The Dam Breaks

It's been quite a week for Donald Trump.  He managed to hold off revelations about his stupendous criminality for over two years, through a combination of threats, bribes, bullying and just hiring corrupt tools like Barr and Giuliani, who won't turn on him because they are involved in his criminality up to their necks.

But things changed this week.

Ambassador Marie Yovanovich, who was fired because she stood in the way of Trump's crooked schemes in Ukraine, refused a State Department demand that she keep her mouth shut, and spent nine hours telling a House committee exactly what happened.

Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, has now indicated that he will testify under oath about what he knows, despite also being ordered by the State Department to shut up.

Two of Rudy Giuliani's "business associates" were arrested in the act of trying to flee the country, after a lunch with Rudy.  These men are charged with campaign finance violations, i.e. transferring illegal foreign money to Republican campaigns (did I even need to add the word "Republican" there?)  These allegations include a donation from a Russian oligarch of over $300,000 to Trump's Presidential campaign.

Trump with Rudy and the two men who he never even met.

Rudy himself is under criminal investigation, by the same prosecutor's office he once headed.  And who on earth would count on this pathetic weasel to keep quiet about what he knows, when his freedom is on the line?  And particularly when Donald Trump is showing him the steadfast loyalty for which he is so famous:

"Trump tells reporters he doesn’t know if Giuliani is still his attorney"

Or even ever existed.

We know that there are several more "whistleblowers" waiting in line to tell their part of the story of Trump's corruption.  Who knows what they have to say?

Trump's betrayal of the Kurds is such a grotesque act of criminal indifference that even many Republicans, despite decades of brainwashing, are starting to see what a horrible man he is.  And particularly as his existence becomes a threat to their own political careers.

Prosecutors finally seem to be within striking distance of Trump's tax returns, which if they were revealed would, at this point, be a crushing blow to him; otherwise, why has he fought like a cornered mongoose for years to keep them secret?

Remember that every person that speaks out makes it easier for the next one to speak out; every piece of damning evidence we pry loose makes it that much easier to get the next one; every associate of Trump who is arrested leads to the next one to go down; and every crime that is revealed is a hill which once climbed gives us a view of a whole new range of hills just beyond us.

The strands of this spiderweb are snapping, one by one; a time may soon come that there are not enough left to hold the spider up in the air.

I cannot say that this is what is going to happen, because Trump's power to misuse the Presidency to protect himself from his endless criminality is immense, as is his own party's corruption, but things sure look different today than they did two weeks ago.  A shame that it's too late for the Kurds or the Syrians who are going to be attacked by a resurgent ISIS, but at least we can now pray that it is not too late for the rest of us.

Update:  The following headline appears this Sunday at Talking Points Memo:

"Defense Secretary Says Pentagon Will Comply With Subpoena In Impeachment Inquiry"

As I suggested above, one crack in the wall leads to another one.  It will be very interesting to see where this all leads.


Author's note:  I apologize for comparing both Trump and Rudy to small, angry animals in one post.  I know it is not good form, but I did it anyway.