It’s either right or wrong. There’s no in-between
18th November 2019 · 0 Comments
By C. C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Columnist
Either a person in a situation is right or wrong…
Black man handcuffed for eating a sandwich on a BART platform…
Sign says no eating on a BART Train…
Bloggers say “the law is the law” follow the law/obey the law and police will not bother you… He didn’t follow the law, so he was supposed to be punished.
If that is true for a Black man eating a sandwich, how can the president extort a country, admit it, have witnesses that corroborate Trump’s wrongdoing, and yet half the country doesn’t think he should be punished?
The reason half the country doesn’t think Trump should be punished is because of a tried and true tradition. In America, privilege confers the unspoken right of being above the law and facing no consequences; even when caught doing wrong. The higher up the privilege scale (whites with power, money, influence) the more likely that person faces NO consequences. “I could kill someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters,” says Trump.
The first impeachment hearing is a glaring example of this.
Right is right, wrong is wrong, truth is truth, and facts are facts, and reality is reality. These immutable intangibles don’t go away, no matter how much spin is piled on.
The Constitution of the United States of America points to several prohibited actions that a president is forbidden to do: “…He shall not receive within that period (of service) any other Emolument from the United States or any of them…” The framers also forbade federal officer holders from accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign state.”
Trump violated the Emoluments Clause by taking money from foreign governments and domestic businesses with whom the Trump organization does business, including deals his senior advisors Ivanka Trump, his daughter and son-in-law Jared Kushner are making, while Trump negotiates trade deals with the same countries as POTUS. Ivanka Trump got $100 million from the Saudis and trademarks and licenses from China, Jared Kushner got a half-billion from Qatar (after the Saudi’s removed a blockade from Qatar, who initially refused to give Kushner the loan), and they are jet-setting all over the world, wheeling and dealing while reputedly representing the U.S.
The Trump International Hotel in D.C. regularly takes bookings from foreign leaders, in a building that he leases from the federal government, so Trump is the lessor and lessee. And Trump planned to host the G7 World Leaders at his Doral Golf Resort but backed off after a storm of criticism. This is just another instant in which Trump has violated the Emoluments Clause.
Donald Trump’s June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians, led by son, Donald Jr., now incarcerated campaign Manager Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, came out after his election; and with it calls for Trump’s impeachment. The Russians promised dirt on Clinton, in exchange for Trump getting rid of Russian sanctions, when elected. Trump’s campaign had more than 100 contacts with Russians.
Then Trump’s “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said about Hillary Clinton’s emails, was not only a call for emoluments but also a clear indication that Trump invited interference in our election by a country that we considered to be our enemy.
When Trump fired FBI Director Jim Comey, who refused to stop investigating Michael Flynn, Trump’s first National Security Adviser, and Trump invited two previously ousted Russians officials into the Oval Office the very next day, that Trump’s Russian connection bubbled up to the surface, again. Whispers of impeachment became a public outcry in 2018.
Article II, Section 4 of The Constitution of the United States of America says, “The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Stevie Wonder could see, with the four senses he has, that Trump was guilty of high Crimes and Misdemeanors, after Trump told the world, “I don’t see why it would be Russia,” about Russian interference in the 2016 election, as he stood in Helsinki, across from Russian President Vladimir Putin, and disputed his own U.S. Intelligence community investigators who said it was Russia. When Putin was asked if he helped Trump get elected, he admitted that he did.
After the Mueller Investigation concluded that Trump committed at least 10 acts of Obstruction of Justice, to cover up his part in the Russian conspiracy, calls for impeachment reached a feverish pitch. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to consider it, arguing that Trump wasn’t worth it and that she’d rather see him in jail.
The day after Mueller testified before Congress, Trump continued his “Godfather” inspired behavior. He sent a shadow diplomacy team to force Ukraine’s newly elected President Volodymyr Zelensky to manufacture dirt on his former Vice-President Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden. Zelensky was to publicly announce that he was launching investigations into the Bidens on CNN and if Zelensky didn’t do it, he wouldn’t receive the military aid and other support Congress had appropriated to Ukraine to fight Russia, which annexed Crimea in 2014, an integral part of Ukraine.
Last week, the first public Impeachment Inquiry Hearings were held by the House of Representatives and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused Trump of bribery. “The bribe is to grant or withhold military assistance in return for a public statement of a fake investigation into the elections — that’s bribery.” Other democratic leaders accuse Trump of extortion.
Despite the truth of Trump’s wrongdoing being exposed, his sycophantic supporters and Republican members in the U.S. House and Senate still refuse to hold Trump accountable for doing wrong. Republican Congressmen spent their time trying to diminish the witness’s statements, “it’s hearsay, secondhand information,” they said. Other GOP elected officials have said, “It doesn’t rise to the level of impeachment,” and willfully blind Senator Lindsey Graham said he wouldn’t read the witnesses’ transcripts or watch the hearings because it’s all “BS.” Meanwhile, Trump voters are saying the mainstream media are lying on Trump.
The truth is, everything Trump does is wrong: the 13,000+ lies he’s told, the firing of civil servants who might tell the truth on him, self-dealing at the expense of our national security, destroying norms and breaking laws, making unilateral decisions, lining his pockets with money from government employees and foreigners, who stay at his properties (military and secret service people stay at his resorts at a cost of $750 per night), obstructing Congress, covering up his crimes and Russian appeasement, among his other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Clearly, Trump’s base support is predicated on his feeding his voters a steady diet of racist talking points and policies at his rallies. For Republican officials, it’s about getting re-elected by their gerrymandered districts full of white Trump voters and access to Russian oligarch money. They’ll ride or die with him.
The only question is, will enough independent, educated suburbanites decide that Trump is the wrong person to be POTUS? We’ll see.
This article originally published in the November 18, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
