Summertime celebrations, activities, and responsibilities have afforded little time during the last month to keep abreast of current events, and brought about what is by far the longest interval between entries in these pages since they began in 2017. I am confident that everybody has survived just fine 😉 . A few impressions as we round the corner into the last month of real summer, at least in the upper Midwest:
As all who care are aware, in mid-July, former President Donald Trump received a so-called “Target Letter” from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutorial team, indicating that Mr. Trump is the subject of the federal investigation into the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack. It almost certainly portends an indictment of Mr. Trump for his part in inciting the insurrection.
I was obviously never a judge; I never did criminal law; I did very little courtroom work in my career. While I stand ready to be corrected by any of those reading these notes who have oceans more trial experience than I have, if I was the District of Columbia federal judge hearing the insurrection case against Mr. Trump, I’d have to think pretty hard about whether to grant the Trump team’s inevitable motion to significantly delay the trial date. A criminal defendant should be given a fair opportunity to defend him/herself, and since Mr. Trump is now scheduled to defend himself in New York in March against authorities’ state law charges that he criminally falsified business records, he is now scheduled to defend himself in Florida in May against Mr. Smith’s team’s federal charges that he misappropriated and mishandled classified documents, and he is reportedly facing an August indictment in Georgia by Georgia authorities for his efforts to overturn the 2020 Georgia presidential results – a case that will be on its own state court scheduling track – it’s perhaps becoming problematic as to how, in fairness, a trial dealing with insurrection charges against Mr. Trump could be scheduled prior to the 2024 presidential election.
Next: The most recent edition of Foreign Affairs Magazine is entitled, “Tell Me How This Ends – Is there a Path to Victory in Ukraine?” I haven’t read all the pieces, but one addresses all the ways that the war could end up destabilizing Russian President Vladimir Putin and lead to peace. I consider the authors’ premises closer to pipedream than reality. If Putin was going to be deposed, it would most probably have resulted from Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group’s short-lived and quickly-quashed revolt (which arose, as far as I could tell, not from any wish by Mr. Prigozhin to end the war but because Mr. Prigozhin didn’t think Putin was providing his Group sufficiently aggressive assistance). Another essay declared the war “unwinnable,” noting that even as Ukraine has launched its counteroffensive, “Russian forces are heavily dug in on the most likely axis of advance in the south.” Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt echoed in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, “Between the two armies, there are at least 3 miles of heavily mined territory followed by rows of concrete antitank obstacles, with artillery pieces hidden in nearby forests. The Russian military has amassed so much artillery and ammunition that it can afford to fire 50,000 rounds a day – an order of magnitude more than Ukraine. Traditional military doctrine suggests that an advancing force should have air superiority and a 3-to-1 advantage in soldiers to make steady progress against a dug-in opponent. Ukrainians have neither.” (Mr. Schmidt is obviously an expert in technology, not military tactics, but I quote him because he summarizes sentiments I have heard expressed in other quarters.)
Although some have deplored the Biden Administration’s agreement to provide Ukraine with cluster bombs due to the devastating impact that such launched but unexploded devices can have on civilian populations, I tend to give the Administration the benefit of the doubt: other available artillery may be dwindling, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seems best able to determine whether or not his people are better served by deploying such weapons on his soil.
One can hope but it seems optimistic to expect that the Ukrainians will make significant headway with their current counteroffensive. (As reported above, the Ukrainians have been directing their efforts at the southwest areas of the conflict zone, presumably in an attempt to obtain secure access to the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea that seems essential if the nation is to survive economically when the conflict ultimately ends.) Current accounts are rife with seemingly eerily-apt references to World War I; Barbara Tuchman noted in The Guns of August that after Germany failed to secure a quick military victory by early autumn 1914, “[Then] came the slow deadly sinking into the stalemate of trench warfare. … [L]ike a gangrenous wound across French and Belgian territory, the trenches determined the war of position and attrition, the brutal, mud-filled, murderous insanity known as the Western Front that was to last for four more years.”
The general consensus among commentators is that the parties should be looking for a negotiated settlement. Various options for achieving such a result have been offered: immediately making Ukraine a member of NATO; having Ukraine and Russia agree to an armistice such as exists in Korea; or having America provide defense assurances to Ukraine such as it provides to Israel. The difficulty with these and any other proposals is plain: even if Ukraine was ready to negotiate a peace arrangement – and it’s not – Putin isn’t going anywhere and he isn’t interested in negotiations.
I’m confident that the Russian President sees what we all see: Russia can’t conquer Ukraine militarily, but it can still win – if former President Donald Trump is re-elected. Putin won’t make meaningful overtures for peace with Ukraine unless and until he sees that neither Mr. Trump nor any other isolationist MAGA has a realistic opportunity to win the U.S. presidency. It is what it is. If counseling President Joe Biden, I’d advise him to continue explaining to the American people why Ukraine’s fight is also a fight for our freedom and begin messaging that it is unlikely that there will be a meaningful opportunity to achieve a negotiated settlement until at least 2025.
Next: Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s recent mental “freeze” – some months after he sustained a head injury in a fall – is extremely troubling. Even putting aside human kindness, the possible reminder to some of President Joe Biden’s potential frailty (the men are the same age), and despite Mr. McConnell’s deplorable manipulation of Senate procedures to achieve an aggressively conservative U.S. Supreme Court (efforts which, ironically, have so far backfired on Republicans politically), I would submit that those concerned about American democracy should hope that Mr. McConnell remains sufficiently possessed of his faculties to continue to lead Senate Republicans through 2024. He clearly has no regard for Mr. Trump, and has used his position to limit MAGA influence in the Senate and to support the Administration’s efforts in Ukraine.
Finally: This week, Mr. Smith filed a superseding indictment in the classified documents case against Mr. Trump, and added Carlos De Oliveira, a Mar-a-Lago property manager, as a defendant. The superseding indictment alleges, “De Oliveira told Trump Employee 4 that ‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted. … De Oliveira then insisted to Trump Employee 4 that ‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted and asked, ‘What are we going to do?'”
Mr. Smith’s team is clearly attempting to pressure Mr. De Oliveira to turn state’s evidence. If Mr. De Oliveira does elect to cooperate with prosecutors and his testimony supports their charges, it will seemingly directly implicate Mr. Trump in a criminal conspiracy. The indictment’s allegations regarding Mr. De Oliveira reminded me of a reference posted here in February, 2018, relating to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Mr. Trump:
“As aptly noted in the movie, You’ve Got Mail, The Godfather is … the I Ching; the sum of all wisdom; the answer to any question.
Not specifically called out in the film, Mario Puzo wrote in the novel:
‘[The fictional Don Corleone] … put layers of insulation between himself and any operational act. When he gave an order it was to [the Consigliore] or to one of the caporegimes alone. Rarely did he have a witness to any order he gave any particular one of them …
Between the head of the family, Don Corleone, who dictated policy, and the operating level of men who actually carried out the orders of the Don, there were three layers, or buffers … each link of the chain would have to turn traitor for the Don to be involved …’
If Mr. Mueller and his team are seeking high-level corroboration of evidence against the President, whether they secure it may come down to whether Mr. Trump read The Godfather, or merely saw the movie …”
If Mr. De Oliveira ultimately confirms the Special Counsel’s allegations, I’ll no longer need to wonder; it will be clear that Mr. Trump only saw the movie. 😉
McCoy's Noise 