As Trump throws VP Pence under the bus, should we be getting ready for President Pelosi?
All the president’s loyalists: Impeachment net snares Trump’s top advisersThe president’s senior aides are about to face the punishing spotlight of an impeachment inquiry, the beginning of personal and professional costs spreading throughout Trump's orbit.Donald Trump has done it again: He’s dragged some of his closest aides and advisers into a scandal packed with potentially devastating personal consequences.
That’s good news for white-collar lawyers who charge by the hour.
But an investigation into allegations that Trump pressured his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Joe Biden and his son is hardly the kind of thing to be embraced by those orbiting Trumpworld, including Vice President Mike Pence; some of the most important aides, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General William Barr and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney; and his own personal attorney at the center of it all, Rudy Giuliani.
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They all face a long road ahead with the prospect of hefty legal bills, reputational scars and damaged political prospects hanging over them for years.
It isn’t a new phenomenon. Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and Michael Flynn all can attest to what happens when their own conduct gets scrutinized over the course of a high-level investigation that started because of Trump.
President Bill Clinton’s top aides suffered as well during six years of independent counsel probes and an impeachment battle. Watergate, of course, popularized “All the President’s Men” for the sheer breadth of people swept up in President Richard Nixon’s downfall.
“While it’s not quite Watergate, which is where Nixon got drawn into it by his senior staff, this is a situation where I think even more offensively the president seems to have embroiled his close confidants in his own mischief,” said Philip Lacovara, a former top prosecutor on the special prosecutor team that examined Nixon’s conduct.
For starters, all of the people in the president’s world with ties to the Ukraine scandal can expect to get hauled up for congressional hearings — during which the questioning in a Democratic-led impeachment investigation is sure to be anything but friendly.
Then there are the personal legal challenges ahead. At least through next November, they probably can breathe easily. But experts note that Trump’s political fate is also their fate.
“The primary worry they’re going to have is 2021, if the election goes against President Trump,” Lacovara said. “If Trump is reelected , then I think they’ll be pretty well insulated by a pliant DOJ.”
Here’s a look at some of the key players surrounding the president who will be among the first to face a punishing spotlight as the impeachment inquiry ensnares Trumpworld.
Mike Pence
Few are more important in Trump’s orbit on foreign policy than the vice president. Pence is Trump’s right-hand man when dealing with fellow world leaders. He’s often piped in for phone calls. And the two strategize about it all at their weekly lunches.
It’s with that pedigree that the president dispatched Pence earlier this month to cover for him in Poland on a trip that included a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Asked by a reporter whether they’d discussed Joe Biden, Pence said the conversation covered U.S. financial support for the Eastern European country and “corruption.”
Trump is hardly helping the matter. During a Wednesday news conference in which the threat of impeachment loomed, the president pretty much tossed his No. 2 to the wolves. “I think you should ask for Vice President Pence's conversations, because he had a couple conversations also,” Trump said. “I could save you a lot of time. They were all perfect. Nothing was mentioned of any import other than congratulations.“
William Barr
The attorney general has seen his reputation savaged since joining the Trump administration at the start of 2019. He ran afoul of his longtime friend Robert Mueller over how he handled the end of the special counsel’s Russia probe. In July, his defiance alongside Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross of congressional subpoenas prompted a House vote to hold them in criminal contempt — the second time in U.S. history that’s happened to a sitting Cabinet member.
Now there’s the Ukraine mess.
Barr joined the story on Wednesday when the White House released notes from a July phone call between Trump and Zelensky in which the president twice named the attorney general as someone who should be part of the country’s effort to investigate the Bidens. A Justice Department spokeswoman said Trump never directly asked Barr to begin a Biden probe, though that hardly quelled the concerns from Democrats. House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said Barr needs to recuse himself from the issue. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, called the attorney general a “witness that will be called to testify” in the impeachment investigation.
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/09/26/impeachment-trump-top-advisers-001484