David Remnick: The Floodgates Open on Trump

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-floodgates-open-on-trump?fbclid=IwAR0Y2Lx-moMpyNNWhgq3Yj7GZcrnyCnYC1IHFYyA3I1GPJqvTrwNZlcEQeg


The Floodgates Open on Trump
By David Remnick
September 30, 2019
In the wake of the whistle-blower complaint, the President’s disregard of democratic norms has reached a point of crisis. Will more people come forward with damning information?

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Among the most pressing questions being discussed now in Washington is how long Republican members of Congress and former White House officials will continue to show fealty to Trump. “I am still stunned that Republicans are circling the wagons in the way that they are,” Murphy said. “They may just decide to ride this out. It may be that they are so entwined around the President, they are so stuck to him with Super Glue, that they can never come unbound.”

The testimony of the whistle-blower could be a dramatic chapter in this unfolding drama. But who else might come forward to testify? One might be Yovanovitch, who has so far steered clear of speaking publicly about her dismal, and deeply unjust, fate at the hands of the Administration. Others might include Kurt Volker, who just resigned his post as special representative for Ukraine; lawyers in the White House counsel’s office; and other high-ranking officials—including former cabinet secretaries, national-security advisers, and chiefs of staff—who may finally see no point in reserving their soured descriptions of Trump for deep-background sessions with reporters and authors. They may soon decide it is time to speak in their own names, for the sake of history, decency, and their reputations. And finally: What level of perfidy in the White House, what permutation of public opinion, will it take before Mitch McConnell decides he can no longer continue his cynical marriage to Trump?

It can be assumed that the President will go on using the weapons he learned at the feet of Roy Cohn: constant attack, ruthless threats, the shameless propagation of conspiracy theories. John Dean, whose testimony helped to tip the scales against Richard Nixon in the Watergate affair, told me that the character of Donald Trump insures that this story could get far uglier than it already is.