Opinion

Unfortunately for Trump, his allies aren't any smarter than he is

As I and others have spent the last couple of years arguing, the character of a president determines the people who are drawn to him. If you're honest and principled, honest and principled people will want to work for you, and if you're dishonest and corrupt, dishonest and corrupt people will want to work for you.

We're seeing that play out now in courtrooms and across the federal government, as more and more of Donald Trump's associates are revealed to be just like him, albeit usually on a smaller scale.

The fact that Trump's supporters are reflections of Trump can be seen in another way: Because Trump is petty, vindictive, obsessed with conspiracy theories, and usually unable to assemble facts into a logical argument in favor of what he's doing or would like to do, those who defend him most vigorously share all those traits and weaknesses.

Consider a couple of stories in today's news. Let's begin with the latest investigation by the crack team of Keystone Kops that has assembled to watch Trump's back in the House, as reported by Kyle Cheney of Politico:

"First the spotlight was on Jim Comey and Andrew McCabe, then Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

"Now, Republicans - intent on proving that political bias is behind the sprawling investigation of President Donald Trump's ties to Russia - are elevating a new bureaucratic target: Justice Department official Bruce Ohr.

"Reps. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, both top Trump allies, are taking breaks from their August recess to lead a closed-door interview Tuesday with the former associate deputy attorney general, who was demoted earlier this year amid growing scrutiny from conservatives. In recent weeks, Trump has tweeted about Ohr nine times, and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes recently predicted Ohr would become a key figure in House investigators' sights."

Since it's happening behind closed doors we can't be sure what went on in this meeting. But given how previous iterations of this charade have gone, I'm guessing it involved Republicans like Meadows and Jordan asking some ridiculous questions positing vast conspiracies, Ohr patiently explaining why those questions were absurd, then Republicans responding by shouting the same questions much louder.

Republicans have fixated on Ohr, a widely respected public servant who has spent years investigating the Russian mob, because he was a contact for former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who had cooperated with American intelligence long before he approached our government with troubling information he had learned about then-candidate Donald Trump. In addition, Ohr's wife worked for Fusion GPS, the firm that hired Steele.

None of that is inappropriate, nor was it concealed - Ohr logged all his contacts with Steele. But since Republicans have constructed an insane fantasy in which had it not been for Steele dossier then the FBI would never have even suspected there was anything fishy going on with regard to Trump and Russia, they've decided Ohr must be at the center of the conspiracy.

And Trump, going on whatever he saw on "Hannity" the night before, has lobbed blistering but always vague attacks at Ohr. "I think that Bruce Ohr is a disgrace with his wife, Nellie," the president said not long ago. "For him to be in the Justice Department and to be doing what he did, that is a disgrace." I am 99.9 percent sure that if someone had immediately asked, "What specifically did Ohr do that is a disgrace?", Trump would have been utterly unable to say.

In a saner world, Republicans would have looked at Ohr and said, "OK, we were hoping this guy might be the nexus of a sinister anti-Trump conspiracy, but I guess not." That, however, is not how these people roll.

Republicans still haven't been able to come up with an answer to this basic question: If there was an anti-Trump conspiracy driving the FBI investigation of the Russian contacts with the Trump campaign in 2016, why did the bureau so assiduously avoid leaking to the public that the investigation existed? In other words, why did this alleged conspiracy to torpedo Trump's campaign not do the one thing that might actually have harmed Trump's campaign, but instead carefully adhered to Justice Department guidelines so as not to harm Trump's campaign?

Seriously: Ask a Republican that question and see what happens. They're likely to sputter incoherently for a few moments, then point over your shoulder and shout "Look over there!" When you turn back you'll see them running in the other direction.

But that's not all. Here's another report from The Atlantic's Natasha Bertrand, on how the GOP investigation into the anti-Trump conspiracy is going. Bertrand reports that House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes traveled to London earlier this month, "seeking out new information" on Steele:

"According to two people familiar with his trip across the pond who requested anonymity to discuss the chairman's travels, Devin Nunes, a California Republican, was investigating, among other things, Steele's own service record and whether British authorities had known about his repeated contact with a U.S. Justice Department official named Bruce Ohr. To that end, Nunes requested meetings with the heads of three different British agencies-MI5, MI6, and the Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. . .

"But those meetings did not pan out-Nunes came away meeting only with the U.K.'s deputy national-security adviser, Madeleine Alessandri. The people familiar with his trip told me that officials at MI6, MI5, and GCHQ were wary of entertaining Nunes out of fear that he was 'trying to stir up a controversy.' "

Inspector Devin is on the case! I wonder if he brought his Super Detective Kit With Trench Coat and Magnifying Glass.

Meanwhile, with many of the president's close associates being convicted of or pleading guilty to crimes, his legal defense is in the comically incapable hands of Rudy Giuliani, the most incompetent lawyer we've seen since, well, since Trump's "personal lawyer" Michael Cohen.

It's tempting to look at this extraordinary assemblage of nincompoops and conclude that Trump will inevitably receive his comeuppance for whatever misdeeds he has committed. Sadly, that is not always how the world works. If it were, Trump would never have become president in the first place.