President select Donald Trump has admitted to obstruction of justice and collusion, both of which are crimes, but asked Sean Hannity in a phone interview, “Why are those crimes? I mean, nothing else I do is a crime.”
Trump was expected to divest his vast, broad, shallow empire prior to taking office. Much as the great peanut magnate Jimmy Carter did in 1976, Trump was supposed to put his fortune into a blind trust. He didn’t, and congress didn’t bat an eye, and as the president himself pointed out, “that wasn’t a contusion.”
While literally correct, the problems with this exceptionally brief statement were too many to list and too obvious to bother.
“I’ve taken bribes and nobody said anything. How was I supposed to know obstruction of justice was a [punishable] crime?”
He’s both correct and incredibly stupid. Ignorance of the law is no defense, except for the very rich, which Trump still asserts he is.
“Look, if I obstructed anything, it was because Hillary was working with the Russians on Urectum [sic] One, and she’s the real bad guy here. We’ll probably investigate her. I’ll call the FBI people.”
While evidence of Trump’s crimes continue mounting, what’s less clear is if congress is complicit or merely spineless. Time will tell, though likely so much time that those guilty will be long-dead before they can serve their mandatory minimum 30-day sentences.
Image attribution:
By James Mattis – 170127-D-GY869-016, Public Domain, Link