Re-Election Critical

Steve M. believes Donald Trump

wants to win because he wants to win. He doesn't want to win because he wants to do the job of president. He just wants to be president, because if he's president, that means you're not. If he won reelection, that means some loser lost to him.

There is only one thing, Steve seems to understand, that Donald Trump likes better than winning- seeing someone else lose. That may be because, as this twitterer points out, "the thing about Trump is he believes morality is a con and no one is any better than him, not really, not deep down."

Psychoanalysis aside, the major reason that Donald Trump wants to be re-elected is that it is the only way to assure (virtually) that he won't land up in prison..

Kim Wehle, a law professor and former associate independent counsel in the White water investigation, has explained

there is, in general, a five-year statute of limitations for federal crimes. It’s not hard to do the math. If Trump fails to win a second term, he will become a private citizen the day he leaves office. Federal offenses committed within the five preceding years could still be charged. This period of time would include the months leading up to the 2016 election during which Russians, Wikileaks and people connected to the Trump campaign took steps to collaborate around election-related data that would damage Hillary Clinton and help Trump....

Based only on the thin slice of publicly available facts, it’s possible the Department of Justice has amassed sufficient evidence to charge Trump with additional crimes relating to:

-Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, including conspiracy to defraud the United States

obstruction of justice regarding special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation

-campaign finance-related crimes stemming from the Trump inaugural committee

witness tampering in connection with congressional investigations

-financial crimes relating to Trump’s personal taxes or the Trump Organization, including possible tax fraud, bank fraud or money laundering

Although Wehle wrote this four months ago, nothing in the Mueller investigation diminishes the likelihood of mounting one or more strong cases of criminal prosecution against private citizen Donald J. Trump.

He's not stupid, as recent events have demonstrated. President Trump now has either leveraged a threat of imposing tariffs against Mexico to gain concessions on Mexico or instead "cut a vague, imperfect or constitutionally questionable deal at the last minute, claiming victory and savaging the critics."

Whether a strategic victory or one of his many cons, the President accomplished what he set out to do. Someone able to pull that off is smart enough to know that it's better to win and be considered immune from prosecution than to lose and be prosecuted, probably not living long enough to be justly sentenced to prison.

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