One moment, Donald Trump is “apoplectic” about the gathering legal storm bearing down on his presidency that is threatening to lift the lid on his most guarded personal and business secrets. The next, he’s presiding over covert diplomacy aimed at ending the most intractable foreign policy standoff of the last 70 years.
The juxtaposition of Trump’s personal turmoil – often exploding into Twitter rage – with a daring bid to court North Korean leader Kim Jong Un exemplifies the dramatic, unpredictable rhythm of his presidency. Trump has proven to be an unconventional commander in chief who prefers to live on his wits and seems perpetually mired in crisis.
Rather like President Richard Nixon, who pursued crucial nuclear diplomacy with the Soviet Union as the Watergate scandal gathered pace, Trump is attempting to make a historic mark on the world stage even as his presidency is threatened by growing legal entanglements at home.
At the front of his mind are events unfolding after the raid against the offices and residences of his lawyer Michael Cohen, which may have left the deepest secrets of The Trump Organization in the hands of government lawyers.
With such turmoil swirling around the President, it is no wonder that a source close to him told CNN’s Pamela Brown that Trump is “apoplectic” about evidence seized in the FBI raid on Cohen and fixated over everything else.
The source says the President is concerned that prosecutors may know everything he told Cohen and about all the legal fixing that his lawyer did for him over a decade as a crucial cog in the Trump Organization.