A Complete Breakdown Of Donald Trump’s 60th Unpresidented Week As POTUS

The Ides Of March Madness

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington — Tuesday, March 13, 2018 (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

60 weeks. 422 days. Thousands of lies. Multiple staff shakeups. Dozens of regressive policies. Countless attempts to obstruct justice. And zero actions taken to confront future Russian interference in our democracy.

Donald Trump appears to believe he is greater than the country he is supposed to be serving. With his weak responses to Russian provocations abroad and his administration’s lack of action in confronting future Russian election meddling at home, Trump proves he believes he is greater than his oath of office. With his repeated efforts to undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, Trump proves he believes he’s greater than the rule of law. And with his continuous lying and regressive policies, it’s clear that Trump believes he is greater than the American people…He’s wrong.

For a president who’s TV slogan was “you’re fired,” he runs an administration that doesn’t have the dignity to fire civil servants to their faces. Much like former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was fired by a tweet. And similar to FBI Director James Comey — who found out he was fired from a TV screen while he was giving a speech to his colleagues — already retiring Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe learned of his firing, and loss of pension, from a press release. Unfortunately for Trump, that wasn’t the only similarity between McCabe and Comey.

McCabe kept comprehensive memos of his interactions with President Trump and what he knew about the firing of Comey, and has already handed them over to Mueller. This will surely add to Mueller’s overwhelming evidence that Trump obstructed justice.

Mueller’s Russia investigation has yielded indictments of 13 Russians, plea agreements from 3 of Trump’s associates, and continues to inch closer to the president with every passing day. In recent weeks, Mueller subpoenaed documents related to Russia from the Trump Organization which is in large part responsible for Trump’s heightened unhinged behavior.

As Rantt has extensively reported, Trump’s business empire has a trail of connections with Russian oligarchs, a myriad of loans from foreign entities, and potential money laundering behind it. Evidence in this area could help Mueller establish Trump’s intent when it comes to potential collusion with Russia, help Americans make sense of Trump’s eerie conciliatory treatment of Putin, and discover what foreign countries the President of the United States is beholden to.

Robert Mueller’s name made its first appearance on Trump’s Twitter timeline for a reason. It’s clear that President Trump has finally realized that either he ends Mueller’s investigation or the investigation will end him. But little does he know, either route will be his undoing.

“That would be the beginning of the end of his presidency.” — Republican Senator Lindsay Graham on the possible firing of Special Counsel Robert Mueller

Regardless if Graham stands by his word, he is right.

The very unlikely scenario: Trump moves to end Mueller’s probe and the GOP holds him accountable — we’re talking immediate impeachment.

The more likely scenario: If Trump moves to end Mueller’s probe and the GOP doesn’t hold him accountable, then the American people will. The people will march, and after the protests, that surge in Democratic enthusiasm will flow into the midterms and ensure an even more sizable Democratic majority in the House. Democrats could then move to reenact the expired Independent Counsel Statute, re-appoint Mueller, receive an impeachment referral, and move to impeach in 2019. Democrats won’t have a supermajority (need 2/3 in the Senate to remove the president from office), so members of the GOP would have to vote in favor. If so, he’s out. If they protect Trump, by that point, his presidency will be so marred in scandal and drowned in the indictments of his inner circle that he would surely lose re-election and return to private life in disgrace, bringing down the Republican Party’s reputation with him.

But then again, there’s still the open legal question of whether or not a sitting president can be indicted…

Long story short, Donald Trump knows he’s in trouble, and he appears more than willing to spark a constitutional crisis in an attempt to save himself. We are in uncharted territory and we need to strap ourselves in for the long haul and prepare for unhinged waters ahead.

On a personal note: I continue to be impressed by the vigilance, patriotism, and hope of the American people — especially in the youth.

This story isn’t a tragedy…It’s an epic.

