As someone who considers himself to be a connoisseur of the buffet line at Chinese restaurants, I know a thing or two about plate management. The goal is to make sure you leave enough room for the good stuff. Nothing against egg rolls or dumplings, but I'm here for the spare ribs, Lo Mein and General Chow's Chicken, thank you. And please spare me the pudding. My wife can pick that up at the supermarket.
Looking at Democrats these days, it's clear that most of them have never poked their heads inside of a Chinese restaurant, let alone stood on the buffet line. Because I'm seeing an awful lot of egg rolls on their plates, not to mention some pudding.
Look, I get it: keeping track of this administration's misconduct is like trying to count the grains of sand in the Sahara. It's a never ending process that even with the most advanced computer, is an impossible task. That's why it's incumbent upon House Democrats to focus their attention where it will be the most effective.
Case in point, Attorney General - and personal lackey - William Barr. With the exception of an exchange between him and Kamala Harris, in which the latter clearly cleaned his clock, most Senate Democrats were swimming upstream. When James Comey remarked that Trump had "eaten" the souls of both Barr and Rod Rosenstein, he left out one salient point: you have to have a soul for it to be eaten. Anyone who willingly signs up to work for Trump has made it abundantly clear that they not only don't have one, they also don't have any pride or self respect. The only question that remains for Barr is whether he will suffer the same fate as everyone else who has done this president's bidding.
And regarding Barr, to say he was a hostile witness would be putting it mildly. I've seen enough episodes of Law and Order to know that hostile witnesses more often than not muddy up the waters and confuse the jury. And confused juries tend to return unpredictable verdicts. The jury in this case is the American public.
So when House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler says he will hold Barr in contempt for refusing to appear before his committee, the question I would ask him is why? Why on Earth would you give a man who has disgraced the oath of his office a platform to continue to pedal Trump's lies? Move on, Jerry. You have bigger fish to fry.
In fact, Democrats need to face some hard truths. They don't have the resources, nor the time, to chase down every scandal this White House is embroiled in. In 18 months, the electorate will go to the polls to decide the presidential election. They will also decide which party controls Congress. The Senate, at this point, is no better than a tossup, but the House should be safe. That is, unless, voters feel as though Democrats have overreached; i.e., stuffed too much shit onto their plates.
So in the interest of making sure that doesn't happen, Democrats should employ the KISS method to their hearings. If Barr doesn't want to testify, tell him fine. Move on to the next contestant. And that would be none other than Robert S. Mueller III. It was his report that Barr mischaracterized, and it was his letter to Barr that expressed his, shall we say, misgivings about that mischaraterization. This is the guy you want testifying in front of the American people, not some flunky holding Al Capone's water.
Remember how foolish Republicans looked trying to impeach Michael Cohen's testimony? Times that by ten after Mueller gets done telling his story. Anybody else think it's more than just a little strange that for 22 months we didn't hear a peep out of the Mueller team and now there are more leaks coming out of them than the Titanic? You don't besmirch the integrity of career prosecutors the way Barr did in his four-page summary without paying a price. And Barr is about to find out - courtesy of his old pal - just how high that price was.
After Mueller testifies, Don McGahn should be up next. That the White House is threatening to invoke executive privilege when they waived it twice during the Russia investigation is laughable and doomed to failure. McGahn is no "angry Democrat." He's the former White House Counsel who was responsible for the nomination and confirmation of two conservative justices to the Supreme Court, and who gave 30 hours of testimony in front of prosecutors, that included, among other things, Trump ordering him to fire Mueller. That's called obstruction, no matter how Barr frames it.
While Democrats are busy holding those two hearings, they can and should move forward with the emoluments lawsuit, which a district judge has now ruled can proceed, and double their efforts to get a hold of Trump's tax returns as well as his financial records at Deutsche Bank. The law is clear: Trump cannot block Congress from looking at his tax returns or financial records. He can huff and he can puff, but that's all he can do. He has no legal standing to thwart them, and he knows it. All he's trying to do is run out the clock in the hopes that Republicans will take back the House in 2020. Absent that, he knows he's fucked. As I've said for more than two years, it's about the money with this president.
And last but not least, in between holding hearings and suing for financial records, House Democrats should leave plenty of time to focus on those things that voters expected them to attend to when they gave them the majority last November: healthcare, middle-class tax relief, infrastructure, etc. The suburbs were the key to their success in 2018, and it will hold the key to their success again in 2020.
Now, before I go any further, let me address the "I" word. While it's tempting for them to move forward with impeachment, Democrats should wait until after Mueller testifies. Then, based on what they hear, they can make a determination. For instance, if Mueller says that had Trump not been president he would've sought an indictment, they will have more than enough ammunition to proceed. However, if Mueller hems and haws even in the slightest, I would hold off. Trump would like nothing better than to trap Democrats into an impeachment trial they know they cannot win in the Senate; a trial in which their star witness couldn't definitively state whether or not he would indict. That would all but ensure Trump's reelection.
So, to sum up: Get Mueller and McGahn under oath, get a hold of Trump's financial records, make sure to deliver on the agenda they ran on in 2018, and proceed with caution with impeachment. If that sounds like a pretty robust and full "To-Do" list that's because it is. No dumplings or egg rolls on that plate; just a lot of main entrees that Trump will not find all that appetizing, but, God willing, the American people will scoff down next year when they head to the polls.
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