Donald Trump Learned One Lesson From Impeachment & That Lesson Is That He Can Do Whatever He Wants

image: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Unsurprisingly, the man with the large back tattoo of Richard Nixon is still causing problems, even on his way to prison.

Yesterday, all four of the prosecutors in the case against longtime Trump ally Roger Stone abruptly resigned after the Justice Department came in and overruled their sentencing recommendation. The prosecutors had suggested that Stone serve between seven and nine years–a standard punishment for the litany of crimes he committed. But then Donald Trump went and tweeted his displeasure and hours later, the Justice Department overruled the recommendation.

Trump has denied that he interfered in the case, saying it wasn’t him, it was the DoJ, as if his very public tweet (not to mention any other conversations that might have happened privately) had nothing to do with it. He also told reporters that if he wanted to interfere, he could, claiming “I have the absolute right to do it.” (He does not.)

Trump also used Twitter to congratulate Attorney William Barr for the interference. He also attacked the prosecutors, insinuating that they had been caught in some sort of shady operation, since the case against Stone stemmed from Robert Mueller’s investigation, which, according to Trump, makes it inherently invalid and even criminal.

I know the “can you imagine any other president doing this” game got old a long time ago but seriously, can you imagine any other president doing this?

For years, Trump has been obsessing over a half-hour conversation between Bill Clinton and then-AG Loretta Lynch that occurred about a decade and a half after Clinton left office. The two spoke in a private plane while it sat on a tarmac, and Lynch later testified to Congress that they talked mostly about their children and other friendly subjects.

But the conversation happened just a few days before the FBI closed the case on Hillary Clinton’s private email server, so Trump is convinced that that’s what was discussed on that plane. He has repeatedly claimed without a speck of evidence that it was proof of corruption and a conspiracy against him. Because apparently, corruption in the Department of Justice is something that really concerns him, unless he’s the one doing the corrupting. Meaning it’s less concern and more jealousy.

Trump is (and has been for a while now) treating Barr like his own personal lawyer, which is absolutely not the role of the Attorney General. Back when Jeff Sessions was the AG, Trump didn’t hide his frustration over Sessions’ unwillingness to put his loyalty to Trump over his actual job. Barr, though, seems to have embraced the position wholeheartedly.

Democratic lawmakers are now calling on Barr to resign, which is definitely not something he’s going to do, but I suppose we should still go through the process of saying it, for the sake of those shattered norms.

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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