Guest Opinion When it comes to Trump’s tendencies, facts indeed matter
George Tristan’s guest opinion, published March 5, asserts that a “contingent of people … continue to espouse radical and often wildly inaccurate views of former President Trump” and that “facts matter.” Mr. Tristan refers to the Steele dossier, also known as the Trump-russia dossier, asserting it should have landed Hillary Clinton in jail. He doesn’t say why it did not send Hillary to the hoosegow. Hillary made it through four years of Trump’s Department of Justice without a single indictment because they could not find sufficient evidence to do so. Facts matter. What I want to remind everyone is that the investigation into Donald Trump’s campaign and their association with the Russian government had nothing to do with Hillary or the Steele dossier.
According to factcheck.org, The New York Times and the Mueller Report, the investigation was prompted by investigations into George Papadopoulos, who served as a foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat that Trump’s campaign had dirt that the Russians had a Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, in the form of hacked emails.
Mueller’s report said, and I quote, “the investigation established multiple links between Trump Campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government. Those links included Russia’s offers of assistance to the Campaign. In some instances, the Campaign was receptive to the offer, while in other instances, the Campaign officials shied away.” Investigators, and I quote, “found multiple acts by the President (Trump) that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations, including the Russian interference and obstruction investigations.” However, the report said, “(b)ecause we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President’s conduct.” The Mueller Report states that if the Special Counsel’s Office felt they could clear the president of wrongdoing, they would have said so. Instead, the report explicitly states that it “does not exonerate” the president and explains that the Office of Special Counsel “accepted” the Department of Justice policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Facts matter.
According to the American Constitution Society in their article, “Key findings of Mueller’s report,” the report details “multiple episodes in which there is evidence that the President obstructed justice. The pattern of conduct and the manner in which the President sought to impede investigations — including through one-on-one meetings with senior officials — is damning to the President.”
In an open letter to Medium and reported by NBC News, 700 former federal prosecutors concluded that if any other American engaged in the same efforts to impede federal proceedings the way Trump did, they would likely be indicted for multiple charges of obstruction of justice. This is the truth of Trump’s involvement with the Russians and the 2016 election. The Trump/russia association ended in 37 indictments, and none were of Hillary. Trump should have been the 38th. Facts matter.
Trump continually tells us who he is. He has told us who he was when he called 1,800 U.S. Marines that were killed at Belleau Wood as “suckers.” Retired four-star Marine General John Kelly has confirmed this. Kelly said Trump was a “person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family — for all Gold Star families — on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.”
That is a direct quote from a Marine general closely associated with Trump. That’s who he is. What he isn’t is a commander in chief.
John Kelly told Jim Sciutto CNN on March 12, 2024: “(Trump) was shocked that he didn’t have dictatorial-type powers to send U.S. forces places. … And he looked at Putin and Xi and that nutcase in North Korea as people who were like him in terms of being a tough guy.”
In his own words, Trump plans to use his dictatorial powers the day he is inaugurated.
It seems to me that it is very prudent to fear this man. Facts matter, but not to Trump or his Republicans. Caveat emptor!