Trump Continues Focus on Reflecting Pool Amid Case Developments

The takes

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  Adam Smith

  1723–1790, Scotland (the Scottish Enlightenment: Kirkcaldy, Glasgow, Edinburgh)

  A President Distracted by a Pool of Water

  When a ruler spends precious political capital on a collapsing side dispute, the unseen costs are borne not by courtiers but by the public whose attention he squanders.

  The scene, as it has been described, is almost comic, were it not so costly. With less than three months before important elections, a president is reported to be “still wasting even a moment thinking about the Reflecting Pool,” a matter in which the related legal cases are said to be collapsing. He keeps public pressure on an official, while his own attorney general notes, with dry candour, that if the president wished to dismiss her, “he understands he has the power to do that.” Here is not the tragic constraint of office, but the voluntary misdirection of attention; not the burden of necessity, but the indulgence of preoccupation.

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  John Locke

  1632–1704, England (writing amid the Exclusion Crisis and the Glorious Revolution)

  Executive Power Is Not a Toy for Private Quarrels

  When a ruler treats the power to hire and fire as a weapon in personal disputes, he steps off the ground of lawful government and onto the slope of arbitrary rule.

  The scene, as it is reported, is narrow in circumstance yet large in principle. A president, publicly dissatisfied with one of his own officers over the handling of “Reflecting Pool” matters, keeps pressure upon her even as those cases collapse. A former senior official marvels that, with an election near, he is “still wasting even a moment thinking about the Reflecting Pool.” His own attorney general answers questions about her future not by explaining any rule or public justification, but by saying simply that the president understands he has the power to fire anybody within his administration. Thus the question is presented in its plainest form: when may a magistrate lawfully use such power, and when does it become mere will?

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• 

  Niccolò Machiavelli

  1469–1527, Florence (republican secretary and diplomat, then exile, amid the Italian Wars)

  Trump, Pirro, and the Art of Governing by Half-Measures

  When a leader keeps the axe in his hand but never swings it, he governs with appearances instead of decisions — and appearances eventually present the bill.

  The scene is simple. The Reflecting Pool cases collapse. A president who once blamed contractor error now still spends time on this ruin with under three months before midterm elections. He publicly says his official “folded like an umbrella,” keeps pressure on her, lets his counselor denounce her by name, yet does not remove her. His own Attorney General says the president “understands he has the power” to fire anyone, while refusing to say whether Pirro will stay. A former senior official calls this obsession “nuts.” I never trust such adjectives. When insiders call something madness, I look for the logic of power that offends their taste.

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