KEEP THE CAMEL IN THE TENT, PISSING OUT

Summary: It did not take long for the reality show huckster masquerading as the president of the United States to manifest his anger over the results of last night’s midterm elections. The Democratic recapture of the House of Representatives demanded, in Trump’s mind, a sacrifice to be laid upon the altar of his psychopathology. Thus, the long expected ouster of Atty. Gen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. Sessions can respond either by slinking back to Alabama to lick his wounds, by writing a tell-all opus akin to Omarosa Manigault Newman’s Unhinged, or by disclosing everything he knows about Trump to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Trump, who apparently hasn’t got the common sense God gave an axolotl, seems to have forgotten the old-fashioned Washington wisdom distilled by Lyndon Johnson in the unforgettable phrase “it’s better to have a camel inside the tent pissing out then to have it outside the tent pissing in.”

The “Kremlin watchers” who study The Donald and The Donald’s reality show of an administration predicted, with almost uncanny accuracy, what the reality show huckster masquerading as President of the United States would do if Aonami (the Blue Wave) materialized in yesterday’s midterm elections.

Most of us, at some point in our lives, have had to deal with the junior hominids commonly referred to as children. Unlike puppies or kittens or ducklings, junior hominids are not cute or cuddly. In fact, the toddler stage is particularly obnoxious, both for adult and child. Sadly, the Republic has been oppressed for the last two years by the existence of a toddler in the Oval Office. The toddler in the Oval generally communicates his displeasure with untoward events through temper tantrums and relationship-sundering terminations. After all, this is the same Donald Trump who tried to trademark the phrase “you’re fired!”

So, in the wake of Aonami, when Donald Trump let his temper go, the first casualty, the first sacrifice upon the altar of The Donald’s insensate ego was his much-maligned Attorney General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. Sessions may be the first casualty of Aonami in the executive branch, but he certainly won’t be the last. Indeed, he goes the way of numerous senior Administration officials  who have somehow displeased the Maximum Leader.

However, with Sessions having departed from the administration, we may wonder what the quondam Attorney General’s response to this unceremonious dumping may be. At one end of the spectrum, Sessions can return to Alabama to lick his wounds, soliciting a position on the faculty of the law school at the University of Alabama and finding himself involved in bitter bickering with faculty members who will have no reason to hold him in much, if any, regard, and every possible motivation to seek discipline of Sessions’ professional licensure up to, and potentially including, disbarment.

Or, not desiring to incur the enmity of an outraged professoriate, Sessions may seek, and possibly find, a position with either a white shoe Washington City law firm or as a highly compensated K Street lobbyist. Such employment would free Mr. Sessions to write the inevitable tell-all book, somewhat like Bob Woodward’s recent opus Fear or perhaps Omarosa Manigault-Newman’s slim volume entitled Unhinged. If Sessions were to pen such a work, it would no doubt quickly find itself on the bestseller lists of the New York Times and Amazon.com.

The third option, and the one most damaging to Donald Trump and his administration is that Sessions may decide to make a clean breast of things with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. It is known throughout the government that prior to the Trump Administration taking office, Sessions did have meetings with representatives of the Russian State which he then denied having during his Senate confirmation hearings. 

That’s perjury. 

In addition to being an offense for which an attorney can be disbarred in his jurisdiction or jurisdictions of licensure, perjury before the Senate about contacts with representatives of the Kremlin also puts Sessions fairly in the crosshairs of the Mueller investigation.

It would not be surprising therefore to find that Mr. Sessions, presumably desiring to avoid either incarceration or professional discipline in his jurisdiction of licensure, would want to make the best possible deal with the Special Counsel. If, as is been suggested, the entire thrust of Japanese diplomacy after November, 1942, was to bring about an end to the Pacific War on the best possible terms Japan could obtain, so too, in the instant case, Sessions may find himself in negotiations with Special Counsel Mueller to obtain the best terms he can. After all, it would be a hell of a come down for a former senator and a former Attorney General of the United States to find himself rusticating in a federal correctional facility somewhere.

We cannot know what political goodies or things of value Jeff Sessions may be able to offer to Mueller’s team. But it is not unreasonable to expect that any proffer from Sessions to Mueller will probably be very substantial. The more substantial the proffer, the greater degree of risk it represents to the Trump administration. For Sessions, the safest course may be to limber up his vocal cords and be prepared to sing like a canary, lest the almost inevitable discovery of substantial Administration wrongdoing leave him with no cards to play.

He should do so quickly, and secure some measure of protection from congressional subpoenas, before incoming House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff or Incoming House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings can have a chance to make mincemeat of him on national television.

Trump may find, according to the line from the Star Trek original series episode Amok Time, that "having is not nearly so pleasing a thing after all is wanting;" or put in another, more Lyndon Johnson-esque way, it would have been better not to have fired Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, because is better to have a camel in the tent pissing out then do have one outside the tent pissing in.