With yesterday’s one-two haymakers — personal attorney Michel Cohen going full “rat” and campaign manager (and career-long DC sleazeball) Paul Manafort getting nailed with eight felony convictions — only the most deluded Trumpist goober can still pretend our man in the Oval Office isn’t a criminal. More to the point, if you have been paying attention since way back when he was just a sleazy tabloid caricature, you know Donald “Drain the Swamp” Trump was a criminal before, during and after getting elected President of ‘Murica, USA.
In fact, as is now being confirmed in the starkest terms for those reluctant to believe, Trump’s criminality is directly related to him “winning” the presidency. Period. The guy’s naked illegality — first with paying off Bunnies and porn stars a fortnight before the election he won on the basis of 78,000 votes in three states — and second with whatever he actually did with the Rooskies in terms of illegal hacking, trading stolen e-mails and scamming Facebook cannot be separated from his ascension to the White House.
So, can we now have a serious, non-hysterical, fact-based and rational conversation about the legitimacy of the 2016 presidential election?
What does The Constitution have to say about a candidate engaging in A: Criminal pay-offs and B: Conspiracy with a hostile foreign power to achieve election?
From what I’ve read, not a lot in terms of invalidating his election in the first place.
The fact there is no clear legal mechanism much less any precedent for this situation has led most people to dismiss even the discussion. I mean, that isn’t how we play the game in this most exceptional of republics.
No matter how they win — whether Joe “The Prohibition Liquor Baron” Kennedy cooking a deal with Chicago mobsters to get out the dead vote in Cook County, or George W* being waved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on a straight 5-4 partisan vote of the Supreme Court, we ‘Muricans are always admonished to accept the results with equanimity. Because … well, because that’s just how things are done here in the world’s greatest democracy.
Except that we’ve never had a situation where a candidate actively conspired with our foremost foreign adversary to get where he got. Bimbos? Sure. Rooskies? Not so much.
If you’re saying, “Whoa, Nelly! We haven’t got to that whole ‘collusion’ thing, yet,” I will only point out the fact that Trump and his bejeweled urchins have lived off the proceeds from business with Russian gangsters at least since he went belly up in Atlantic City and that that much has been laying out in plain sight for years. After that you can start factoring in the notorious meet up with the Rooskies in Trump Tower to talk, you know, “adoptions.”
Then for a special Super Duper Bonus Package you can imagine for maybe a half-second how much more vivid detail Team Mueller has on all this not even remotely sophisticated sleaze.
So what is the solution? There is no language or precedent for voiding Donald Trump’s election certificate on the basis of criminal fraud and conspiracy against the United States, and certainly none that would hand that certificate and the remainder of his term over to the candidate who actually won the popular vote by a large and convincing margin.
But if this lunatic farce continues to spiral out of control as it most certainly will with what Cohen will now tell Mueller, what Michael Flynn has already revealed to prosecutors and all the hammers that are going to drop on gormless little Donny Jr., Jared the human cipher and Ivanka the Princess of Entitlement, are we really going to sit still and accept the Trump kleptocracy being handed off to Mike Pence?
If Trump achieved the Presidency through criminal (and treasonous) means, those are the same means that put Pence there. (Never mind for the moment his own legal exposure over what he damn well had to have known about Mike Flynn and the Russians.)
With all the talk about a looming Supreme Court fight over whether Mueller can subpoena Trump, or whether a sitting President can be indicted, I think there’s an even more relevant conversation to be had about “suitable remedies” for an election decided on the basis of tawdry criminality and outright conspiracy against the Constitution.
Sounds like you are talking about a Constitutional Convention, co-Chaired by Barack Obama and George W. Bush, that would reform our election laws and Supreme Court….
Any other topics we’d want to consider?
An amendment giving the Twins a pass so they’d never again have to play the Yankees in a play-off game. I think that would cover it. Oh, also … no more stupid comic book hero movies.
Don’t stop here, Brian! Keep sharing your ideas for the next steps. Thanks again for your insightful thoughts and research.
My pleasure. I mean, my compulsion.
So now every Republican up for election will have to answer (seriously) questions about impeachment of the President for these campaign violations.
If Dems take over the House, there will certainly be impeachment investigations.
How many Congressional Republicans will stick with the President under those circumstances? And if Congressional Republicans start to abandon Trump, will his other supporters continue to stick with him?
I often wonder what the tipping point — poll-wise — is for the average GOP congress critter? Each district/state is different of course, but once the national trend line from 40% hits 30% I would anticipate a surge of principled courage.
Thank you again
Half Truths what was that about President Trump colluding with The Russians?
GODSPEED! (You need it but do not have it.)
What bothers me is that there evidently is NO point at which the Trump zombies will become disenchanted. Just to demonstrate that, he probably WILL shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight, before the 2020 implosion and collapse of any semblance of Constitutionality. And as for accepting this present fraudulent and treasonable imposture; or the past Presidential thefts and swindles (you left out the 1980 tale of Bill Casey’s maneuvers for Ronald Frontman Reagan; or the 1968 Nixon-Thieu arrangement which was Tricky Dick’s real “secret plan”)—there is no one to put the blame onto except the feckless citizens–we, the deluded people, ourselves. The deluded middle-class mild-mannered sons and daughters of relative comfort and privilege. Imagine though what certainly would have happened if HIlary Clinton had carried the electoral college and lost the popular vote. The Trump zombies, armed to the teeth AS THEY INDEED ARE, would have taken to the streets. The police and military rank-and-file being fully in sympathy with them, would not have been willing to apply force to suppress them, and a Mussolini-style insurrection would have succeeded. But the spineless, brainless Democrats and the caponized and/or overtly complicit corporate news media didn’t even have sense to insist on incessantly reminding everyone, every day in every way, that this simply isn’t government OF and BY the people . . . and it sure ain’t FOR the people. But I am haunted by the unanswered question–WHY is Fascist propaganda so effective? WHY does Fox command implicit trust and utterly uncritical belief from its viewers? I know several otherwise rational people among my acquaintances, who actually voted for Trump, and even now not a single one of them has disavowed the Fuehrer (“Twittler.”) Lots of folks regretted voting for Reagan after a year or two–which didn’t prevent his landslide re-election, of course. But with Trump, a thousand times fouler even than Reagan, who was a “smooth” pimp, so to speak; with Trump, it’s more than shared racism, more than shared sexist attitudes; more than partisan enthusiasm. It’s literally adoration; worship and veneration. Trump, a fascist sociopath, has ascended. He’s a bona fide demi-god.