Donald Trump Is Telling Us He’s Guilty as Hell

A thought exercise:

There’s one person who knows full well what special prosecutor Bob Mueller is likely to dig up on Donald Trump. And that’s Donald Trump.

So while the rest of us are making any number of more- and less-educated guesses — ranging from “nothing much” to “something” possibly including “incontrovertible evidence of a large-scale money-laundering racket with Russian mobster oligarch Putin pals that transformed into an anti-Clinton hacking campaign and Manchurian Candidate scenario” — Trump has got to be busy preparing for what he knows is coming.

Let’s consider the two scenarios: That there’s nothing much to find, or that there’s something.

If Trump knows Mueller’s not going to come up with anything, then there’s no real reason to worry. He and his lawyers could be transparent about his business dealings and his tax returns, and could firmly contradict false rumors with solid evidence. He could go about the business of governing the country.

That is, obviously, not what’s happening.

By contrast, if Trump knows that the boom is going to drop at some point he must be totally freaking out.

He would probably figure he has some time. Mueller’s investigation, after all, could take months if not years. But on the other hand, reporters are sniffing all around, Mueller might start leaking things, and Congress, like a blind pig, could at any point stumble over something incriminating.

He could resign — but then might actually find himself in criminal jeopardy, rather than just at risk of impeachment.

So his absolute top priority would be to figure out a way to minimize the impact of any derogatory information that comes from Mueller and from the press.

He would be extremely highly motivated to do whatever it takes to sow enough doubts about their bias and unreliability that his loyalists can simply stick their fingers in their ears and go la-la-la we’re not listening, and Republican members of Congress can continue to shrug their shoulders and say we don’t approve, but we don’t really know what’s going on and let’s cut taxes shall we?

In fact, he would be so obsessed with demonizing the news media and discrediting Mueller and his team that it would be the main topic of all his conversations and he would talk about little else, other than things that made him feel like a big man.

The personal toll on him would have to be immense. That kind of incredible stress inevitably brings out the worst in people: Mood swings, agitation, paranoia. He wouldn’t listen to anyone and would lash out against everyone around him. He would routinely engage in explosive, delusional episodes of self-agrandizement to protect himself from the inevitable awareness that he is on the brink of abject failure and humiliation.

That, of course, is the Donald Trump we see every day.

I think he’s hiding something.