Since he became President, Trump has been calling all investigations into him led by Democrats and Republicans “witch hunts” while he was committing the same acts he was accusing others of doing. In psychological terms, this is referred to as a “projection”. When one projects, they attribute their unacceptable urges, traits, behaviors onto others. This week there has been an epic level of evidence of examples of Trump projecting onto others the criminal acts he committed throughout his presidency. His ” big lie” conspiracy theory is an example of projection. While he accuses election officials of stealing the election from him, he is promoting baseless, incompetent audits in swing states to overturn the election results which even the crooked William Barr said was without fraud.
Yesterday we learned that the Barr DOJ ordered the seizing of information from APPLE from devices of members of Congress who Trump vendetta against. In Russian- style autocracy, Trump abused his power to target his so-called enemies while protecting his friends and the criminal acts they were committing against the Constitution. Trump’s view of the DOJ and the Attorney General was they worked for him and were expected to follow his orders to pursue vendettas and cover-ups for him and his cronies.
This week brought an avalanche of evidence of how much corruption Trump engaged in as president. Former White counsel Don McGahn finally honored s subpoena issued two years ago by the House Judiciary Committee. USA Today writer Bart Jansen reported McGahn described, “several episodes of potential obstruction by Trump trying to curb or remove Mueller and his probe.” He testified Trump continued to pressure him to call Assistant Attorney Rod Rosenstein and instruct him to fire Mueller. At some point, McGahn revealed Trump asked him to deny he ever asked him to have Mueller fired. McGahn explained he defied Trump’s request, referring to them as” crazy sh ___t.” He also explained to have carried out Trump’s obstructive behavior would have caused the investigation to ” spiral out of control to a point of no return.” Like most former Trump administration officials, McGahn should brace himself for the disloyal Trump to attack him.
More proof of Trump’s continuous corrupt, Russian- like abuse of his powers was the pressure he ordered his administration to assert on CNN news journalist Barbara Starr’s phone and email records. Autocratic leaders reject adherence to laws and norms and use the government to execute actions that serve them personally or politically. Any journalist that criticized Trump became a target of his hate-filled rhetoric. Other entities targeted by Barr’s DOJ on Trump’s behalf were The Washington Post and the New York Times. Trump is a fan of the First Amendment when it protects his racist, insurrection-inspiring messaging and NOT a fan when the free press exercises its First Amendment rights to criticize him. Hypocrisy should disqualify elected officials from remaining in office. It’s corrupt, dishonest behavior that the American system should not enable.
Additional corruption exposed this week involved Trump’s long-time advisor Rudy Guiliani. A tape surfaced from July 22, 2020, where Guiliani is heard pressuring Ukraine government officials to announce investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign. On the tape, Guiliani requests that Zelensky announces these investigations against the Biden and also into Ukraine from interfering in 2016. Trump’s infamous “quid pro quo” call to Zelensky asking for him to launch those investigations. On the call, Trump was clear that the military aid already promised to Ukraine would be released if the Zelensky would “do us a favor”.
Those who lived through Watergate are sensing a mass arrest of Trump and former White House officials coming. Trump’s calling off the countless investigations into his behaviors “witch hunts” is a distraction from the reality that we are watching the rule of law hold a former president accountable for a corruptive assault on our democracy.
