by Pa Rock
American
Federal prosecutors are charging Donald John Trump, a former President of the United States, with thirty-one counts of violating the Espionage Act through "willful retention" of classified records after leaving office. Trump is also being charged with six counts of efforts to obstruct the investigation of his removal of those classified records.
That's a total of thirty-seven counts alleging illegal behavior by a man who at one time was charged with safeguarding our national security.
Those counts of criminal behavior were not some "witch-hunt" as alleged by the ever-bellicose Donald Trump whose first defense is always to shout down his accusers, and it is not some personal political vendetta being brought down on a mistreated political candidate by a vindictive sitting President. (Trump couldn't beat Biden in 2020, and he is certainly a much weaker candidate today than he was then.)
It's just Donald Trump being Donald Trump, an angry and spiteful child of privilege who has spent an entire lifetime wallowing in bloated self-importance and never suffering consequences for any of his illicit and illegal actions.
Donald Trump took sensitive and highly classified documents from the White House and hid those papers, many of which dealt directly with the national security of our country and some of our allies, and shuffled boxes of those documents around his home and business in Florida - and possibly other locations as well. And when investigators came looking for those documents that he was not supposed to have - and denied having - Trump and his minions shuffled those documents around in an effort to hide them and keep them under his control. According to information in the indictment, Trump also showed some of those highly classified documents to people who were not authorized to see them.
There are words for actions like that, ugly words, the kinds of words that sent the Rosenbergs to the electric chair.
But Donald yells "witch-hunt," and entrenched GOP politicians who are scared shitless that Trump's yokel base will rise up and remove them from office if they admit the obvious, instead buy into yet another of his lies and run around squealing about Joe Biden committing an act of political retribution.
News flash, America . . . Joe Biden didn't take documents related to our nuclear defense and documents showing America's vulnerabilities, and then go to great efforts to hide those secret materials and keep them under his control. Donald Trump did. Jack Smith, the independent prosecutor who conducted the investigation that ultimately brought about the 37-count indictment worked independently, on his own with his own independent team. He was not at the beck-and-call of Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, or even George Soros. Jack Smith answered to the law - and he brought charges, and now a duly established legal process will go to work to determine Trump's guilt of innocence. Some of the process will even be handled by judges whom Trump appointed. (How many criminals get to state their cases to judges that they appointed?)
Trump got himself into this mess, and hopefully this will be one that he cannot yell his way out of. History is not going to be kind to Donald Trump, nor should it be - and history will also not be kind to those who set their principles and decency aside in order to pander for votes and to maintain their places at the public trough.
But not all Republicans have bought into this blind rush to protect their political jobs. Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney, the man who was the party's nominee for president in 2012, has said that Trump "brought these charges upon himself." Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who is also a former federal prosecutor - as well as a former aid to Donald Trump, described the indictments as "devastating" and has said that he believes the counts against Trump are all "self-inflicted wounds." (Christie will be running against Trump in next year's GOP presidential primaries.) Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is maintaining a wall of silence on the matter.
Many others, however, are rushing to Trump's defense and trying to blame everything Trump did on Biden. Members the the House, and particularly those conservatives who seem to live for soundbites on Fox News, are strident in their excuses for the former President's blatant theft of secret documents.
It has now been over six years since Trump's inauguration, and the shame and embarrassment roll on. Will they ever end?
1 comment:
A minor fact check is in order. All those things you said Donald Trump did have not been proven to a jury in a court of law beyond a reasonable doubt. Until then all that can be said is that those are things the United States alleges Trump did.
Neither can we say we reasonable certainty what Joseph R. Biden did with criminal intent regarding documents found at his residence and a former office. That is because the Special Counsel appointed to investigate the matter, Robert Hur, has not concluded his investigation of the matter.
Of course, Biden is a sitting President, and a DOJ Office of Legal Counsel Memorandum says a sitting President cannot be charged with a criminal offense in a federal court. If Mr. Hur wanted to politicize and weaponize his appointment, he could drag things out until Mr. Biden is no longer the President.
Just saying.
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