Remember
when your ex-friend told you that Donald Trump was playing chess while everyone
else was playing checkers? If you thought Trump was unintelligent, it was
because you were failing to see his long
game.
There certainly
are chess players in this surreal drama where we now live, but none of them are
named Donald Trump. Vladimir Putin is playing chess. Kim Jong-un is playing
chess, and thankfully, Robert Mueller has been playing chess from the moment he
was appointed special counsel.
Remember
when we were afraid Donald Trump would fire Robert Mueller? Or that he would
order Rod Rosenstein to do the dirty job? Remember when he tried so hard to discredit
the Mueller team by branding them as 17 angry Democrats, even though most are
registered Republicans?
It seems
like ages ago that Matthew Whitaker would either fire Mueller or clip his wings
by defunding the investigation or limiting its scope. It seems like years ago that
William Barr would stop the investigation in its tracks by declaring it out of
bounds the very moment he was sworn in as attorney general.
But that was
yesterday, and this plot never pauses long enough for the audience to take a
breath.
To his small
credit, Donald Trump has always been afraid of Robert Mueller, but this is not
fear based on deductive reasoning. In his heart, Donald Trump knows that he is incapable
of comprehending the use of strategy. He is intellectually limited to instinctive
moves. He knows to fear Mueller like a cocky hyena knows to fear a relentless
lion, sensing that he is being stalked by a superior predator.
He smells
it. And now, he shows it. We can see it in his eyes and hear it in his
devolving speech.
Mueller did
what Trump would never be able to imagine, because it does not exist in Trump’s
universe. Mueller made himself dispensable. He did this by making more Muellers.
In a
simultaneous chess exhibition, a superior chess player, or grandmaster, will
play as many as 40 or 50 opponents at one time, by moving from one chess board
to the next after making a move.
Now imagine
that instead of a grandmaster, the lone player is one who cannot think beyond
the immediate present. And imagine that his opponents are sharing information
amongst themselves to help them prepare for their next moves.
At one table
sits the Southern District of New York, nicknamed the Sovereign District of New
York because of their reputation of independence, relentlessness, and track
record in taking down high-profile criminals.
Sharing the
next table are the Attorney General for the State of New York and the Manhattan
District Attorney. A presidential pardon works for federal crimes, but not for state
crimes. Do you think that career white collar criminals like Donald Trump and
Paul Manafort cheat on their federal tax returns but not on their state tax
returns? Is it likely that the Trump Organization and the Trump family
meticulously operated within state and local laws? Look no further than to the
Trump Foundation and Trump University for the answer to that question.
Now, as
Michael Cohen and the future witnesses named by Cohen, lead to more House investigations
by more U.S. attorneys, more attorneys general, and more district attorneys who
will take their places in the most important chess tournament that has ever
taken place – important legally, politically, and morally.
And what are
the stakes?
Well, let’s
start with the future of the Trump presidency, the survival of the Trump
business empire, the freedom of Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump and
Jared Kushner. When lawbreaking is allowed to become your privileged routine,
you don’t do less of it. In fact, you stop giving it a second thought.
What is giving them a second thought are
those sealed indictments that await Mueller’s decision to unseal them – at the
time of his choosing. They are all part of Mueller’s unrevealed long game.
Donald Trump
is feeling his powerlessness. His rambling two-hour speech at CPAC smelled of
desperation. His failures on the world stage have shattered his “Only I can fix
it.” myth, just when he needed it the most.
Publicly referring
to Apple’s Tim Cook as Tim Apple is just another poetic reminder that the man
who went to such great lengths to conceal his grades and S.A.T. scores is as
ill prepared to handle the escalating chess attacks as he was to assume the lofty
position that he never really wanted.
Just think! Instead
of taking second prize, he could have had Trump Tower Moscow. As the man
himself would say, Sad! Very SAD!
