(Door Hugo Kijne te Hoboken USA)
Impeachment is not Trump’s thing. In the beginning of the week the president accused Adam Schiff, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, of treason, because he had the gall to run an impeachment investigation into Trump’s abuse of his office in communications with the president of Ukraine. By the middle of the week Trump predicted that Schiff’s probe might result in civil war, and after more reflection he called it a coup attempt. As inappropriate as it was to blame Schiff for doing his job, the latter two characterizations are far more dangerous. The president doesn’t have an army and a secret police to protect him, but he has plenty of followers with MAGA hats on their deplorable heads who would love to have an excuse to use the assault weapons they have been stockpiling. In another statement Trump demanded that the identity of the whistleblower, who is protected by a statute, be revealed, so that he ‘can face his accuser,’ and when it became known that the whistleblower first contacted Schiff’s staff to make sure that the White House would not bury the complaint the president concluded that Schiff wrote it.
Apart from the impeachment inquiry, during the week more incriminating information about Trump became available. It turns out that during the infamous Oval Office visit of Russia’s Foreign Secretary and Ambassador the president told them that he was not concerned about their country’s meddling in US elections, because ‘we do it too.’ With regards to border security Trump once advocated the digging of ditches that subsequently would be filled with snakes and alligators, electrifying ‘the wall,’ and outfitting it with spikes that ‘cut through human flesh.’ If none of that would deter asylum seekers and other migrants from crossing the border it would be fine to shoot them in the legs. Becoming more unhinged by the minute the president tweeted that the impeachment inquiry is ‘BULLSHIT,’ and to show how much it is on his mind, during a press conference with the president of Finland, who would not let him touch his leg, Trump declared that Finland got rid of Pelosi and Schiff. While the Finnish president was still chuckling about that news his US counterpart told the surprised press corps that Schiff cannot hold Mike Pompeo’s jock trap.
As his own words and deeds were scrutinized Trump made sure that he put some blame on Mike Pence, who had carried the message that the money for defensive weaponry was still frozen to the Ukrainian president, albeit after Trump’s ‘perfect’ phone call. Although Pence wanted to pretend that he didn’t know anything about the shakedown, to keep his own chances of one day running for the presidency alive, that avenue was closed when it was revealed that his own national security advisor had listened in on the call, so that Pence had no other choice but to back up Trump.
Next to Pence Attorney General Barr also let himself be dragged deeper into Trump’s trash can. Investigating the origins of the Mueller probe Barr traveled to Italy to find dirt on the agents that originally flagged the leadership of the FBI, while Trump urged Australia to be of assistance to Barr as well in his pursuit of bizarre conspiracy theories that also involve Ukraine and the UK. A consequence of Trumpism is now that the AG is engaged in a worldwide quest to discredit the US intelligence services.
When asked at the presser with the Finnish president exactly what he had wanted to know about Joe Biden from Ukraine Trump rudely dodged the question, but yesterday he found the answer, calling on both Ukraine and China to investigate both Bidens. The president sounded like a thief who steals Amazon packages in plain daylight and believes that makes it less of a crime than doing it at night.
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