Trump’s undrained swamp is his own making
Just about everybody by now knows President Trump isn’t even close to “draining the swamp.”
To the contrary.
It was difficult fulfilling that particular campaign promise for one reason.
When he arrived in Washington, he brought the swamp with him.
Oh, he whines daily about his associates being victims of the so-called “Deep State,” which is the loosely defined catch-all for anything Trump doesn’t like.
In the meantime, there are real prosecutors, real juries and mighty real judges putting away – and locking up – his associates at a record pace.
Whenever Mr. Trump performs one of his provable lies about his administration compared to the administration before his, somebody should remind him that in eight years, the Obama administration didn’t have a single, solitary conviction – let
alone indictment.
Here’s Trump’s rogues gallery: Paul Manafort (Trump’s former campaign chairman) is serving a seven and a half year sentence at the federal prison in Loretto, Pennsylvania; Rick Gates (Trump’s former deputy campaign chairman) was sentenced to three years of probation, 45 days in jail and 300 hours of community service, and ordered to a pay $20,000 fine for conspiracy against the United States; Michael Cohen (Trump’s former personal attorney) pleaded guilty to a variety of charges, including making an excessive campaign contribution at the request of Trump, “for the purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election.” Cohen was disbarred, and he’s currently serving a three- year sentence in a federal prison in Otisville, New York; Michael Flynn (Trump’s first National Security Advisor) pleaded guilty to making “false, fictitious and fraudulent” statements to the FBI. Before Flynn was officially sentenced, a U.S. Attorney, at the direction of Attorney General William Barr, opted to examine his prosecution; George Papadopoulos (one of Trump’s foreign policy advisors during his 2016 election campaign), he served just 12 days in federal prison for making false statements to the FBI.
And that brings us to that Fancy-Dan, Roger Stone. He’s been a long time Trump associate who used to thumb his nose at propriety.
That is probably not going to be the case moving forward.
Because Federal District Judge Amy Berman Jackson accused him of being an “insecure person” who “craves” attention, before she sentenced him to serve three years and four months in prison; to pay a $20,000 fine and to serve two years of probation for his convictions on one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements and one count of witness tampering.
Stone is forever the flashy dresser with a quick smirk that always seems to indicate he’s above it all.
He didn’t appear to be amused by that sentence when he left the Federal courthouse last Thursday.
But he just may have some help on the way.
Trump has strongly hinted he just may issue a pardon for the onetime dirty trickster.
If he does issue one for Stone, it’ll certainly fuel claims by Democrats that Trump is at the helm of a corrupt administration.
And even while Stone was in court, waiting for his fate, Trump was busily firing off provocative (if somewhat obtuse) tweets.
“They say Roger Stone lied to Congress.” “@CNN OH, I see, but so did Comey (and he also leaked classified information, for which almost everyone, other than Crooked Hillary Clinton, goes to jail for a long time), and so did Andy McCabe, who also lied to the FBI! FAIRNESS” he wrote just minutes after the Stone sentencing hearing began.
If Trump does pardon Stone, it would show everybody just how much he holds the nation’s justice system in contempt.
He really does seem to think that it exists just to fight his personal battles and to settle his frequent scores.
It doesn’t.
Nor was Trump’s election a bridge to his coronation.
A wise leader would have taken note of the fact that during his campaign, some of the people in or headed to federal prisons were leading all of those “Lock Her Up” chants that were directed at his opponent Hillary Clinton.
She’s still free.
They’re not!
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.