A Honeymoon of Hand-to-Hand Combat

Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt adapted from Conrad Black’s forthcoming book, Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other. It appears here with permission.

It was now known that FBI director James Comey had written a draft exoneration of Mrs. Clinton before she was even questioned by the FBI about her emails. He had been investigating both candidates in mid-campaign and had taken it unto himself to announce that Mrs. Clinton, despite her serious misjudgments and apparently dishonest replies to FBI questioners, should not be prosecuted, followed by the panicky interlude when the Bureau reviewed the new batch of emails discovered on the server of former congressman Anthony Weiner. Comey had already acknowledged that he told the president three times that he was not a suspect in the Russian collusion question. Trump was inaugurated four months after the FBI took over trying to chase down Christopher Steele’s sources to get to the truth, so the continued exposure of Trump to the innuendos of the hostile media and the leprous uncooperativeness of the congressional Democrats as if he were in a legal purgatory were unjustified by the legal facts. Comey’s frank assertion that he had leaked his own contested version of what had occurred about the investigation of General Flynn in his dinner conversation with the new president on January 27, was a damaging admission, though the media did not treat it so. It was a criminal act if the memo to himself is considered a government document, which is legally probable, as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein confirmed to Congress on December 13, 2017.

Comey had unwittingly contributed to the gradual shift of the balance of legal forces in favor of the administration and against the Democrats, a gradual shift that included the increasing congressional attention finally being paid to the questionable activities of the Clinton Foundation, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and other members of the Obama administration, including, possibly, Robert Mueller who had been director of the FBI when Russia was permitted to buy 20 percent of America’s uranium extraction capacity. The transaction required the approval of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which includes representatives from 16 U.S. departments and agencies, including the secretary of state. By the time the Committee approved the Uranium One sale, the FBI had already gathered a huge amount of evidence of bribery and kickbacks against a top official at the American subsidiary of the Russian company that was buying Uranium One. This and other evidence, including large pledges to the Clinton Foundation by parties with an interest in Secretary Clinton’s goodwill, did raise great suspicions, however much the media wanted to downplay it.

President Trump, meanwhile, had considerable success, domestically and internationally, with his forceful address to the United Nations General Assembly on September 19. He warned North Korea and its leader, whom he had nicknamed “Rocket Man,” of the dangers of proceeding with his military nuclear program; he denounced the impoverishment and usurpation of freedom in Venezuela; he called for reform of the United Nations; he defined his policy of “America First” as the simple pursuit of America’s national interest; and he renewed America’s pledge to oppose terrorism everywhere. The international soft Left was repelled, but domestic opinion was quite positive. The speech was well-crafted and well-delivered. The following day he met again with the president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and indicated that he would lift the embargo on military aid imposed by President Obama, which he duly did.

The sanctimonious hypocrisy of Trump’s Hollywood and media critics soon came to the forefront with the exposure of prominent movie producer, and Clinton fundraiser, Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual assault and intimidation of actresses in large numbers and over decades, which caused him to be cast out of the City of Angels like Lucifer. Weinstein was lynched on the basis of a carefully assembled article in the New York Times and a follow-up in The New Yorker. Apparently, his conduct had been notorious throughout the industry for many years, and he had banked on the assumption that his generous support of left-wing candidates and causes would insulate him from criticism, and that more donations and liberal professions would save him after he was exposed. The whole lurid story laid bare the preposterous presumption of the entertainment industry to lecture the American people on politics and morals. Hollywood is a moral and intellectual pigsty, an asylum for the stupid, the corrupt, and the vocally shallow, who possess Thespian aptitudes or a saleable appearance and manner.

There were other signs that the febrile Trumpophobes were weakening, though like cornered animals their attacks became more vicious and unhinged.

On September 22, Trump denounced professional football players who kneeled during the playing of the national anthem before the games. This began with Colin Kaepernick, former quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, who remained seated during the national anthem in protest against what he considered the routine practice of white American police to shoot unarmed African Americans, preferably killing them, or, in his own words: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. . . . There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.” The movement grew and in an address at Huntsville, Ala., Trump threw into a stump speech for a senatorial primary candidate the opinion that players who did not stand for the anthem should be fired. (His words were: “Fire the son of a b***h.”) Liberal opinion was offended and so were almost all the football owners and many of their players. Trump said anyone could protest anything they wanted but that well-paid NFL players enjoying a short working season should not hijack the National Football League and offend the sensibilities of their fans by affronting the flag, the servicemen and women who stand behind it, the national anthem, and the country generally. The exchanges escalated, and he called for a boycott of the NFL. Attendance fell 20 percent in the first week after Trump’s statement, and by year-end, the NFL was suffering a serious desertion of fans (who lean conservative) and advertisers. It might have cast a damper over one of the nation’s most popular sports, but the NFL’s absurdly overpaid commissioner Roger Goodell; the grandstanding, unsympathetic, over-paid players; and the owners of the immensely overvalued teams were the real losers in public opinion.

