Trump in trouble

We can be forgiven for thinking Trump will sleaze out of the trouble he's in. He always has. On the other hand, he hasn't ever before in so much trouble in so many places.

INCREASINGLY FRUSTRATED AS the classified documents case against him grinds on, Trump’s claims that he is the victim of a witch hunt have begun to morph into insane cyber rage. In the last few days, he has gone on a series of prolonged online rants, claiming that he should be declared president and reinstated in office.

[...]

[T]the former president is playing the victim — claiming that he is the target of a “witch hunt” by the FBI and Justice Department — in order to threaten America with a form of jury nullification. Trump has three juries in mind: the public, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and the real jury that he may have to face if he is indicted in connection with the Justice Department’s ongoing criminal investigation of classified documents he illegally kept at his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago.

The problem for Trump is that his efforts to convince those three juries to side with him have not been nearly as smooth or subtle as the tactics used by Goodman. Trump doesn’t know how to be subtle or nuanced.

While he has incited his rabid base, he has turned off the broader public. A new Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found that 50 percent of Americans thought Trump should be prosecuted in the classified documents case, while only 41 percent thought he should not.

[...]

[Trump] has sought to use his mob of supporters, who threaten widespread violence, to intimidate the attorney general and convince him to back off the investigation. But that tactic has only made it much more likely that he will be indicted; he is making it very difficult for Garland not to prosecute him. If Garland backs off now, it will look like he caved to Trump’s threats.

Trump has also failed to take advantage of the way other high-profile officials caught up in similar cases involving leaks and the mishandling of classified documents have quietly negotiated with top Justice Department officials in order to avoid serious time in prison.

[...]

As Trump’s legal situation worsens, he could continue to lie about the documents and continue to incite violence against the government with the hope that at least one of his zealots makes it onto his jury.

  James Risen @ The Intercept

As I speculated in a previous post, if the FBI is finding classified documents that Trump possessed in the possession of Victor Vekselberg, he may start negotiating in earnest.

Wealthy and prominent government officials caught up in cases involving classified documents hire expensive and well-connected Washington, D.C., lawyers. [...] If the lawyers are really well connected, they hold very quiet meetings with very senior Justice Department officials — effectively going over the heads of the line prosecutors handling the case — and their client gets nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

Then, magically, officials like former CIA Director David Petraeus are soon back on the lecture circuit and once again appearing on cable news as national security experts.

[...]

Trump has burned so many bridges that it is hard to see how he could ever quietly work out such a deal with the Justice Department. Even his cultishly loyal lawyers have become radioactive with prosecutors, angering the Justice Department with their efforts to politicize the case.

[...]

So with public opinion turning against him and Garland out of reach, Trump’s last resort may be to finally [...] figure out a way to pick off at least one juror in a possible criminal trial.

That is far from impossible. Even if he ends up in court in DC. But then, there's still Georgia. 

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