Lamar Alexander: Trump Might Be Too Dumb to Know How Not to Commit Crimes
February 4th 2020
Senator Lamar Alexander (AMSF2011)
By Hunter
It was soon-retiring Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander who effectively ended the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump, doing so with a statement that asserted House managers had indeed proven that Trump used U.S. military aid as bargaining chip for obtaining a smear of his election opponent, but that doing so was merely "improper", and not an impeachable offense. Alexander thus settled on the answer that would do the most injury to our democracy and the rule of law: the "president" did it, the "president" was caught doing it, and the "president" is now allowed to do it, going forward, with no repercussions other than facing a vote he is now allowed, by Senate decree, to rig.
Defending this extremist, cancerous nullification on Meet the Press, Alexander did himself no favors. Alexander said that what Trump should have done, if he was so "upset" about Joe Biden and Ukraine, “he should have called the attorney general, and told him that, and let the attorney general handle it the way they always handle cases involving public figures.”
Why didn't he, asked his host? “Maybe he didn't know to do it,” Alexander said, letting loose a small chuckle after tossing that turd on the table.
Chuck Todd pushed back on this notion that Trump, entering his fourth year of office, was "still new to this"; Alexander allowed that "the bottom line it's not an excuse. He shouldn't have done it."
Let's just savor that, for a moment, as Alexander's continued defense for why Trump cannot be held accountable to the same standards as every other public figure corrodes our Constitution. Alexander is suggesting here that maybe Dear Leader was, as Robert Mueller's team concluded of Dear Leader Jr., during the last attempt by the Trump family to further international corruption if it is on their behalf, simply Too Stupid To Not Crime.
Trump may have an entire administration behind him, the top ranks stuffed with Republican radicals all, and a kept attorney general of his own mold, but Donald Trump is a stupid, stupid, stupid man. In three years nobody has been able to explain to him how to not crime. Through nearly a year of Rudy Giuliani scheming and Trump inserting Giuliani and his allied criminals into the decision-making loops of the State Department, White House and Budget Office, none of the myriad involved officials were able to inform him of how an "investigation" of such corruption would actually be done. If he were serious about it. If he had non-criminal motives.
Is it possible for Trump to be that stupid? Perhaps. He still believes "stealth" aircraft are literally invisible, after three years; his absolute immunity to learning absolutely anything is so impressive that we surely will come out of this with a new brain disease being named after him. It is less possible for every single member of his staff, sans John Bolton and subordinates, to also have accidentally crimed out of ignorance. Not impossible, but not likely.
In any event, the Alexander pitch is, somehow, worse than before. Not only has it been proven that Trump extorted Ukraine in order to gain an election favor, and not only is he now allowed to do that, the alternative being some (any) form of Senate check on his new discovered power, but Trump is allowed to break our laws if he is or can claim to be so very stupid that he simply cannot remember or absorb them.
If that were not enough, Lamar gave away the last bit of the game at the end.
"Now I think it's up to the American people to decide, okay, good economy, lower taxes, conservative judges, behavior that I might not like, the call to Ukraine. Weigh that against Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders and pick a president.
He broke the law, but we got our "conservative judges." He may have violated the Constitution, his oath of office, the public trust and the very foundations of our democracy, with the eager help of the Senate and the "conservative" press, but it is either rank corruption or electing a Democrat so rank corruption, hints Lamar, it is.
Posted with permission