Donald Trump may still strike fear in the hearts of many Republican politicians, but there are signs the twice-impeached former president is losing the backing of some of his strongest supporters, including disillusioned Capitol rioters who think he screwed them and former key staff members who finally realize the damage he's done.
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At the same time, Attorney General Merrick Garland has hinted that Trump could be in his crosshairs, which suggests that prosecution by the DOJ is a possibility. In addition, a number of determined Democrats are quietly exploring how Trump could be disqualified constitutionally from ever holding office again.
Of course, the special committee investigating the January 6 insurrection continues its work with the participation of two renegade Republicans, Reps. Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL). The committee's report is expected to be released prior to the November 2022 Congressional elections.
Is Trump on a sinking ship? Is that too much to hope for? After all, Trump's base remains solid and recent polls show that, as of now, he would easily walk away with the Republican presidential nomination as he maintains his ironclad grip on the GOP. Moreover, his political supporters in red states are doing everything they can to rig election laws in their favor and Senate Republicans are blocking federal voting reform legislation to counter those actions.
“Let’s just say I’m horrendously disappointed,” said former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican, who now serves on the advisory committee of the Renew America Movement, a group trying to wrest the party away from Trump’s control.
“His ego was never going to let him accept defeat and go quietly into the night,” she added. “But what I am surprised by is how deferential so many of the Republican elected officials” have been. Whitman's comments were reported by The Associated Press.
The Justice Department
But if remarks by Garland are to be taken at face value, Trump's future may not be quite so rosy.
In remarks Wednesday, the day before President Biden blasted Trump for his role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection, Garland said his department "remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law, whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy."
"The actions we have taken thus far will not be our last," he warned. “We build investigations by laying a foundation. We resolve more straightforward cases first because they provide the evidentiary foundation for more complex cases,” Garland said, adding, “There cannot be different rules for the powerful and the powerless.”
Was Garland suggesting a Trump prosecution could be coming? Or was he just trying to satisfy Democrats who have been critical of the Biden administration's cautious approach to any such action? We shall see.
The Emperor Has No Clothes
Meanwhile, CNN reported that a number of former Trump administration officials who once paid homage to Trump, now are seeking ways to prevent their former boss from entering office again.
Stephanie Grisham, former White House press secretary and chief of staff to the First Lady, said the group will meet next week to discuss how to "try and stop" Trump because of the "kind of violence and rhetoric that has been talked about and continues to divide our country."
Grisham said about 15 former Trump administration officials — some ranking higher than her — have held informal discussions and plan to meet in person.
“I think that there were a few of us who, again, have been sitting back watching him continue to manipulate and spread this big lie and continue to harm our country,” Grisham told CNN. “And [we] started some informal chats and then started throwing around ideas of what we could do, how we could formalize it."
“I just think that it will be important for people in this country who are still supporting him to hear from people who actually worked with him day in, day out, worked with a lot of people in his inner circle," she said.
"We’re not going to just talk about the former president. We’re going to talk about the people who are surrounding him still now and who they really are," Grisham added. "You can still be proud of his policies, you can still be behind a lot of the America First policies that he implemented, which I am, but it doesn’t have to be him. It just doesn’t have to be this man who has caused such chaos and destruction in the country.”
So disillusionment has set in, even among those who were closest to Trump, including those who were responsible for spreading his messages and lies. Among those rumored to be part of this group is "The Mooch," former communications director Anthony Scaramucci.
Like the old minister in the Hans Christian Andersen parable, "The Emperor Has No Clothes," they were true believers. But finally they have realized that Trump, their former emperor, is a fake, a fraud, and a danger to our country. Grisham says she plans to travel the country spreading the word about the dangers of Donald Trump. Hopefully, she will be wearing actual clothes and not imaginary ones like Anderson's emperor. Of course, she's also promoting her book.
The Insurrectionists
Also upset with Trump are many of those who entered the Capitol last January 6 and in his name participated in the illegal effort to overturn Biden's election. At least 170 rioters have pleaded guilty and more than 70 have been sentenced. One case was dismissed and two others closed after the people who had been charged died. No one has been found not guilty.
The Associated Press analyzed many of the statements made by perpetrators of the Capitol riot and their lawyers during court appearances. Here are just three of those reported by the AP:
“The entire experience was surreal. I trusted the President and that was a big mistake.”—Leonard Gruppo, of Clovis, NM, in a letter to the judge sentencing him. Gruppo, a retired Special Forces soldier, was sentenced to three months’ house arrest.
“I have realized that we, meaning Trump supporters, were lied to by those that at the time had great power, meaning the then sitting President, as well as those acting on his behalf. They kept spitting out the false narrative about a stolen election and how it was ‘our duty’ to stand up to tyranny. Little did I realize that they were the tyrannical ones desperate to hold on to power at any cost, even by creating the chaos they knew would happen with such rhetoric.”—Robert Palmer, of Largo, FL, in a handwritten letter. Palmer threw a fire extinguisher and attacked police officers. He was given more than five years in prison.
“False claims were made on media sources, as well as by the President himself, that the election system had been corrupted and that the integrity of the election should be questioned. ... Mr. Croy believed what he read on the internet and heard from the President himself — that the election had been stolen.”—attorney Kira Anne West, writing in a court filing for Glenn Wes Lee Croy, from Colorado Springs, CO, who was sentenced to three months’ home detention.
The 14th Amendment
Behind the scenes over the past year, a group of Democrats, constitutional scholars and pro-democracy advocates have been exploring how the 14th Amendment to the Constitution could be used to disqualify Trump from holding office in the future, according to a report by John Kruzel in The Hill.
The publication reported that about a dozen Democratic lawmakers have spoken either publicly or privately over the last year about how Section 3 of the 14th Amendment might apply to those who engaged in insurrection on Jan. 6.
Among those whose offices are said to have spoken recently with Laurence Tribe, a constitutional expert at Harvard Law School, about this are Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a member of the Jan. 6 House Select Committee; Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who chairs the House Judiciary Committee; and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL).
“I continue to explore all legal paths to ensure that the people who tried to subvert our democracy are not in charge of it,” Wasserman Schultz told The Hill.
That sounds like an ominous warning, but the Democrats and the Justice Department need to act fast. If the Trump Republican Party takes over Congress in the November elections, the man who has outlasted two impeachments, a resounding defeat at the polls, numerous court challenges, and who brashly hints at another run for the White House, will likely skate free again.
If that happens and Trump returns to the presidency, our nation, as we know it, will be no more.