A dime-store tyrant
by Tom Sullivan
Something Josh Marshall wrote about the right’s “Mueller’s out of control/breaking the law” narrative brought back a scene from a vintage documentary on Donald Trump, celebrity real estate developer.
Marshall writes:
Behind the new faux controversy over Mueller getting Trump transition emails is a key and probably too little discussed aspect of the Russia story: Mueller’s team has some of the most accomplished and aggressive prosecutors and legal minds of their generation. They’re facing off against a team of has-beens, 3rd or 4th rate lawyers and in some cases simple incompetents. Why? Because Trump values sycophancy above competence and because none of the top lawyers were willing to work for him.
That’s also because the dime-store tyrant would never pay their rates. He’s cheap. He wouldn’t appreciate the value they bring if you smacked him over the head with it.
In the documentary Trump: What’s the Deal?, a designer who once worked for the real estate mogul relates how Trump couldn’t comprehend why 200 year-old, Louis XVI furniture he saw at Christie’s was so expensive. He insisted he could have it reproduced for much less. As the designer tells it, Trump’s sister-in-law (who worked there) said, “Donald, you’re just never going to understand, are you?” [timestamp 3:53]
Trump once told Frank Sinatra’s manager his booking rates were “a little rich.” Trump added he wouldn’t include Sammy Davis Jr, recently diagnosed with cancer, or husband-and-wife singing duo Steve and Eydie (who he’d never heard of) in the booking for the 1990 opening of his Atlantic City casino. A disgusted Sinatra instructed manager Elliot Weisman to tell the now-president “to go f*** himself.”
The problem Team Trump has, Marshall implies, is they are seriously out-classed and either don’t know it, or do and are angry about it.
Marshall speculates:
But my guess is that they’re genuinely surprised. And since they’re surprised they assume Mueller cheated. (Is it possible Mueller did something wrong? Sure. Who knows? If so, I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. But I doubt it. And none of the legal commentary I’ve seen suggests he did.) Beyond that, however, I suspect they now fear (no doubt rightly) that Trump officials lied during their interviews with the Special Counsel’s office and the investigators already had the emails that proved they were lying. That’s a real sinking feeling for everyone involved.
We saw plenty of hubris during the George W. Bush regime. Bush the Lightweight compensated for his lack of depth by giving hangers-on demeaning nicknames. But he knew enough to hire his daddy’s best people. Even so, the lot of them can no longer set foot outside the country for fear of immediate arrest as war criminals.
For his part, Donald refuses to surround himself with (or pay for) advisers of a quality and stature that they wouldn’t suck up to him. It shows.
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