Pelosi and Iran

President Trump sandbagged Speak Pelosi and Senate Minority leader Schumer Wednesday. That’s when someone hits you from an unexpected direction. Trump invited the Democrats to the White House to discuss infrastructure, then stormed out in a premeditated fury to denounce her at a podium set up in advance for the purpose. He criticized Pelosi for claiming he was engaged in a “coverup” and then confirmed her claim by insisting the House couldn’t continue to investigate him and legislate at the same time.

That of course is not true. Congressional oversight does not get suspended in order to allow for legislation. Even during the impeachment proceedings against Presidents Nixon and Clinton legislation got passed and sent to them for signature. Trump, in his signature style, is denying what is evident to all: he is desperate to keep his tax returns and business affairs out of the public eye. It is hard to imagine he would go to the lengths he has if there weren’t something incriminating to hide.

We already know that in the 1990s he lost fabulous quantities of money in ill-conceived projects. We also know he paid little or no income taxes for many years. And we know that he lied about the value of his assets to banks and regulatory authorities and violated campaign finance laws by paying off mistresses. Whatever he is trying to hide, it is worse than all those things. My guess is that a) he is not as rich as he claims, b) he is a tax cheat on a grand scale, and c) he has laundered money for Russian oligarchs.

Whether any of this will make any difference to his supporters, who include virtually all Republican members of Congress and 90% of their loyal voters, is unclear. That’s why Pelosi, who only too clearly thinks Trump should be drummed out of office as soon as possible, wants to be sure before moving in that direction that it won’t hurt the Democrats’ chances in the 2020 election. The best guarantee of that would be a bipartisan impeachment proceeding, like the one against Nixon and unlike the one against Clinton. Failing Republican support for impeachment in the Senate, the election is crucial to getting Trump out of the White House.

Two Federal judges have now ordered that Trump financial records be turned over to Congressional committees. They rejected the Trump Administration’s arguments to the contrary as specious. That likely made the President even more anxious to end the Congressional investigations, which will now have red meat to pick on. Pelosi’s accusation of a “cover-up” was nowhere near provocative enough to rouse the President to the ire he demonstrated Wednesday.

Sandbagging is a cardinal sin in Washington. I remember when Pelosi excoriated former Secretary of State Baker and former Congressman Hamilton during a meeting to discuss the Iraq Study Group, which had been funded outside “regular order” and therefore without her knowledge. They were in no way responsible–the group had been funded many months before in a last-minute budget maneuver by former Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf. But she felt sandbagged and let them know it in no uncertain terms.

Trump is depending on being able to escalate the conflict with Pelosi more than she can. That is doubtful. Yesterday he said she is “a mess” and doesn’t know what she is doing. She suggested his staff and family mount “an intervention.” Today Trump tweeted a fake video of Pelosi slurring words. She will not respond in kind but will have a few choice words. She may not favor impeachment proceedings yet, but she is not going to back down on pursuing oversight that the Democrats think will prove even to Republicans that this president is a fraudster flim-flam man.

What does all this have to do with foreign policy? I hope nothing, but the temptation of a president under siege domestically to lash out against foreign adversaries is well-documented. Trump is no doubt looking for whatever will rally at least his base behind him and chase the Congressional investigations from the front pages. He has alread revved up an investigation of the court-authorized surveillance of some of his campaign workers and is charging Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange with espionage, a move intended to inhibit all media from publishing leaked material.

War with Iran could also help Trump protect himself . He has been more hat than cattle when it comes to military action, but even a small military incident could serve his current purposes well. There are certainly enough hot heads in Iran to provide Trump with just what he needs.