Four Indictments, 91 Counts

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise at Laite Beach, Camden, ME – August 2023 photo by Daniel F. Dishner

Thereā€™s plenty of good reporting and bad punditry out of Georgia. So Wrongo, as in the past, will limit what is said about it here. From the NYTā€™s Peter Baker: (emphasis by Wrongo)

ā€œ…most Americans made up their minds about Mr. Trump long before prosecutors like Fani T. Willis or Jack Smith weighed in, polls have shown. He is, depending on the perspective, a serial lawbreaker finally being brought to justice or a victim of persecution by partisans intent on keeping him out of office.ā€

Republicans will continue to rationalize Trumpā€™s criminal behavior. Their main talking point today is that the Democratic Party is part of a giant deep state cabal working to take down Trump. It is the Dems, not the Donald who are guilty of election interference. And what about the Biden Family Crime Syndicate?

The courts are finally treating Trump as the career criminal heā€™s always been. And many pundits are shaking their heads, saying that the shock to the American political system is going to be extreme because Republicans are angry.

What the pundits and the wingnuts donā€™t understand is thatĀ the rest of us are angry too. Weā€™re livid that this cancer of a person has evaded justice after what he did post-the 2020 election. Weā€™re enraged that his goons desecrated the Capitol. Finally, we nearly stroked out once we realized that after trying to overthrow our duly elected government, Trump and cronies seemed to get away with it.

And we plan to vote in historic numbers.

Republicans think they are the only side that feels passionately about Jan 6, but that is a huge mistake. Many Americans are angry that justice hasnā€™t been done. One foundational tenet of the MAGA movement is its southern anti-DC attitude. But Trump has in essence been saying to Georgians that they screwed up. That Georgians held a fraudulent election. It seems highly unlikely that framing will play well with a Fulton County jury. (Although it will only take one MAGA jury member to create a mistrial.)

A few other thoughts: The sooner journalists stop pretending that Republicans care about holding other Republicans accountable, the quicker we can move on to saving our democracy. Most mainstream journalists miss the moment because of their inbred need to show both sides of an argument. It was Jonathan Foster formerly of Sheffield University who said:

“If one person says itā€™s raining and another says itā€™s not, a journalistā€™s job isnā€™t to report that disagreement, but rather to look out the window.ā€

Americaā€™s journalists should heed Fosterā€™s advice.

Finally, the importance of the Georgia case is that Trump can never pardon himself if heā€™s found guilty in Georgia. In fact, Georgiaā€™s governor doesnā€™t have that authority. From the Atlanta Journal Constitution: (emphasis by Wrongo)

ā€œUnlike the federal cases, which could be dismissed by a future Republican president, Georgiaā€™s pardon process is in the hands of an independent board, not the governor. Under the stateā€™s rules, a person needs to wait five years after they serve any prison sentences before they can be considered for a pardon.ā€

What kind of person holds on to a lie and builds a scaffold of dishonesty around it? At any point in Trumpā€™s Big Lie, from voter fraud to conspiracy, Trump could have said, ā€œI lost fair and square, and Iā€™ll get him next timeā€. Many in his Party in Georgia did just that. But Trump pushed on. The Senate could have convicted him at a time when the Capitol was in a damaged hulk. That also could have spared the country where we are today. But most Senate Republicans couldnā€™t find the courage.

Another tragedy is the enduring distrust of and lost faith in those Americaā€™s institutions that still function, if tenuously, today. Whether Trump wins or loses these cases, or whether he wins the White House again, this damage will take decades to undo.

We have zero control over what happens next in the various courtrooms. We have no influence over the juries who will weigh the evidence. Whatever the result, it will be divisive. But we wonā€™t heal unless we lance the boil. Yes that means Wrongo is saying that Trump is a festering abscess poisoning our nation.

We need open, transparent trials, with public records of all witnesses and evidence. No one should argue for pardoning Trump because theyā€™re afraid of his insurrectionist allies.

Trump and America deserve REAL trials, with REAL sentences. And we can move forward from there.

We were wrong to pardon Nixon. We let other Republicans (like Reagan and Bush Sr.) slide based on a wrong-headed sense of respect for the office, setting a bad precedent. It encouraged later Republican presidents to think they could rely on magnanimity when none was deserved.

Nail the crooks, starting with Trump.

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Ottho Heldring

Re: “The Senate could have convicted him at a time when the Capitol was in a damaged hulk. But most Senate Republicans couldnā€™t find the courage.”

I don’t think it is lack of courage. It was (and continues to be) absence of integrity. Hypocrisy. But (not to defend the pols), that’s politics. They reflect what those who elected them want. The voters are the underlying problem.

Ottho Heldring

Re: “The Senate could have convicted him at a time when the Capitol was in a damaged hulk. But most Senate Republicans couldnā€™t find the courage.”

I don’t think it was lack of courage. It was (and continues to be) absence of integrity. Hypocrisy. But (not to defend these pols), that’s politics. They reflect what those who elected them want. It’s the emotion-driven voters who are the underlying problem.