The End of the Beginning

“Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great. He had no desire or intention to lead this nation – only to market himself and to build his wealth and power. Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the ‘greatest infomercial in political history'".

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Michael Cohen, 2/27/19

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I suspected as much nearly four years ago, in June o0f 2015, when The Donald announced that he was a candidate for the presidency. He never seriously expected to win; it was all a scheme to "up his brand". But he did win, and now we're all stuck with the consequences of that still unexplainable victory on Election Day 2016. That's probably why, on Election Night, the Trump team (with the exception of Trump) himself) looked completely shell-shocked.

The hearings which are being chaired by Democrat Elijah Cummings just recessed a few minutes ago for an hour or so. It was quite an informative four-and-a-half-hours. Aside from expressing to Cohen that black people in American are "too stupid" to cast their ballots for an unhinged imbecile like Trump, he also expressed the opinion that every country on earth with a dark-skinned head of state was a "shithole" - a phrase we're more than familiar with.

It's clear that, if Michael Cohen's testimony is to be believed, that the president of the United States may very well have participated in felonious conspiracy. Cohen related to the committee that he was present in the summer of 2016 when Trump's administrative secretary informed him that he had an incoming call from Roger Stone. Trump turned on the speaker phone and Stone informed the president that Julian Assange was about to drop about 60,000 hacked emails from the Clinton campaign out into the public domain - something that Trump has always denied, but never under oath - at least not yet.

Cohen also informed the committee that Trump told him to "indirectly" lie to congress about the Trump Tower Moscow project. He also bragged about "cheating" the IRS and said that he couldn't believe how stupid the government was to give him a ten million dollar refund; a statement which I agree with wholeheartedly.

The Republicans were obviously desperate to save Trump by trying to tear down Michael Cohen's reputation at every level. Can't they see that, by protecting this president, they're only going to do serious damage to their reputations in the long run? Is it political courage or is it just plain old stupidity on their parts. Any takers?

This promises to go on for several more hours so I need to get back to the tube. This is truly an extraordinary thing to witness.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY