Donald Trump has been indicted for a third time. Jennifer Rubin writes:
Trump has spent his life evading responsibility for his conduct; within the space of a few months, he has been indicted three times in criminal court and held liable in civil court for defaming and sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll.
What’s most notable about the legal filing? Smith did not overcharge nor clutter the indictment with repetitive charges. He appears intent on keeping the case relatively simple. Simple does not mean unserious, however. Choosing not to bring the dicey charge of sedition or conspiracy to commit sedition, Smith nevertheless captures the enormity of the crime — the assault on our democracy.
There are three things that need to be understood:
For starters, if Trump ran for president under the mistaken notion it would protect him from prosecution, it was a colossal miscalculation; instead, his decision forced Garland’s hand, drawing into the case an incorruptible, aggressive and determined prosecutor who, in roughly eight months on the job, filed two mammoth criminal cases against the former president. Had Trump not declared his candidacy, the Justice Department might still be “working its way up the chain” in its Jan. 6 investigation. Trump remains his own worst enemy.
Second, Republicans have a fundamental choice: Do they nominate a thrice-indicted criminal defendant who sought to overthrow our democracy? General election voters will not avert their eyes from the blizzard of facts or the seriousness of the charges. If Republicans proceed with Trump, they become the party of insurrection and deceit. The GOP will be stained for a very long time by sticking by Trump’s side.
Third, Smith has done his job — faster and more completely than even his most ardent supporters expected. The judge and jury will be expected to follow their oaths. But it is up to the voters to make certain an abjectly unfit character never assumes power. There is no shirking that obligation, no matter what the results in court.
Even if Trump is convicted he could still be re-elected. The indictment separates the realists from the fools. We will soon know how many Americans are fools.
Image: Black Star News
18 comments:
Barring three mistrials, Trump has to be re-elected to avoid a jump suit to match his fake tan. I expect the pressure on Republicans to support him will only grow. Even opponents like DeSantis are calling the new charges fake and politically motivated. The GOP is truly at the crossroads and disaster is looming.
"Standin' at the crossroads, tried to flag a ride
Didn't nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by" - Robert Johnson
My prediction:
If there is just one Republican on the jury, Trump will walk free. My understanding is that at least one trial will be held in Florida, a Republican state. Chances of having several Republicans on the jury is high. Trump will walk.
On the off-chance that he is convicted, January 6 will look tame in comparison to the riots that will follow his conviction.
Unfortunately Owen, the fools are the ones who don't appreciate and understand why Americans are so angry and frustrated with their leaders that they resort to supporting outsiders like Mr Trump. All the signs are there, but the cognescenti refuse to acknowledge them. AD
Like lemmings, Cap, the Republicans are prepared to follow Trump over the cliff.
The United States is at the point it was during the Civil War, Gordie, testing whether the Republic can "long endure."
These days, AD, anger far outweighs intelligence.
I saw a woman on television the other night who said, "God first. Trump second." With that kind of insane fervour, I am only guardedly optimistic that justice will be done, Owen.
Our government and our courts are predicated on reason, Lorne. That's an increasingly rare commodity these days.
Another rare commodity these days is a sense of honour. There was a time when Dolt 45 would have walked into his office and found an aide had left a loaded Colt 45 on the desk.
A recent poll gave Trump 71% of republicans support.
Thats still nearly three in ten that don't like him.
The republicans lost the last election by, roughly, 49% to 51%.
With 30% of republicans not happy campers; I'm guessing Trump will lose the next election.
There are still enough moderate republicans to make a huge difference to the next vote.
Add to that an energised female backlash to the abortion issue!
Trumps prefered candidates in other elections have failed miserably.
Trump commands a lot of air time but his chances of success do not live up to the hype.
TB
There's no honour among thieves, Cap.
Those who can think critically figured Trump out decades ago, TB. Those whose buttons are easy to push are always easy marks.
