Abuse of Power - Editorial, The Week in Review

Analysis, Commentary, Opinion

09.28.2019

Abuse of Power

Donald Trump has no idea what it means to be a public servant. He is the antithesis of a patriot, and corrupt to the bone.

It has been an amazing thing to see, watching his stogies in the Republican Party; to watch people Senator Lindsey Graham make excuses for his crimes, pretending that his abuses of power do not matter.

Those people are not patriots either, they are craven, they are cowards and they clearly hate America.

Donald Trump spoke this week at the United Nations. He rambled on and on about nationalism, about the inherent right of a nation to protect itself, the duty a nation has to advance its own interests, of course we know that when he says these things he is thinking that he himself has the inherent right to use the power of his office to do that for himself.

Have you ever noticed how this Fake President refers to his time in office as his “rule” or his “reign?” Last week he was talking about his “ascension” to the house, and he referred to it as “the takeover of America.” He thinks that when a civil servant performs the duties of their office, and report him up through the chain of command for self-dealing, extortion, and other high crimes, he thinks this is somehow treason, and should merit the death penalty. T-Rump said as much at a gathering of State Department staffers, gathered at the United Nations.

He was warning them not to blow the whistle on him.

T-Rump wants to be able to spill our national secrets to our adversaries, to invite or coerce foreign powers to interfere in our elections, to advantage him in doing so, and most importantly to profit from those crimes.

He has appointed people like Mike Pompeo to the position of Secretary of State, and William Barr to Attorney General, men who pretend that they are covering his abuses out of respect for the office, because they believe in its powers, not T-Rumps, but they are far off the mark. The office is not served by the criminal that occupies it.

You cannot refuse to protect and defend the Constitution of the United Sates by failing to respect the separation of powers it articulates, the checks and balances it enumerates, by perjuring yourself before congressional committees, claiming privileges that do not exist, not responding to congressional subpoenas, hiding or destroying documents. Every office is diminished when you do that.

If we abandon the rule of law we become the playthings of tyrants.

The congressional Republicans have an opportunity in front of them. They are being invited to exercise their conscience on behalf of the country, to sit in judgement of this orange-fool who would sell us out to the Russians, to the Saudi’s or any other petty principality that would put a dollar in his pocket.

They are being invited to let go of their hypocrisy and stand for the principles they pretend to possess.

Let’s hope they do it, and bring the Fake President to an ignominious end.