Is there a plan in the White House for withstanding impeachment?

Strategizing about the best way to handle the impeachment proceedings and the White House’s release of information happened on Monday night, when the Trump family gathered for dinner at Trump Tower.

Then as soon as White House aides returned to Washington on Thursday afternoon, the West Wing impeachment planning kicked off in earnest.

Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney hopes to set up a war room, comprised of political, press and communications aides to help with the administration’s fight. The administration intends to model it after the Clinton White House’s impeachment strategy, which relied on both separate administration staffers and outside surrogates for the political battles.

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Several former administration aides and White House advisers worry the West Wing is not staffed robustly enough for this type of prolonged political fight, as filled as it is with family members, junior aides, newcomers or staffers who’ve stayed so long they feel exhausted.

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Trump critics say the president’s habit of firing aides so habitually may hurt him as Congress looks for witnesses and the president tries to stay on message.

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The president for months genuinely believed he’d gain politically from an impeachment inquiry because he thought Democrats were out to get him on any issue they could, and such an inquiry would make that clear, according to two former senior administration officials.

Privately, he talked to aides about the way Democrats even picked up seats in the 1998 midterms as President Bill Clinton faced impeachment hearings. Trump also latched onto the fact that removing a president required the approval of two-thirds of the Senate — so he felt assured that as long as he maintained the support of Senate Republicans, he would be fine.

The president’s optimistic, even nonchalant attitude melted away this week in a series of sudden developments as he crisscrossed meetings at the United Nations in New York. Trump and a coterie of aides were stunned by a swift progression of events that upended their longtime thinking about how an impeachment scenario would proceed. By the time they returned to the White House Thursday, they had tested and retested strategies on the fly as they began to recognize the perilous road ahead that would likely look far different from anything this president or any of his predecessors faced.

“It should never be allowed, what's happened to this president,” Trump told reporters upon stepping off Air Force One.

  Politico

White House aides and allies do not expect the president to calm down anytime soon. Many worry impeachment proceedings will sour the president’s mood and his ability to focus on legislation, any other substantive policy matters or even key elements of the 2020 campaign, much the way Mueller dominated his attention.

They can take that to the bank.

Interviews with more than a dozen White House aides, former administration officials, Republican operatives and close Trump allies showed little consensus on either the best course of action ahead or the consequences for Trump and his presidency.

Where we are as a nation.

The White House attempted to first bat down the controversy by stonewalling Congress on getting the whistleblower complaint. Then the administration veered toward transparency by releasing a summary memo of the call between Trump and the Ukrainian leader, and then the whistleblower complaint.

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[T]he president believed his sudden embrace of transparency would exonerate him, even if he and two Cabinet members worried about the precedent of releasing notes of calls with foreign leaders.

Hes' not very good at guessing about outcomes, is he? He thought firing Comey would take all his problems away. He thought the Mueller report was the end of it. Not the kind of judgment one would like to see in a president.

[B]y Thursday, the administration and allies moved into a new phase of attempting to discredit the whistleblower, whose complaint kicked off the events that brought Trump to this point. Republicans, privately and vaguely, tried to cast the whistleblower as a partisan figure without offering any evidence, while Trump reportedly referred to the whistleblower as a spy.

But some former aides also say Trump himself has made things much worse for himself with his changing story, a reflection of the president’s long-held approach to decision-making.

Also not something we like to see in a president.

“You get one version of the story, and then you go, ‘Oh okay.’ But then you go, ‘Oh wait, there’s another version. We forgot to tell you these 10 other things,'” said one of the former senior White House officials. On calls with foreign leaders, the president “has a comfort level where he says whatever is on his mind.”

After days of differing messages offered between his U.N. meetings, the president spent part of Thursday taking Twitter jabs at both the whistleblower and Democrats.

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“Pelosi sacrificed Biden’s presidential campaign to get Trump, and now Elizabeth Warren is going to be the nominee, which I think every Trump person with a brain would prefer,” said a person close to the campaign.

EVERY person with a brain SHOULD prefer.

Republicans’ confidence in Trump’s ability to survive this scandal appears to largely rest with McConnell and his grip on his caucus, not necessarily with the White House.

Even McConnell is up against a formidable obstruction: Trump.

But Trump allies and current and former aides argue the White House has been anticipating the moment of Trump’s impeachment since he first took office.

“It’s like crack cocaine to the Democrats. They can’t not take the hit,” said Michael Caputo, a former Trump 2016 campaign official. “If the Republicans aren’t ready for impeachment after having two and a half years to prepare, then we shouldn’t be in politics,” adding that he believed the White House was “completely prepared” and the Senate, “bullet-proof.”

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A White House official claimed there “is a very positive mood” in the building. “Everybody's just absolutely thrilled.”

That's hillarious. They trot that out at every step.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.