CIA Director ) Bill Casey would almost certainly not have even considered the Iran / Contra deal . Carter would have recovered the hostages , guaranteeing his own re-election .
At the very least , America wouldn ’ t have turned hard right , we ’ d still have millions of union jobs and 60,000 now-gone-to- China / Mexico factories , taxes on billionaires would ’ ve stayed at 74 percent , and neither Scalia nor O ’ Connor would have been on the Supreme Court to hand the 2000 election to George W . Bush even though he lost by over a half-million votes and Florida was far from certain .
There ’ s a strong urge among Democrats in Washington to avoid open conflict with Republicans , a dangerous tendency that ’ s apparently also infected the Department of Justice .
Perhaps it ’ s because we watched for four years as Trump got away with not only breaking the law but cutting a break to his co-conspirators and cronies ( unless they cooperated with authorities ).
• Not only was Trump impeached twice for breaking precedent ( and the law ) by trying to bribe a foreign leader and then trying to overthrow our government , but Republicans in Congress told him and the world that it was all A-OK with them .
• Michael Cohen got a stint in federal prison for giving Stormy Daniels an illegal hush-money check that was authorized and signed by Trump . Nobody ’ s even talking about prosecuting Trump for it .
• Trump ’ s campaign manager , Paul Manafort , made a living working with multiple murderous oligarchs and was busted for trying to hide the blood money they paid him . Trump pardoned him .
• His national security advisor , Michael Flynn , was busted and convicted of taking money from and working for a foreign government while guiding our intelligence services from the White House . Trump pardoned him .
• Trump is now promising pardons to any January 6th co-conspirators who similarly keep their mouths shut .
This is the very smallest tip of an iceberg of corrupt precedent-breaking that almost certainly will now be normalized and followed by the next Republican president , unless Trump is punished like Clinton was , and legislation is passed to put former precedents into law , as Congress did in 1947 .
After all , they all now know how far they can go before they ’ ll suffer any blowback or consequences . Trump ’ s precedents have been established and , unless challenged , are an irrevocable part of the history and the foundation of our political future .
Just look at the numbers to see how having two bribe-taking criminals in the White House ( Nixon / Agnew ) established an entirely new standard for Republican presidential behavior before Trump even came to office :
The Nixon administration saw 55 criminal indictments and 15 prison sentences . Reagan ’ s had 26 criminal indictments and 8 prison terms . George W . Bush ’ s administration had 16 indictments and 9 prison terms . ( Carter ’ s had 1 indictment and 0 prison terms ; Clinton ’ s 1 and 2 ; Obama ’ s 0 and 0 ).
If you ’ re noticing a trend toward presidential criminality in one of our two political parties , that ’ s the point .
Since the Nixon precedents were set , criminality and a flagrant disregard for democratic norms have run like an underground river through the GOP , and have now flowed from federal to state Republican politicians as well .
As you ’ re reading these words , Republicans are preparing to openly steal elections in more than a dozen states and fifty corrupt Republicans in the US Senate just helped them in their effort .
We ’ re learning , through the efforts of the January 6th Committee , that a small handful of people , perhaps a few dozen , succeeded in stopping Donald Trump from ending democracy in America .
The next Republican president bent on becoming America ’ s first strongman autocrat will have learned from this , and bring along with him or her enough willing toadies to get the job done this time .
We must stop this madness before it goes any farther . The Department of Justice and Congress must act .
The Trial Lawyer x 71