A PATRIOT SHOWS THAT ANOTHER “CANCER” HAD INFECTED THE U.S. PREDIDENCY

 

…Cassidy Hutchinson, former executive assistant to President Trump’s Chief of Staff

 

It is true that most executive assistants, know all the details of their executive’s activities

 

Those of us that are old enough, remember when the former White House counsel, John Dean, shocked the country with his testimony to a Senate committee revealing President Richard Nixon’s complicity in the Watergate coverup. Dean recalled “telling the president that there was a cancer growing on the presidency and that if the cancer was not removed that the President himself would be killed by it.” He thereby set in motion the process that led to Nixon’s downfall a little more than a year later.

It has taken 49 years, almost to the day, but on Tuesday afternoon we finally heard congressional testimony about presidential misconduct whose shock value rivals Dean’s. The question now is whether the Republican Party (GOP) will finally realize that former president Donald Trump is not fit to hold office. That is, that our democracy might not survive another Trump term.  Or instead, will the GOP shrug this off, as they have every other Trump scandal.  They have instead referred to these as a trivial distractions from what they regard as far more important issues, such as the current price of gasoline, or a carton of milk?

Cassidy Hutchinson, who worked as an aide to the previous White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, she electrified the television audience, Dean-like, with her first-hand account of Trump’s actions in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, and on that infamous day itself. There were too many jaw-dropping moments to count.

She described how Trump was so angry at then Attorney General William (Bill) Barr for saying that the 2020 election was not fraudulent or stolen.  The president, at that moment, threw his lunch against a White House dining room wall, leaving a large smear of ketchup. This was evidence of a president who made Nixon seem like a model of sanity by comparison.

Cassidy said Trump was aware that many members of the crowd on Jan. 6 were armed, but Trump insisted that the Secret Service take the magnetometers (mags) away that found any firearms.  She quoted Trump as saying, “I don’t f---ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.” This gives a particularly sinister cast to the sentiments Trump expressed in public that day: He told the crowd on the White House Ellipse to “fight like hell” and the president tweeted, while the mob was ransacking the Capitol, that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country.”

Hutchinson’s testimony tells us that Trump was deliberately inciting violence, heedless of the consequences.  Indeed, according to Hutchinson, while the mob was screaming “Hang Mike Pence,” Meadows told her the president “doesn’t want to do anything. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”

As if that were not wild enough, it shows a president wanting to put his vice president in mortal danger!  There was also Hutchinson’s testimony about Trump’s attempt to join his followers at the Capitol. When the Secret Service refused to take him to the scene of the mob, Trump reportedly became so “irate” that he tried to grab the steering wheel of the presidential limousine (the “Beast”) and lunged at another Secret Service agent who tried to restrain him. Has there ever been an incident of a president trying to attack one of his bodyguards?  I don’t think so.

To cap off the event, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) showed excerpts from witness testimony about efforts by Trump loyalists to prevent any witness from testifying.

Trump, naturally, claims to “hardly” know Ms. Hutchinson and calls her a “total phony.” (The list of former associates Trump says he does not know, is a long one.) He quickly disputed Hutchinson’s testimony regarding the thrown meal and struggle in the presidential limo.  But Trump is a legendary liar, and he isn’t testifying under oath, as Ms. Hutchinson did.

What Trump has been credibly accused of is far worse than anything that Nixon ever did. There is overwhelming evidence to show that Trump was guilty of trying to overthrow the United States government in a coup to perpetuate his power, despite losing the 2020 election.  Moreover, far from ending his plotting when he left office, as Nixon did.  Trump continues to spread lies about the vote, to promote election deniers, and to do everything possible to rig the next president election.

In short, the cancer on the presidency that Hutchinson revealed is far more malignant than the cancer that John Dean uncovered. The only way to excise this cancer is for Republicans to turn on Trump, as they eventually turned on Nixon, after the exposure of the “smoking gun, White House tapes.”

In Trump’s case, we already have a battery of smoking howitzers, not just guns.  Yet, so far, even the previous testimony heard by the Jan. 6 committee has not broken Trump’s hold on his party.  In a recent Quinnipac Poll, only 28% of Republicans said that the former president bore “a lot” or “some” responsibility for the events of January 6.  Sixty-nine % said he bore either “not much responsibility” or “none at all.”

If there is any justice in the world, Hutchinson’s testimony will finally break through the force field of indifference enveloping the Republican Party.  (But don’t be surprised if it doesn’t do anything.)

Having seen Trump survive too many other scandals that should have ended his disgraceful political career, I cannot be convinced that he has finally reached his rightful reckoning.

Yes, the current cancer has been exposed, but it could still continue to spread.

Copyright G. Ater 2022