18 THENEWYORKER,NOVEMBER18, 2019
VISITINGD I G N ITARI E S
ONEMANGATH ERS
L
ast month, Kip Ole Polos arrived
in New York for a month of fund-
raising on behalf of his tribe, the Il Ngwesi
Maasai, which is trying to reintroduce the
black rhinoceros on its lands, in northern
Kenya. Ole Polos, a safari guide and a for-
mer Maasai warrior, is the chairman of the
council that governs the Il Ngwesi com-
munity and its conservancy; he is leading
efforts to protect wildlife, link up with
other neighboring preserves, and inte-
grate women into Il Ngwesi political life.
On October 30th, after a quick visit
to Vermont, he was a featured speaker
at a gala at the Metropolitan Club, hosted
by the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, which
borders the Il Ngwesi land. The m.c. was
Alex Beard, an artist who lives in New
Orleans and who sits on Lewa’s U.S.
board. On a whim, Beard invited Ole
Polos to join him the following evening,
at a rock concert at Madison Square Gar-
den. Ole Polos had never been to a rock
concert, or to a place like the Garden.
Beard bought him a ticket on his phone.
The next night was Halloween.
Beard and his son, fourteen, fetched
Ole Polos at the Yale Club, where Lewa
had put him up. Ole Polos, head shaved,
arms bare, wore a red shuka—the tradi-
tional plaid cotton shift of the Maas-
ai—a checked shuka blanket over one
shoulder, and Teva sandals, with an array
of shanga jewelry crisscrossing his torso
like bandoliers. “This is me at home,”
he said. He had never heard of Hallow-
een, and he couldn’t really tell, as they
struck out into the rush-hour bustle,
who was in costume and who wasn’t.
Beard asked Ole Polos, “Have you
ever heard of Jerry Garcia?”
“No,” he replied. “What is it?”
Beard attempted to explain what they
were going to see, a band called Dead
and Company, comprising several sur-
viving members of the Grateful Dead
and, as a fill-in for Jerry Garcia, who died
long ago, a pop star named John Mayer.
“This whole thing could really end any
day, even tonight,” Beard said. “So we
keep going, until that day that it does.”
“I hope it continues,” Ole Polos said.
“You might not say so, after a few
hours.”
As they neared the Garden, the ratio
of Deadheads to regular citizens began
to increase.
“You will see a lot of banghi being
smoked,” Beard said, using the Kenyan
term for marijuana.
“Let them do their thing,” Ole Polos
said. “In Kenya, it is absolutely illegal.
But it is allowed in Vermont.”
Their tickets were general admis-
sion. They found a spot on the floor of
the arena—mid-court. Bill Walton, the
retired basketball star and Dead mas-
cot, was nearby. Beard introduced him
to Ole Polos.
“Welcome to the center of the uni-
verse,” Walton said. When the band
came onstage, Walton, almost seven feet
tall, held his arms high in the air. Ole
Polos observed that Walton was being
Kip Ole Polos
resolve it on their own, then—sending
the sergeant at arms to arrest Mr. Mc-
Gahn?” she asked, referring to the
House’s security guard. The Justice De-
partment’s lawyers have suggested that
a better idea might be for the House
committees to rely on an “accommoda-
tion process”—in other words, if they
were nice to Trump he might throw a
few witnesses their way.
Similarly, in a case involving the Ju-
diciary Committee’s efforts to get ac-
cess to some of the Mueller report’s un-
derlying materials, Judge Beryl Howell,
the chief judge of the D.C. district court,
said that the White House’s arguments
that it was going along with normal pro-
cesses “smack of farce.” (On October
25th, she ruled for the committee, al-
though her order has been stayed.) And
Judge Victor Marrero, the district-court
judge in the tax-return case, noted that
the President’s argument would “poten-
tially immunize the misconduct of any
other person, business affiliate, associ-
ate, or relative who may have collabo-
rated with the President in committing
purportedly unlawful acts.”
Marrero ruled against Trump on Oc-
tober 7th; an expedited appeal was heard
two weeks later. In those oral arguments,
Judge Denny Chin, of the Second Cir-
cuit, asked the President’s lawyer Wil-
liam Consovoy if he was actually argu-
ing that, owing to Presidential immunity,
Trump really could shoot somebody
on Fifth Avenue and local authorities
would not be able to pursue the case
while he was President. “Nothing could
be done?” Chin said. Consovoy replied,
“That’s correct.”
The crudeness of the Administra-
tion’s arguments obscure the delicacy of
the constitutional questions. Trump ap-
pears unwilling to accept the idea that
weighing the President’s powers and
privileges against other parties’ rights
and interests is essential to a healthy
constitutional system. (The Supreme
Court performed such a balancing test
in ordering Richard Nixon to turn over
the White House tapes.) For Trump, it’s
all or nothing. But the corollary to any
claim of criminal immunity is that the
alternative the Constitution provides—
impeachment—must not be undermined.
The House isn’t waiting for all the
missing witnesses to appear, or for all the
cases to reach the Supreme Court. In-
stead, Adam Schiff, the chair of the House
Intelligence Committee, warned last week
that the President’s frantic efforts to sab-
otage the process could, in themselves,
be impeachable offenses. As the list of
charges grows, more people will be called
to testify before the House, and then,
most likely, the Senate—and their names
may even surprise Donald Trump.
—Amy Davidson Sorkin
