April 19th 2019
Back on May 17, 2017, Confederate Pixie and then-AG Jeff Sessions told Trump that Rod Rosenstein had just appointed Robert Mueller to be a special prosecutor looking into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Trump slumped, and said, “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.”
It’s a side of Trump we don’t see very often: the one that is capable of doing an honest and forthright analysis of a situation. Usually all we get from him is demented and hateful gibberish, a trashy and despicable President playing to a trashy and despicable base.
Much has been made of Trump’s reaction. Not in the morally upside down world of the Republicans, where if Obama had said ‘fucked’ they would have impeached him for using cusswords in the White House. However, Republicans normally would think it’s OK for Trump to do so because he’s bravely fighting immoral people who might say “fuck” in the White House. But they’ve been strangely silent for other reasons.
Trump’s reaction is, prima facie, the reaction of a man who knows he is guilty. It’s the kid snapping his hands behind his back as the teacher walks in the room, the husband slapping off the computer screen as the wife walks in, the guy turning his face away as a police cruiser goes by. It’s not an admission of guilt, but it is the reaction of someone who is guilty.
The rest of the report, even Bawdlerized by Barr, makes it amply clear that Trump repeatedly and knowingly obstructed justice. There’s at least a dozen felony actions by Trump detailed in the report.
And yes, Mueller felt the Department of Justice could not indict a sitting president, and that only the House, through the power of impeachment, could do so. He strongly urged the House to do so, since he believes that no man is above the law—or in Trump’s case, in the sewers below the law.
We now know that in an action that is a felony in and of itself, Barr conferred with the Trump administration on what to censor in the report. Barr needs to be indicted and prosecuted for tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice, and die in jail.
But what we’re seeing now is what Trump felt he could get away with the public knowing. He has utter contempt for the resolve of the American people or their ability to stand up to an self-entitled millionaire autocrat. We do not yet know what remains hidden in the report.
Yes, there’s no doubt that some is hidden for legitimate cause; because it may interfere with other ongoing investigations. (Remember how war criminal and traitor Oliver North was able to skate because of Congress’ reckless release of evidence from a grand jury?) And there may be items that could harm national security if made public.
But this is the corrupt, self-centered and morally bankrupt Trump dictating to his loathsome toady of an Attorney-General what should not be allowed into the public eye. There remains stuff the public is entitled to know, and it’s probably the worst stuff of all. Congress must get the full, unredacted report. I’m happy to say the Congressional subpoena has been issued.
While other legal investigations into Trump’s tawdry life continue, the political battle is now joined.
Some Democrats are still saying it’s too early to consider impeachment. One of them is a presidential candidate, Cory Brooker. In a bizarre show of equivocation, he is saying that Congress should not impeach until the evidence is in, apparently unaware that impeachment is the gathering and evaluation of evidence of presidential misconduct.
He eliminated himself from any support from myself with that statement. What is the point in replacing Trump with a man who was unable to stand up against Trump when the time came to do so. What do we gain from replacing Trump with someone who is afraid of Trump?
We’re hearing the usual political arguments against impeachment hearings, of course. “Democrats are cowards and won’t start a fight they can’t win.”
Well, yes, some Democrats are cowards. And some, like Brooker, are just far too fond of political calculation. But if the Democrats aren’t willing to join this battle now that the time has come to begin fighting, then they will not win in 2020, or ever again.
There were politicians in England and France who, even after Hitler’s invasion of Poland, urged against a declaration of war against the dictator because Hitler had a massive military and England and France were too weak to beat him. In fact, that was the case, but the politicians who still urged appeasement are forgotten to history, because because while they were right in terms of the immediate situation, they were so horribly, horribly wrong on the bigger picture.
Dems who argue that impeachment must not happen because Republican will never support it need to realize that we’ve passed the Polish invasion point of the opposition to Trump, and that political headcounting no longer protects.
Republicans can also count heads, and some of them are cowards. They know, first hand, the political calculus of an impeachment, and how it can blow up in their faces. But they also know that this is a whole lot bigger than the man in the White House lying about getting a blow job. Trump is a felon hundreds of times over, and a serious and immediate threat to the continued existence of the United States. To not act is treason.
Even the redacted Mueller report makes it clear that we are at the point where we must impeach. We’re long past any reasonable excuse to let the Trump regime continue.
Yes, Pissmop: You are fucked.
