I’ve long refused to quote the rants that Trump spews forth as press releases, mostly because they’re less coherent than the mentally-ill homeless guy who hangs out at my local 7-11.
But I guess there’s a first time for everything. Trump put out a statement last night that cannot be ignored; quite the contrary, it’s very enlightening:
“If the Vice President (Mike Pence) had ‘absolutely no right’ to change the Presidential Election results in the Senate, despite fraud and many other irregularities, how come the Democrats and RINO Republicans, like Wacky Susan Collins, are desperately trying to pass legislation that will not allow the Vice President to change the results of the election? Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away. Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!”
The first passage that I italicized is, of course, the same old tiresome lie. But his concluding six words…zowie! Thank you, fascist-in-exile, for confirming in your own words what every non-cult American has long known to be true.
(A bit of context before we proceed: The Constitution’s 12th amendment, and a federal law enacted in 1887, already stipulate that the sitting vice president just opens the envelopes and vets the winner in ceremonial fashion. The proposed new legislation would merely underscore the veep’s role. As conservative lawyer George Conway said last night, in response to Trump’s statement, “sometimes we want to make laws even clearer so that even semiliterate psychopaths have a chance at understanding them.”)
But I digressed. His frank admission that he indeed sought a coup to “overturn the election” should be catnip for his prosecutorial pursuers. Joyce White Vance, a former U.S. attorney and legal commentator, said last night: “This is what prosecutors call guilty knowledge. And also, intent.” Laurence Tribe, the esteemed constitutional law professor who has argued 35 cases at the Supreme Court, tweeted: “Trump’s public confession, all but daring the Attorney General to seek a grand jury indictment against him for seditious conspiracy and for giving aid and comfort to an insurrection to ‘overturn the election,’ is the last straw. The Government must call his bluff.”
If only.
I’m old enough to remember when losing presidential candidates never tried to overturn their defeats; and never invited violent goons to take to the streets (as he did during a Saturday night rally). But for now, at minimum, the brain-teasing question is whether any of those multitudinous Republicans whose lips are affixed to Trump’s rump will squirm even a wee bit, now that he has openly confessed that he sought a coup to destroy our democracy.
If only.