Donald Trump must be held accountable for serious four misconduct indictments: Follow the rule of law

Opinion echo: Donald Trump isn’t coming for us. The rule of law is coming for him. By James Comey, the former director of the FBI and a senior fellow at the Kettering Foundation (We Envision a World of Thriving Democracies.  Everyone is empowered to build and preserve resilient democratic systems in which all people’s rights are protected.)

Former FBI Director James Comey, "We must not let the idea of Trumpian violence become some kind of boogeyman, frightening us away from our commitment to the rule of law," he adds.

Maine Writer:  I read every page in James Comey's A Higher Loyalty because, first of all, the history about his career is interesting.  

My husband and I disagree about Comey's motivation when he made the damaging decision to open the investigation about Hilary Clinton's email about 10 days before the 2016, national presidential election. My husband believes that Comey deliberately tanked Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign. After reading A Higher Loyalty, I tend to believe what Comey offered as his wrong-minded reasoning for re-opening his Clinton email investigation.  

Comeny wrote that he followed up on the lead he received, (IMO- probably information planted by a right wing spy) about laptop email messages sent to Huma Abedin's husband, who she was married to at the time. Whether you believe (1) Comey deliberately tanked the Clinton campaign,  or he (2) acted to protect the FBI from accussations of protecting the Clinton campaign in light of new evidence, the fact is, his action to re-open the investigation continues to be believed as the reason for Mrs. Clinton's loss to the Trump camaign. 

"Although there is evidence of potential violations regarding historical accuracy and self-aggrandizement, our judgement is that no reasonable publisher would reject such a book".

Now, in 2024, Comey is challenging Donald Trump, the man who many believe he helped to put in the White House.  Well, in my opinion, I defer to A Higher Loyalty, and believe Mr. Comeny when he describes his communications with Trump during the short time before he was summarily fired. He was fired because he challenged the president's inappropriate actions where Trump asked Comey for his "loyalty". Therefore, because I am a woman of faith who believes in contrition and redemption, I believe what Comey wrote in his opinion pulbished in The Washinton Post below:

I have heard it said that America needs to tread carefully in the way we handle prosecutorial or legal decisions about Donald Trump, lest we provoke violence. 

We are supposed to worry about the tumult his many indictments might bring from his millions of followers. We should approach the issue of disqualifying Trump under the 14th Amendment with great care, we are warned, as it might bring violent mobs down upon us. And, most recently, we are told there will be bedlam if he doesn’t get complete immunity.

I doubt it. We should always worry about political violence, especially when violent rhetoric and behavior are embraced, even celebrated, by one of our political parties and its leader. 

In fact, the FBI’s domestic terrorism section is paid to worry, and hundreds of people at the bureau and its partner agencies are getting up every morning trying to spot potential threats and defuse them. It’s work they must do.

But I think we have a much bigger problem with threats of violence than we do with actual violence. Trumpist threats seem to be everywhere these days. Public officials at all levels regularly receive them by mail, email, social media or, quaintly, even voice mail. And there are the attempted “swattings,” where callers report nonexistent crimes to trigger a response by law enforcement, and other forms of harassment. Of course, these must be taken seriously because there’s always the chance that some disturbed person will act on a threat. But I know from professional — and, unfortunately, personal — experience that people mostly tend to threaten because they want to live rent-free in your head, impacting the way you live even if they never come near you. It’s a difficult thing to ask of frightened poll workers, school board members or judges, but they must find a way to take prudent precautions while not letting the threateners achieve their goal of warping life. Don’t let them own you.

As a country, we need to strike the same balance by refusing to let our imaginations give threats power over our national life. We must not let the idea of Trumpian violence become some kind of boogeyman, frightening us away from our commitment to the rule of law.

There is a natural human tendency to exaggerate a threat in the wake of a horrible incident, especially one that follows a security lapse. The attacks of 9/11 took an unbearable human toll, but they were the product of our own failures of preparation and imagination, compounded by the astonishing luck of a group of killers who caused carnage they couldn’t have imagined. 

Yet, in the aftermath, we envisioned al-Qaeda as an existential threat to the United States, an assessment that led us into all kinds of error at home and abroad.

