Dear America,
Today, a federal judge admonished Donald Trump and his legal team to refrain from disclosing the details of the materials they are about to receive from Jack Smith, the federal special counsel leading the prosecution of Trump in two cases, one involving attempting to overturn the election of 2020 on January 6, 2021 as well as before and after that date. A week or two ago, another federal judge held a hearing about a plea deal previously agreed to by Hunter Biden, the president's son, his attorneys and the federal prosecutor for the state of Delaware, David Weiss. At that hearing, the judge asked the prosecutor, Weiss, if the plea arrangement ended Biden's criminal liability, and Weiss said no. So she asked Biden if that was his understanding, to which he responded, no. In fact, Biden's attorneys appeared not to have read the fine print because they also said that they thought that the deal ended Biden's liability, and when the prosecutor said it didn't, Biden said that he wouldn't accept the terms of the plea deal. The judge then gave both sides a couple of weeks to smooth out their differences, but the prosecutor, now a special counsel as of a couple of days ago, apparently wouldn't forego the opportunity to continue to investigate, and perhaps prosecute Biden, and Biden and his attorney said that in that case, they would go to trial. There is no plea deal.
The reason I bring all this up is that today I watched CNN on this subject, and then I watched Fox News, and what I saw just reified my distrust of Republicans and conservatives in general. Bear in mind that I saw the world news coverage of the first Biden plea hearing, and it was recounted just as I have reiterated it above, which is how it was recapitulated on CNN. Contrary to the mischaracterizations of Republicans, the judge didn't refuse to accept the deal because it was favorable to Biden, she rejected it because it misled Biden into thinking he had a final resolution of his legal problems when all the while, prosecutor Weiss, apparently leaving Biden to his misapprehensions about the plea, intended to continue pursuing Biden's activities and possible crimes. She had rejected the plea because it was offered to Biden under false pretenses by a Trump nominee to the Department of Justice office he holds to this day. So the Republican puling about Biden getting special treatment out of "Biden's DOJ" has been nothing like the truth. In fact, it was just the opposite. The Republican claim that Biden had received special treatment was a palpable lie. Biden got just what prosecutors try to give everyone they pursue: a good screwing to the wall on general principle. And now that Weiss has the power to pursue Biden anywhere, the Republicans are repudiating him not because he's too devious, but because they don't think he's devious enough. The claim they had been pursuing that Weiss was compromised because there is a Democrat in the White House and the DOJ is part of the executive branch is shot full of holes, so they have switched to claiming that the guy who tried to trick Biden into a guilty plea that left him vulnerable to further charges didn't try hard enough before to bamboozle Biden into prison.
On CNN, Jake Tapper interviewed a couple of legal authorities, including someone from the American Heritage Foundation--hardly a bastion of liberal thought--and a couple of others, and they all accepted the truth of how the Biden plea failure had gone...the same account that the world and I heard on the national news the day it happened. But on Fox the story was completely different. They showed a clip of Lindsey Graham claiming that the whole plea deal was a Biden plot, and a panel of four people with a moderator, for the most part, ranted on about how the prosecutor had been caught playing for the home team in opposition to what was right and just in their eyes. To Fox's credit one of the four was actually rational and saw the facts as they actually are, and another related the case in a fashion that was just inside the truth, albeit barely, but the two other commentators seem to have been on a different planet when all of this happened. I can only characterize their comments as partisan, reactionary rants. That is why I have no respect for conservative Republicans. They cannot be trusted to tell the truth. Candor is not their metier.
I assume that some of you who read these letters are Republicans, and it is not my intention to alienate you. If we met, we might even become friends. But as for Republicans in general, I just don't trust them. After all, Donald Trump is their poster boy.
Your friend,
Mike
Today, a federal judge admonished Donald Trump and his legal team to refrain from disclosing the details of the materials they are about to receive from Jack Smith, the federal special counsel leading the prosecution of Trump in two cases, one involving attempting to overturn the election of 2020 on January 6, 2021 as well as before and after that date. A week or two ago, another federal judge held a hearing about a plea deal previously agreed to by Hunter Biden, the president's son, his attorneys and the federal prosecutor for the state of Delaware, David Weiss. At that hearing, the judge asked the prosecutor, Weiss, if the plea arrangement ended Biden's criminal liability, and Weiss said no. So she asked Biden if that was his understanding, to which he responded, no. In fact, Biden's attorneys appeared not to have read the fine print because they also said that they thought that the deal ended Biden's liability, and when the prosecutor said it didn't, Biden said that he wouldn't accept the terms of the plea deal. The judge then gave both sides a couple of weeks to smooth out their differences, but the prosecutor, now a special counsel as of a couple of days ago, apparently wouldn't forego the opportunity to continue to investigate, and perhaps prosecute Biden, and Biden and his attorney said that in that case, they would go to trial. There is no plea deal.
The reason I bring all this up is that today I watched CNN on this subject, and then I watched Fox News, and what I saw just reified my distrust of Republicans and conservatives in general. Bear in mind that I saw the world news coverage of the first Biden plea hearing, and it was recounted just as I have reiterated it above, which is how it was recapitulated on CNN. Contrary to the mischaracterizations of Republicans, the judge didn't refuse to accept the deal because it was favorable to Biden, she rejected it because it misled Biden into thinking he had a final resolution of his legal problems when all the while, prosecutor Weiss, apparently leaving Biden to his misapprehensions about the plea, intended to continue pursuing Biden's activities and possible crimes. She had rejected the plea because it was offered to Biden under false pretenses by a Trump nominee to the Department of Justice office he holds to this day. So the Republican puling about Biden getting special treatment out of "Biden's DOJ" has been nothing like the truth. In fact, it was just the opposite. The Republican claim that Biden had received special treatment was a palpable lie. Biden got just what prosecutors try to give everyone they pursue: a good screwing to the wall on general principle. And now that Weiss has the power to pursue Biden anywhere, the Republicans are repudiating him not because he's too devious, but because they don't think he's devious enough. The claim they had been pursuing that Weiss was compromised because there is a Democrat in the White House and the DOJ is part of the executive branch is shot full of holes, so they have switched to claiming that the guy who tried to trick Biden into a guilty plea that left him vulnerable to further charges didn't try hard enough before to bamboozle Biden into prison.
On CNN, Jake Tapper interviewed a couple of legal authorities, including someone from the American Heritage Foundation--hardly a bastion of liberal thought--and a couple of others, and they all accepted the truth of how the Biden plea failure had gone...the same account that the world and I heard on the national news the day it happened. But on Fox the story was completely different. They showed a clip of Lindsey Graham claiming that the whole plea deal was a Biden plot, and a panel of four people with a moderator, for the most part, ranted on about how the prosecutor had been caught playing for the home team in opposition to what was right and just in their eyes. To Fox's credit one of the four was actually rational and saw the facts as they actually are, and another related the case in a fashion that was just inside the truth, albeit barely, but the two other commentators seem to have been on a different planet when all of this happened. I can only characterize their comments as partisan, reactionary rants. That is why I have no respect for conservative Republicans. They cannot be trusted to tell the truth. Candor is not their metier.
I assume that some of you who read these letters are Republicans, and it is not my intention to alienate you. If we met, we might even become friends. But as for Republicans in general, I just don't trust them. After all, Donald Trump is their poster boy.
Your friend,
Mike
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