The World May Look Quite Different By Friday

Today and tomorrow may see dramatic evidence that the wave of populist nationalism that overwhelmed both Britain and the United States may be encountering some severe obstacles. With the testimony before Congressional committees by DNI Coats, Deputy AG Rosenstein, Admiral Mike Rogers, and former FBI Director Comey here in the US, the general election in the UK, and a burgeoning crisis in the Gulf, the world may look significantly different when we wake up on Friday.

Let's start over in the UK, where Theresa May was expected to lead the Conservatives to a landslide victory, decimating the Labour party for a generation and expanding its working majority from 17 to perhaps over 100. However, that result now looks highly unlikely. Apparently, the more people see of May, the more they realize she is Trump-like in her desire to project strong leadership when in fact she has shown herself to be unable to lay out detailed policies and refuses to acknowledge the weakness of the UK's position in negotiating Brexit. The Conservative manifesto was a disaster, essentially proposing to bankrupt families who had elderly parents with chronic conditions. Meanwhile Labour and Jeremy Corbyn have run a much more normal and appealing campaign than anyone thought possible. Current polls range from showing a dead heat to a high single digit lead for the Conservatives.

May, in fact, has fallen so far in the polls so fast, that even a small gain in the Conservative majority would be considered a big victory. But the reality is that this election already looks like a loss for the Tories. And even if Labour loses some seats, that would be seen as a victory for the party and Corbyn as the expected total wipeout will have been avoided.

My prediction, which is not worth much, is that the Conservatives will end up with about a 40 seat majority and May will declare a triumphal victory that will be hollow in reality. But, even if Labour surprises and the election ends in a hung Parliament, Brexit will continue to go forward. The only question is whether it will be May's "hard" Brexit or something a little softer.

Meanwhile, here in the US, the next two days are expected to see testimony that will expose the multiple, over half-dozen as I count them, instances of Trump's obstruction of justice. Besides James Comey, it is also possible that DNI Dan Coats, Admiral Mike Rogers, and even Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein may provide information about how Trump tried to use them to stop the FBI's Russian investigation. And that will be followed Comey's descriptions of the multiple occasions when Trump tried to get Comey to stop his investigation, culminating in Comey's firing.

Representative Ted Lieu was quite blunt in his assessment to Chris Hayes last night. Lieu said he could not understand why everyone was tip-toeing around the obvious, that Trump has clearly obstructed justice on numerous occasions. As Lieu said, the President's actions speaks for themselves as do the President's own words about why he fired Comey. In addition, Trump has shown intent to deceive by asking Comey and Coats to speak to him in private about quashing the investigation and by floating a false story on why Comey was fired. For any other individual other than the President, there is more than enough evidence to indict Trump on obstruction of justice charges.

Lieu went on to point out that Trump's disregard for the law extends to members of his administration. Jared Kushner has clearly lied on his security clearance, which is a felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison. In addition, Jeff Sessions clearly lied to Congress about his contacts with Russia and there may even be additional contacts that Sessions did not report in his updated testimony. As Lieu noted, the statute is quite broad and there is again more than enough evidence to indict Sessions for lying to Congress. In addition, depending on Rosenstein's testimony, if it becomes clear that Rosenstein and Sessions knew that Trump was firing Comey because of the Russian investigation but went ahead with the cover story about Comey's actions during the election, then Sessions is in even more trouble as he would have violated his promise of recusal and also engaged in another clear obstruction of justice.

Meanwhile, Trump's "successful" visit to Saudi Arabia has merely emboldened that country to take on Qatar, the home of the largest US base in the Arabian peninsula and the launch pad for US actions against ISIS and AQAP. The Gulf States allied with the Saudis have already begun a naval blockade of Qatar and the threat of an actual military confrontation is quite high.

It is doubtful that all this testimony about Trump's clear obstruction of justice or Trump's recent unstable behavior and ignorant tweeting about the Saudi-Qatar conflict will move the Republicans in Congress to abandon him. But the pressure to do so will be greatly increased and they will look more and more like the co-conspirators and enablers of a cover-up that they truly are.

When we wake up on Friday morning, it's quite possible the world will look a lot different than it does today. Interesting days ahead.