The Indictment of the Century – Until the Next One
Don’t you preferJack Smith’s perpetual “Don’t mess with me” face than that of the Orangeman’s?
We are being cautioned that the indictment of a former president and presidential candidate is a dark and serious moment in American history. I agree with the serious part, but this is a moment of light, not dark. It is a time of cleansing sunshine and I just can’t stop smiling. This is a joyous seriousness.
We learned on Friday, June 9 that Trump has been indicted on 37 counts of criminal behavior. You can view the indicting document here – there’s a print button on the top right of that page. This is an easy read and you need to read it.
There isn’t anyone who doubts Trump’s guilt, not even the far right mouth breathers who declared his innocence even before the indictments were unsealed. They’re just slaves to the cult master’s wails of victimhood.
From Adam Kinzinger’s Country First post of June 10 regarding Republican leaders:
If you listen closely, most of these leaders and personalities aren’t claiming he’s innocent; they’re saying the Democrats have done bad things, too. “And, you know, that should cancel everything out, right?” [emphasis original]
But if we follow the what-about-ist logic to its natural conclusion, we find ourselves in a hellscape where any unethical or immoral behavior can be excused by someone else’s bad behavior . . . and running for office cocoons you from criminal prosecution because accountability would be “election interference” or “weaponizing justice.”
Craziness.
There is one thing, though, about his guilt.
Trump has been bragging and clucking in his social media posts, in TV appearances, at his rallies and at the CNN so-called town hall that he had the right to have had those documents by virtue of the Presidential Records Act. He said that to declassify the classified documents all he had to do was to think “declassify” and click his heels 3 times. Okay, I made up the heels part. And we know that he’s been a total idiot for confessing his wrongdoing repeatedly, knowing that indictments were coming ever-nearer.
But maybe he’s not a total idiot. Maybe he’s been gaming the system all along with his claims of his honesty and his rights.
I’m wondering if he can beat the rap or minimize the penalties by claiming he thought that what he was doing was legal. “There was no illegal intent,” his attorneys will claim. “There is no mens rea*. He’s innocent of conspiring to thwart the law.”
We all know that ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it, but sometimes ignorance can have a large impact on the outcome of a criminal case. Can he can get away with his malfeasance by claiming cluelessness? Can he create a hung jury by convincing just one juror that he’s made a simple, honest mistake? This is most worrisome.
Meanwhile, we’ve received news about Trump suck-up judge Aileen Cannon. She was appointed by Trump and proceeded to disgrace herself with idiotic rulings during the case focused on the seizing of documents from Trump’s Mar-A-Lago hidey hole. Two of her rulings were so egregiously terrible that she was reversed by the very conservative 11th District Appellate Court and she was admonished in scathing terms. Be sure to keep an eye out for Cannon’s thumb on the scale of justice as this stolen documents case proceeds – or stalls with bogus delays, dragging it into the 2024 election. This could get ugly.
It has already become ugly in MAGA-land. Immediately upon release of the indictment Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Clay Higgins (R-LA) tweeted incitements to extremists. They did that long before they could have read the indictment, so it’s safe to assume they were spring loaded to call for violence at the slightest provocation. Apparently, they see themselves as the vanguard for the itchy, twitchy, trigger finger crowd.
These congressmen, dishonorable colleagues of actually honorable representatives, are just the first to attempt to incite violence. I fear there will be more like them who will be far more direct in their calls to violence. We are in the crosshairs of violent, angry, self-righteous people who are looking for an excuse to harm innocents.
Public memory is short. We so quickly forget the suffering caused by terrible events, like what actually happens in war. The soldiers come home scarred and silent, wanting most to forget. We erect monuments and mumble brave words and wave flags as though all that happened was glorious.
But there really was an American Civil War and we killed over 600,000 of our citizens, wounding at least 8 times more. Those soldiers, too, wanted to forget the carnage and the suffering.
It seems that forgetting is exactly what We The People have done, because now our perpetually angry who have never been to war are calling for a new civil war. How quickly we forget.
The lyrics of Where Have All The Flowers Gone are ringing in my ears.
Quotes For This Time of Indictment
“You heavens above, rain down my righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness flourish with it;” – Isaiah 45:8
“You DOJ in Washington, let the felony charges rain down like rule-of-law infusions for our sickened land. Let the doors of our prisons open wide for the wicked to enter and shut with finality behind them. Let accountability spring up in righteousness and the Earth tremble as a warning to all who would act wrongly.” – Jack 1:1
‘Nuther Thing
Somebody please explain why Trump Tower in New York and Trump’s The Bedminster Club haven’t been searched for stolen government documents. I haven’t found anything to suggest that either place has been tossed by the FBI, even though there is evidence that boxes of stolen government documents were moved from Mar-A-Lago to Bedminster, which leads to speculation that some might have been moved to Trump Tower, too.
Finally
Trump’s bottomless, never-ending malfeasance will provide all the motivation necessary for ongoing indictments. So, watch this space for the next exciting episode of The Indictment of the Century – Until The Next One.
And just for fun:
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* mens rea – the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing that constitutes part of a crime, as opposed to the action or conduct of the accused. – OxfordLanguages See also Wikipedia.
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Today is a good day to be the light.
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- Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
- Fire the bastards!
- The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.
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