Who else, too? New N.Y. abuse case excites Trump & Co.
New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman’s lightning-fast exit amid public charges that he slapped, choked and threatened women seems to have delighted President Donald Trump’s cheering section.
That was to be expected. Schneiderman targeted Trump. He helped achieve settlement of the defunct Trump University fraud lawsuits. He assisted special counsel Robert Mueller in investigating now-indicted 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort.
The hypocrisy of a purported feminist advocate caught in this kind of behavior looks like a win in the Trump camp, especially after all the sex-related accusations against the president.
But it is hard to see lasting benefits from the White House’s standpoint.
New York’s attorneys general pick priority issues the way college students choose majors. For Eliot Spitzer, it was Wall Street corruption; for Andrew M. Cuomo, pension pay-to-play.
Trump’s activities in the state might have been grist for any Democrat most recently in the job as it was for Schneiderman, who is eminently replaceable.
The state AG’s role in the Mueller probe would likely continue under Schneiderman’s successor.
Even if a Republican is elected to the job here in November, officers from other blue states such as California would keep clashing with the federal administration over, say, immigration and environmental issues.
None of that seems to matter to Donald Trump Jr., who tapped out a half-dozen jeers on Twitter.
Citing The New Yorker article quoting Tanya Selvaratnam saying Schneiderman would call her his “brown slave” and slapped her until she called him ‘Master,’ Trump Jr. wrote: “It’s not ‘role play’ if only one of you is in on it.’”
Over a Schneiderman tweet that “no one is above the law,” Junior wrote: “You were saying?” He also tweeted two mocking references to the AG’s use of “excessive eyeliner,” which Schneiderman has said is really the cosmetic result of glaucoma medicine.
Junior’s invective didn’t go unanswered on Twitter, where ugly begets ugly.
Commenters let loose on his failed marriage, his father’s lustful comments about his sister, his mother’s rape allegation against the president-to-be during their 1991 divorce.
An example: “How many women have accused your pappy n how many did he pay to stay quiet? Mueller Time.”
Junior also reposted his dad’s 2013 tweet: “Weiner is gone, Spitzer is gone — next will be lightweight A.G. Eric Schneiderman. Is he a crook? Wait and see, worse than Spitzer or Weiner.”
As usual with a Trump blast, no evidence was offered at the time. Was his prescience based on rumor? Imagination? Simply spite?
Someone even tweeted a reminder to Junior that his father once contributed to Schneiderman as he did to Hillary Clinton.
More significant than all the nasty nose-thumbing, however, is that the #MeToo movement is gaining momentum.
Neither Trump Jr. nor anyone else would be wise to bet the campaign money on which major party might lose its next incumbent.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
