I know he is not one to admit defeat, but honestly I think that if Trump looked ahead at the big picture, his best move at this point would be to resign. And I mean this year.
It would be the worst thing for the Democrats and the best thing for the GOP and himself.
Here’s why.
First, I don’t think he ever imagined winning. He is ill suited to the job, doesn’t seem to enjoy it, and I imagine he would much rather run his business than have to deal with Pelosi and the endless scrutiny he is now facing.
Second, he needs an out. If he loses in 2020 he will be going to jail for the rest of his life, if not by the DOJ certainly by the SDNY. What he needs is a pardon, and to do that he needs to walk away and have Pence become President. Pence can then pardon him in the same way Ford pardoned Nixon.
Now, he can gamble and try to win in 2020 and then just resign if he loses and have Pence pardon him during the lame duck period. But the GOP would certainly want a chance to win in 2020 if the numbers are looking bad for him by putting up someone more palatable to the voters. Resigning this year allows the GOP to either bolster Pence or generate additional candidates and debates for public consumption. This would also allow the GOP a better chance to hold the Senate.
If he actually wins in 2020, he can then be impeached, which he almost certainly will be. The only reason Pelosi is holding off is because she feels the straighter path to getting him out of office is the 2020 election. That will not be the case should he win. Not only will he be a target so will his kids and his businesses. He will lose that which he actually cares about trying to keep a job he never wanted.
The only way he winds up walking out like a boss and then starting the next chapter of his life is to go out on his own terms, a legend to his followers. He can take what he has done and turn it into a successful media empire or even an entire takeover of the GOP with him as the kingmaker, free from scrutiny and making big bucks.
Do I think he would do that? No, the narcissism he suffers from doesn’t allow him to admit defeat even when he wins as a result.
It goes against precedent to go after people in former administrations, and I doubt that will be any different in this case regardless of next year or 4 more after that.
Now an individual state might do so for various things but its fairly unusual.
Why do you assume Trump would “go to jail for the rest of his life”? Even if he were to be convicted in a trial or, more likely, took a plea, as a first-time white collar offender, what’s the precedent for that type of punishment? There’s none. A more likely motive for Trump would be to protect his financial resources.
I was reading the new Wolff book and that was Steve Bannon’s prediction. And Bannon may be a white nationalist scumbag who looks like a gender swapped Roseanne Barr on a ten year meth bender, but he’s weirdly honest in his own way.
One of the reasons why I think that they all tried to grift on the 2016 election was because they didn’t think that they would win and that a Clinton Administration would break the taboo of pursuing an investigation against a political opponent.
10 reasonable counts of obstruction of justice coupled with the SDNY probes into illegal campaign finance actions regarding hush money to porn stars and playmates means at least a decade or two in the clink. That is before they actually get ahold of his tax returns, and there is bound to be lots of tomfoolery there as well.
He could face serious time and certainly the dismantling of his empire if he persists in fighting.
I think they did it because they were almost all already white collar crooks and that’s what crooks who’ve never had to face any real consequences for their actions do, personally.
Don’t kid yourself. Even if pardoned on the federal level, liberals/conservatives still need to make an example of Trump. New York state (and all it’s liberals) will continue to go after Trump with everything they have. They won’t stop until they feel they are vindicated for Hillary not being in office, and for all the “good work” Obama did that was unraveled.
