Mobster or Putin clone?
When it comes to Trump, the answer is: Both
It’s now confirmed. Donald Trump wants to rule America in the way Vladimir Putin rules Russia. His lawyer said as much this week when he told the Supreme Court that presidents should not face criminal charges even if they order the assassination of a political rival.
“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military to assassinate him, is that within his official acts to which he has immunity?” asked Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
“That could well be an official act,” responded Trump’s lawyer, Jack Sauer, as he argued that presidents deserve “absolute immunity” for orders issued while they occupy the Oval Office.
No democracy in the world sanctions assassinations directed by a chief executive. Know where that is okay? In Russia, where Putin’s opponents routinely fall out of windows and his only real rival, Alexei Navalny, survived a poisoning plot only to die in a prison colony north of the Arctic Circle. Moscow claims it was “natural causes.” The world has considered Putin’s long persecution of Navalny and concluded, rightly, that he was slowly murdered.
Addressing the court at a hearing on his claim of presidential immunity, Trump’s attorney went where few expected him to go. Then he went a little further when Justice Elena Kagan asked, “How about if the president orders the military to stage a coup?”
Sauer refused to rule it out, saying, “I think it would depend on the circumstances.”
Make no mistake. Sauer was prepared for the questions about assassinations and coups because he knew the court would try to test the limits of the immunity his filing sought. (No legal expert believes presidents should be prosecuted for carrying out the ordinary duties of their office. Still, the question of where to draw the line has never been settled.) Sauer’s expectation meant that at minimum he reviewed his planned replies with Trump and his client supported the argument.
As a creature dubbed a “feral genius” by political strategist David Axelrod, Trump generally tells us what he believes even when it seems beyond the pale. During his 2016 campaign for the presidency, he said, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody” and not lose any support. “Figure of speech,” said some. “He doesn’t mean it,” said others. In fact, it wasn’t a figure of speech, it was a genuine sentiment and Trump meant for us to know it.
Fast forward a bit more than eight years and we have the spectacle of the former president seeking the court’s permission to order the military to kill an opponent. Considering how Trump has referred to the military’s top brass as “my generals” we should have no doubt that this Vietnam-era draft dodger has fantasies of ordering up extrajudicial killings, just like Putin.
Another way to talk about Trump and his killing instinct involves comparing him to a mob boss who maintains control by sending rivals and turncoats to sleep with the fishes. As a young builder in New York City, Trump dealt with mobsters who controlled aspects of the construction business and employed a mob lawyer, Roy Cohn, to handle high-profile litigation. His penchant for menacing others, which has been on display in his ongoing criminal trial in Manhattan, is so well established that his ongoing attempts to intimidate the court staff are to be expected.
On the very day when SCOTUS heard arguments in the presidential immunity case, the Manhattan court heard the former publisher of the National Enquirer, Trump’s buddy David Pecker, confess that he broke federal election laws when he participated in a scheme to silence a porn star’s claim to having a tryst with Trump with $150,000. Election interference is a key factor in the Manhattan district attorney’s case, which charges Trump with 34 instances of falsifying business records.
As the cliché goes, the mobster Al Capone was eventually brought to justice due to tax evasion. In Trump’s case justice will prevail if he is convicted of business fraud related to his effort to manipulate the outcome of an election.
Between the Supreme Court proceedings in Washington and the trial in New York, Donald Trump’s desire to operate as a man above the law was on full display. Depending on your point of view, he was revealed to be either a mobster type or a would-be military dictator. Both seem consistent with his personality and his anti-democratic instinct. I think both apply.
This was nothing more than a deflection and delay tactic. They’ll send it back to the District Court to review, making any chance of a trial moot, until after the election.
It’s interesting how the SC took the Colorado voting case immediately. Refused to hear this case when Smith originally asked the court to do so after the District Court ruled in Smith’s favor, so it could avoid the Circuit Court and any further delays. They do this all the time for ”time sensitive” cases; just not this one.
In Bush v Gore they stopped a constitutionally mandated recount, handing the presidency to a republican. Now they are stopping a trial from taking place which would allow every citizen to know whether the Republican presidential nominee and former president is a crook!
If any one believes that this court is legitimate, I suggest you find yourself a good therapist. Trump was right about one thing when he said, “the system is rigged!” He just decided to leave out the last part of the sentence; “in his favor!”….:)
Donald J Trump is a clear and present danger to the United States. We ignore or downplay his pronouncements at our peril. And now, that the Supreme Court has revealed itself to be a majority-theocrat Court, we have no guardrail against the criminal activities of a felon-president. If we don’t vote against Trump in numbers that defy precedent, then we lose our democracy. It is that simple.