Trump Goes on Retweeting Bender Ahead of William Barr Testimony, Impeachment Threats

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | May 1, 2019 |

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | May 1, 2019 |

You know, in theory, I like the approach AOC took in the midterms: She largely ignored Trump, focused on her own message, and attacked the establishment. I don’t think it’s going to work in the Presidential election, however, because Democratic voters, more than anything, seem to respond to head-on attacks against the President. Aside from the Friends factor, it might explain Joe Biden’s surge in the polls this week: He’s getting under Trump’s skin.

In fact, this morning — a few days after Joe Biden secured the endorsement of the Firefighters’ union — Trump went loony-tunes on Twitter.

Trump has retweeted 60 tweets in the past 18 minutes, nearly all of them in response to Joe Biden’s endorsement by the firefighters union. To my knowledge, we’ve never seen him retweet this many people in such a short period of time.

— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) May 1, 2019

it's 6 in the morning and the president of the united states is coked to the gills and retweeting sycophants as fast as his stubby little vienna sausage fingers will allow, just as our founding fathers intended

— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) May 1, 2019

The man was retweeting so indiscriminately that he even retweeted a Bernie supporter (and check out that Twitter handle):

So whoever tweeted this tricked the Stable-Genius-in-Chief into retweeting it. pic.twitter.com/GClhrYWWfz

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) May 1, 2019

I have loved Elizabeth Warren’s policy proposals, and there’s some evidence (a mini-jump in the polls) that suggest that people are responding. But I do wonder why Warren has not been dragging the President, which is something she did so well back in 2016. Maybe their people know something I don’t, but a good red-meat dragging seems to be exactly what is needed here. After all, Warren’s rise in the polls didn’t only coincide with her student debt proposal, but along with Warren’s decision to become the first 2020 candidate to call for Trump’s impeachment.

Speaking of which, impeachment seems to be very much on the table again, although the Democrats may endeavor to impeach Attorney General William Barr first. We learned yesterday that Bob Mueller sent Barr a letter disagreeing with the characterization of his summary of the Mueller Report, and it’s all looking very bad for William Barr, who has given up any pretense of independence. It has set off a round of impeachment threats (in fact, #ImpeachBarr was trending on Twitter last night):

Attorney General Barr willfully misled the American people to cover up attempted crimes by Donald Trump. He should resign his position or face an impeachment inquiry immediately. https://t.co/dTKCMccF7X

— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) April 30, 2019

Barr will testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee committee today, and he’s got a lot of explaining to do. I do not expect it to go well for him. Should the Democrats attempt to impeach Barr, it could be a test run for impeachment proceedings against the President. God knows, there’s a good case against both of them.

Speaking of which, while the House seemed unlikely to impeach the President after the Mueller Report’s initial release — content to continue investigations into Trump’s misdeeds — the President’s stonewalling may prompt House Democrats to reverse course. From the NYTimes:

But Democrats see Mr. Trump’s latest string of provocations — starting with his blanket declaration last week that he would defy all subpoenas requested by Democratic committees and culminating in this week’s legal action — as a dangerous abuse of executive authority that they must address forcefully.

Allies of Ms. Pelosi are publicly floating possible countermeasures, including even pursuing a narrow path to impeachment based on Mr. Trump’s refusal to respect the oversight authority of Congress, a move modeled on the third article of impeachment drafted against President Richard M. Nixon in 1974.

Elijah Cummings is also threatening to fine and/or imprison a former White House staffer who refuses to testify about security clearances.

Meanwhile, speaking of prison, Julian Assange is going there, for 50 weeks, for skipping bail in the UK.

Just another day in Trumpmerica, folks.