I Am Not a Crook!
Is this a great country or what? The President of the United States just got a summary report that, in effect, stated there was not enough proof to convict him in a court of law for obstruction of justice. Sure he fired Comey and bragged to the visiting entourage of Russians that he’d gotten that monkey off his back. Sure a dozen or more of his associates are going to jail for lying about meetings he and the kids had with the Russkies. Sure his lawyer testified to all manner of criminal behavior on his boss’s part. Sure there’s plenty more to come out in federal district courts, grand juries, state courts and municipal courts. But so far they haven’t proved beyond reasonable doubt anything yet.
So we’re offered up the spectacle of a self-righteous mobster declaring himself fully exonerated when the Mueller report states in no uncertain terms it is NOT an exoneration. They just couldn’t make an airtight case. In America you’re innocent until proven guilty. Ask O.J. Simpson. Ask the Republicans who screamed Witch Hunt! how it is they think Hillary should be re-investigated. Or Bill on the Whitewater matter. Were they exonerated? No, but they couldn’t be found guilty in a court of law.
I have no quarrel with the system. I do have a quarrel with folks — let’s call them Enablers — who ignore facts, who demean a free press, who support a man so corrupt even his personal attorney denounces him. Take a Victory Lap, by all means, when their Leader wasn’t charged (yet) with high crimes or treason, but the threads of that investigation lead to all sorts of corollary crimes, still to be revealed and possibly adjudicated. I know a lot of us judged Trump guilty at the beginning of the Mueller probe and a lot of us are disappointed the President wasn’t indicted, locked up and tossed on the trash heap of history.
Personally I think the verdict is still out. But you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Okay by me. But let’s be honest here, the Enablers weren’t going to be swayed even if Mueller had found probable cause, airtight proofs and bodies piled in heaps behind the White House dumpster. This, I guess, is the state of partisan politics. Not a resounding endorsement of democracy as it’s practiced in America these days.
Trump has played fast and loose with the truth, with the laws, with the Justice Department, will all of us. He says he’s not a crook, but most of us know he makes Nixon look like a boy scout. Mueller’s investigation was narrow as per the mandate he was given. That won’t be the case with other jurisdictions. And even his Enablers won’t be able to help him then. Me, I’m waiting to vote him out of office, then let the courts have their say.
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Tags: Catch Me If You Can, Dodging Bullets, Trump Takes a Victory Lap