Looking ahead

The impeachment frenzy that has manifested this week among Democrats may have staying power. Now even trying to keep confidential presidential communications with foreign leaders away from prying eyes is to be seen as a high crime or misdemeanor. It bids to take a place in the articles of impeachment on which House Democrats can barely wait to vote. Personally, I hope they lead with it.

Taking off from a CNN story with three familiar bylines, the New York Times reassigned four of its top reporters from the racism beat to report the story “White House Classified Computer System Is Used to Hold Transcripts of Sensitive Calls.” Subhead: “Current and former officials said the White House used a highly classified computer system accessible to only a select few officials to store transcripts of calls from President Vladimir Putin and the Saudi royal family.”

The sourcing is familiar as well: “The White House concealed some reconstructed transcripts of delicate calls between President Trump and foreign officials, including President Vladimir V. Putin and the Saudi royal family, in a highly classified computer system after embarrassing leaks of his conversations, according to current and former officials.”

And that’s not all: “The latest revelations show the focus that White House officials put on safeguarding not only classified information but also delicate calls with Mr. Trump, the details of which the administration did not want leaked.”

Footnote: “While the calls included delicate information about Mr. Trump’s discussions about the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, there was no apparent evidence of impropriety by Mr. Trump, said a person familiar with the matter.”

It’s a coverup!

This cannot stand!

President Trump’s repeated references to a “witch hunt” may save the phenomena manifesting among the Democrats and their media adjunct. Real or fabricated — I hesitate to say — hysteria has become the ruling passion of the Democrats.

Looking ahead, I can see it now.

House Democrats vote out articles of impeachment against President Trump. The substance of those hidden phone calls is released and it is revealed that Trump assured Putin he would have more flexibility to make Vladimir happy after Trump’s reelection. Weak-kneed Republicans in the Senate profess shock and join the Democrats in numbers just sufficient to remove Trump from office.

President Trump is removed around the time of the Republican national convention next summer. However, Trump is is no mood to surrender. Republicans think a grave injustice has been committed in the undoing of election of 2016. They take the credo of a younger and fatter Jerry Nadler on the evils of impeachment as their battle cry. In convention assembled Republicans nominate Trump to bear their standard again in 2020.

Despite his removal from office, Trump is to be on the ballot one more time. The Democrats and their media adjunct roar that his reelection would be unconstitutional. They would prefer that their candidate appear alone on the ballot. Tom Friedman explains in a series of columns on the Times op-ed page that this is how it should be done. The Chinese Communists have shown the way.

The Democrats file suit in United States District Court for the Northern District of California to have Trump removed from the ballot. Chief Judge Phyllis Hamilton assigns the case to herself and issues a nationwide preliminary injunction ordering the removal of Trump from the ballot in all 50 states. The Ninth Circuit affirms.

President Pence orders the Department of Justice to seek emergency relief in the Supreme Court. Democrats demand that Attorney General Barr recuse himself. Serving as Attorney General for a third president, Barr announces that he would prefer not to. In the ultimate case of just in time manufacturing, the Supreme Court stays the order to remove Trump from the ballot.

Trump sweeps to reelection in 2020. He is not only the first president to be removed from office by the Senate, he wins his office back the old-fashioned way. When he auctions off the rights to his memoirs in 2025, Trump reserves the right to play himself in the film. He announces that he looks forward to negotiations with the Obama production team at Netflix.

NOTE: I should have added that, under Article I, Section 3, Clause 7, the Dems would have a good constitutional argument supporting the lawsuit I conjure in this fantasy.

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