CommentsTHE VIEW FROM HERE - No one will ask any witness whether Donald Trump is mentally ill.
The reality is that his behavior was not rational by an objective standard. Does Donald Trump suffer from a delusion that he won the Nov 2020 election or is he simply a treasonous criminal?
Pat Cipollone, White House counsel, probably knows but he is invoking a faux privilege not to let the American people know whether Trump suffers from a delusion or is a criminal. So far, no one has testified that Trump has admitted that he lost the election, but absence of such testimony does not mean that he never admitted it to someone.
Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon made statements prior to January 6th which break either way, to wit, Trump will declare himself the winner no matter what the votes show. If Trump is so deluded that he convinced himself before the election that he is so loved that he could loose only if the election was stolen, his game plan would be the same if he knew he would lose but refuse to admit it. Since this gaggle of nut cases including attorneys Sidney Powell and John Eastman knew Trump lost the election, they had to know whether Trump knew. If Trump was delusional and they preyed upon his delusion, why? Did they actually believe that a violent coup would be able to make Trump President and then he would reward them with all sorts of goodies á la Putin’s oligarchs?
Attorney General Bill Barr went far enough to opine in a closed door deposition for the Jan 6th Committee that if Trump believed the election was stolen after Trump’s seeing all the evidence, then he has loss contact with reality. If Barr knows that Trump knows that he lost, then Attorney General Barr had enough probable cause to arrest Trump, but for the DoJ policy not to arrest a sitting President. That testimony is now relevant. (Wild Guess: It’s a crucial part of the DoJ criminal case against Trump and others.)
Alex Holder, the British film maker who had been documenting the Trump White House from before the election, did not have to play political word games. He said what was obvious: Trump is “batshit crazy!” in that Trump really believes he won the election. July 10, 2022, Late Night with Seth Meyers @ 6:15-6:18
(1) Scope of January 6th Committee is limited
The committee’s purpose has boundaries and it is not authorized to assess Donald Trump’s mental state. Rather, it is narrowly focused on the facts leading up to, during and right after the Jan 6th insurrection. In addition, being mentally ill is not a crime but becomes relevant after a defendant asserts an insanity defense.
(2) The House Dems Twice Blew Their Chance to Bring Trump’s Mental Illness before The Public
Trump’s untenable mental state did not become a recent issue. On December 5, 2016, three years before the House’s first 2019 impeachment hearing, CityWatch stated, “ A legitimate concern is Trump’s mental stability or lack thereof.” December 5, 2016, Who Will Defend Free Speech Against Trump’s Bullying? Afterwards, a number of CityWatch articles explored Trump’s obvious mental illness, i.e. a DSM-5 Cluster B, narcissistic Histrionic Personality Disorder with paranoid features.
February 27, 2017, Is The Donald Crazy,
November 15, 2018, Why Do We Tolerate So Much Mental Illness? (“Donald Trump wins the prize for having the most brazenly obvious personality disorders of any public figure in the world.”),
January 14, 2019, CityWatch, Who’s the Biggest Threat to the Republic: Trump, …or ‘We the People”? (As was evident before the election, Donald Trump suffers from serious psychological impairments.)
March 30, 2020, A Nation Afflicted, (“The 25th Amendment Provided A Process to Remove a Madman from his Throne”)
April 6, 2020, In Trump’s America, Covid-19 Is Unusually Virulent (“President Donald Trump Suffers from Serious Mental Illness “)
During the Second Senate Impeachment Trial (Feb 9-13, 2021), the Dems again presented far too little evidence to obtain a conviction, but they continued to ignore Trump’s mental illness. Because an impeachment trial is not a criminal proceeding, many political considerations factor into the votes. The more people realize that Trump suffers from a mental illness, the more likely they would support his removal. Pelosi and other Dems love to point to the most hard core Trump cultists to claim that nothing will change their minds, forgetting that not all of Rev Jim Jones’ followers drank the Kool Aid. (In fact, some Oath Keepers wanted to testify against Trump.) The Dems’ covering up Trump’s mental illness for years is political malpractice. As it must now strictly focus on the facts, the House committee may not now delve into Trump’s mental instability.
After more than six years of helping mentally ill Trump to remain a viable GOP candidate in order to enhance the Dems’ political stature, the reverse is the situation. But for Justice Samuel Alito’s Dobbs decision, the GOP would swamp the Nov 2022 Congressional elections. What would have been a red tsunami may become a red wave.
The major reasons the Dems will do poorly in Nov 2022 are only years of silence about Trump’s mental defects, but also the nation hates Pelosi’s racist, worker Identity Politics. Yet, at 82 years of age, Pelosi insists on running to be re-elected Speaker of the House. That fact more than anything else will result a GOP takeover of Congress. Has she not done enough harm? Congressional Favorability Ratings Rasmussen
(Richard Lee Abrams has been an attorney, a Realtor and community relations consultant as well as a CityWatch contributor. You may email him at [email protected])