Trump is so hyperactive that, apart from North Korea, no particular issue lingers long. He swiftly moved on to other subjects. On health care, he virtually eliminated Obamacare’s advertising budget (which had been set up to encourage public participation) and announced on October 12 that he would stop supplementary payments to insurance companies, which were meant to compensate them for the unanticipated—by the Obama administration; they were predicted by everyone else—costs of Obamacare. The Democrats tried to whip up public lamentations about short-changing those of modest means, but as it was just a pay-off to insurance companies, and was unconstitutionally conceived and imposed, the general public dismissed the Democrats’ hysteria.

On October 13, Trump declined to certify that Iran was in compliance with the six-power accord negotiated by the Obama administration. Trump recognized that the agreement, which governs fissile material, is unverifiable, and ignores both Iran’s progress toward developing a nuclear warhead and its accelerating program to develop and manufacture sophisticated long-range missiles. Foreign-policy hawks applauded Trump’s realism, even as many on the Left booed Trump for lacking their sophisticated defeatism.

There were other signs that the febrile Trumpophobes were weakening, though like cornered animals their attacks became more vicious and unhinged. The resistance to his tax moves was relatively temperate and usually confined to the inevitable mantra that it was just a payoff to the rich, demonstrably as false a claim as it was predictable. Senator Corker of Tennessee, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, uttered a few asides and hesitant comments in late September and October to the effect that Trump was unstable and that Secretary of State Tillerson, Defense Secretary Mattis, and Trump’s chief of staff, General Kelly, were very exasperated and had to work full-time to keep Trump from doing something dangerously wrong-headed or provocative. Corker and Trump had the usual war of words, and as Corker could not be reelected in Tennessee without Trump’s endorsement, he said he would not run again. While Corker played coy with the media, which assumed his support for Trump’s tax bill was in doubt, he eventually voted for it.

Another controversy erupted, when it was reported (from anonymous sources) that Secretary Tillerson had called Trump a “f***ing moron,” though Tillerson denied the report. (Had he really said that, it is unlikely he would have retained his post, or even wanted to keep it.) When asked by reporters, Tillerson, a southern gentleman, responded with “I’m not going to dignify that question,” which the press, predictably, reported as confirmation of the rumor. Trump unnecessarily responded, “I think it’s fake news, but if he did that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests,” which was funny but not helpful to his cause.

On October 30, Mueller indicted former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his associate, Rick Gates, for financial offenses allegedly committed years before Manafort knew Trump, and on the insidious charge of “conspiracy against the United States.” Mueller had organized a pre-dawn Gestapo or KGB-style raid on Manafort’s home on July 26, with armed men barging into the bedroom when Mrs. Manafort was in her sleeping attire (as people frequently are when sleeping in their homes at night). (Mueller also unsealed a guilty plea from George Papadopoulos, involving trivial offenses.)

The new cry after this excitement subsided was that the Twenty-Fifth Amendment (Section Four) could be applicable, by which the Cabinet could vote to remove Trump by reason of mental incompetence. This was as absurd an idea as the national publicity campaign to urge members of the Electoral College to repudiate their pledges to vote for Trump. It was the lowest depth yet plumbed by the Trumpohobes; the “Resistance” was verging on mental incapacity itself. The Twenty-Fifth Amendment was designed to deal with a severe medical failure, as in the case of President Wilson when he was incapacitated by a stroke, not with policy differences or illegalities. It was contemplated once, when President Reagan was shot, but he recovered so quickly there was no need for it. In other desperation moves, the anti-Trump forces unearthed the antiquarian and totally inapplicable Logan Act (1799), which prohibits unauthorized people from trying to conduct American foreign policy, and which they charged should be invoked against the then-president-elect Trump and his staff for meeting with foreign officials, as if this were not common, accepted diplomatic practice. And there were repeated fatuous murmurings about the president obstructing justice when he exercised his constitutional right as chief of the executive branch to fire the inept and universally distrusted (up until Trump fired him, whereupon he instantaneously metamorphosed into the patron saint of the Democratic party) FBI director, James Comey.

Trump’s enemies were grasping at straws.

NOW WATCH: ‘The 25th Amendment Won’t Oust Trump’