I hate to break the news to all my friends, but Trump isn’t going to jail just because he stopped up a toilet in the White House by trying to flush some Presidential papers down the drain. To convict him of breaking the law that requires Presidential papers to be given to the National Archive, you have to prove intent, you have to prove that he knew what he was doing was wrong, you have to prove all kinds of things. Sorry folks, it’s a no go.
Yesterday Donald Trump began pretending that he can play the role of reasonable elder statesman as easily we he can play the role of complete asshole in a website statement which responds to the news about how he tried to flush Presidential documents down the toilet before leaving the White House last year.
But don’t make the mistake of thinking that Trump is going to quit believing that he should still be sitting in the Oval Office and carrying out the duties as Commander in Chief. And if this belief continues to swirl around his tiny brain, I have a suggestion as to what he should do.
Why doesn’t Trump just create a Winter White House at Mar-a-Lago the way that Truman created a Winter White House at the Coast Guard base in Key West and go on performing his Presidential duties until the weather warms up and he can come back to D.C?
Oh, but you say. He’s no longer President. He’s just an ex-President. He’s no different, politically, or legally speaking, than you or me.
So what? Do you really believe that Trump has ever in the slightest bit been concerned about whether anything he says or did between January 20, 2017, and January 21, 2021, made any difference at all? Do you actually think that when he signed those Executive Orders every morning, he had the slightest idea what those Orders actually contained?
This is a guy who, from the moment he announced his Presidential candidacy on June 16, 2015, until yesterday when he explained how and why he sent his entire Presidential documentary collection, “openly and willingly” to the National Archive, has never been concerned in the slightest to align with whether what he says bears the slightest relationship to the truth.
As far as I can tell, the only dictum that Trump has ever followed in his public life is to make sure that whatever he says will be believed by jerks like Ryan Nichols, who took a video of himself as he marched towards the Capitol on January 6th. You can watch it here and decide for yourself whether this dope still believes that Trump is still President of the United States.
You see, the point is that Trump isn’t lying when he refers to himself as the ‘45th President.’ And while you may find it difficult to buy into the idea that a former President has any legal or statutory authority at all, who made you into what Grandpa would call the ‘schwer arbeiter’ (read: big decider) when it comes to believing whatever someone wants to believe?
In the Big Lie that Trump told yesterday about how he handed over his papers to the National Archive, he also dropped a tantalizing comment about how he is now planning the ‘Donald J. Trump Presidential Library’ for “the public to view my Administration’s incredible accomplishments for the American People.”
You think the documents that went to Mar-a-Lago instead of the National Archive weren’t going to wind up as exhibits in the Presidential library that Trump will no doubt build on the grounds of his Palm Beach estate?
If Trump is looking for a location for his Presidential library, I have a great idea. Why doesn’t he take over the abandoned hotel that used to be the location of a theme park called Heritage, USA? That was the theme park built by Jim Bakker in South Carolina before he went to jail for stealing and fraud back in 1989.
The Reverend Bakker still hosts his TV show from a studio and hotel located in the Ozarks called Morningside USA. Come to think of it, this TV studio could also become the place where Trump produces the content for his new social media network, the TRUTH network, by the end of March.
Can Trump effectively run his media empire after he’s released from jail?