Never Forget: There Are Excellent Reasons Trump Is The Most Detested Man To Ever Occupy The White House

On Saturday night, in Green Bay, Trump was lying again about abortions. Chris Cameron, reporting for the NY Times quoted Trump's big abortion lie: "The baby is born. The mother meets with the doctor. They take care of the baby. They wrap the baby beautifully. And then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby." Disgusting, right? And dangerous. But this was anything but the first time he fed this line of bullshit to his hateful supporters. The video up top? That was from his hate rally in Virginia last month.

You can watch what Trump said in Green Bay here. He'll rot in hell for lies like this, although not soon enough; soon enough would mean I was speaking the the past tense.

Cameron noted correctly that this poisonous refrain "is fast becoming a standard, and inaccurate, refrain about doctors 'executing babies.' During a more than hourlong speech at a rally in Green Bay, Wis., Mr. Trump admonished the Democratic governor, Tony Evers, for vetoing a Republican bill that could send doctors to prison for life if they fail to give medical care to children born alive after a failed abortion attempt. The comments are the latest in a long string of incendiary statements from the president on abortion."

He's been howling about this since January, embelishing the ugly, purposefully divisive narrative along the way-- he even used it in his State of the Union addres-- and tweeting that Democrats "don’t mind executing babies AFTER birth." His rallies are like someone screaming "fire" in a crowded theater. Television stations are doing the nation a disservice to broadcast them.

The New York Times has previously fact-checked these claims, finding that late-term abortions are rare. In Wisconsin, only 1 percent of all abortions in 2017 occurred after 20 weeks of pregnancy, according to the most recent annual report from the state’s Department of Health Services. The numbers are similarly low at the national level.

Wrong to wish him rotting in hell? OK, fair enough. How about wishing he were indicted and awaiting trial instead? Yesterday, writing for the Daily Beast, Mimi Rocah and Renato Mariotti noted that if Señor Trumpanzee "were not now president he would have been indicted on multiple counts of obstruction of justice." They, like many Americans, are counting on him being charged after he's finally driven from the White House. "Mueller," they wrote, "collected a stunning array of evidence that clearly shows that from 2017 until 2019, Trump engaged in a persistent pattern to try to end, or at least limit the scope of, investigations surrounding him and his [completely disgusting] family."  

With so much to consider, it’s helpful to focus on four areas in particular where there are multiple reliable witnesses whose testimony corroborates one another, where some of the acts simply can’t be disputed because they occurred in plain sight, and where the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings are clear: (1) Trump’s efforts to fire Mueller, (2) Trump’s order to falsify evidence about that effort, (3) Trump’s efforts to limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation to exclude his conduct, and (4) Trump’s efforts to try and prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign. While this may bear some passing similarity to mob-related and other obstruction of justice cases we worked on and saw as federal prosecutors, the conduct is more shocking and serious given that Trump is the president of the United States.

...Of course, these aren’t the only acts of potential obstruction detailed in the Mueller Report. Prosecutors would weigh a strategy of whether to charge other acts detailed in the report, like asking Comey to “let Flynn go,” or firing Comey as FBI Director. While perhaps more challenging as a legal matter with respect to issues of intent, they are chargeable and would have the benefit of ensuring that this additional conduct is admitted before a jury.

Even if not charged, there are strong arguments that prosecutors would use to have much of the evidence admitted at a trial under other rules of evidence and legal theories—for example, to prove Trump’s intent as to the charged acts and to show a pattern of conduct. And Trump’s own words, whether part of the charged conduct or not, would be admissible under the rules of evidence as admissions of a defendant, words like, “I’m fucked. This is the end of my presidency,” in response to the appointment of the special counsel.

A senior Justice Department official told the Washington Post that Barr did not believe the obstruction case “was a prosecutable offense.” We simply do not see, based on the facts described above, how this statement can be true. The Justice Department Manual’s principles of federal prosecution say that a prosecutor should charge a case “if he/she believes that the person’s conduct constitutes a federal offense, and that the admissible evidence will probably [emphasis added] be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction.”

To look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice defies logic and our experience. The senior official quoted by the Post refers to what they view as “complications” in such a prosecution because “the obstruction ‘relies on multiple people in a chain all doing something,’ including Lewandowski delivering the note, Sessions being persuaded by it and then Sessions moving on the special counsel.” The official called that an “attenuated chain.” But, of course, criminal schemes often involve “attenuated chains” because the primary actor wants to distance himself from the act, knowing that it’s wrong. In fact, that is often accepted by juries as circumstantial evidence of criminal intent.

To be sure, this case, like many, would not be an easy win. It has its challenges for many reasons, legal and practical. But, the criminal case against Donald Trump, private citizen, would be one that any federal prosecutor-- regardless of their politics-- should proudly pursue. As federal prosecutors, we were taught to pursue obstruction of justice cases with zeal because if obstruction goes unchecked, our whole system of justice is at risk.