Trump Must Be Held Accountable

Unless you were on vacation on a tropical island last week, you undoubtedly heard about yet another criminal act by the ex-president. Just when you might be thinking that we’ve heard it all, that it is impossible for Donald J. Trump and his wholly owned subsidiary formerly known as the Republican Party to further debase and destroy our nation, we find ourselves shaking our collective heads over another despicable and corrupt violation of our nation’s laws, morals, ethics and sense of duty.

As his actions continue to come to light through the actions of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection and the conspiracy to overthrow the duly elected president of the United States, one has to wonder why the man is still walking the streets creating hate and discontent throughout the land. He needs to go to jail.

Yes, yes, I know. He is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law following the rules under our system. That said, it is not clear why he has not been arrested and forced to post bail. Were I to have his track record, I know that I would have already taken a “perp walk” into court.

To me, perhaps the most despicable and shameful aspect of the last week was the reaction by nearly every senior elected Republican official in the land. Most of them attacked the FBI and DOJ. Not one that I heard of even took a “wait and see” approach. Instead they followed in Trump’s footsteps and attacked, attacked, attacked — with the vilest and darkest comments imaginable. Do you want an example? How about Senator Rick Scott (Tr-FL) who, following the execution of a court approved search warrant, said; “This should scare the living daylights out of American citizens. The way our federal government has gone, it’s like what we have thought about the Gestapo and people like that — that they just go after people. What we thought about the Soviet Union.” Rick, you make me proud to be an American. Or perhaps the comments from Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (Tr-GA) — as fine an American as you would ever want to meet — who is yelling to “Defund the FBI.” And in the finest Trumpian way, she is selling caps and t-shirts with that slogan for a mere thirty dollars. I could go on and on, but I would rather not.

For those that have never dealt with material classified Top Secret (TS) or Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) you may not understand the impact of Trump’s actions. Not only is the information highly classified, but what is really causing most of those SCI classifications is what is commonly called “sources and methods.” In other words, the way that the information was obtained. Foreign intelligence services receiving such documents could reverse engineer the information in order to find out where it came from. Perhaps it is a highly placed mole. Perhaps it is good old fashioned espionage. Perhaps it is through secret technology capabilities. Or a variety of other sources. The point is, people’s lives may be at stake and the country’s safety and security are certainly at risk by carelessly handling the documents.

I will not go into explaining or rebutting all of the silly excuses that Trump is putting forth and finding support for from his employees in the wholly owned subsidiary. All of it is total fantasy and as big of an unbelievable lie as is possible to concoct. There are no “oops” moments with TS and SCI material. It is always signed for and always guarded. Nearly every time it is created and maintained in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF). It is not even discussed outside of those facilities. The Oval Office is not a SCIF. The few times it is taken outside of a SCIF, it is signed for, and carried in a special satchel that is literally handcuffed to the courier. Afterwards, it is signed back in. If the same person does not return it and sign it back in, there is big trouble. Like losing your job and going to jail trouble.

The point of bringing this up is that there can be no “accidental” leaving of documents around or just borrowing them for awhile or anything else. Even taking into account that one is dealing with the President of the United States, there would be no chance of a breach.

Unless it was done intentionally.

How was this accomplished? I do not know. I will leave that to the FBI. Just as importantly, why was it done? Again, I do not know, but I will merely state that Trump does nothing that he cannot monetize. The Washington Post reported that at least some of the classified documents had to do with nuclear issues. I will just ponder the fact that during Trump’s administration he and his inner circle, including his son-in-law, wanted to sell nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia. Ostensibly it was for nuclear power plants, but many experts concluded that it could also lead to Saudi Arabia building nuclear weapons. Thankfully, cooler heads in the National Security areas of the government were able to stop such a deal. Coincidentally, after leaving office, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner landed a two billion dollar deal with the Saudis. Last month the Saudi funded LIV golf tour held a tournament at Trump’s Bedminster course in New Jersey. Could there be a connection? I do not know. People are just asking.

In my opinion the FBI should not be asking what he was going to do with that information but rather what did he already do with it?

There is a larger picture here. Trump clearly cares nothing about the laws, norms or traditions of the United States or what it means to be president. It appears that he thought that as president, he owned the country, everything in it and everyone that worked in the government. Whether his approach was that of an autocrat or a mafia boss does not really matter, he believed that anything he wanted was his. (For the record, I think he operates like a mafia boss. Autocrats at least have an ideological base to operate from. Trump only cares about himself and making money. He has no underlying beliefs, be they good, bad or indifferent. He only cares about what rewards him.)

Trump and his fellow conspirators and abettors should be held to account to the fullest extent of the law. For everything. I think the impeachment charges brought against him were insufficient. By this I mean that twice the House tried to simplify his transgressions to one, easily understandable charge rather than the full breadth and depth of his criminality. They gambled that the public would buy into something that could be easily digested. They also saw as their primary goal to remove the cancer from our government and keep it from ever returning again. They only needed him to be found guilty on one charge. They failed.

The DOJ cannot fail. Trump needs to be stopped. Trumpism will not die if Trump is removed as too many other politicians (especially certain southern governors) have learned his lessons. At least if Trump is indicted, tried and convicted, the leader of the cult will be disgraced and removed. Millions of people will think that it was a kangaroo court and that he was set up. They already think that, so there is nothing to lose by acting and a lot to lose if we do not hold him accountable. Those same politicians taking the mantle of Trumpism will also see that if they become president, they can do whatever they want because there are no consequences. His cult members argue that Trump is the most persecuted president in our history. I want him to be the most prosecuted.

Cries that these actions are unprecedented are true. Primarily because we never had a full scale mafia boss as our president before. But if his home can be raided, then anyone’s can, they cry. Two points. Mar-a-Lago was not just a residence, it was a club. People come and go. Memberships are sold. It is not exactly like the FBI searched a two story colonial on a cul-de-sac. Secondly, yes, if you break the law, conspire to over throw the government, take TS and SCI documents home to your basement, you can probably expect a knock on your door from the FBI. That is the point. No one should be above the law. Not even an ex-president who is now, under the law, just a regular citizen like the rest of us. No magic wands to declassify documents. No thoughts in his head that everyone should instinctively obey. Just follow the law.

I fear for our republic, I fear for our democracy and I fear for our future. Trump and his cult followers and collaborators in Congress are the single greatest domestic threat to our country and our way of life since the Civil War. I am very afraid there will be more domestic political violence. Firing up the cult to attack FBI officers and federal judges is dangerous, as we saw earlier this week in Ohio when one of the cultists tried to kill FBI officers at their area headquarters.

For nearly 22 months now, Trump has been doing his best to destroy this country and make himself the Dear Leader. It is not getting any better. During the dangerous response to the pandemic during his administration I opined in one of my postings that Trump may in fact be an agent of Vladimir Putin because things were getting so bad, it could not be by accident. It had to be by design. Chaos, discord and political violence in the U.S. are right in keeping with Putin’s goals. No one person in our history has done more to align with the goals of an adversary than Trump has done. I cannot forget those meetings between Trump and Putin, alone, with only Putin’s interpreter. We may never know what words were exchanged, but Trump’s continued actions designed to undermine our government on every level may tell us more than any transcript.