The he goes back to "prosecutorial misconduct" under Obama and Biden.
If I remember correctly, Trump's first big lie to the American people was his promise to deliver his tax returns. He also said he had no business dealings with Russia and that he would remove himself from his businesses.
But Trump never delivered those tax returns. Instead, he's fought tooth and nail to prevent them from being seen. We all know he never intended us to know what his filings look like, precisely for the reasons New York is looking into them.
It's all about corruption, all the way down. Story after story reveals how Trump's cronies benefited from the coronavirus relief package, money that was supposed to float vulnerable businesses and individuals during the crisis.
It's all about corruption. This week ICE unveiled a wicked policy that would force students studying in the US on visas to return home if their institutions were offering only online classes. But Trump and his cronies never hide their motivations for long. Sure enough, Citizenship and Immigration Services acting director Ken Cuccinelli told CNN the policy isn't about immigration. It's designed to force colleges & universities to open, regardless of public health concerns.
It's all about corruption. Former NSC staffer Rich Higgins was booted from the office for promoting conspiracy theories about Trump's "adversaries." Here's the document that led to his dismissal. Now Trump wants him to be undersecretary for policy in the Defense Department.
All these things hold together in one simple way: Donald Trump wants to effectively end democracy in the US. He's turning the government into a vehicle that will give him and his cronies more power and more access to money. The New York case exposes Trump to legal jeopardy, a risk he simply cannot tolerate. So things will get worse, way worse, before they get better.
Trump will continue his racist messaging. His Mount Rushmore speech included this line, straight from the white nationalist textbook. (I've shared it before.)
Seventeen seventy-six represented the culmination of thousands of years of Western civilization and the triumph not only of spirit, but of wisdom, philosophy and reason.... Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children.
It's right there. "Our history" is "Western civilization." That's white nationalism.
And democracy simply doesn't matter. I was surprised to see Jeff Sessions, once our attorney general and now running for his old Senate seat in Alabama, basically explaining why his flavor of Christianity trumps democracy. Some excerpts.
A banker I know from Greece, he said you could go to Aleppo, you could do business deals, you could even buy whiskey. Cross Assad, you’re in big trouble, but you could do business. There’s a difference between freedom and democracy. You need to understand this....And you know who we want to run Syria? Assad. We are hoping that somehow he can get back in control. And there was no terrorism, no ISIS when he ran the place. He’d kill ’em. And if you didn’t cross him, he wouldn’t kill you. And he protected Christians; they were a part of his coalition....You asked how Christians could support Trump. [Speaking of Egypt’s Christian minority under president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt's] not a democracy — he’s a strongman, tough man, but he promised to protect them. And they believed him, because they didn’t want the Muslim Brotherhood taking over Egypt. Because they knew they’d be vulnerable. They chose to support somebody that would protect them. And that’s basically what the Christians in the United States did. They felt they were under attack, and the strong guy promised to defend them. And he has.
There's a difference between freedom and democracy, Sessions says, even or especially when the government is corrupt.
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