The poor powerless victim in the White House
by digby
If “they” can investigate the crimes of the president of the United States, imagine what they’ll do to you!
Attorney Alan Dershowitz argued on Monday that all Americans are at risk of being targeted by special counsel Robert Mueller.
During an interview with Dershowitz on Fox & Friends, host Brian Kilmeade noted that President Donald Trump is besieged by investigations into his campaign, business dealings, charitable foundation and possible constitutional violations.
“I’m looking at this and I’m asking myself, why?” Kilmeade opined. “Why do you need to get to the bottom of this now? All those things were good or bad before he ran. This is an attack on a president because you don’t like him. Why is that allowed?”
Dershowitz immediately agreed.
“There’s no doubt about that,” he began. “They have targeted the president, they have targeted his business… The vulnerability is in the business and they have targeted. They have said, ‘Look, we’ve known about Mr. Trump’s business dealings for years. We’ve never looked into them. But now, we’re going to start looking into them.’”
“If you look deeply into any complicated business, you’re going to find a loan somewhere in which income is overstated, liabilities are understated,” he added.
“What happens to our republic?” co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy asked. “We are criminalizing political differences. We’re weaponizing government. What’s the outcome for us as a people?”
“The biggest crime you can commit in America today is to be associated with Donald Trump,” Dershowitz ranted. “They’re going to Manafort you, they’re going to Cohen you. They’re going to do all of these things to you.”
The attorney warned that any businessman running for office could expect a “legal colonoscopy.”
“It’s targeting people!” Dershowitz exclaimed. “And if they can target President Trump, they can target you, they can target anyone. That’s the problem.”
This is just daft. Donald Trump is the most powerful man on earth. He can launch nuclear war unilaterally. His answer to being investigated by a special counsel — as has been done dozens of times ever since we found out Richard Nixon was a depraved criminal — is to loudly demand that his Justice Department target his political enemies.
He is the most powerful corrupt politician in the world, a man who lives in ostentatious wealth and privilege, who has refused to divest himself of his international business and won’t open that privately held international business to the world. He has a history of con jobs and was sued thousands of times. He is credibly suspected of conspiring with a foreign government to sabotage the presidential campaign of his rival.
The man had no business running for president and thinking that he would not be subject to intense scrutiny and massive investigations into his businesses and personal dealings. The hubris that led him to hire Paul Manafort, a well-known lobbyist for foreign rivals, and declare publicly “Russia, if you’re listening …” was an invitation to a counter intelligence case against him. What the hell did he expect? (Actually, we know that — he has said many times that he thought once he won that the pressure would be off from the press and that the Justice Department was a supposed to be his personal legal protectors.)
And right now, one of the country’s two political parties is not just refusing to do oversight, it is actively helping him cover up his crimes. He is behaving erratically, throwing the world into chaos with his imbecilic behavior and clear unfitness for the job. He spends his days watching TV and tweeting for Christ’s sake!
No, he isn’t a victim. He will likely survive this investigation due to the institutional power he wields through the supine nature of his party and the eager malevolence of his followers. If he doesn’t he has no one to blame but himself.
The people of this country and the world are victims, not the president of the United States.
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