Here’s a complete breakdown of Donald Trump’s 60th week as POTUS:

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60th Weekend (March 10–11)

Back To The Basics

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Atlantic Aviation in Moon Township, Pa. — Saturday, March 10, 2018 (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Over the weekend, President Trump brought out his trademark indecency at a rally in Pennsylvania ahead of Tuesday’s special election.

He also talked about how drug dealers should get the death penalty.

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Meanwhile…

  • The New York Times reported that Trump met with Emmet T. Flood, Bill Clinton’s impeachment lawyer, about possibly adding him to his legal team.
  • As expected, Trump backed off his positions on gun control after his meeting with the NRA.

  • Speaking of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, she had quite the interview on 60 minutes…

  • Buzzfeed News reported that Trump’s lawyers are weighing a potential legal challenge in an effort to block the upcoming 60 Minutes interview with porn star Stormy Daniels (who is currently suing the president over a confidentiality agreement she received along with hush money).

60th Week (March 12–16)

Monday, March 12

Russian Aggression Abroad, Congressional Appeasement At Home

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. walks out of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, March 22, 2017, to speak with reporters following a meeting with President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Monday began with the U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May doing what Donald Trump has failed to explicitly do since he’s taken office: Forcefully condemn Russia for an attack on the country.

After this news, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was rightfully pressed on whether President Trump stands with their NATO ally the United Kingdom. Although Sanders did say America stands with them, she refused to explicitly condemn Russia just yet (a pattern in this administration).

By the end of the day, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee announced that they were ending their investigation into Russian meddling and the Trump campaign. The investigation at this point morphed into a wing in the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine the Mueller probe. The move came as a surprise to House Democrats on the committee who asserted there were still numerous people left to interview.

More accurately put:

House Republicans claimed that they have found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. They went on to “disagree” with the Intelligence Community’s unanimous conclusion that Russia interfered with the intention of helping then-candidate Donald Trump.

This “finding” was almost immediately dispelled by…wait for it…a fellow Republican member of the committee. It was later also dispelled by Republican Trey Gowdy (not seeking re-election).

Speaking of off the rails, Trump falsely cried vindication.

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Meanwhile…

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice is said to be close to completion, but he may set it aside while he finishes other key parts of his probe, such as possible collusion and the hacking of Democrats, according to current and former U.S. officials.

That’s because Mueller may calculate that if he tries to bring charges in the obstruction case — the part that may hit closest to Trump personally — witnesses may become less cooperative in other parts of the probe, or the president may move to shut it down altogether.

  • NBC News dropped a pretty startling report that further illustrates how vulnerable the Trump administration is to foreign influence.

  • In other conflicts of interest news, McClatchy DC reported:

Ivanka Trump — a senior White House adviser who is doing everything from lobbying the Senate on tax policy to representing her father at a G20 summit of world leaders — will pull in more than $1 million a year from the family business that has continued to develop luxury resorts across the globe during the Trump presidency.

  • Putin tried to claim that maybe Jews were behind the interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
  • 137 Democrats signed a letter urging Trump to enact the new Russian sanctions outlined in Congress’ veto-proof bill turned law, which President Trump refused to impose.
  • After tweeting about his ideas for new gun laws, he went on to give a final endorsement of Republican Candidate Rick Saccone.

Tuesday, March 13

Rexit

Rex Tillerson walks down a hallway after his final speech as Secretary of State at the State Department in Washington, Tuesday, March 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

After months of reports of his imminent departure, Rex Tillerson was finally out, via tweet of course.

Although Tillerson executed on Trump’s goals of thoroughly gutting the State Department, the relationship between them was strained and grew even more tenuous last year after Tillerson called Trump a “fucking moron.” Questions surrounding the what triggered Tillerson’s firing remain. Rantt’s Global Outlook Editor Jossif Ezekilov reported:

While in Nigeria on the aforementioned Africa trip, Tillerson cut the trip short to fly back to Washington. Right before he left, however, he issued a strong rebuke to Russia for the nerve agent attack of the former Russian spy in the UK, saying those “responsible — both those who committed the crime and those who ordered it — must face appropriately serious consequences.” The next day, he was officially fired via a tweet from Trump.

