(Update: Many thanks again to Batocchio for adding this article to Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up on 06/22/23. Please take a few minutes to peruse the other articles I've written, and please leave comments!)
To all of the Far Right, MAGA-driven Republican voters siding with donald trump on his allegations of his indictments being a "WITCH HUNT" I ask a simple question.
Do you honestly think that all of these criminal charges and indictments on trump would happen to Chris Christie if he had been your 2016 Presidential candidate and had upset Hillary in the Electoral College?
I use Christie as a "what if" example as the then-governor of New Jersey was neck-deep in the Bridgegate scandal that had erupted over the partisan closing of an interstate highway bridge. Allegations about misuse of federal relief aid after Hurricane Sandy were still rampant. A lot of questionable criminal allegations surrounded Christie more than 8 years ago.
The result in real life was that Christie avoided a courtroom. The federal and state investigations couldn't prove enough against him on many of those allegations and he skated. The Supreme Court overturned the convictions of two of his staffers who were involved in the bridge closing. One thing about a career politician like him is that he knows how to create plausible deniability between himself and his handlers. If he had been President, it certainly would have put a hold on the investigations (bloody OLC memo, mutter grumble).
But would a former President Christie be facing a "witch hunt" today by vengeful Democratic/liberal leadership of the Biden administration? There could have been a few unanswered questions after 2021 that Biden's people could have reopened to make Christie's life a living hell. And yet, no it did not happen.
Has there been a history - I'm thinking back to LBJ, who could be that petty - of previous Democratic Presidencies that turned the Justice Department into the Vengeance Department, anything that would suggest something like that happening now towards trump or any other Far Right figure? There were and still are a number of partisan Republican annoyances who could be jailed just for being so, but yet you don't see that happening (yet. To be honest: the January 6 Grand Jury may drop that hammer soon). For the love of GOD, Matt Gaetz is still a free man because the FBI and DOJ were not able to find enough evidence and credible eyewitness testimony - Gaetz's cohort Greenberg was compromised, and the teen girl Gaetz abused refused to testify - to bring him to court.
Also, there's no evidence that Christie would have risen to the level of criminal behavior - especially with the theft of classified documents and obstructive attempts to keep them - that trump has. Character still matters in the formation of Presidential behavior, and while Christie can be a bully there's no evidence he is as narcissistic as trump to where Christie would have crossed the lines trump has.
You could also ask if there's been a history of previous Republican Presidencies that tried to make the Justice Department the Vengeance Department, but for what I've learned the closest was Nixon's administration going after Anti-War protestors like the Chicago Eight.
You can ask that simple question at the beginning of this article not only using Christie but of every other credible 2016 primaries choice for the GOP: Would Jeb Bush have done the things trump has? Would Marco Rubio? Would Scott Walker? Would John Kasich? Hell, would Ted Cruz be as stupid and crooked as trump when it comes to violating the federal laws - stealing classified documents, obstructing investigations, inciting insurrection and violence towards Congress - trump is alleged doing?
Let us be honest here: If the Republican voting base had not gone for donald trump, if they had agreed that their standard bearer could have been any of the other 2016 candidates, the Republican nominee would have been someone better versed and more savvy about the political and legal systems. That person would have had a (slightly) stronger Character. That candidate (and President) would have avoided the traps trump happily jumped into. And there would be nothing today for the federal justice system - which isn't liberal by nature, but has to uphold laws in as consistent a manner as possible - to pursue for indictments, either legitimately or for "witch hunts".
No. Everything that is happening to trump - every criminal charge getting laid at his feet - is tied directly to trump's nature as a con artist grifter obsessed with money, power, and leverage (or as his Russian buddies call it Kompromat). It has nothing to do with trump being conservative, or Republican, or Christian, or "great". It has everything to do with trump being a crook his entire adult life.
trump is calling it all "WITCH HUNT" not only because he's desperate to avoid criminal conviction, he is also convinced that the legal system is meant to inflict witch hunts and punishments on political opponents in the first place. You can look to how he pushed for dubious "investigations" into Hillary's 2016 campaign for "illegally spying on him" all of which ended up as John Durham's Special Counsel inquiries... which all ended with no proof of trump's allegations and acquittals on the two cases Durham brought to trial.
Durham's failures should in truth prove that the American legal system - from the federal courts to the Justice Department to the FBI to even the state police and courts - tries its best to avoid political attacks in spite of trump's accusations (and hopes, should he return to power). The legal system is not based on Narrative - the opinions and unproven fears of the partisan hacks - but on Fact - the evidence gathered, the testimony of witnesses, the relevant matters - and on the Facts trump is either lying to the public or he's lying to himself. It can be both.
Again, this is the simple question: If it had been anyone else in the White House other than trump, would we be honestly seeing criminal indictments on the things trump has done (and hilariously enough, things he's openly bragging about)?
Here is the simple answer: No. This is all on trump.
The horrifying thing is how the rest of the Republican Party now wants to behave like trump.
This is not going to get better anytime soon.
And yet, let justice be done.
Update: Later today I saw reports from the Washington Post that the FBI and key Justice Department figures fought against any kind of investigation into trump's misconduct in the Presidency. This partly fits my argument that the federal law enforcement agencies are not "witch hunting" as trump proclaims, but this does point to a troubling unwillingness by the FBI and DOJ to hold ANY high-level figure accountable (as long as that figure isn't Hillary). That it took the DOJ almost a full year to open investigations into trump's involvement in the January 6th riot, and that the department dragged out the efforts by the National Archives to recover the stolen classified documents, signals how slow this move towards justice truly is.
There's a ticking clock here, America, and if trump delays any justice until Election Day 2024, we may well be screwed forever.
Speed it up, Garland. Let justice truly be done.
3 comments:
None of them would act as stupidly impulsive as Fergus, and therefore would have avoided most of his legal problems, but that is also why he beat them in the primary, the gop base LOVES that shit.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
The practice of accountability can be lost in an instant, but can only be built or rebuilt on a scale of centuries. Even to begin rebuilding accountability, we would first have to wait for everyone alive today, whose mindset is locked in the expectation of unaccountability, to die.
Doug, hey. Yeah, alas for the nation, the Republican voting base were desperate for a demagogue of trump's shameless level, someone who would validate their fear and rage no matter what. It's a level of shamelessness that no true politician will sink to, because they tend to think long-term about their careers instead of trump's short-sighted "FEED ME NOW" world-view.
FRANK! Good to see you! I would argue there are those alive - among the Gen X and younger generations - who do believe in accountability, it's just that we're in no political or legal position to fix our broken systems. The Far Right is going to have to collapse first. We just have to get enough people on the same wavelength to fill that vacancy and institute ethical standards (and also end the tax-cutting greed that's skewed our upper class into corrupt oligarchs) much like what happened during the Progressive Era of the early 20th Century.
Post a Comment