The Fifth

 

(5 minute read)

            Just a little note before I get started.  There are people from other countries reading my posts.  Just in case they aren’t expatriates and may not be familiar with some aspects of how things are done here or what I’m talking about.  Unfortunately, the comments section is broken for some reason and I have as yet been unable to fix it.  So, I may be adding more end notes than necessary.  If you’re on Facebook you can send me messages.

Laws are for little people.

            And, we’re off! 

Now that Trump, along with his son Eric, have both pled the 5^th Amendment[1], one of our greatest amendments[2], in court he has totally changed his mind about what he said before about people pleading the 5^th.[3]  It hasn’t been reported yet as to whether Ivanka took the 5^th.  He made those comments before he was hauled before a New York court.  It isn’t a criminal court but they can share any information with other courts regarding the criminal charges that he’s facing.  “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.[4]”  Pleading the fifth in spite of what Trump used to say isn’t necessarily meant to imply guilt but it often does to the general public.  It is perfectly legit for a civil jury to infer guilt from the plea, however.

            As I mentioned in my last post, when I was in the Army I had a Top Secret, NATO with Crypto access security clearance.  Now to state the obvious I am not and have never been President but had I done what Trump did in handling classified material I would have been court-martialed by the military and done some serious time if found guilty.  Whether one is a private, general or President the handling of classified material is a serious matter and there are consequences when such material is handled inappropriately, up to and including imprisonment. 

            Trump had been served with a subpoena in June seeking a return of classified documents.[5]  An informant had told the authorities that classified material was still at Mar-a-Lago.  So it isn’t like Trump hadn’t had the chance to come clean or get rid of the stuff.  Informants are traitors to those living in Trumpworld.[6]  Another more accurate portrayal would be that they were patriots being good citizens.  It’s also possible that they were capos that knew the jig was up and were betraying their mob boss Godfather.  It’s also worth mentioning that Trump had already been found previously to be in illegal possession of classified material.

            Trump, as ever the perpetual victim, is claiming that he’s being politically persecuted.  His right-wing racist supporters immediately started flooding the internet with conspiracy theories including that the FBI planted evidence.  Incidentally, despite the lies being promulgated, two of Trump’s lawyers were present during the search.  FBI agents knew what they were looking for because they had been tipped off by an associate of the President. 

Paranoia in Trumpland will be running deep.

The butler did it.

            When I went to college after getting out of the Army in addition to using the GI Bill I also worked as a janitor at the college in the evenings while I worked on my degree.  You know who are invisible people to some?  Servants.  Janitors.  I was a janitor in the engineering building.  To some of the professors I didn’t exist has a person if they were in their office when I was cleaning.  While others were quite open and nice.  It was the same for some students.  I was in a subservient position.

            I knew everything about the rooms that I cleaned.  What they were working on.  What they threw away.  What was important to them.  What kind of person they were.  When I was a member of a labor union I was a part of a dissident group and we ended up filing a lawsuit against the IAM to try and make them more democratic.  We won the lawsuit.[7]  But they didn’t become more democratic. 

            In our struggle against the union bosses we had an inside informant that kept us apprised of what was going on in regards to their machinations against us.  (BTW it was ugly.)  It drove the Administrative caucus, what we called the union bosses, nuts when we would print what we knew about them.  They never figured out who the mole was.  It was the janitor.  He cleaned up after their meetings; sometimes during their meetings, he emptied their trash and he knew what they were working on.  He’s passed away now so I’m not burning him. 

He was invisible to them.

Blow hole

            The Trump Republican Party and their core didn’t waste any time turning on law enforcement.  True to their basic nature they have turned on the entire FBI and are threatening reprisals.  As a defense they maintain that this has never happened to a President before and they’re right.  We’ve never had a President that attempted a coup either but here we are.  They also claim that the FBI screwed up and therefore caused a huge backlash.  Ridiculous.  Whatever happened and however it was done there was going to be a backlash from the Trump Republican cult.

It's what they do.

Attack!  Attack!  Attack!

            So, the paragons of support for the police the Trump Republican Conservatives are undermining the FBI at every opportunity, just as they have done in the past and will continue to do.  They are riling the base that wants revolution and calling for action.[8]  They will denounce the very violence that they call up as they continue to chip away at the rule of law and democracy. As I’ve said before,

They are all for law and order until it’s turned on them.

 

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU175dW9I28

[2] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-5/

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMyh7ko9L2g

[4] https://www.reference.com/world-view/saying-oh-tangled-weave-first-practice-deceive-mean-ff37d94b08c57b23

[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/11/us/politics/trump-fbi-subpoena.html

[6] M. T. Greene commenting on informants.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BwSL-MVsIo 

[7] Thomas v. Grand Lodge… https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/991621.P.pdf

[8] https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/dec-17-19-2021-washington-post-university-of-maryland-poll/2960c330-4bbd-4b3a-af9d-72de946d7281/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2