Whether he was fired for the Russia comment is unclear. White House officials insist this was a long time coming, and that Chief of Staff John Kelly had warned him about a potential sacking as early as Friday. However, the imminence of the firing was contradicted by other reports, including from Tillerson’s aide Steve Goldstein, who was then fired for going against the White House’s account.

Whether Tillerson was fired for his Russia comments or not we may never know. Tillerson did bring up the need to respond to Russian behavior in his farewell speech, something Trump has shown hardly any interest in doing. But the bizarre nature with which this came about will do little to stamp out collusion allegations between Trump and the Kremlin.

Tillerson’s Under Secretary contradicted the narrative the White House was pushing.

Within a few hours, he was fired for telling the truth.

History won’t look too kindly on Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. As for his replacement Mike Pompeo, we’ll see if he leads us into war or peace.

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Meanwhile…

  • Pompeo’s designated CIA replacement Gina Haspel drew scrutiny over her past involvement with torture.
  • In typical Trump form, he beat around the bush when it came to condemning Vladimir Putin.

  • Also ousted was Trump’s personal aide.

  • Last week, former Trump aide Sam Nunberg essentially went on a press tour claiming he wasn’t going to cooperate with Mueller’s subpoena because he thought Mueller is trying to build a perjury case against former Trump advisor Roger Stone. Nunberg ended up turning over the documents Mueller requested and testifying last Friday. This Tuesday, we hit the next phase of that story.

  • The shakeup talks continued as The New York Times reported Trump is thinking about replacing Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin with Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
  • The Daily Beast reported:

A Russian national who was extradited to the U.S. last year over Kremlin objections pleaded guilty in a Virginia federal courtroom Monday to conspiracy and aiding and abetting computer intrusion, admitting he operated a dark web service that helped thousands of hackers conceal malware from detection.

  • The spokesman for ICE resigned “over what he described as ‘alse’ and ‘misleading’ statements made by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and ICE acting director Thomas D. Homan.”
  • Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort could spend the rest of his life in jail.
  • We lost one of the greatest minds humanity has had to offer.

  • After a night of meticulously calculating precinct percentages and watching Steve Kornacki freak out with excitement on MSNBC, Democrat Conor Lamb would go on to win in a district that Trump won by 20 points. This significant accomplishment potentially puts over 110 districts that Trump won by a smaller margin in Democrats’ sights.

  • Seth Rich’s family sued Fox News for publishing the fake news story that tried to slander their son’s name.

  • Trump pitched what appeared to be Starfleet?

Wednesday, March 14

The Uprising

Members of March for Our Lives Wichita, Photo credit: Blair Brandom

On Wednesday, one month after 17 innocent people were gunned down by an AR-15 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, thousands of students from more than 3,000 schools around the country walked out of class to demand legislative action to prevent gun violence.

It was truly a beautiful sight to see.

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Meanwhile…

  • While students were protesting gun violence, two examples were reported of exactly why we shouldn’t follow through with President Trump’s (the NRA’s) plan to arm teachers.

Officer Accidentally Fires Gun in Alexandria School: Police

  • The West Virginia teacher strike appeared to spark a movement, as teachers in other states began to organize.

  • The Washington Post covered a very troubling story regarding remarks Trump made at a fundraiser.

  • There were a few stories related to President Trump’s conflicts of interest and potential violations of the emoluments clause.

  • Buzzfeed News was taking up a clever new legal strategy regarding Trump Attorney Michael Cohen’s defamation lawsuit against them.

  • The House passed a school safety bill but did not include any gun control measures.
  • After denying knowledge of the $31,000 furniture set, it was revealed that HUD Secretary Ben Carson hand selected it.
  • The New York Times reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was considering firing McCabe ahead of his retirement. We later found out that was the case.

