From the day he took office, and even before, Donald Trump has been looking for a way to discourage, demean, and diminish the FBI. And he finally found it. Trump didn’t take down the FBI by tweeting about James Comey or humming the Deep State theme song, he did it by setting the agency up. By giving them instructions to conduct an investigation in which their every action was so constrained as to be pointless. By seeing that even people who walked through the FBI’s door and tried to give evidence in a case critical to the nation … found a deaf ear. The FBI is, after all, an executive branch agency. This week, Donald Trump weaponized his control of the FBI, and demonstrated conclusively that it could be not simply neutered, but wielded against his opponents, with nothing more than a single sheet of paper … that no one is allowed to see.
It’s not just Trump’s instructions to the FBI that remain hidden. The report produced from their radically restricted investigation was literally taken directly by Trump, sealed in a box, then locked in a vault. Until that lid is lifted—briefly—to allow Senators a brief glimpse, no one knows what is in the FBI report. Even when they do, no one is allowed to repeat the contents, or even characterize the words they read. Consider all of this a preview for the end of the Russia Investigation.
Republican senators, the same Republican senators now hurrying to give Brett Kavanaugh a seat on the Court no matter what’s in the box, have already given Trump the thumbs-up to replace attorney general Jefferson Sessions the moment the election is over. With a new person in charge, it’s not necessary to end the Russia investigation directly. Not when Trump has just seen how effective it can be to turn an investigation to his own ends. Orders could be issued to Robert Mueller that require him to limit the scope of his enquiry to a very few areas, particularly those where Trump feels confident that there is no issue. Trump’s money-laundering, bank fraud, tax fraud, and … hotel activities, could be safely filed away. So could any real evidence of conspiracy.
If there’s any thought that deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein might be an obstacle, think back though the mists of time to … the beginning of last week, when it seemed that Rosenstein had been dismissed in an instant. That day of confusion and crossing announcements showed clearly that Rosenstein can be ridden down as quickly as any of the dozens of others who have come and gone under Trump. But it also showed something else. Something worse.
The events of the last two weeks show that Donald Trump and his White House have weaponized their control of both the Justice System and the media. Trump isn’t weakening. He’s clamping down.
Unfortunately, I’m referring again to my most-cited reference over the last two years, the article that Masha Gessen wrote immediately following Trump’s election.
Rule #3: Institutions will not save you. It took Putin a year to take over the Russian media and four years to dismantle its electoral system; the judiciary collapsed unnoticed. The capture of institutions in Turkey has been carried out even faster, by a man once celebrated as the democrat to lead Turkey into the EU. Poland has in less than a year undone half of a quarter century’s accomplishments in building a constitutional democracy.
What does Gessen point out as the potential institutions that can halt the advance of autocracy: The press and the justice system. Which are, not at all coincidentally, the institutions Trump has been determined to bring to heel.
In many ways, US institutions have put up a good fight. As long as Trump was insistent on directly attacking the FBI and DOJ through his Twitter tirades and furious rallies, his success was only in chipping away at these institutions one director, acting director, and agent at a time. But Trump does not have to destroy the FBI to own it. He already owns it. As demonstrated in the last six days, Trump can simply make the FBI his tool—defining its limits, closing its doors to public complaint, keeping any results hidden.
That last factor is absolutely critical, and worth looking at in detail. Whether it’s the report on Brett Kavanaugh, or the final report from Robert Mueller, there is no reason to think that it will be made public, in whole or in part. Trump doesn’t have to release the report. He doesn’t have to release a summary. Or a word. That box holding the Kavanaugh investigation could simply be marked up with a Sharpie to say “Trump–Russia crap” before it is locked back into a safe, and the safe is buried. Under concrete. Next to Jimmy Hoffa. And just as he has already done with the Kavanaugh report, Trump can order that no one can even hint at what’s inside and report that ultimately comes from Mueller—except for him, of course. All good stuff. It’s only good stuff. Sarah Sanders will be happy to say that much.
The possibility that Mueller’s report never becomes public, went up 200 percent the moment Trump locked up the results of the (pitifully limited) Kavanaugh investigation.
But what about the storm that would come from the media? Yeah … no. Trump has that covered, and the Rosenstein story shows just how well. In the reports that Rod Rosenstein had been handed his walking papers, the Trump White House showed that they could engineer selected leaks to set off a media firestorm. Then they demonstrated that they could leak other information to sow confusion. Then leak still more information to keep juggling the story and hold it at the front of the hour, even though the Senate was in the midst of debating Kavanaugh’s nomination at the time. Finally Team Trump showed that they could not just put the story to bed when they wanted, but do so with an extra flourish, by leaving behind a series of stories that painted Rosenstein as weepy, weak, and terrified of big tough Trump.
The last two weeks are the first in which it all really gelled for Trump and his staff that they don’t have to fight the government, they are the government. The “deep state” theory can be kept on life support, handy for the disposal of anyone who kicks up a fuss, but for the moment expect to see messages from Trump and Republicans praising the FBI and DOJ actions concerning Kavanaugh. And they won’t miss the opportunity to call Democrats hypocrites for supporting Mueller’s look into Trump, but not lining up to accept the results of this abbreviated, constrained, and hidden report.
In the Kavanaugh investigation, Trump has demonstrated that he can:
- So restrict the bounds of an investigation as to make it pointless.
- Keep the orders setting those boundaries hidden.
- Keep the results of the investigation under lock and key.
- Characterize those results to a media that can’t see the actual report, and have that characterization duly reported and treated seriously.
In the “Rosenstein resigned!” incident, Trump’s staff showed that they could:
- Plant leaks to send all of the media running in the same direction.
- Manage the leaks to keep the news on the topic they wanted.
- Wind down the story on demand.
- End the whole thing with a two part win in which Rosenstein looks weaker and firing him seems less shocking.
That is two bad, bad weeks for democracy, and for the hopes that Trump himself can be constrained at some point short of full-on autocracy.
So … what to do about it? Back to Gessen …
Rule #4: Be outraged.
Be outraged. Be energized. And remember that there’s an election just four weeks away that could do for Trump what Trump just did for the FBI — seriously constrain his ability to operate unchecked.