani that Trump wants him as his chief of staff,
Christie asks why he would want the job if Kushner isn’t leaving.
For record, as a federal prosecutor Christie sent Charlie Kushner,
Jared’s father, to prison
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“one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” on Christie’s
watch.

“Why the fuck am I going to take this job?” the former New Jersey
governor exclaims. “You guys are nuts. I’m not going in there.”

Still, Ivanka purportedly telephoned Christie’s wife, Pat, to assure
her bygones would be bygones. It didn’t work.

A Very Stable Genius also chronicles the back and forth between
Trump’s lawyers and the special counsel’s office and the interplay
between Barr and Mueller. Under George HW Bush, Barr was attorney
general and Mueller headed the criminal division at the justice
department. The two men were friends.

Yet when Barr rolled out his summary of Mueller’s report, Leonnig
and Rucker write, the special counsel “looked as if he’d been
slapped”. When Mueller sent a rebuttal letter, objecting to Barr’s
summary, Barr was “pissed”, thought the letter “nasty” and
felt personally “betrayed”. Barr and Mueller spoke by phone, a
tense conversation that ended on “an uplifting note.”

As for Trump and name-calling, nothing has changed. As a candidate, he
mocked John McCain, a gold star family, a Latino judge and a disabled
reporter. Life at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has not allayed that
spirit.

At a meeting in the Pentagon’s inner sanctum
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the “Tank”, the draft-dodging Trump derided America’s generals
as “dopes and babies”. He added: “I wouldn’t go to war with
you people.” Debasement was a coin of the realm.

When Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of homeland security and a Kelly
deputy, balked at Trump’s demands on immigration, he berated her
looks and height
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For good measure, according to the authors, Trump would call her at
5am, just for the sake of harassment.

After James Mattis advised Trump of his intent to resign as defense
secretary, Trump moved his departure up two months. At a cabinet
meeting
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the president bragged that he had “essentially” fired the
four-star general. For the president, policy differences invariably
exploded into a matter of honor.

 

Trump speaks to the media while James Mattis minds his own business,
in the cabinet room at the White House.
Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters  //  The Guardian
Mattis’s resignation letter omitted any praise
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the commander-in-chief. “Because you have the right to have a
secretary of defense whose views are better aligned with yours,” he
wrote, “I believe it is right for me to step down.”

Likewise, Trump mocked HR McMaster, Michael Flynn’s replacement as
national security adviser, for his mien and wardrobe. The scholarly
McMaster was always on borrowed time.

Says one of McMaster’s aides, Trump “doesn’t fire people … he
tortures them until they’re willing to quit.”

Clearly, Trumpworld has its share of casualties. Paul Manafort, a
campaign manager, and Michael Cohen, a lawyer, sit imprisoned. Flynn
and Roger Stone, a longtime political confidante, await sentencing.

Trump’s allergy to reality remains on display. His contention he
doesn’t know Lev Parnas is belied by video and email. The US now
admits
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troops attacked by Iran’s missiles were treated for concussions.

Leonnig and Rucker quote Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution,
who says Trump “appears to be daring the rest of the political
system to stop him – and if it doesn’t he’ll go further. The law
has no force without people who are willing to enforce it.”

As the Senate marches toward an impeachment trial and the countdown to
the election ticks on, truer words have seldom been spoken.

_[Essayist LLOYD GREEN is a New York-based attorney. He was opposition
research counsel to George HW Bush’s 1988 campaign and served in the
Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992] _

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