January 6, 2021, was a terrible day, but it was at bottom a security failure. For reasons I still don’t understand, our government didn’t properly assess and prepare for a threat that was moving at the speed of a daytime stroll, broadcast in advance. A mob managed to take a building that sits atop an easily defended hill because it was not properly secured, despite the heroic actions of an understaffed police force. Yes, there were sophisticated actors in the crowd that day, especially the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, who operated with seditious intent in organized teams. But, in the overwhelming main, the offenders of Jan. 6 were morons who bought Trump’s lies. They must be held accountable — every last one of them — but they shouldn’t be the monster under our national bed.

That accountability should comfort us. The Justice Department’s prosecution of more than 1,200 January 6 defendants has sent a shock wave of deterrence at those who might otherwise be tempted to take a day off work to literally fight for Trump. They now know it will cost them dearly and most of them have no interest in paying that price, despite his generous offers of pardon. These aren’t jihadis looking to blow themselves up for some reward in paradise. These are mostly people with day jobs who feel a sense of grievance stoked by the amoral demagogue now running for president again. 

They might vote for him — those who are not yet felons — but they’re not looking to die for him, or even go to jail for him. They weren’t there when he was arraigned in New York or Georgia or Florida or D.C. They aren’t coming. Sometimes, even idiots aren’t fools.

The rule of law must be vindicated regardless of the threat, which is why public servants at all levels around the country are soldiering on despite the torrent of individual abuse. Terrorists, gangsters and drug lords have long been held accountable in this country even when their organizations posed a serious risk of violence aimed at those who operate our legal system. Fortunately, that’s not what we face today. Trump and his legions are not coming for us. The rule of law is finally coming for him.

Rudy Giuliani booked in Fulton County Jail charged with the same RICO crimes as he prosecuted in NYC

James Comey revealed his experience with Rudy Giuliani in his book, "A Higher Loyalty".  Early in his development as a prosecutor, Comey admired the New York City Police Commissioner Giuliani from afar, being how, at the time, he was his subordinate. This naivety turned to cynicism as Comey became familiar with Giuliani's puffed up management style. (page 19-22 in hard cover).  This learning curve was realized when he attended a press conference with Giuliani, where he was told to stand still, not move and be quiet because, "The most dangerous place in New York is between Rudy and a microphone."

Rudy Giuliani's mug shot released by the Fulton County Sheriff's Office, confirming that the former New York City mayor had a booking photo taken after surrendering to face charges related to his and others' alleged efforts to overturn Georgia's 2020 election results.

Rudy Giuliani Was Always Like This.

Reported in The New York Times opinion by Jamelle Bouie: Giuliani is charged with 13 felony counts, including racketeering (violating the Georgia RICO Act) and false statements and writings.

Rudy Giuliani was indicted in Georgia for his role in what prosecutors called a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020, presidential election in that state.

The district attorney for Fulton County, Fani Willis, charged Giuliani with 13 counts related to election tampering, including “solicitation of violation of oath by public officer” and “conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree.” The indictment names 18 other defendants, including former president Donald Trump, who have each been charged under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (or RICO) Act. 

Of course, the irony is that Giuliani made his name as a U.S. attorney using the federal RICO Act to undermine and dismantle the mob.

It is not hard to find commentators asking a simple question about the events of the past few years: What happened to Rudy Giuliani? How did “America’s mayor” — the man who rocketed to national fame after the Sept. 11 attacks — come to disgrace and debase himself in defense of Donald Trump? 

Why would Giuliani, the archetypal tough-on-crime and law-and-order politician, embrace a lawless effort to “stop the steal”?

It’s an understandable question, but it starts from a mistaken premise. It assumes there’s something different about Giuliani — that there was, at some point, a decisive break in Giuliani’s personality or political beliefs that placed him on his current trajectory. But there wasn’t. The line from “America’s mayor” to indicted co-conspirator is a straight one. The answer to "What happened to Rudy Giuliani?" is Nothing happened. He is the same man he’s always been.

Just look at one of the formative moments of Giuliani’s political career. On Sept. 16, 1992, thousands of off-duty police officers crowded in front of New York’s City Hall to protest against Mayor David Dinkins. “The cops held up several of the most crude drawings of Dinkins, black, performing perverted sex acts,” Jimmy Breslin, the Newsday columnist, who was present at the riot, wrote. “‘Now you got a n****r right inside City Hall,’ one officer reportedly said,” Breslin continued. “‘How do you like that? A n****r mayor.’” Other officers chanted slogans like “Dinkins gotta go!” and “The mayor’s on crack!”

