"And Trump's forbidding any of his people to respond positively to subpoenas to testify is a two-middle-finger-insult to every citizen of this country."

It is and it is also an impeachable offense as he is intentionally attempting to block the Congress from executing their sworn duty. So, when he does this it is obstruction and if the Congress proceeds to impeachment you can bet this will be one of several charges that Trump will be guilty of.

So, the parties that listen to Trump and disobey a Congressional subpoena are on the hook for stiff fines and jail time. Why they would subject themselves to that for him, when they have nothing to gain by doing that, is a mystery. So, fine for Trump to tell people not to obey, he is not the one that will pay the price.

Also, it is unprecedented for a president to tell people to ignore subpoenas from Congress. That is, as you point out, the president of the United States telling people to ignore the people of the United States...and to pay no attention to the laws of this country. This is in all reality the president setting his oath of office on fire. How fucked up is that? This is happening right now.

Also, while Trump is a moron so we can expect this kind of ignorance from him if the Attorney General ignores a Congressional subpoena...holy crap...that is INSANE! Barr is not a moron. He knows that he needs to obey a subpoena...of all the people on the planet the Attorney General knows if he ignores a subpoena he is saying, as the top guy at DOJ, there are no laws in this country. That would be a total disaster and opens up the possibility that we could see Barr taken out of his office in handcuffs...seriously...can you imagine seeing the Attorney General of the United States arrested?

He has not done it yet, but wow, look out if he does. My guess is Barr won't ignore a subpoena...it would just be too insane...so stay tuned.

"He is desperate. Before the Mueller report his every move was a reaction from fear; now it is pure lashing out aggression. He must be reelected at any cost...or; he knows he's going to jail."

Well, yes, now he desperately wants to remain president for as long as possible and believes if the wall of 20 Republicans remains in place in the Senate he is untouchable. His chosen path at the moment appears to be to try to cling to the presidency.

In a sick sort of way this does make me want to see what would happen if we proceed to the 2020 election and he gets voted out, loses to the Democrat. Then he is in an incredibly precarious position.

A Democrat is not going to pardon Trump, particularly none of the Democrats that are currently running. This means if he loses he is immediately open to prosecution and likely on up to 14 to 20 charges or more. The state of New York appears to be building some serious cases against him and those are not something anybody can pardon him on.

I still think that the best remaining path for him, and by best I mean safest for him, is for him to resign before his first term is over at which point Pence would immediately pardon him on all federal charges which would moot all federal investigations into him and his crimes. This would ease the tensions as well for all of the Republicans that are caught up in Trump's web of crimes. So, this path HAS TO BE the most appealing to some Republicans.

If he loses the 2020 election he is in a world of trouble. They will have his financials before we get to that and those are going to show off some ugly, ugly stuff.

I know it seems that Trump is not the kind of guy that would resign but his pattern of behavior shows the opposite of that. He is a guy that caves. He is a guy that looks only for his best way out. He is a coward and a weakling. The absolute best way to kill off federal prosecution is to resign and let a Republican flunky pardon him.

Now, I would not expect him to show that hand until he knows he is in the fight of his life to get reelected.

There is no Hillary Clinton in this race now. All those people that voted for Obama but flipped to voting for Trump because they could not hold their nose and pull the handle for Hillary...well...polling shows they will vote for pretty much any one of these Democrats over Trump.

So, this race will be even tighter and states that flipped to Trump will flip back to the Democrat in this election.

Does Trump want to risk that? We shall see, but 9 million more people voted for Democrats in the midterms than voted for Republicans...9 million. That's got to be a terrifying number to Trump.