To commit a preemptive ad hominem attack against an opponent. That is, to prime the audience with adverse information about the opponent from the start, in an attempt to make your claim more acceptable or discount the credibility of your opponent’s claim.
Poisoning the Well is the strategy being employed for dealing with any reports that Robert Mueller will issue. The right wing is already trying to discredit Mueller, whom virtually all called a good choice when first announced.
Ken Starr's independent council office existed for five years, starting with Whitewater and morphing into Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky. But Trump's allies seem to be getting cold feet awfully early in the process this time. Mueller was appointed May 17, so a little over half a year on the job. But there seems to be a sense of urgency in the recent uptick in attacks against Mueller.
Which brings me back to 'poisoning the well'. What we are seeing is an orchestrated campaign to impugn the integrity of Bob Mueller, the FBI and the DOJ. Because whether or not he is fired, Trump's allies wish to achieve the objective that everyone perceives the investigation as a 'witch hunt'. Before there was no indictments, simply saying 'witch hunt' was enough. If Mueller exonerates Trump, the President could claim he was right all along, claim victory and go home. No need to besmirch any reputations. But since the indictments have been handed down, there are 'boots on the ground'. We have eyes, albeit in a very limited area, but that area is evidently extremely troubling to the president. Mueller's office may have or eventually have possession of the President's tax records and the Deutsche Bank subpoenas that the administration denied have been served. Think about how long it took Ken Starr to look into the simpler matter of Whitewater, and think of all of the off-shore accounts in these investigations. There is no way that this investigation will wrap up this year. Trying to put a time limit on the investigation is one way the administration is telegraphing their fear of what they will find out of it goes on long enough.
And now Mueller has the Trump Transition Team's emails, obtained through the GSA. Trump's legal team is objecting on the grounds of 4th Amendment illegal search and seizure. (He had a more sanguine opinion on emails obtained by governments when he begged for Hillary Clinton's emails to be released.) And I think the big freak-out in the White House is that they didn't know that Mueller had this information, and there have been many many members of the transition team that testified in front of Mueller's committee without that knowledge. I have a hunch more that one person in the executive branch might be looking at perjury.
Which brings me to the current situation, where there has been a rapid assault on the integrity of the FBI, the DOJ and Bob Mueller. Again I go back to the most puzzling line in Trump's Inaugural:
At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America. Through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.
Donald Trump's idea of patriotism is not loyalty to ideals or principles. It comes down to loyalty to each other, with Trump at the top of the ladder. Institutions like the FBI don't matter. Procedures and rule of law doesn't matter. What matters is personal loyalty to the President, and the only people who can be trusted to gather evidence should never have had a political opinion.
It strikes me that Trump has a hard time understanding the culture of the FBI and the Justice Department because it is so foreign to the value systems of Trump Enterprises. He will always wonder how people can sacrifice personal loyalty for loyalty to principles, and that those principles can be embodied in procedures used in the pursuit of justice and the justice system itself. Such an ideals-based system is foreign to Trump.
The right wing is obviously telegraphing a message right now: "If you fire Bob Mueller, we got your back." But beyond Mueller, I am bothered by the wholesale character assassinations of the DOJ and FBI. What does that say about Trump's confidence of the FBI director he just appointed? FBI agents testify in court cases every day across the United States. When their work is challenged by the President and his supporters, what does that do to the veracity of their testimony in a court of law?
Donald Trump always makes the deal in the moment, and what is best for Donald Trump in THAT moment. He has a hard time seeing down the road. Poisoning the well on Mueller, DOJ and the FBI is what he sees as the best short term strategy for his defense. What it means for the perception of integrity for the Justice System of the United States is not an important priority for our President.