The cops were there to oppose a bill that would have removed the police from the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board, an oversight body that handled allegations of police misconduct, and, crucially, would have made it independent of the Police Department itself. Faced with the prospect of potentially greater civilian accountability, New York City police officers took their anger to the streets.

Tensions were already high in the city — earlier in the summer, an officer had killed Jose Garcia, a young undocumented immigrant from the Dominican Republic, leading to protests and rioting — and fanning the flames on this particular day was none other than Rudy Giuliani, who had lost to Dinkins in the 1989 New York mayoral election.

Giuliani, the author Andrew Kirtzman recounts in “Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor,” “walked to the flatbed truck outside the perimeter of the building, where thousands were gathered, and hopped up to the makeshift stage. After a handful of other politicians delivered their speeches, Giuliani took the mic and the crowd roared. Shedding his suit jacket and rolling up the sleeves of his white button shirt, he ripped into Dinkins.”

“The mayor doesn’t know why the morale of the New York City Police Department is so low,” he said, jabbing his finger in the air. “He blames it on me, he blames it on you. The reason the morale of the Police Department of the City of New York is so low is one reason and one reason alone: David Dinkins!”

Giuliani never acknowledged or condemned the racism of the police riot. And why would he? His performance galvanized supporters and almost certainly contributed to his narrow victory over Dinkins in his rematch with the incumbent mayor in 1993.

What does any of this have to do with the Rudy Giuliani of 2023? Well, if we think of Giuliani as the personification of American resilience in the face of terrorism, then his turn against democracy and the rule of law is bewildering and inexplicable. 

But, if we think of Giuliani as the scowling demagogue who stoked the flames of chauvinism and racial hatred against New York’s first Black mayor for his own gain, then there’s little other than his carefully crafted image in the press that separates the Giuliani of ’92 from the Giuliani of ’23.

And that’s the point. Even at the moment of his greatest political triumph, Giuliani was a fraught and divisive figure. 

It was the press that labeled him “America’s mayor.” That the epithet continued to stick through the subsequent decade, in the face of scandal and political failure, is only a testament to the persistence of myth in American political coverage, because it is only after internalizing the myth of Giuliani that anyone could be shocked by his steadfast allegiance to Trump.

With clear eyes, it is easy to see that the two men are of a type. They share the same demagogic instincts, the same boundless resentment, the same authoritarian manner — it is not for nothing that Giuliani reportedly tried to get the 2001 mayoral election canceled so that he could stay in office beyond the limit on his term — and the same willingness to indulge in racism and use it for their own political purposes.

If there is a question to ask in the wake of Giuliani’s indictment, it isn’t What happened to Rudy? but rather, why was it so hard for so many people to see the truth of who, and what, he always was?

"Resistance" in Donald Trump's inept administration- documentation echos

Several credible books whereby evidence is provided about Donald Trump's incompetence. Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff and A Higher Loyalty by James Comey and Fear by Bob Woodward.

Burlington Free Press opinion excerpts

Vermont echos:

"...harrowing life inside Donald Trump’s inept White House and precisely how he makes decisions on major foreign and domestic policies. Bob Woodward draws from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources..." Goodreads review.

Washington has been rocked by evidence of the White House in disarray.

Specifically, members of Donald Trump's staff appear to be working to contain the irresponsible worst Trumpzi impulses, even going behind his back in the name of what staff members see as the national interest.

"Fear: Trump in the White House," is the behind-the-scenes book by Bob Woodward, the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist for The Washington Post most famous for his coverage of the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein.

Growing evidence has disclosed Trump’s dangerous disregard for the democratic norms of our country, and stunning revelations about his erratic, and misguided policy decisions and his pathological lying. We live in dangerous and unprecedented times. 

Our job now is to energize people, revitalize American democracy and fight for a government that will work for all of us, and not the wealthy few. 

"For the good of our country, Republicans in Congress must summon the courage to call out the president for the damage he is inflicting on the institution of the presidency, our nation, and our standing in the world.”