What kind of person douses his/her reputation in gasoline, sets it alight, and holds it aloft like a cigarette lighter at a rock concert? The kind who sermonizes on the dangers of letting law-breaking go unpunished and then lets it go.
“History will be busy wondering why we impeached a President without a crime or a victim,” tweeted Republican Matt Gaetz of Florida Wednesday in response to Justin Amash’s (I-Mich.) warning to Republicans that they would not evade the judgment of history for supporting Donald Trump.
Citing Hamilton from Federalist 65, Amash replied, “The high crime is using his public office to solicit the aid of a foreign government for personal gain. The victim is society itself. “
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) was more blunt, “Actually, it’s even simpler. For any elected official who believes the conduct of @realDonaldTrump is not a crime, you should call up your favorite foreign government and ask them to help your re-election campaign. Then announce it publicly. I dare you.” Doing so can draw a prison sentence.
Trump will draw none, much less conviction in the Senate. Republican senators will not remove him from office at the end of this trial without witnesses. Trump Himself has decreed it:
Pew Research finds:
About six-in-ten Americans (63%) think that Donald Trump has probably or definitely done things that are illegal either during the 2016 election campaign or during his time in office. Slightly more (70%) say he has probably or definitely done things that are unethical.
Even so, a narrow 51 percent of the public says Trump should stay. Americans have grown accustomed to white-collar criminals going unpunished. Especially Republicans. Fifty-nine percent of Republicans who believe Trump has committed crimes believe he should remain in office.
The chances Trump would be removed by a Republican Senate were always slim to none. After nearly three years of Trump’s criming, Democrats saw no other option but to try. Impeachment, Dahlia Lithwick observes, “was undertaken not just to punish past misconduct, but to attempt to deter more of it.”
So far, it’s not working. A recent string of Trump administration efforts to avoid oversight have been lost “under cover of the fog of impeachment,” Lithwick writes, adding:
It perhaps bears mention that William Barr and Pat Cipollone—both of whom have participated in the acts at issue in the impeachment—are involved in defending Trump’s conduct in these proceedings. Also this week, D.C.’s Attorney General Karl Racine charged the Trump inaugural committee and the Trump Organization with using $1 million of charitable funds to enrich the Trump family during the inauguration. If you’re interested in more, CREW has more and more. This list isn’t by any means comprehensive, by the way. It’s more a tasting menu. None of this is normal, none of it OK, all of it is sliding by, as oversight moves away from government to journalists and private watchdogs, and as defiance of the law becomes the new normal.
Trump once had to rely on a team of private lawyers and threats of lawsuits to indemnify his schemes. Now voters have handed him the U.S. Department of Justice and the levers of the presidency. Add in the acts of homage to their liege lord and faithless oaths and Republicans have defined lawlessness down, as Lithwick puts it.
Donald Trump has already broadcast he is open to taking opposition research on his opponents from foreigners if it will help his reelection. Foreign intelligence operatives will be lining up to ingratiate themselves and get leverage on the phony deal-maker. He’s already proven tyrant-pliable, a sucker for flattery, and prone to conspiracy theories. Leaving him in office backed by his coterie of sycophants and grifters is to surrender the U.S. experiment in democracy to its enemies without firing a shot. The vultures are hovering, waiting to pick clean its bones.
As if this were not chilling enough, don’t read this on an empty stomach.
Read again the quote in the image at the top. Then organize and fight to save the country as if your lives depend on it.
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