On Pontius Pilate and impeachment
Donald Trump sent a terse letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Last Tuesday.
It was a six-page, 2,774-word diatribe that supposedly presented Trump’s defense against the impending impeachment proceedings that engulf his presidency.
It was a doozy.
There’s been some speculation that the letter had been (at least partially) ghost-written, because, well, most of it was grammatically correct and coherent.
Trump, as we all know, is no literary giant.
“I write to express my strongest and most powerful protest against the partisan impeachment crusade being pursued by the Democrats in the House of Representatives,” he wrote in the letters lead paragraph.
From there, except for the correct grammar, the rest of the letter was a formulaic replay of his daily Twitter tirades.
He mentioned “impeachment” 20 times; “hoax” five times; “Biden” five times – and that was just in one paragraph.
What he lacks in originally, he makes up for in repetitiveness.
That’s just his way.
Add to that, the letter contained his usual restated fibs.
He calls impeachment “nothing more than an illegal, partisan coup.”
A coup, or a coup d’茅tat would be a far, far more violent means of seizing power.
Impeachment is a clearly established mechanism that’s contained within the U.S. Constitution.
As hard as Trump and his congressional lackeys try to twist this impeachment into a coup, or a scam, or a charade, it’s highly legal.
That’s why, hardly anybody paid much attention to the part of Trump’s letter that read, “This is nothing more than an illegal, partisan attempted coup that will, based on recent sentiment, badly fail at the voting booth.”
If it does fail, it won’t the result of it being a coup, or that it was illegal.
Meanwhile, as the year is coming to an end, it’s time for some fact-checkers to get in their final few jabs at Trump.
Politifact.com has just tagged one of Trump’s ever-growing list of lies its highest honor.
Trump had claimed that the whistleblower had gotten Trump’s call to the Ukraine wrong. Politifact.com ranked that claim so preposterous, the folks there bestowed the “Lie of the Year.”
It’s the only time Politifact.com even uses the word “lie” to describe one of its findings.
Of course, the Washington Post has its set of fact-checkers.
They’ve been kept quite busy since Trump took office in January of 2017 (that’s 1,055 long, long days ago).
Trump has, according to the Washington Post, emitted 15,413 false or misleading claims since he took the oath of office. (and that doesn’t count the number of lies in his letter to Pelosi.)
All of this in the shadow of Trump’s impeachment.
It may be a very serious matter in the halls of Congress, but, to me, it’s all started to get just a bit silly.
The floor debate leading up to the House votes for and against the articles of impeachment produced some real laughers.
One Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania, Mike Kelly, seemed to have compared this impeachment to the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Christmas, and the Boston Tea Party, because, for the purpose of his floor speech, it’s happening in the same calendar month.
There are no words!
There really weren’t intended to be many words after Republican Congressman Bill Johnson of Ohio stepped up to the microphone on the floor of the House.
He called for a “moment of silence” for the 63 million Trump voters who were having their votes silenced by Democrats because of their blasted impeachment.
There were dry eyes all over the House.
Then there was this beauty. Another Republican, Barry Loudermilk of Georgia stepped to the microphone to give his two cents during the floor debate over the articles of impeachment, and he claimed (with a completely straight-face) that the Democrats are treating Donald Trump worse than Pontius Pilate treated Jesus.
None of the preening and bellyaching mattered.
In the end, Donald John Trump, the 45th President of the United States of America, became only the third American president to find himself in the snares of impeachment.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight and 20-year TV news veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight and 20-year TV news veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.