Trump should start acting like he’s innocent – if he is
It has been a conservative Republican and a former federal prosecutor, U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), whose words most starkly exposed President Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey, his relentless attacks on the FBI and his various moves aimed at strangling special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation for what they so obviously are: an attempt to obstruct the investigation into evidence of the Trump team’s wrongdoing.
If Trump is innocent, Gowdy said this past weekend, he should start acting like it.
What Gowdy did not even need to say is that for 14 straight months, Trump has consistently acted like he is guilty, not innocent.
Most Americans using their common sense are able to draw conclusions accordingly. Here is the conclusion that fairly begs to be drawn: On the issue of whether or not Trump and company are guilty of misconduct or worse, if it waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, chances are you’re looking at a duck.
It is really pretty simple. The president is desperate to stop the special counsel’s investigation — so much so that he instructed the White House counsel to fire Mueller and had his personal counsel call for Mueller’s removal — because the president believes that the evidence being accumulated by the methodical special counsel will result in more criminal indictments and may sink his presidency. Already three of Trump’s top aides have pleaded guilty to federal crimes, two of them lying to federal agents about their contacts with Russian emissaries. His campaign manager has been indicted for a massive series of felonies.
Russia’s role in interfering in the 2016 election in order to benefit Trump’s candidacy has been conclusively established by the entirety of the American intelligence community, and 16 Russian individuals and enterprises have been indicted for their part in that interference. The highlevel meetings between those closest to Trump and Russian operatives offering assistance to the Trump campaign has been confirmed and re-confirmed — despite the Trump camp’s best efforts, overseen by Donald Trump personally, to lie to the American people about those meetings.
Now, the president angrily denies that he has done anything wrong. Of course he does; he could not be expected to do otherwise. As George Orwell wrote, a pickpocket does not go the races with a sign that says “thief” on his lapel.