Photo credit: Mitchell Resnick
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt
Our Founding Fathers always feared America falling into the hands of a totally unscrupulous president without any respect for democracy. They attempted to create a meticulous system of checks and balances and a fail-safe procedure to remove any president for vaguely defined “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Our Founders clearly underestimated the criminal mind. They couldn’t anticipate Donald Trump would one day declare as president he had absolute power to decide what even constituted a crime in his country and to pardon any crimes committed by a growing list of family members and associates either charged or under investigation by prosecutors including his son, son-in-law, campaign manager, national security advisor, personal legal “fixer” and even himself.
That sounds a lot like America being taken over by organized crime, the Goodfellas of the Trump crime family. Scott Pruitt, the corrupt, environmentally destructive administrator of Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, added a comic element by using his position to acquire a discount Trump Home Luxury Plush Euro Pillow Top Mattress from Trump’s Washington hotel in case the whole gang has to “go to the mattresses” like the Corleone family in The Godfather.
Anyone who considers this an outrageous exaggeration might want to review the preposterous claim by Trump legal advisor Rudy Giuliani that the president can neither be indicted nor subpoenaed to testify about criminal activities and would have the absolute right to pardon himself even if he shot and killed former FBI Director James Comey in the Oval Office. Damn. Why didn’t Thomas Jefferson and the boys think to write something into the Constitution to prohibit the president from committing murder?
Of course, Giuliani assured us even though Trump could commit any crime he wanted and then pardon himself, Trump would never, ever think of doing such a thing. Actually, he already has. Trump repeatedly mused aloud during the campaign about publicly shooting someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and getting away with it because of the loyal support of his most rabid followers.
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Besides, if we’ve learned anything from Trump’s chaotic, incoherent presidency, it’s that no one can predict with absolute certainty anything Trump will or won’t do, not even Trump himself.
Law and Order Republicans?
As appalling as it was for Trump to boast about committing murder, it’s even more appalling to see Republicans, who once claimed to support law and order, stand behind Trump and even join in his full-scale assault on law enforcement for trying to root out public corruption and criminal activity in Trump’s campaign and government.
It’s unprecedented on a national scale, but those of us from Wisconsin have already witnessed a successful statewide Republican campaign by Gov. Scott Walker to shut down a legitimate investigation by prosecutors into a suspected illegal scheme by Walker and Republicans to launder millions of dollars in the 2012 recall elections to cover up bribery of public officials.
It was only after Republicans on the Wisconsin Supreme Court shut down the criminal investigation that voters learned a mining company was allowed to rewrite state mining and environmental regulations after secretly contributing $1.2 million to elect Walker and legislative Republicans. A Texas billionaire being sued for millions of dollars for producing lead paint causing brain damage to children was shielded from legal liability under state law after secretly donating $750,000 to those same Republican politicians.
Walker and legislative Republicans later passed an actual law outlawing so-called John Doe investigations by prosecutors into public corruption and criminal activity by state politicians. That’s Trump’s kind of law. It would put a stop to all the UNCONSTITUTIONAL witch hunts (with lots of exclamation points!!!) that have been poking around in the Trump family’s private business ever since he’s been president.
Until then, Trump just found out he has almost unlimited power to pardon anybody for any crimes they’ve ever committed. Boy, is that going to come in handy. Trump embraces presidential powers that could be used for good and immediately lowers them to his own seedy, tawdry level.
Trump has little concern for the mass incarceration of tens of thousands of African Americans serving absurdly long sentences for non-violent drug crimes. But Kim Kardashian West saw a story about Alice Marie Johnson on TV and became the perfect advocate to convince Trump to commute Johnson’s life sentence after 21 years. Good for Johnson. All those thousands of others just need to find their own beautiful celebrity spokeswomen.
Now Trump is like a kid at Christmas thinking up names of real-life celebrity criminals to pardon. Extra credit goes to virulent bigots like convicted Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and right-wing hate monger Dinesh D’Souza. It also helps if you appeared on “Celebrity Apprentice” like former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
But, of course, first dibs on presidential pardons go to the Don himself and all the made men and their molls in the extended Trump crime family.
