If you want to know what former President Donald Trump said outside the New York courtroom yesterday, where by the way he has already found to have committed fraud, and it’s really only a process to determine how big his fine will be, you won’t read it here.
As someone who has respect for the courts, and Judges, and the law, I can’t justify Trumps rant outside the courtroom designed to boost his election finances, and reach voters, rather than address how he and his organization lied to obtain big loans, based on bogus valuations of his assets.
Last week the court ruled that Trump and his co-defendants were liable for “persistent and repeated” fraud. Trump and his companies could be forced to pay up to 250 million $ in damages.
Of course Trump appeared outraged, and ranting against the Judge and New York Attorney General who in his view are all biased and trying to derail his election chances.
Trump didn’t just make a few comments as he passed cameras in the hallway, he stood and waited minutes for the cameras to get set, and then started a campaign like speech most TV networks broke away from, understanding this was political theatre and media manipulation in the extreme.
Of course the real event was in the court room, not outside in the hallway where Trump tried to distract from the facts mounted against him.
Trump’s position is always to attack everyone and every institution that doesn’t work to his own advantage. His view of the world is transactional, and loyalty to anyone or anything but himself doesn’t appear to exist.
Take for example his attack on General Mark Milley the retiring Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who will be a witness against Trump in another legal proceeding, connected to the attack on the Capitol. Trump said Milley had committed treason and suggested that he should be executed,'.
In ‘Trump speak’ that’s viewed as a call to violence against Milley, and is part of the reason the Special Counsel Jack Smith has filed a gag order, which says “there is no legitimate need for the defendant, in the course of his campaign, to attack known witnesses regarding the substance of their anticipated testimony”.
I mean can you imagine any other defendant, calling on social media for a witness against them to be executed? And getting away with it? It’s witness tampering in the extreme.
The latest shocking statements about Trump come from John Kelly, the longest-serving White House chief of staff for Trump. It’s a statement which confirms many of the stories about Trump including his refusals to visit war graves in France, and even appear with American amputees.
- Kelly On Trump -
“A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.
“A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women,” Kelly continued. “A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law”
Remember now, this is not an outside critic, but Trump’s Chief of Staff in the White House. And Kelly summed it all up with this simple but eloquent warning;
“There is nothing more that can be said,” Kelly concluded. “God help us.”