There’s long been a venerable tradition in America that no politician dares make news over the Labor Day weekend, but President Donald Trump has little regard for even the most venerable traditions, so of course he interrupted Monday’s picnics and ball games and blissfully slow news cycle with perhaps his most outrageous “tweet” thus far.
“Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well-publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time,” Trump “tweeted,” adding with apparent sarcasm “Good job Jeff…” After an elongated and exhausting Labor Day Weekend of bratwurst and beer and baseball and helping to mow and edge the oversized lawn of our very small church over in Delano we hardly know where to begin explaining how extraordinarily outrageous this strikes us, but we’ll try to start at the beginning.
The “tweet” apparently refers to the recent indictments the Justice Department has has won in two separate but duly constituted federal courts of New York’s Republican Rep. Chris Collins on insider trading charges, and then California’s Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter for using more than $250,000 of campaign funds for such non-campaign related expenses as family vacations and theater tickets. Trump is quite right that the indictments probably leave a couple of otherwise safe Republican House of Representatives seats in doubt, but it’s yet another provable lie that the investigations were launched by President Barack Obama’s administration, even if that did make a difference, which it doesn’t, and although both defendants are entitled to a presumption of innocence our old-fashioned Republican law-and-order sensibilities feel the people are also entitled to make their case without a President of the United States tainting the jury pool by “tweet.”
Never mind that annoyingly random capitalization and incorrect hyphenation of “midterms” — what’s with that all balderdash about the “Jeff Sessions Justice Department” that’s apparently thwarting justice? Attorney General Jeff Sessions is indeed in charge of the Justice Department, but only because Trump appointed him to the post and a majority-Republican Senate confirmed him, and he serves at the pleasure of an obviously displeased president, and Trump could fire him at any time he summons the reckless political courage to do so, and until then it’s actually the Trump Justice Department that Trump and his rally-goers are railing against.
Given the current extenuating circumstances our old-fashioned law-and-order sensibilities are inclined to offer a not all sarcastic “Good job Jeff” to the Attorney General, although we’d respectfully add the proper comma. Two duly consisted federal courts have found prima facie evidence that both congressmen had committed felonies, and although it remains to be seen if the Justice Department can prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt we’ll trust more in the American justice system and the verdicts of two groups of twelve tried and true fellow citizens than “tweeted” prejudgments of President Trump.
The first-indicted Collins was the first congressional Republican to endorse Trump’s Republican candidacy, and the second-indicted Hunter was the second in line, which will surely strike to right-wing talk radio and Fox News opinions show audiences as damned suspicious, but we well recall that the first Republican Senator and entrenched establishment figure to sign on with Trump was Sessions. Trump rewarded Sessions with the plum Attorney General position, and Sessions returned the favor by aggressively pursuing Trump’s agenda on illegal immigration and environmental deregulation and various quarrelsome racial issues on the streets and in the schools and elsewhere in the public square. Sessions also recused himself from that whole “Russia thing,” though, and has pursued prima facie cases against even Republicans in an election year, and no matter how tough one is on the the border such transgressions cannot be forgiven.
By now we’re pretty sure that Sessions regrets his early endorsement of Trump’s candidacy and resignation from a safe Senate seat, and that Trump is mainly peeved at Sessions for hewing so closely to old-fashioned Republican law-and-order sensibilities. At this point in post-Labor Day America the President of the United seems to have made clear that he thinks the true purpose of the American justice system is to lock up his political enemies and vindicate his still-in-favor political allies, and we expect a cold and dreary autumn.
— Bud Norman
The Central Standard Times 