A valet, a handyman, and an IT geek walk into a bar.
The valet says, “Gimme a pint of blood, because I just spilled one for the boss.” The handyman says, “Gimme a pint of blood too, because I spilled one for the boss.” But the IT geek says, “Gimme a pint of plasma.” So the bartender says, “OK, comin’ right up – two Bloods and a Blood Lite.”
Jokewise, that’s the best I can do. Because what “the boss” keeps doing to the little people in his orbit – sucking them into his ever more turbulent maelstrom – is no laughing matter.
If you read Jack Smith’s superseding indictment in the stolen classified documents case, you’re not likely to conjure much sympathy for the valet (Trump flunky Walt Nauta) or the handyman (“property manager” Carlos De Oliveira), both of whom have been charged with felonies for trying to destroy evidence at Trump’s command. They failed only because Mar-a-Lago’s IT geek (Yuscil Taveras) told them that zapping the surveillance footage was a bad idea. It’s clear that Taveras has sung to the feds.
In the words of former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut, “These (new) allegations are dynamite for a trial jury…You don’t need to be a criminologist, or even to have binged Law and Order episodes, to understand that destroying evidence us what mobsters do to cover their tracks and try to stay out of the joint. Prosecutors call it ‘consciousness of guilt.'” It’s predictably pathetic that little people, like Nauta and De Oliveira, get caught up in the criminality.
When you think of all the little people who’ve already paid a hefty price for following their fascist pied piper – more than 600 Jan. 6 insurrectionists have pleaded guilty to federal crimes – it’s enough to make you rethink whatever optimism you might have about human nature. The best that can be said for De Oliveira, who will soon be arraigned, is that he allegedly abetted a criminal scheme (and is charged with four crimes) not because he’s a nefarious person but because he’s pitiably naive – and thus putty in the hands of a masterly criminal manipulator.
According to the superseding indictment, De Oliveira told the IT guy, Taveras, that “the boss” wanted the surveillance footage deleted. And no wonder: according to the feds, De Oliveira had been caught on video moving boxes of stolen classified documents, abetting Trump’s scheme to obstruct justice. And when De Oliveira sat with the feds for an interview last year, and was asked what he knew about the movement of those documents, he mouthed the classic mob flunky response: “Never saw nothing.”
Poor bastard.
Long known at Mar-a-Lago for doing odd jobs around the property, he is reportedly “a hard-working employe who came to the U.S. from Portugal (decades ago) to seek a better life…De Oliveira’s family was pretty certain that he did not realize the consequences of what Trump was telling him to do when he asked him to delete the security footage,” because “he isn’t familiar” with American law. That also explains why he apparently had no qualms about draining a Mar-a-Lago pool last year, thus oh so conveniently flooding an IT room where surveillance video logs were kept. (He hasn’t been charged in connection with that incident.)
When De Oliveira showed up at the courthouse today, to get his August arraignment date, his MAGA-financed lawyer said of the feds, “It’s time for them to put their money with their mouth is. I’m looking forward to seeing what (the evidence) is.” Be careful what you wish for, pal.
I suppose I could conclude by teasing out De Oliveira’s tragic predicament – is he really willing to do jail time for “the boss,” or will he forgo the slammer by singing like a canary? – but we all know that he’s just a metaphor for the pervasive MAGA madness that threatens to overwhelm us.
Tens of millions of little people are caught in Trump’s maelstrom, and while most of them presumably wouldn’t go to jail for him, they’re forever happy to forfeit their sanity for him – like the woman at the weekend Trump rally in Pennsylvania who said on video, “We need to get down on our hands and knees and pray for this man to get into office.” That’s truly our American tragedy.