In this year’s Power Issue, Barry Blitt nods to the ongoing investigation of Russian influence in the 2016 Presidential election by the special counsel, Robert Mueller. “This is my first time drawing Mueller (for the cover, anyway; I scribble his likeness all the time, in the margins of letters, on the backs of envelopes, etc.),” Blitt wrote. “The thing is, he’s really becoming something of a folk hero.” Mueller’s sleuthing, as Blitt suggests, has intensified. Last week, Mueller made several filings, which included sentencing memos for Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. For The New Yorker’s coverage of the investigation, read Adam Davidson on Trump’s co-conspirators:
As Mueller’s filings encircle the President, the special counsel
surely knows he is at ever-greater risk of being fired. Presumably, he
wouldn’t have released memorandums as damning as these if he weren’t
prepared to make a fuller case. Each filing fills in the over-all
picture in ever more granular detail. It seems reasonable to assume
that we haven’t yet learned the most disturbing facts. But, even if we
learn nothing more, we are already in an unbearable condition. The
President of the United States knowingly and eagerly participated in a
scheme with a hostile foreign leader who he knew was seeking to
influence the Presidential election. Trump sought to profit
politically and financially, many of his closest subordinates executed
this effort, and he then was aware of and, it seems likely, encouraged
an illegal effort to hide these facts. His reckless, unpatriotic
actions have left him compromised by at least one but likely many
foreign powers and have left his election open to reasonable questions
about its legitimacy. And, every day, he sets policies and makes
decisions that have an impact on the lives of all Americans and the
fortunes of the very autocrats who hold sway over him.
Blitt’s sketch for “Elementary.”
Blitt’s “A Christmas Carol,” our 2017 holiday cover.
And John Cassidy on Trump’s last line of defense:
Trump’s enduring strength, of course, is his support at the base of
the G.O.P. In the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist College Poll, which
was carried out last week, before the release of the sentencing memos
for Cohen and Paul Manafort, ninety per cent of self-identified
Republicans said that they approve of the job the President is doing.
Unless this figure drops precipitously, it is difficult to see twenty
Republicans voting against him in an impeachment trial. (Assuming all
the members of the Democratic caucus voted against Trump, that is how
many defectors it would take for a two-thirds majority in the Senate.)
But approval ratings—even Trump’s—can change in response to dramatic
developments. Mueller hasn’t fully revealed his hand, the power
structure on Capitol Hill is about to shift, and the man Trump wanted
at his side in the White House has balked. No wonder Trump is back to
tweeting “witch hunt.”
The New Yorker Store
Covers, cartoons, and more.
For more of Blitt’s covers, see below:
“Ejected.”
“Yearning to Breathe Free.”
“Welcome to Congress.”
Sourse: newyorker.com
