“But Hillary” doesn’t cut it here. Trump chose not to pursue an investigation into her conduct. Trump chose not to indict her. If you want to say Hillary is a crook who should be in jail, Trump is the one you must ask — why didn’t his Justice Department and his FBI pursue an investigation? Why didn’t he appoint a special counsel?
No Republican is going to make that mistake again, though. Hunter Biden might want to start googling “countries without extradition treaties to the United States”.
I continue to believe the jury of 150 million Americans who will convene at ballot boxes around the country is the best jury for this. So many of you, left to right, have this sense the country is fraying at the seams. Letting the voters handle this matter is better.
However, given so many of you are still convinced the 2020 election was stolen, I guess maybe that would not work. Trump sold 2020’s “theft” so hard, the only way to convince you 2024 isn’t stolen is for him to win and the odds are not in his favor.
So, perhaps, letting a Trump appointed judge in Miami and a jury there solve this is the least problematic way. His appointees helm the 11th Circuit and he’s got three on the Supreme Court, plus Thomas and Alito. Maybe this really is the best path.
Now, take the crime out of this, if you can. Take it out. Presume there is no actual crime with the facts presented. Those facts still show the former president had a cavalier attitude to major state secrets. His home had been invaded by a communist Chinese spy not two years before he decided to pile up classified documents on a stage in a ballroom and around a toilet in a bathroom.
The discovery of those state secrets could literally get your kid killed if your kid is in the military in an undisclosed location. Trump loved the military so much he risked getting a lot of them killed. Same with our spies. That incompetence coupled with arrogance should be disqualifying to another term.
Now, add the crime back into it. His own lawyer ratted him out because, as you know, he chooses the best people. Like Christopher Wray. And Anthony Fauci.
Trump has had a target on his back since he rode the escalator in 2015. He beat Hillary Clinton and lived to tell the tale. They impeached him twice. They’ve been trying to find some reason to get him and he made it so, so easy. He kept the documents, he knew they wanted them, and they have wanted him too. He gave himself up by keeping the documents. It’s all so, so stupid.
Many of you think the United States is one more election away from ending. You think Christians are on the verge of arrest and kids are on the verge of forced re-education camps to become transgender. How you think Trump is the guy to see you through this and win is beyond me. He either lost to Biden once or could not stop the steal. He could not stop this indictment. He cannot stop the deep state. And he’s the horse you want to ride to victory? Better odds he ends in the glue factory.
If you really think this nation is at some existential breaking point, the man stupid enough to ask his lawyer to hide documents from the FBI who couldn’t stop the steal or the deep state or what is now happening is your weakest link to a better, safer tomorrow.
And some of you may prefer to sink with the ship. I’d prefer we fight. But Trump can’t fight. He’s shackled to two indictments with two more coming. That’s the reality. Say what you will, but if you look at this at a partisan level, the Democrats have boxed him in and crippled his ability to campaign. Your choice to stay in the box or find a more viable candidate whose campaign war chest won’t have to go to lawyers.
Lastly, I want to reiterate my opening point. You can say “but Biden” or “but Hillary” or “but X person,” but none of them have gotten themselves ensnared by a federal prosecutor and ratted out by their lawyer for trying to hide documents from the FBI. That’s a unique bit of Trump level stupidity and arrogance.
And Trump himself is the one who chose not to lock her up. So if she’s that guilty, that’s yet another time Trump himself screwed himself.
Erick's post takes apart the "But Hillary" argument. Here, I want to address that concerning Trump's declassification of the stuff he took.
To begin with, the declassification of a document doesn't mean it is only declassified as concerns its review by one person. Rather, it means the document is declassified . . . period; leaving anyone and everyone free to read and disseminate that document as he sees fit. If Trump declassified (quoting one of Erick's earlier posts) "plans for invasions of other countries, locations of American spies around the world, classified locations of soldiers, military vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies, classified assessments of nuclear capabilities of various nations," then God help us.
By way of reassurance, however, I don't think Trump could legally declassify stuff of that sort because implicit in any authority granted to a government official is the limitation that such authority be exercised for a proper purpose. Generally speaking, the proper purpose for declassifying a document is that the information it contains is no longer sufficiently sensitive to warrant classification. The former President's mere desire to take this stuff with him doesn't meet that criterion.
Even if Trump could declassify this stuff, he would still lack the authority to possess it. No matter how high one's security clearance is, that alone does not authorize one's access to all that is classified. Rather, one must also have what is called a "need to know." In sum, even if declassified, because Trump no longer had a "need to know" any of this stuff, his access to it was unauthorized. (I might also add this as a distinguishing aspect as concerns Hillary Clinton's transgressions, who as a mere diplomat, was unlikely to be receiving our most sensitive military secrets via that private server because she had no need to know information of a military nature.)
Finally regarding the classified nature of this stuff, now that we know it's not just love letters from Kim Jong Un, I wish someone could please point me to just one legitimate reason for Trump to want possession of information this sensitive after he was no longer President.
I say all this to knock yet another leg out from under the argument that conservatives should now rally around Donald Trump. Whomever it is that said a sucker is born every minute would seem to have been guilty of an undercount. For crying out loud, his 2016 campaign was virtually built around the notion that Hillary Clinton should have gone to jail for what she did. Now he does something every bit as egregious and all he need do is issue the call to the "lock her up" faithful to rally around him . . . and they do it; bringing with them every Republican presidential hopeful willing to put ambition ahead of the best interests of the country.
When Trump said he could shoot someone without losing any support, suckers is what he was talking about. Isn't it time to find a way forward that doesn't go down 5th Avenue?
https://twitter.com/iapolls2022/status/1667958840640380929?s=46&t=3W3ZcAv16M763tMjiEUvvQ