Thursday, March 15

Trump’s “Red Line”

Created By Rantt Media Production Designer Maddie Anderson

Last year, President Trump said that if Robert Mueller looking into his finances that would be a “red line” for him. Although it’s long been suspected Mueller already has some of Trump’s financial info (Deutsche Bank subpoena, cooperation with the IRS, etc.), it looks like that line may be getting crossed.

In a move we later learn is a source of Trump’s anger, Special Counsel Robert Mueller subpoenaed documents from the Trump Organization.

Like I mentioned earlier, what Robert Mueller may find in Trump’s finances could be indisputably incriminating. Money laundering would be much harder for Republicans to excuse than obstruction of justice.

Donald Trump, Russian Oligarchs, And A Trail Of Money Laundering

Meanwhile…

  • The U.S. Treasury Department finally agreed to impose some sanctions on Russia.

Which we later find out aren’t nearly as effective as they were presented to be:

Either way, basing these sanctions on the Mueller probe puts Trump in a sticky situation.

  • It was reported that another lawyer at the Trump Organization was involved in the hush money payout to Stormy Daniels.
  • Trump still refused to explicitly condemn Vladimir Putin.

  • President Trump tried to repeat a lie he told Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

He got immediately shut down.

  • Trump announced he would replace economic adviser Gary Cohn with CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow, who buy into the same ineffective trickle-down economics Trump does and has been incredibly wrong about the economy on numerous occasions.

  • Trump’s lawyers are preparing Trump for a potential interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
  • Bloomberg reported:

Russian hackers are conducting a broad assault on the U.S. electric grid, water processing plants, air transportation facilities and other targets in rolling attacks on some of the country’s most sensitive infrastructure, U.S. government officials said Thursday.

  • News of another potentially imminent replacement.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders tried to deny this report.

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Friday, March 16

Meltdown

Andrew McCabe, former FBI deputy director (AP/Alex Brandon)

After repeated attacks on him from the president, McCabe was set to retire on Sunday and collect his pension. Early in the day, you could tell something was going to happen.

Then, at around 10 pm on a Friday night in the middle of March Madness, Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired Andrew McCabe.

McCabe released a searing response.

Democrats were outraged.

I’ll bleed into Saturday here to complete this train of thought. At around 12 am, President Trump tried to claim victory for…democracy.

Trump continued.

Former FBI Director James Comey responded.

By the middle of the weekend, Andrew McCabe had lawyered up and handed over notes he had taken to Robert Mueller.

Meanwhile…

  • Cambridge Analytica, the data firm that worked with the 2016 Trump campaign to target voters on social media, was exposed.

Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

Over the weekend, there was more.

Whether or not Brad Parscale of Jared Kushner will be wrapped up in this is yet to be seen.

  • Trump’s former business associate has finally begun speaking up.

Over the weekend, Trump’s lawyer John Dowd told Daily Beast reporter Betsy Woodruff that it’s time for Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein to shut down the Russia probe.

Our analysis was later confirmed. Trump was triggered by the Trump Organization subpoena.

This precluded a series of tweets where President Trump explicitly attacked Mueller for the first time on Twitter.

By the end of the weekend, as backlash mounted over the comments and fear that Trump may move to fire Mueller, GOP Senator Lindsay Graham had a stern response.

By Sunday night, John Dowd — who had already tried to walk back his initial statement and say he was speaking for himself — released this statement.

And then, The Daily Beast reported this…

I’m of a different opinion than many people on Twitter. I personally think the next step will be some kind of “review” of Rosenstein’s role. The administration didn’t even move to fire McCabe until after the IG probe. But still, anything can happen — especially if a wild new indictment comes along and scares Trump (Probably hacking — fancy bear, Cozy Bear, Wikileaks and potentially American co-conspirators/Roger Stone perjury — will be next up on Mueller’s list).

Who knows? It’s 2018. The only thing I’ll predict with 100% certainty is that Donald Trump will continue to become gradually more unhinged with each passing day. One could make a fortune betting on that.

Unpresidented // Donald Trump / Government / Journalism / Politics