HAS TRUMP LOST THE JOURNAL?

The Wall Street Journal has had it with Trump and suggests he releases everything, from phone calls to taxes

TAYLOR LINK

The Wall Street Journal’s edi­to­r­i­al board, a cham­pi­on of American con­ser­vatism, is fed up with their Republican pres­i­dent. The Journal pub­lished a scathing edi­to­r­i­al Tuesday crit­i­ciz­ing the way in which President Donald Trump has han­dled Russia’s elec­tion inter­fer­ence and the sub­se­quent inves­ti­ga­tions that have followed.

“Even Donald Trump might agree that a major rea­son he won the 2016 elec­tion is that vot­ers couldn’t abide Hillary Clinton’s lega­cy of scan­dal, decep­tion and stonewalling,” the piece start­ed. “Yet on the sto­ry of Russia’s med­dling in the 2016 elec­tion, Mr. Trump and his fam­i­ly are repeat­ing the mis­takes that doomed Mrs. Clinton.”

From “fake news” to “noth­ing-burg­er,” the Trump White House has dis­missed the Russia scan­dal as mere fan­ta­sy. But in the eyes of the Wall Street Journal, the Trump fam­i­ly can­not claim inno­cence when news report after news report con­tin­ues to refute lie after lie.

The Journal focused on the lat­est sto­ry involv­ing Donald Trump Jr. and the meet­ing he held with a Russian attor­ney dur­ing the cam­paign. The con­ser­v­a­tive paper laid out all the mis­takes the president’s son made while try­ing to man­age the crisis.

“First Don Jr. let news of the meet­ing leak with­out get­ting ahead of it. Then the White House tried to explain it away as a “noth­ing-burg­er” that focused on adop­tions from Russia,” the edi­to­r­i­al board wrote. “When that was exposed as incom­plete, Don Jr. released his emails that showed the Russian lure about Mrs. Clinton and Don Jr. all excit­ed — ‘I love it.’”

“Even if the ulti­mate truth of this tale is mere­ly that Don Jr. is a polit­i­cal dunce who took a meet­ing that went nowhere — the best case — the Trumps made it appear as if they have some­thing to hide,” the arti­cled added. “They have cre­at­ed the appear­ance of a con­spir­a­cy that on the evi­dence Don Jr. lacks the wit to con­coct. And they hand­ed their oppo­nents anoth­er of the swords that by now could arm a Roman legion.”

The paper not­ed that the pres­i­dent can­not just excul­pate him­self in the court of pub­lic opin­ion. Congressional com­mit­tees and a spe­cial coun­sel have been con­duct­ing their own investigations.

“Everything that is poten­tial­ly dam­ag­ing to the Trumps will come out, one way or anoth­er. Everything,” the board wrote. “Denouncing leaks as ‘fake news’ won’t wash as a counter-strat­e­gy beyond the President’s base, as Mr. Trump’s lat­est 36% approval rat­ing shows.”

The Journal then offered a sug­ges­tion that pres­i­dent could only laugh at in response.

“Release every­thing to the pub­lic ahead of the inevitable leaks,” the board wrote. “Disclose every detail that might be rel­e­vant to the Russian inves­ti­ga­tions. That means every meet­ing with any Russian or any American with Russian busi­ness ties. Every phone call or email. And every Trump busi­ness rela­tion­ship with Russians going back years. This should include every rel­e­vant part of Mr. Trump’s tax returns, which the President will resist but Mr. Mueller is sure to seek anyway.”

The edi­to­r­i­al board argued that full, imme­di­ate dis­clo­sure would cause less dam­age than the slow drip of reports com­ing from the media.

“If there real­ly is noth­ing to the Russia col­lu­sion alle­ga­tions, trans­paren­cy will prove it. Americans will give Mr. Trump cred­it for trust­ing their abil­i­ty to make a fair judg­ment. Pre-emp­tive dis­clo­sure is the only chance to con­tain the polit­i­cal harm from future rev­e­la­tions,” the arti­cle said.

The Journal warned that if Trump’s approval rat­ing stays below 40 per­cent, then all Republicans will suf­fer the con­se­quences, like­ly lead­ing to a win for Democrats in the House, which would only lead to more intense investigations.

“Impeachment will be a con­stant under­cur­rent if not an active threat. His sup­port­ers will become demor­al­ized,” the board predicted.

“Mr. Trump some­how seems to believe that his out­size per­son­al­i­ty and social-media fol­low­ing make him larg­er than the Presidency. He’s wrong. He and his fam­i­ly seem obliv­i­ous to the bru­tal real­i­ties of Washington pol­i­tics. Those real­i­ties will destroy Mr. Trump, his fam­i­ly and their busi­ness rep­u­ta­tion unless they change their strat­e­gy toward the Russia probe. They don’t have much more time to do it,” the Journal concluded.
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