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During his latest Oval Office event, Donald Trump went after Barack Obama in deeply unsettling ways, falsely accusing his Democratic predecessor of being “guilty” as part of a purported scheme that the Republican described as “treason.” The incumbent president went on to insist that there’s proof — which in reality does not exist — of Obama being “seditious” and “trying to lead a coup.”
But as ridiculous as Trump’s anti-Obama hysterics were, the Democratic former president wasn’t his only target.
“It looks like Adam Schiff really did a bad thing,” the Republican said, referring to the Democratic senator from California. “They have him. Now, let’s see what happens. It’s not up to me. I stay out of it, purposely. But it’s mortgage loan fraud. That’s a big deal.”
Right off the bat, it’s important to emphasize that Schiff has already responded to these allegations; he's insisted that he’s done nothing wrong; and the evidence to the contrary appears difficult to take seriously.
Nevertheless, The Washington Post reported this week that a criminal case against the senator — a longtime Trump target, dating back to the president’s first impeachment — has been referred to the Justice Department by Fannie Mae.
What’s more, it was striking to see Trump claim on Tuesday afternoon that he’s “purposely” staying out of the matter, given the degree to which he’s already done the opposite.
Indeed, exactly one week earlier, the president used his social media platform to accuse Schiff of “mortgage fraud” and being “a Crook.” Soon after, Trump declared on camera that he would “love” to see the Californian “brought to justice.”
In the days that followed, the president asserted as fact that Schiff “falsified” documents and is now “in BIG TROUBLE.” The Republican published a related item over the weekend in which he similarly declared, “Adam Schiff is a THIEF! He should be prosecuted.”
So much for staying out of it.
But stepping back, the fact that Trump is peddling dubious claims against one of his favorite targets — all while pretending he’s maintaining a healthy distance from a story he’s obviously directly involved in — isn’t the biggest problem. In fact, what makes this controversy all the more important is how it came to exist in the first place.
The New Republic’s Greg Sargent reported this week that the Fannie Mae Crimes Unit and the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA) referred this to prosecutors as part of a complex process described by experts as “highly irregular,” “extremely unusual” and “extraordinarily unusual.”
It led Sargent to wonder whether Trump is “corrupting the bureaucracy ... by seeding it with loyalists at all levels who are willing to manipulate it to carry out his crazed vendettas.”
I have a hunch we haven’t heard the last of this one.