Mark February 1st, 2018 in your mental callendar
After Hitler occupied Poland and before they attacked France a strange quiet existed as the world waited for two great powers to come to their lethal, no holds barred, final conflict.
Everything will change between now and then and we will look back and scarcely recognize the shore we stand on as we look into the abyss. Likely events:
1) Mass exodus from the Trump administration. If you take a cabinet or senior government position and put your assets into a blind trust you are given a one time capital gains exemption based on the theory that you shouldn't be penalized because you are doing the right thing.
The billionaires around Trump who probably have reaped hundreds of millions from this provision will likely leave after they pass the minimum term: one year. Tillerson, who could make as much as $ 200 million on his Exxon pay out is a dead SOS walking. Mnuchin, Cohen, Ross, et all are likely to leave.
They have gotten the one legislative achievement that they were committed to (reducing corporate tax rates) and are unlikely to achieve anything else. Further involvement with the administration is likely to compound their legal problems, open them up to further ridicule among their peer group and require long hours with little payback. They are billionaires, why would they bother hanging around in something that will expose their legal liabilities with no pay back.
On top of this are the people that will be forced out by Kelly. It will be such a huge migration that the reboot will be termed Trump 2.0 to differentiate.
2) Republican backlash. Republican legislators bowed to threats, not from Trump but by the donor class to pass the flawed Tax bill. As it becomes more and more visible they will stand behind the increase of the individual deduction and start to mark their territory where they disagree with Trumps administration.
Of course not all will publicly go against Trump but all of the "Issa Republicans" (Republicans who got elected in districts Clinton took or in swing districts or states) will. There will be some who will try and cleanse their guilt on their conscious.
3) Mueller will start taking concrete steps and he will start with the most provable. A growing institutional consensus will start to build among the establishment, including corporations, that Trump is wounded and a liability. It will be lead by a continuing stream of leaks from federal law enforcement and the intelligence community.
Yes sycophants and Fox will fight back but all of the oxygen will be out of the room and it will be all about the investigation for/against 24 hours a day.
4) Trump will try to take action. He may try to get Mueller fired but because Sessions recused himself Rosenstein and his successors will be out of the President's hands until he can get a Senate confirmed Deputy Attorney General in place. How many acting Deputies will he have to fire before he gets to his Robert Bork
5) Continual Trump tweetstorm and decline of approval ratings. More separation from Republicans who will see strong challengers lining up to take their jobs in a short 8 months. From February 1st they will be consumed by one thing, get out of the biggest political tsunami threatening their political future.
With the transition emails now in Mueller's safe hands a reckoning is approaching and in 6 weeks a depleted Trump administration will be missing many of its current leaders and will be in a desperate and final battle for its survival.
= new reply since forum marked as read
