Dear America,
Donald Trump slid Ed Martin into the temporary post of interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, one of the most powerful positions in the Department of Justice, and as his nominee for the post permanently. Now, Trump is sliding him out. One or more Senators, including one or more Republicans, made it clear that Martin merits their censure for, among other things, his affiliation with a known, overt anti-Semite named Timothy Hale-Cussanelli, a January 6th protester and an anti-Semitic pod-caster who once adorned himself with a Hitler mustache. Martin publicly referred to him as an exceptional person, who happens to be a one of the January 6th protesters pardoned by Donald Trump. Martin also approves of the Trump pardons of those convicted criminals, which brings me to my point: Trump and Martin are birds of a feather. Trump invited Kanye West, a notorious anti-Semite to dinner at Mara-Lago, suggesting that even though he is deporting pro-Palestinian undocumented aliens without due process for anti-Semitism, on the subject of anti-Semitism he's flexible as long as you agree that the 2016 election was stolen. The two of them should start a new political party and call it "bogus claims "R" us."
With regard to the deportations, I believe that Trump is so blinded by his obsession with them that they will be his undoing. Several courts have ordered them stopped and with regard to a few people who have been imprisoned as a prelude to deportation, and courts have ordered two victims released from their incarceration. The courts have also ordered the Trump administration to "facilitate" the release and repatriation to the United States of another whom they mistakenly arrested and sent to El Salvador to be extra-judicially imprisoned as a terrorist. So far, Trump has flouted the order by claiming that there is nothing he can do to facilitate that release, but the lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia have been invited to file a motion for contempt by the presiding judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis. The reason for which she invited the motion for her consideration was that despite her order for the Trump administration to show her evidence of their efforts to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return, nothing that she finds persuasive has been produced. Concomitantly, Trump and his minions have been mindlessly defending his administration's claim that they lack the power to do anything--according to a DOJ lawyer, they would "gladly facilitate his return" if he showed up at a port of entry by taking him to prison--because Abrego Garcia hasn't done his part, as if that absurd scenario were in Abrego Garcia's power to effect. To put it concisely, if it's not too late for that, the case for a contempt finding seems to have already been made, and there is no doubt that Trump is behind it. A cognate finding of contempt would qualify as a "high crime" under the constitutional requisite for impeachment. But what would happen if such were issued?
My guess is that Trump would hold his ground, and his fate would then hinge upon when the finding went to the House Judiciary Committee: before or after the November 2026 elections. That is the petard on which Trump is in the process of hoisting himself. If the Democrats prevail in their effort to regain control of The House of Representatives, the committee would almost certainly impeach Trump and send the case to the Senate for trial. Then the Republicans in The Senate would have to decide the issue with the 2026 elections in mind, and we all know that politicians like to stay in office. So the threat to each of the Republican senators' tenures would just have been suggested by the house election results and the fifteen to twenty of them needed for the two thirds majority required to convict would have a conundrum; Who gets to stay in office, him or me? My guess is that, poltroons that they are, the Republicans will chose self-preservation in the knowledge that Trump will be gone and never able to return. After all, if a president refusing to obey orders affirmed all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States isn't grounds for removal from office, what is? One must assume that the voters would answer that question correctly and vote accordingly.
Of course, all this is speculative. Trump is a poltroon in his own rite. He may relent in some kind of back-alley deal and get Abrego Garcia back to this country and then try to jail him in spite of the "withholding of deportation" order still in effect...in violation of which he was arrested in the first place. And when the issue of contempt in that case comes up, Trump will get to tempt fate again, and who knows how long that would go on. In the interim, Trump will continue to claim victory as he always does, but impeachment will still be a distant prospect. We can dream, can't we?
Your friend,
Mike
Donald Trump slid Ed Martin into the temporary post of interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, one of the most powerful positions in the Department of Justice, and as his nominee for the post permanently. Now, Trump is sliding him out. One or more Senators, including one or more Republicans, made it clear that Martin merits their censure for, among other things, his affiliation with a known, overt anti-Semite named Timothy Hale-Cussanelli, a January 6th protester and an anti-Semitic pod-caster who once adorned himself with a Hitler mustache. Martin publicly referred to him as an exceptional person, who happens to be a one of the January 6th protesters pardoned by Donald Trump. Martin also approves of the Trump pardons of those convicted criminals, which brings me to my point: Trump and Martin are birds of a feather. Trump invited Kanye West, a notorious anti-Semite to dinner at Mara-Lago, suggesting that even though he is deporting pro-Palestinian undocumented aliens without due process for anti-Semitism, on the subject of anti-Semitism he's flexible as long as you agree that the 2016 election was stolen. The two of them should start a new political party and call it "bogus claims "R" us."
With regard to the deportations, I believe that Trump is so blinded by his obsession with them that they will be his undoing. Several courts have ordered them stopped and with regard to a few people who have been imprisoned as a prelude to deportation, and courts have ordered two victims released from their incarceration. The courts have also ordered the Trump administration to "facilitate" the release and repatriation to the United States of another whom they mistakenly arrested and sent to El Salvador to be extra-judicially imprisoned as a terrorist. So far, Trump has flouted the order by claiming that there is nothing he can do to facilitate that release, but the lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia have been invited to file a motion for contempt by the presiding judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis. The reason for which she invited the motion for her consideration was that despite her order for the Trump administration to show her evidence of their efforts to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return, nothing that she finds persuasive has been produced. Concomitantly, Trump and his minions have been mindlessly defending his administration's claim that they lack the power to do anything--according to a DOJ lawyer, they would "gladly facilitate his return" if he showed up at a port of entry by taking him to prison--because Abrego Garcia hasn't done his part, as if that absurd scenario were in Abrego Garcia's power to effect. To put it concisely, if it's not too late for that, the case for a contempt finding seems to have already been made, and there is no doubt that Trump is behind it. A cognate finding of contempt would qualify as a "high crime" under the constitutional requisite for impeachment. But what would happen if such were issued?
My guess is that Trump would hold his ground, and his fate would then hinge upon when the finding went to the House Judiciary Committee: before or after the November 2026 elections. That is the petard on which Trump is in the process of hoisting himself. If the Democrats prevail in their effort to regain control of The House of Representatives, the committee would almost certainly impeach Trump and send the case to the Senate for trial. Then the Republicans in The Senate would have to decide the issue with the 2026 elections in mind, and we all know that politicians like to stay in office. So the threat to each of the Republican senators' tenures would just have been suggested by the house election results and the fifteen to twenty of them needed for the two thirds majority required to convict would have a conundrum; Who gets to stay in office, him or me? My guess is that, poltroons that they are, the Republicans will chose self-preservation in the knowledge that Trump will be gone and never able to return. After all, if a president refusing to obey orders affirmed all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States isn't grounds for removal from office, what is? One must assume that the voters would answer that question correctly and vote accordingly.
Of course, all this is speculative. Trump is a poltroon in his own rite. He may relent in some kind of back-alley deal and get Abrego Garcia back to this country and then try to jail him in spite of the "withholding of deportation" order still in effect...in violation of which he was arrested in the first place. And when the issue of contempt in that case comes up, Trump will get to tempt fate again, and who knows how long that would go on. In the interim, Trump will continue to claim victory as he always does, but impeachment will still be a distant prospect. We can dream, can't we?
Your friend,
Mike
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