The facts mattered. The spin did not
We're being tested like never before. And whose fault is that?
Whatever it was I had planned for Thursday afternoon and evening went out the window when my wife bounded down the stairs to announce she’d seen a news alert that the jury was coming back with a verdict in the Trump trial. I spent the next four hours or so surfing between news channels to learn of the 34 guilty verdicts and to listen to analysis of what it all means.
I saw no gloating on CNN and MSNBC. A little relief maybe, but mostly they stuck to the facts. As you might expect, Fox News analysts complained that “something was wrong” with this country and that America had driven over a cliff.
It’s clear the jury never bought Trump’s lame excuses – not for one minute. Facts mattered. Spin did not.
But I want to take a giant step backwards and stress the importance of this case. Yes, it’s the first time a former president has been convicted of a crime, but that’s not what sticks out to me.
But for this scheme to pay off Stormy Daniels, it’s quite possible that Donald Trump never would have been president. It was an outrageous thing to do. A criminal thing to do. His actions deprived Americans of essential information they had a right to know before voting in 2016. We will never know, of course, how many Americans would have changed their vote had they known of a hush money scheme with a porn star just days after the revelation of the Access Hollywood tapes.
How many women who were on the fence about Trump might have concluded this was a bridge too far? How many evangelical voters, who clearly overlook many aspects of Trump’s history to get what they want on abortion, would have decided they just could not vote for him?
The pundits have ranked this New York state case as the least important of the four criminal cases against Trump, but that doesn’t make it unimportant. It is a vitally important case that could have changed American history had Trump lost. But he won. And he sat in the Oval Office writing checks to Michael Cohen to further the secret he kept from American voters. It’s obscene.
Trump’s lawyers tried to make the trial about Cohen’s credibility, but they never came up with a good explanation of why the internal documents showed payments to Cohen were being “grossed up” to cover Cohen’s taxes. Nobody grosses up legitimate legal expenses. The paperwork backed up Cohen’s story and the jury believed him.
You’d think Iowa’s AG would be chagrined…
So where does this leave Iowa’s attorney general, Brenna Bird, who flew to New York, listened to a few hours of testimony, then declared the case a scam and a sham? After the verdict, she tweeted “Today is a dark day in American history…President Trump deserves better.”
General Bird, the jury listened to six weeks of testimony. Every word. You heard a couple of hours. What gives you the right to substitute your judgment for a duly picked jury in another state? Your statements in this case should cause every Iowan to question the judgment of you and your office when handling criminal or civil matters, because it’s clear the facts don’t matter to you. Only politics matter to you.
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said “American saw this trial for what it was, a sham. For years, Democrats like Alvin Bragg have been trying to put President Trump in jail with complete disregard for our democracy and the will of the American people.”
That’s rich, considering it was Trump who had complete disregard for democracy and tried to ignore the will of the American people in the 2020 election. And Governor Reynolds was with him every step of the way, wanting to involve Iowa in the Texas AG lawsuit that failed spectacularly in the courts.
If it’s a dark day, I know who’s responsible
Perhaps Brenna Bird is right in one respect. This IS a dark day for America. Our democracy is being tested like never before. It’s a gut-wrenching process to watch a former president being tried in criminal court. And this is merely the first of four cases and comes on top of several civil cases where Trump has been found liable. There is more pain and heartache to come.
And all of it is the fault of Donald Trump and his supporters for putting the rest of us through it. Any other responsible candidate would have long ago dropped out for the good of himself, his family, and his country. And if that candidate refused to leave the national stage, a responsible political party would have shunted him to the side.
But now we have a convicted felon as the presumptive nominee of the Republican party. And rather than blame the guy who caused all this turmoil – paying off porn stars, refusing to return top-secret documents when he was nicely asked, threatening Georgia election officials to “find” him enough votes to win, and then sitting back and doing nothing while violent supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol – rather than blame the guy at the center of it all, Trump supporters work to undermine our legal system that stood up to Trump and finally – finally – held him responsible.
It's been a long road. Sadly, there are many miles to go.
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Well said. It is still a long road to go, but our system of fairness worked. Thanks for always sharing the facts and the truth with your readers. Truth, facts and CHARACTER still matter as does integrity, and being a positive role model. As one leader I respect said in 2015, "Our children are watching."
Thanks for this Dave. The verdict was a relief but with so called leaders like Reynolds and Bird, we Iowans do have a long road ahead.