CommentsTRUMP WATCH-There are a lot of people speaking out right now against obstruction of justice, calling for rule of law.
The only surprising thing is that some of these people are on the extreme right. And their targeted villains are the same people they were lauding for their utmost integrity a mere six months ago.
In short, the more we learn about the constitutional criminality of Donald Trump, the louder grow the shouts on the Faux News Network to lock up the investigators, literally. And with them, the louder grow the shouts that the person who really needs to be locked up even now is … Hillary Clinton.
So for example, when Bill Clinton had an ill-advised private social chat with Attorney General Lynch on a tarmac, that’s the big obstruction of justice scandal now according to the right wing, despite the fact that Lynch recused herself because of her lapse in judgment in letting that happen.
But let Trump fire the director of the FBI, for the admitted purpose of stopping the Russia investigation of him personally, and in fact order the firing of Mueller hardly a month later, and no, no, no, no siree! Uh, no obstruction of justice there.
And let's be clear, the multiple confirmed news reports are that Trump ordered Mueller to be fired. He did not just think about it. He did not just consider it. He did not just toy with the idea, mull it over or muse about it, though he repeatedly denied later he had done even any of these things. He ordered it. And only the over my body on the line intervention of Donald McGahn II, the White House counsel, stopped it from happening.
Indeed, the fact that this has leaked now suggests someone thinks that, lately, it is more likely that Trump will try again.
Someone on the “Fonies and Friends show” captured it best when she said, about the order to fire Mueller, "Do you really care?"
Because they don’t. They don't really care about rule of law, obstruction of justice, or people in government lying to us, let alone the morality of government officials. Unless it is a charge they are trying to level against their political opponents.
All that Moral Majority stuff was never anything but a total, hypocritical crock. Trump pays off a porn star to keep her quiet. And the biggest right-wing evangelists essentially say, like the fluff head above, "Do you really care?" If they didn't care when Trump was caught bragging about grabbing random women by the crotch, why would they care about this?
This is mulligans for Republicans. Is it any coincidence Trump spends more time in the golf cart office than in the Oval Office?
But we'll tell you who does care: Robert Mueller. He has built his whole life on caring about integrity and rule of law. And you need to care too, if he is to have any chance of saving us all.
We all must be demonstrating that you stand up for real rule of law against real obstruction of justice.
(Michael N. Cohen is a former board member of the Reseda Neighborhood Council, founding member of the LADWP Neighborhood Council Oversight Committee, founding member of LA Clean Sweep and a contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
