The Spitting and Sputtering House Republican Rage

Their phony indignation over looming Trump indictments

In the muck. Photo by Brie Odom-Mabey on Unsplash

Once again Donald Trump has managed to put his party in a bind, but is his luck running out? The Republican heads of three committees in the House want to investigate the Manhattan Attorney General because he might indict the former President, even though they have no jurisdiction over a state official.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy did his usual cover my ass balancing act by proclaiming the indictments, which have not yet taken place, are a political witch-hunt, while saying in the same breath that people shouldn’t protest.

I guess he remembers a little bit about Trump rioters being convicted by the hundreds for trying to overthrow the US government. With many more indictments on the way.

The GOP has a big problem with how to respond to the first of many potential indictments of the guy who lost the last election and who, by any standard, appears to have lost his marbles.

And these charges, if they come, are for a classic tawdry case involving a cast of characters straight out of a bad tabloid headline. If the other expected indictments come, which are far more serious, lukewarm Republican Trump supporters are going to find their outrage looking even more contrived.

Someone needs to ask them a simple question: is anyone above the law? These are supposedly lawmakers, though they have yet to do any lawmaking. Can they legitimately politicize the law when it is convenient?

This is a yes/no question. Either someone is above the law or they are not. We can’t have any legal decision that angers someone be declared to be only politics. Just as losing an election automatically means it was fraudulent if your guy or gal is on the losing side.

It looks like Trump’s alleged payoff of a porn star during his first election campaign was a clumsy attempt to hide an affair from years ago, that took place while his wife was pregnant. That’s repulsive but nothing more than a low level scandal compared to his other legal problems.

Those other problems involve things like an insurrection, the theft of government classified documents, and a racketeering case in Georgia…