BILL LEE
May 18, 2007
Trump's Criminal Behaviour
There
has been shock and dismay in the USA but also in other parts of the
world at the brazen action of the American Attorney General, Bill Barr,
in the dropping of the DOJ's quite solid case against Lieutenant-General
Michael Flynn1, the disgraced former national security adviser to
Donald Trump. The general feeling is that this action makes a mockery of
the justice system and justice in general in the USA. But none of this
should be surprising. The presidency of Donald J. Trump has, from the
day he falsely claimed his inauguration crowd was the biggest in
history, been littered with evidence of various acts of criminality,
from his campaign's fraternizing with Russian oligarchs to the
utilization of his fake foundation and his fake university. He has also
managed to block, with the help of a supine GOP, pretty much any reforms
being enacted or the addressing of serious issues facing the country
like the obscene gap between the 0.02% and working-class people and
reasonable gun control measures. But this direct action by one of his
minions in the exercise of justice by a USA court seems a new low in
what only can be called criminal behaviour. But is it really?
Trump's Criminal Influences
Trump
has always had three malign and criminal influences. First, his father
who was a racist and a crooked developer, from whom he learned secrecy,
racism and the business jiggery-pokery he loves to play. Donald appears
to have inherited both his father's racism and his crookedness. He has
lauded White Supremacists as "fine people" and he uses the White house
to leverage an ever-increasing wealth for himself and his family.
Second, it was the mafia who showed him how to run a criminal enterprise
- the general use of thuggery, extortion and bribery as well as the
imposition of loyalty of the obsequious minions to the Don. The third,
it was Roy Cohn, aider and abetter to the anti-communist demagogue
McCarthy, from whom he picked up the strategy of using the courts to
bully and silence critics and whistle blowers by threats of litigation
and to block the workings of the scales of justice or at least to use
delaying tactics to keep righteous justice at bay. All of this stuff was
outlined by Trump's former fixer, and now convicted felon, Michael Dean
Cohen, and has been on display throughout the sad and chaotic years of
his mal administration. Thus, what we have all seen occurring since the
onset of this incompetent and corrupt USA presidential administration is
simply the building and functioning of a vile, ruthless criminal
enterprise that seeks to acquire as much power and money as it can for
the Don (pun intended) by any means necessary. Thus, Trump, the criminal
actor in the White House, is no different from Trump the crooked real
estate developer who is no different to the crooked candidate that
spread foul, but lame, lies about his predecessor and his opponent. He
has been able to bamboozle a significant sector of the public and
has
actually co-opted the GOP into his malign xenophobic, racist and
crooked philosophy. I suspect that he could not have accomplished this
feat had there not been elements in the country that either accept his
racism and criminality or will look the other way.
Two Questions
There
are two question for our friends in the USA. First, what has the Trump
administration done to the fabric of democracy in their country? How
much damage has been done to the institutions of government and to the
trust of the citizenry in the institutions of government? I don't mean
to suggest that the American democratic institutions were running along
nicely without serious problems. They have long ago fallen prey to the
ravages of capitalist dominance and corruption. But this is not the
point of this piece. Indeed, I assert that Trump's criminal enterprise
makes it more difficult to even confront that serious problem let alone
to develop ways and means to do anything about it. The latest gambit by
the DOJ head, Barr, is a prime example of a consigliore who does what
ever he can to insert brook sticks into the spokes of the wheels of
justice. Mobsters are always looking out for the main chance and aren't
generally amenable to democratic discourse. They rather, are averse to
seeing the rule of law as anything but a curb on their "normal"
activities. The second, what can be can about the damage that the Trump
gang has done in subverting so many democratic institutions? The only
thing I can think of at this late point in his criminal administration
is for the citizens of the USA to come out to vote for the Democratic
presidential candidate.
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1 The Judge in the case is not playing ball with Barr however and is delaying final judgement to give time so amicus curia submissions can be heard about what should be done.
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