I’m going to do something today that I have been meaning to do: publish an edition in the Ask Me Anything format. I have seen it done in other places. It looks fun and interesting and a good way to encourage more give-and-take between me and Editorial Board readers. 

I have recently solved a massive spam issue (Ask me anything but that!) It was preventing me from interacting seamlessly with readers. With that resolved, I want to get back to basics. Ask me anything and I’ll answer as best as I can. Today’s inquiries are a mix of actual questions and questions I think should be asked. (Please send yours by replying to this email or commenting on this piece at editorialboard.com.) 

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Is House Speaker Mike Johnson delaying the swearing in of Adelita Grijalva in order to prevent the release of the Epstein files?

That’s the Democratic line. Here’s Hakeem Jeffries:

“The reason why they continue to unlawfully block the swearing in of Adelita Grijalva is because they are actively hiding the Epstein files from the American people. And they’re protecting someone, clearly — the wealthy, the well off, the privileged, and the well-connected.”

Grijalva won a special election in Arizona to replace her late dad. She has said she will be the 218th vote needed for a discharge petition leading to the release of documents in the case of child-sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Johnson has not yet sworn her in, though she was elected a month ago. He says he can’t while the government is shut. 

That’s a phony reason on its face. And that’s why Grijalva and some Democrats have said the real reason is fear of what the Epstein files might show, with the implication being that Johnson and the Republicans are protecting Epstein’s “close friend” Donald Trump.

While this may be the real reason, I don’t see why Johnson would be bothered much by what’s in the files, whatever that may be, even if it led to some very deep and very painful public humiliation on his part. 

Johnson’s appetite for shame seems to be bottomless. He has already sold off much of his dignity. What’s a little more? In any case, Trump could tell the US Department of Justice, which holds the files, to ignore the will of the Congress. He’s already stolen the power of the purse, and the right of the American people to control their money. With Johnson’s help, Trump has made the Congress more irrelevant.

Just as likely, the real reason Johnson has delayed administering the oath to Grijalva is because he can. That’s the thing about power in the hands of weak men. They don’t have a moral core. Nothing exists that’s bigger than their greed, ambition and cowardice. As for federal law, it says the speaker is the one to swear in new representatives, but it’s silent about slow-walking that process for as long as it pleases him. 

It could be that Johnson is protecting Trump.

It could be that he wants to dissolve the Congress without seeming to.

A federal lawsuit against the speaker by Grijalva and the state of Arizona claims that Johnson is violating her right to serve her constituents and her constituents’ right to representation. It all seems obvious that Johnson is in the wrong, but being in the wrong doesn’t mean much. A law-abiding government depends on law-abiding elected officials to run it. I don’t see many around these days. Do you?

Even if a federal judge rules in Grijalva’s favor, who’s to say that Johnson is bound to respect her rights? The answer, I’m afraid, is no one, short of some kind of intervention by a corrupted Supreme Court of the United States. Even then, courts can tell us what the law is, but they can’t enforce it. Grijalva’s situation could be a sign of things to come.

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John, please weigh in on the demolition of the East Wing.

My first impulse is to pick up where I left off with the last question. The shocking and profane destruction of the East Wing of the White House suggests that more, and more painful, destruction lies ahead. 

Trump bulldozed The People’s House the same way he’s bulldozing the republic, acting as if he’s not a temporary resident of the White House, but a man who owns it and, by implication, owns the country. I can’t think of a more vivid illustration of the belief that Trump is not a servant who leads with the consent of the governed but a master who takes what he wants, when and where he wants, consent be damned.

The decision to demolish the entire East Wing was sudden and beyond the scope of what was originally proposed, and the timing can’t be ignored. It came mere days after more than 7 million Americans spoke with one voice to declare that America has no king. There can be no doubt the demolition was Trump’s response. No king? Watch me.

Trump might as well say, “I am never leaving and no one can stop me,” and that’s the thing – no one can. Our system of government was not designed to constrain a criminal president. The law can’t stop him. The highest court won’t stop him. His party looks away. The American people were the last defense, but we failed. As Garrett Graff said: 

“Once you elect or appoint someone who has no moral core — who appoints people with no moral core and fires those who do — nothing else in the system of checks-and-balances turns out to matter.”

If Donald Trump does not die of natural causes by 2028, he’s almost certainly going to run for a third term (though he probably won’t campaign) in defiance of law and the Twenty-Second Amendment. 

He will run with the same impunity it takes to destroy the East Wing, murder fishermen, blackmail universities, order the military to occupy cities, take bribes openly, and pay himself $230 million in tax dollars. (The congressional Republicans, the Republican-controlled states and the Republican supermajority of the United States Supreme Court will all find ways to explain and legitimize Trump’s impunity after the fact.) 

And he will run while pointing to the wreckage of the East Wing as a warning of what can happen if a criminal president doesn’t get his way.

“We are not living in a functional democracy any longer,” US Senator Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. “It’s not too late to save it, but it is just important to acknowledge that we aren’t on the precipice of losing our democracy. We are losing it every single day. We are not a functional nation with a rule of law any longer, and those toppled walls in the East Wing are a pretty stark reminder of that.”

I don’t know the future and in not knowing, I have some hope. But hope grows more difficult knowing that those with the greatest means of opposing him, namely elites, have either become as corrupt as he is – the new “ballroom” will be paid for with bribes from the likes of Google, Apple and Amazon – or have decided to remain silent. 

As Edward Luce said in today’s Financial Times, elites are running scared. They fear “jail, bankruptcy or professional reprisal” despite knowing “Trump would only be restrained by powerful voices opposing him publicly.” In reporting for his column, Luce said: “At times, it has felt like trying to report on politics in Turkey or Hungary.”

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But John, what about the Democrats? Are they that useless?

Not useless, but it’s a process. 

Until recently, the median Democrat took the position that virtually any scandal arising from a criminal White House was best understood as a distraction from “what really matters to the American people.” That’s code for economic issues Democrats believe favor them in the eyes of independent voters or even Republicans alienated by Trump.

Indeed, this focus on “kitchen-table issues” is best seen in the current showdown over government funding. The Democrats say they are denying their votes, because they’re fighting to bring down health insurance premiums (which are set to spike in the coming year). And so far in that fight, the public seems to be on the Democrats’ side.

But the “distraction” angle seems absurd in the context of a wrecking ball being taken to the White House without the people’s consent. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer looked ridiculous when she said “no one is worried about building a ballroom in Washington, DC.” That’s a distraction, she suggested, compared to worries about the government shutdown and whether parents can put food on the table.

Hakeem Jeffries – of all people – decided to put those two things together, as if saying that the reason the government is failing all those parents struggling to put food on the table is a criminal president who is bulldozing the republic the same way he bulldozed the East Wing.

“We have an American president behaving like an organized crime boss, stealing taxpayer dollars in real-time in front of everyone in plain sight,” Jeffries said Wednesday. “And the Republicans have nothing to say about the emerging crime scene at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

I said “of all people,” because Jeffries has stuck to the “distraction” angle while the rank-and-file of the Democratic Party has been begging him to stop being so reasonable and put up a fight. Maybe it was the destruction of the East Wing that changed him. Maybe it was the threat on his life by a J6 insurrectionist. Either way, he’s fighting. 

That’s useful, not useless. 

And it gives me hope.