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I am an innocent man
Congressional Republicans continue to rant, offering us a combination of process concerns and character assassination rather than substantive reasons about the impeachment of this President. We hear accusations of Soviet-like secret hearings, we hear that ALL of the many witnesses who have testified are really anti-Trump pawns of the Democratic Party, and we hear calls for the whistle blower to be unmasked (kind of like that TV show, but with politicians rather than singers).
But there’s one Republican who is willing to talk substance rather than process, and that’s Donald Trump. His defense is that he needs no defense. He’s done nothing wrong, How could that call with Ukrainian leadership be illegal when it was perfect?
Richard Nixon was a crook who knowingly tried to cover up his crimes. Reluctantly, Bill Clinton had little choice but to admit wrongdoing with Monica Lewinsky. Republican toadies tell us that withholding arms from a country threatened by Russia contingent on digging up dirt on an opponent wasn’t really a serious error, certainly not a high crime or misdemeanor. Or if you’re Lindsey Graham, you come up with the extremely imaginative justification that Trump is too incoherent to have committed a crime nor actually had a consistent set of policies or practices that one could object to. But disregarding it all, Donald keeps it simple: I did nothing wrong. I didn’t break any laws, and I’d most likely do it again, so (to quote Nick Mulvaney) “Just get over it.”
How do you prosecute a criminal who committed a crime in plain sight, directly witnessed by many and captured by recording devices whose defense is: I am innocent as the day is long.
If this were a standard criminal trial, it might go like this:
“Donald J. Trump, on July 12, you entered the First National Bank, handed the teller a note saying you had a gun, asking her to turn over all the money in her drawer. There were eleven people in the bank at the time, and six cameras recorded this incident. You are charged with bank robbery. How do you plead?”
“Innocent, I did nothing wrong.”
“Having been a prosecutor for 25 years, I am incredulous. Please explain, sir.”
“Well, first of all, your Honor, it was merely a withdrawal. I have an account at that bank and I am legally allowed to make withdrawals.”
“But you were withdrawing other people’s money.”
“Of course. They weren’t using it at the time, and I was a bit short on cash, so that seemed like a perfect solution. I probably would have given it back if they had asked.”
“And the gun? You said you had a gun.”
“False reporting, probably from the failing New York Times. And if you looked closer, you’d see that I wrote that I had a gub, you know, like from that old Woody Allen film. That teller, a Hillary-lover I could tell, was just trying to get me in trouble by handing me that cash. They’re all out to get me, your Honor. Innocent. Perfect. That’s me. ”
Dear Donald, always testing the limits. Always asking us to stretch credulity beyond anything we had ever imagined before.
But you know, the more I consider it, why would he say it was perfect if it weren’t? On second thought, I just think that they’re all out to get the greatest President this country has ever seen. Not only that, but I think I know where the whistle blower lives. Maybe if we got a few friends together, we could teach that traitor a lesson or two. If we go there and some Bolshevik cops arrest us, we can always plead innocent. And on the unlikely chance that we get arrested and convicted, we can always be pardoned.
The land of the free and the home of the brave. He’s made America great again.
