Thoughts on the Mueller Report and Amash
Yes, I’ve read the Mueller Report. I just finished it a few days ago, and now I’m reading some underlying documents published in the Washington Post’s e-book of the report. It’s quite clear that Trump has committed offenses worthy of impeachment.
This is not the Bible or the Constitution, subject to interpretation based on your conservative or liberal leanings. This is written literally, with legal analysis. Mueller clearly lays out a number of incidents and whether or not they are obstruction (usually “yes”).
Also, he makes clear that he found no proof that the Trump campaign actively participated in the Russian hacking and influencing of the election–something which, also, the Mueller Report proves happened. HOWEVER, some members of the campaign (Trump is up for question as well) tried to benefit from that. They and the Russians were indeed in contact–and one Trump person even passed over polling data to the Russians. Usually their efforts failed because of ineptitude etc.
Just as Trump’s attempts to obstruct also failed because people refused to follow his orders. But you know, under the law, *attempting* to commit a crime and failing is still a crime.
The Trump Tower meeting was a setup by the Russians. They lured in the Trump campaign with promises of dirt on Hillary, but they really wanted to talk about the Magnitsky Act, which upset Russia and led to their ban on Americans adopting Russian children. (That’s where that “we just talked about adoption” thing came from.)
Mueller also made clear that his lack of indictment of a sitting President is only because the DOJ has this as a policy. He also responded to one of the president’s lawyers, who argued that investigating a president is unconstitutional because it affects his ability to govern. In a long and detailed explanation, Mueller argued that it is indeed constitutional to investigate a president.
Mueller also gave potential motives for Trump to try to obstruct the investigation, especially since he didn’t seem to actually be involved in colluding with the Russians. Basically, that Trump fears what ELSE will come out, crimes committed by him and his family.
But don’t take my word for it–Read the report for yourself and see.
Trump has been behaving more and more like a guilty man all the time. The more he fights to keep his finances and other activities under wraps, the more his actions scream that he has something to hide.
Do you really doubt this? Trump has been a known shyster for DECADES. This isn’t some figure of sterling character–This is Donald frickin’ Trump. His malignant narcissism is no surprise.
He’s always been an icon of greed and self-worship. None of his actions can be presumed to be for anybody’s interest but his own. None of his promises to his supporters can be trusted. It’s all for show, to bind them to him. He weaves a spell over people just like narcissists do, then when their lackeys wake up to the truth and act against his interest, he turns on them like a wolf.
None of this is a surprise to those of us who have studied narcissism for years, so every time the press has acted surprised at his actions, I’ve thought, “You’re kidding, right?”
I’m also curious what Howard Stern, longtime friend of Trump’s, has to say about him now, after kind of defending him in the beginning. He just came out with a new book, and says,
“Now here he is sitting in the Oval Office and flying around on Air Force One,” Stern writes in the introduction. “Two years into his first term, I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it. I feel like I’m living in an alternate reality…[B]elieve me, I’m as shocked as you are.” –Quoted in Daily Beast
He told Trump he couldn’t endorse him as President, and hasn’t heard from him since. In a New York Times interview, he says Trump probably didn’t actually want or intend to be president–that it was probably a publicity stunt. As most of us have already figured out, Stern traces Trump’s narcissism to his overbearing father.
And in the middle of all this, I discover a TEA Partier who I can actually like and respect, even if I wildly disagree with his policies: Justin Amash. Here’s a man willing to stand up to everyone in his own party and be condemned by them, so he can tell the truth: that Trump has done actions worthy of impeachment.
Other Republicans and TEA Partiers–even Lindsey Graham, who used to be more of a truth-teller–have been closing ranks and showing no signs of actually reading the Report. Or if they have, of trying to downplay it and pretend that it says what it doesn’t actually say.
McConnell is obstructing justice by refusing to give even bipartisan bills a hearing, while Graham uses a common tactic of narcissists and abusers: shouting down the whistleblowers. The closer the Democrats get to the truth and justice, whether about this or Kavanaugh, the louder Graham shouts and screams and berates.
Which makes us wonder if the Russians have something on Graham, too. McConnell’s home state, Kentucky, is getting a new factory from Oleg Deripaska, one of the oligarchs named in the Mueller Report.
History will not be kind to the Republican Party of our era.
That is, assuming the fascists don’t take over and make the history books say “all praise the GOP.”
But the GOP has been doing a lot to stir anger lately. They seem to have forgotten that a large part of the country does not agree with them, that angry citizens turn into active voters.
This could tip either way: People keep expecting a “Reichstag Fire,” or fake crisis that Trump/the GOP use to fool the populace so they allow Trump to take ultimate power. That’s what the Nazis did. (Something like that also happened with the Patriot Act years ago, though that crisis was real.)
Or the side that sees through the GOP gaslighting and refuses to be fooled, could rise up. We see signs of that as well, in the justice system, the voting booth, and House Democrats–though some feel they’ve been dragging their feet.