(Twitter/Donald Trump)
Do some Americans still have doubts about whether Donald Trump's mind has become so unhinged that he now is unfit to serve as president? Anyone who has doubts should watch video or read news accounts of Trump's press conference yesterday at Mar-a-Lago It's the one where Trump refused to rule out using military force to take over Greenland or the Panama Canal. The Web is filled with reports about the nutty statements that spewed from Trump's mouth, with one Congressman using words like "bananas" and "insane" to describe them. One journalist called it a rambling preview of Trump's second 'chaotic stream of consciousness presidency.' A number of journalists charitably used terms like 'wacky" to describe them. One such journalist was Bill Kristol, a former Republican who now is a Never Trumper and writes for The Bulwark, producing some of the best accounts I've seen of the Bizarro World that Trump has come to inhabit.
Focusing on Trump's efforts to block release of Special Counsel Jack Smith's reports regarding his criminal investigations of the president-elect, Kristol writes under the headline "Release Jack Smith's Report; The outgoing administration shouldn’t play along with the whitewashing of January 6th." Kristol begins with this introduction:
You can never really tell which of the wacky ideas that Trump spins up will end up forgotten in a few days and which will lodge like a splinter in his brain forever. During his first term, “We’re gonna buy Greenland” seemed like it belonged to the former category. Now, it seems he’s making it a top administration priority.
“I am hearing that the people of Greenland are ‘MAGA,’” Trump wrote yesterday. “My son, Don Jr, and various representatives, will be traveling there to visit some of the most magnificent areas and sights. Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation. We will protect it, and cherish it, from a very vicious outside World. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!”
Kristol then gets to the meat of his piece, and it is serious stuff:
Donald Trump’s lawyers have demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland block the release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on his two investigations, one on Trump and January 6th, the other on Trump’s handling of the classified documents he took with him to Mar-a-Lago.
The attorney general will surely refuse Trump’s demand. Justice Department regulations require special counsels to submit reports explaining their legal decisions at the end of their investigations. Just as Garland last year released Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, he’ll make public—with appropriate redactions—Smith’s report on Trump. (For that matter, we can also expect the attorney general to release special counsel David Weiss’s final report on his investigation of the now-pardoned Hunter Biden.)
Trump’s demand that Smith’s report be suppressed is a useful reminder that he really hates truthful accounts of January 6th, even if—especially if—they are based on testimony under oath from many different individuals, including many who worked for him. Recall Trump’s fear and loathing of the House January 6th Committee.
The loathing is, I suppose, easily understandable. Politicians don’t like scrutiny. And they especially don’t like criticism. And those who’ve gone so far as to commit sordid and likely criminal acts don’t like to see their disreputable behavior exposed.
But one senses that in addition to the hatred and the loathing, there’s an element of fear. Why?
Trump won. Smith’s report won’t change that. And in any case, his entire propaganda machine is ready to attack the report as the product of a biased Biden Justice Department and a Trump-hating special prosecutor. The report will have no immediate effect on public opinion, nor on the successes or failures of the opening days of Trump’s presidency.
(Actually, if someone shows the guts to get to the bottom of evidence -- generated mostly by election-integrity expert Stephen Spoonamore and his allies -- that the the 2024 election was hacked in order to ensure a Trump "victory," something about the outcome might change, especially if Kamala Harris asserts her rights to a hand recount. Back to Bill Kristol and the issue of Donald Trump's apparent fear. ):
Kristol provides a history lesson on the importance of making sure whitewashed history remains whitewashed:
In the mid-twentieth century, Southern segregationists could have chosen simply to defend their policies as appropriate for then-current circumstances. They did make such arguments. But they also understood that in politics, present legitimacy depends on past origins. It was important to advocates of 20th century policies of racial discrimination that those policies were defended against the backdrop of the nobility of the Southern effort in the “War Between the States,” the depredations of Reconstruction, and the historic legitimacy of states’ rights.
So Trump too will continue to seek to rewrite the history of January 6th. He’ll pardon those who stormed the Capitol. He’ll fill the ranks of his administration with January 6th truthers. His administration will attack those, from Liz Cheney to Jack Smith, who’ve sought to hold him accountable. Trump’s more respectable apologists won’t go all the way with him in celebrating January 6th, but they’ll ignore or minimize or excuse what happened.
In a sense, the release now of Smith’s report will simply signify the failure of the effort, over the last four years, of accountability and truth-telling about January 6th. It will be the last gasp, for now, of a lost cause.
But, as T.S. Eliot remarked, “there is no such thing as a Lost Cause because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause. We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors’ victory.”
Who knows if or when such a victory will come? But if American politics is ever to return to a condition of civic and political health, it will need to embrace an honest account of January 6th.
Which is why we need the release of the special counsel’s report.