This is for AD:
"He might say mean things and make all the men cry because all the men are wearing your wife’s underpants and you can’t be a man anymore,” David Green, 69, a retail manager in Somersworth, N.H., said of Mr. Trump. “You got to be a little sissy and cry about everything. But at the end of the day, you want results. Donald Trump’s my guy. He’s proved it on a national level.”
Somersworth, NH is across the border from Maine. It's a town of some 11,000 people and Mr. Green at nearly 70 is managing a Walmart, a 7-11 or some other small retail outlet since Somersworth and nearby Dover don't have large, high end retail outlets. I don't know his backstory but Mr. Green with his statements and his age tells me he's made some very poor decisions in his life including who he votes for. To paraphrase John Cleese, David Green is so stupid he can't understand how possibly stupid he is. To state Trump got results when all Trump did was cut taxes for himself and his rich donors, put tariffs on steel from China which made vehicles and farm equipment more expensive for the David Greens of the USA (China retaliated by slapping tariffs on US soybeans which of course hurt farmers' income) while the rest of the time spent in office watched Fox and Friends every morning, did nothing for America's crumbling infrastructure, didn't build the wall and have Mexico pay for it and the most serious and tragic, did nothing when the pandemic hit causing hundreds of thousands to lose their lives during his term in office shows how gullible Mr. Green is.
Mr Green's quote is one of those NYT specialities stories where they go to white enclaves outside urban areas to quote Republican supporters (white people), some who have turned out to be KKK members. NYT likes to portray these people as salt of the earth Americans in Middle America. What they are is low information voters who listen to the ranting of the offspring of wealthy scions who work at Fox News with a heavy sprinkling of racism. Trump, who is no outsider but another spoiled rich trust fund brat, brought his brand of racism in a not so hostile takeover of a Republican party which has shown in recent years to like playing footsies with the racists. So I'm sorry, but Trump supporters are racist and stupid. They believe the Libs, the Blacks and the Mexicans are the ones ruining America while it has been the policies of the Republicans who have done more damage to their lives than anything else. The Rust Belt began under Reagan.
mr perfect
Trump is the final product of longstanding Republican policies, perfect -- which is to say that the final result is no policy at all.
Trump is the final product …
I think that to a very large extent neither the Republicans nor the Democrats really have a lot in the way of policies domestically. The US political system is so designed and has developed so that is too fractured to keep functioning with much purpose. What other relatively democratic country keeps formal registries of the official parties memberships?
There seems to be some consensus in both parties that the USA must run the world but domestically there is total chaos. Single senators/members of congress hold up legislation for all sorts of whacky or corrupt reasons, the electoral system is a farce---can you say gerrymander---and we have examples of various parts of the government simply ignoring directives or initiates activities on their own.
A prime example of this is Trump ordering a withdrawal of US troops from Syria. The Pentagon simply ignored the orders and lied to Trump. Then there was Obama's determination to close the Gitmo prison. It's still open.
Another example of this seems to me to be the Afghanistan withdrawal fiasco. Biden & Co. seem to be getting the blame for this but I tend to see this as the military and their backers defying presidential orders, both Trump's and Biden's and not believing they would be forced to withdraw. Trump had agreed to a withdrawal about a year before Biden took office; Biden delayed the move and there were all sorts of screams and yells from various war-mongers but it was fairly clear it would go ahead. Still the Pentagon appears to have made no plans for this. It's as if they were sure they would prevail. Any competent military who planned on obeying orders would have had contingency plans in place about 1 day after the USA started negotiating with the Taliban.
Watching the shenanigans of the CIA and FBI over the last few years gives the impression that they see themselves as political actors as much as government agencies. I don't think one can say they have gone completely rogue but there are times....
In the United States, jrk, the enemy isn't at the gates. It's inside the house.
The Confederate has not died at all. Trump is their Savior and they plan on saving him. They really do want to revert to the good days of the "Deep South". Perhaps someone down there will realize that Trump has a pea for a brain. Anyong
You'd think they would have figured that out by now, Anyong.
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