When Trump is put on hold
聽President Trump isn’t driving news cycles these days – no matter how hard he tries.
He’s a mere bystander, because his impeachment is revving up, and associated developments are sapping him of his usual ability to engage in shenanigans.
That’s got to be troublesome for Trump.
As the writer, Stephen Metcalf puts it, “The man is nothing but the sum of his insecurities.”
So, when he’s not snatching the spotlight and focusing it on himself, he’s forced to, well, do his job.
He becomes a popinjay with no pop, I suppose.
On the very night that the House of Representatives voted to turn over two articles of impeachment to the Senate, that should have been at the top of every frontpage, and every newscast.
It wasn’t for long.
As it happened, Lev Parnas, the Soviet-born businessman, and associate of Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, willingly stole the spotlight.
He appeared on MSNBC and CNN, where he delivered explosive blows to Trump’s claims that he never threatened to withhold financial support to Ukraine, unless it commenced investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.
Parnas, who was indicted last fall for campaign violations, told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that Trump knew he was a part of a scheme to put heat on the Ukraine government, in order to embarrass the man who is currently the Democratic frontrunner for president.
He called Trump a “liar” for denying he knows who he is.
He went much further. “He was aware of all my movements. I wouldn’t do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani or the president. I have no intent, I have no reason to speak to any of these officials,” he told Maddow.
Parnas wasn’t finished.
He implicated Vice President Pence; Republican firebrand, Devin Nunes; Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo and Attorney General William Barr on a variety of fronts dealing with their knowledge of Trump’s and Giuliani’s interests in Ukraine.
Nunes, by the way, has repeatedly denied even knowing Parnas. After Parnas appeared, Nunes changed his mind. He now remembers talking to Parnas on the phone.
By early Thursday morning, there was another startling development.
This time, Ukraine grabbed a headline.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs announced it’s commencing an investigation.
Not the one that Trump had hoped for.
Apparently members of Ukraine’s government were paying attention to Parnas, as he spoke on CNN and MSNBC.
Or, they’re aware of the thousands of documents that Parnas released that seem to indicate that Trump’s associates may have placed the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, under surveillance – making an already sticky situation, stickier.
That was very early on Thursday.
A little later, it was revealed that the Trump administration had, indeed, broken the law.
That word came from the government watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (the GAO).
The GAO found that the Office of Management and Budget broke a federal law by withholding money that was designed to go to Ukraine for its defense.
That legal opinion in part said, “Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law.”
That opinion isn’t going to elicit any chants of “Lock Him Up,” but it’s just another hot coal thrown on Trump’s political fire.
And there’s no shortage of those these days.
There’ve been 13 U.S. presidents in my lifetime. (don’t try to figure it out. I’m 71 years-old)
In my 71 years, three presidents have been the subject of impeachment inquiries (Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump) – and two of them (Clinton and Trump) have now been impeached.
What separates Trump’s impeachment from Clinton’s is the fact that this time, there are ongoing developments that are taking place while the official proceedings are happening.
All preventing Trump from hogging headlines.
History, no doubt, will be made in the coming weeks.
Yet, Trump will just have to sit by and watch.
It couldn’t get much worse for a guy who hungers for the spotlight.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight and 20-year TV news veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.