I am angry. Like many Americans, I am angry at the vicious thugs that stormed the Capitol last week, these Trump-humping MAGA terrorists who couldn’t understand how elections work and displayed their respect for law and order by bludgeoning Capitol police officers with fire extinguishers and flag poles.
I am angry at the Republicans in Congress who have either sat on their hands or sided with Trump for four years, like good little sycophants, and have contributed in perpetuating a false narrative that Trump’s 2020 “victory” was stolen by Joe Biden and millions of phantom fraudulent voters.
I am angry at President Trump for his continuous lying and provocative Twitter rants that may have started out as just annoying but has gradually moved towards dangerous and is now criminal and treasonous. He is, in my opinion, personally responsible for the deaths (seven, I believe, at last count) of the police officers and one rioter.
I am, like many Americans, depressed and confused and fearful that it may not be over.
As I write this, the House is preparing to impeach Trump. Again. It will be the first time that a President will have been impeached twice. Granted, like the last time, it is not expected to pass the Senate, so Trump will essentially go unpunished. But I think it needs to be done.
The Republicans are arguing that Democrats are contradicting Biden’s oath to “unite” the country, that impeaching Trump is just indicative of the voracious anti-Trump fervor that Dems have exhibited from day one and that this will go towards more divisiveness. I cry bullshit.
This isn’t about unity. That ship has passed. Trump made sure of that. This is about accountability. This is about setting a precedent: saying that it is not okay for a President to act like a five-year-old throwing a temper tantrum, that there are consequences to the things you do and say. This is about what Republicans should have been doing all four years: holding Trump accountable, saying no, strongly criticizing him and censuring him for enacting policies or doing things that are clearly unethical, immoral, unconstitutional, and illegal. We’ve had four years of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Enough is enough.
Instead, Republicans have either been kowtowing to him and/or walking on eggshells around him, afraid that they will do or say something that would anger him enough to hurt their livelihood. You know what that sounds like? The mafia. And Trump is the Mob Boss.
Don’t be taken in by the belief (peddled by those on the Right) that Trump has not really done anything that egregious, and certainly not illegal. Everything he has done, according to them, has been within the bounds of the law.
Again, I cry bullshit. And so does Jeffrey Toobin. And so do plenty of people who know about Law and the Constitution. Unfortunately, according to Toobin, Trump has managed to skirt punishment due to several factors: some serious missteps by the FBI during the 2016 election that helped Trump’s campaign, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s inability and unwillingness to go one step further with his findings in regards to the Russian probe, and a party of “yes”-men who let Trump get away with murder (which, until last week, was purely metaphorical).
Toobin’s book “True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Investigation of Donald Trump” is a quick and impressive reportage of the Trump presidency and the actual crimes against the state that he has committed. Is it factual? Yes. Will it do anything at all to change things? No.
That’s what the Mueller Report was supposed to do. Unfortunately, unlike Trump, Mueller is a person of integrity, and, like Trump, is bound by the duties and limitations of his office.
The vast majority of Toobin’s book covers the painstaking and grueling work that Mueller and his team of prosecutors undertook in their investigation. It was a productive effort, resulting in eight convictions and countless more charges brought against numerous individuals and companies. None of whom were Trump.
See, Mueller’s probe concluded that there was no collusion between Trump and Russia, a conclusion that Trump and his followers celebrated raucously. They neither bothered to consider nor cared about the fact that there was a major addendum to Mueller’s conclusion.
That addendum—-weirdly, ambiguously included in the Mueller Report—-was that Trump may not have been guilty about improper relations with Russia, but he was guilty in regards to other crimes. Those crimes involved Trump’s attempt to stop the Michael Flynn investigation, Trump’s firing of James Comey, Trump’s attempt to stonewall Mueller’s investigation, and Trump’s attempt to get Don McGahn to try to fire Mueller and then lie about it. So, why didn’t Mueller push for further action on these crimes?
Well, it turns out that if Mueller, in his report, stated that Trump was actually guilty of a crime, Trump would have no way of defending himself due to the uniqueness of the Special Counsel forum. In other words, Mueller—-who lived by a Marine code of honor—-did only what he felt was fair to Trump and good for the country.
Of course, these wouldn’t be the only crimes Trump would commit in his presidency. Soon after, the Ukraine fiasco occurred, which would earn him his first impeachment. In a nutshell, Trump withheld aid money to Ukraine in exchange for information about Biden that Trump could use against him in the upcoming election. Never mind that the info was bogus, created in a fever dream by Trump’s newly-appointed lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Quid pro quo. Blackmail. Call it what you will: it was a crime.
That didn’t stop the Senate from quashing the impeachment with a majority vote by every single Republican. Think about that: Every. Single. Republican.
In the days ahead, Republicans will have to face the truth that they either turned a blind eye to or enabled a man who cares nothing about his fellow Americans and has done everything strictly for personal gain. Because of this, seven people are dead and the FBI is warning that more threats are being made about possible riots in the state capitols of all 50 states.