I’m not sure I’ll have a graphic to illustrate today’s Trump ruminations.
Having just heard Trump going on about what a “good person” Paul Manafort is (or was) in a news clip, when is it acceptable for a President to use his bully pulpit to interfere in the jury deliberations of a man against whom there is overwhelming evidence that he tried to defraud the U.S. government (and others) of rightful taxes by establishing overseas accounts in various tax havens? Shouldn’t the Donald be shutting up right about now?
But, no. He is ranting on about what a “great” and “good” person Manafort, his former campaign chairman, is, which has certainly got to be considered anything but objective weighing of the evidence against Manafort AND prejudicial to a jury that might have dyed-in-the-wool Trump supporters amongst the twelve.
Any fact-based person would take a look at the faked bills of sale from gardeners and others, (with the owners of those companies taking the stand to testify that that is NOT their legitimate bill), and would say, “Well, at the very least, he’s a crook.” And a liar. And an opportunist who worked for the worst of the worst amongst dictators in Russian countries, which is not undocumented and not in dispute.
When the money ran out, Manafort began creatively spinning various stories to get money to support what most of us would say was a lavish lifestyle,–unless you are “in” to $900,000 ostrich jackets. (Loved the skit where an ostrich takes the stand and testifies against Manafort, on Seth Meyer’s late-night TV commentary). There’s a fantastically revealing story about Manafort’s financial decline in the latest issue of “Vanity Fair.”
The defense would have you believe, “Well, his second-in-command (Gates) is reponsible.” But, as one talking head put it, “If Gates was the quarterback, Manafort was Jerry Jones and owned the team.” It is worth noting that Gates netted a salary of only (note: I say “only” because we’re talking in millions of dollars for Manafort) $240,000 a year for keeping the books, while Manafort supposedly was paying himself over a million and a half (or more) from off-shore accounts to himself, illegally. And, of course, Gates embezzled from Manafort, so: “birds of a feather.”
At the very least, the presence of multiple offshore accounts to keep from having to pay U.S. taxes does not make Manafort a “good” person when he was the ring master for putting Donald J. Trump in office. Nor does it make Betsy DeVos a good choice for a Cabinet post (Secretary of Education) when she doesn’t have ANY experience in education (or much in finance) and sails a ship that is NOT registered under a U.S. flag, to keep from paying normal higher wages to the ship’s employees and to avoid port taxes of a U.S. registered ship. But that’s the kind of “draining the swamp” we’ve had with the Head Alligator in charge. Trump charges the Secret Service for use of his golf carts and really gouged those who rented the floor above him in Trump Tower for a while (his security detail). Since then, an unsightly trailer has been established outside the Trump Tower and is set up as Command Central for Trump’s security detail, to avoid the fleecing that was taking place in billing the government outrageous sums for a roof over their heads.
And let’s not even get started on the many other ways Donald J. Trump and family are making out like bandits while in office. It sure makes the days when former Presidents like Harry S. Truman (“The buck stops here”) refused to even take his pension, or when Jimmy Carter said he would not take positions, post presidency, on boards that might make it appear that he was profiting from having held the highest office in the land seem quaint and long ago. Has the entire morality and ethics of the U.S. really gone this far downhill in such a short time?
A few (not many, but a few) of my smart friends voted for Trump and have the cojones to admit it. They thought they were getting somebody from “outside” politics who would stop wasteful spending and rid the government of people like those now exclusively running it. They were wrong, and, some day, they will admit they were wrong, but, for now, can we just agree that jacking the national debt up, the way it has been increased under Trump is NOT a good thing? (Oh, for the days of Clinton’s surplus) and removing Obama’s ban on selling the extremely accurate missiles and bombs that just killed a schoolbus full of children in Yemen (when aimed at them by the Saudis) was probably another “bad” idea. Why remove that prohibition, which was put in place precisely because the previous administration feared that the Saudis might use them in such a way. (Let’s not forget that most of the 9/11 bombers were Saudis, something that the Bush administration tried to have us conveniently forget.)
In fact, this entire Trump presidency: bad idea. Let’s figure a way to start over and push the restart button that Hillary Clinton famously offered Putin once. No, I don’t mean by putting the much-maligned and unpopular former First Lady in office, but simply by getting rid of Agent Orange (as Spike Lee calls him) as quickly as we can. Our very survival may depend on it as we teeter and careen from crisis to crisis without a sane or smart hand on the tiller and with the entire National Security apparatus under constant attack. (John Brennan, anyone?)