Hoping For A Camaraderie of Justice

There is a new kind of camaraderie that has developed among people who feel that standards of justice, morality and fair play have been lowered to an unconscionable level by Donald Trump. Those lower standards have not only affected Americans but they have colored political activity throughout the world. Hopefully, once Trump is out of power, those standards will be somewhat restored.

The new comrades of the 21st century have created something akin to a massive support group because they feel the need to share their pain. Many have resorted to professional therapists, and if anecdotal evidence is close to statistical fact, the number of people who have sought therapy since Trump was elected has risen significantly.

Beyond talking to each other, what else can these comrades do? For my money the best thing we can do is to make sure Trump is a one term president. We still live in a democracy, tainted as it is, and we still have the power of our vote. We need to put our energy into urging other like-minded people to vote. Having a strong Democratic candidate will also help.

There are many in the group of comrades who would like to see Trump punished in a number of ways, including impeachment, expulsion from office and prosecution for crimes once he is out of office. I certainly would like to see all of those things happen but we have to be realistic about how the political beast works in Washington. Power and money control most activity and, even if he loses power, Trump will still have a lot of money to continue to run roughshod over any type of democratic process.

I believe that Trump should be prosecuted for all of the crimes he has committed while in office but if he is impeached and leaves Washington I suspect that politicians on both sides of the aisle may stop going after him and say that he has been punished enough. I don’t think Trump can ever be punished enough. He is an evil man who has done evil things all his life and he has not been held accountable for most of his actions. He has to be stopped. He has to be punished.

It might be useful to look at a list of possible crimes that he has committed while in office in order to understand the magnitude of the evil that he has created as well as the repercussions of those evils that have spawned more evil.

Quinta Jurecic is the Managing Editor of the publication Lawfare and she has developed a list of possibly prosecutable Trump crimes based on the contents of the Mueller Report. She describes three elements of obstruction of justice, “…common to most of the relevant statutes relating to obstruction of justice: an obstructive act, a nexus between the act and an official proceeding, and corrupt intent.”

Based on her elements she has made an interpretation of 14 Mueller Report instances of obstruction of justice and has rated them from being “substantial” to “no evidence”. Six of those elements fall into the substantial category and they include, “conduct re: Flynn investigation, Comey investigation, efforts to fire Mueller, efforts to curtail Mueller, order to McGahn to deny attempt to fire Mueller, conduct toward Manafort (cooperation), conduct toward Manafort (influencing jury)”. Six other elements meet the nexus definition.

These obstruction of justice pieces in the Mueller report are only a small portion of the misdeeds of Trump and his team. There are also questions relating to the emolument’s clause as well as actions of Trump family members in foreign countries. Treason by the Trump family should not be off the table.

The Trump nightmare will not end even if impeachment happens. Perhaps someday the new camaraderie will evolve into a camaraderie of justice.