A few days ago, Donald Trump admitted in an interview on ABC that he would accept help from a foreign power that had information about his 2020 opponent. He said he would want to see the information, and he would not report the contact to the FBI.
It doesn't seem to bother him that accepting help from a foreign power is against the law. He got away with it once, and figures he could do it against. The fact that it's against the law means nothing to him.
That shouldn't surprise anyone, because Trump has demonstrated throughout his life that he is corrupt -- and will do anything (legal or not) that he believes can benefit him.
The sad part is that the Republican Party, once the loyal opposition, now supports Trump even when he breaks the law. Collusion with a foreign power or obstruction of justice is fine with them as long as it's Trump doing it. But what if the shoe had been on the other foot? How would they have acted if it had been a Democrat colluding with a foreign power?
In an excellent op-ed at the Daily Beast, Rick Wilson asks and answers that question. Here is just part of what he wrote:
I have to beg my Republican friends to imagine—just for a moment—what you’d be doing if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama said they would accept the help of a foreign power in a campaign and not report it to the FBI.
I’ll tell you what you’d do: You’d lose your fucking shit.
You’d spurt blood from your goddamn eyes.
You’d corner the market on guillotine, tumbrel, and pitchfork stocks. A gibbet would appear in Lafayette Park.
Fox News producers and on-air talent would grind out weeks of videos until they collapsed, as sick and exhausted as they keep saying Trump’s opponents must be. They’d work like galley slaves, a nearly naked Lou Dobbs beating a massive kettle drum to keep them producing screeching agitporn.
Entire forests would be leveled and pulped to write the condemnatory articles and books. The lights would dim on the Eastern Seaboard, and nuclear power plants would be brought online to support the massive surge of electricity needed to power a hundred thousand new servers hosting the hundred million articles and videos you’d make condemning this outrageous act.
You’d demand not only impeachment, but also drawing, quartering, and the wholesale razing of the villages of everyone involved. You’d call anyone else doing this a traitor, a villain, and the worst person ever to hold the office of president.
But we all know what’s going to happen to Trump, don’t we? It’s already happening:
Not a goddamned thing.
A few Republicans in the Senate will—ever so briefly—furrow their brows. Some will issue anodyne comments that if you squint and look really closely could be vaguely suggestive of something in the general vicinity of an elliptical criticism of Trump’s invitation to foreign governments to fuck us
In the House, the Clown Caucus will run around with their dicks out, as per normal, and bleat about Jim Comey or Chris Steele or Bruce Ohr or Peter Strzok or whatever imaginary Deep State conspiracy they’re trying to froth into existence today. They’ll race to Fox shows like Bonfire of the Hannity to bellow about witch hunts and reap millions from the boob donors on their email lists: Help me fight the Deep State and protect President Trump from Soros-Clinton-Hussein Obama Witch Hunt Sharia Lesbianism.
Bill Barr’s Trump Family Legal Defense and Obstruction Center will do exactly fuck-all. Nothing, exactly nothing will be said or done about this outrage. A realattorney general would demand a private meeting in the Oval Office and would give President Fuckwit both barrels. A real attorney general would nut-punch a president who so obviously invites foreign intelligence services to compromise the so-called leader of the free world. Bill Barr is not a real attorney general. He is a family retainer for Trump Inc., a small man in a big job without the moral compass or legal sensibility God gave the common rat. . . .
Trump’s ichor, his slimy amorality, his reek of greed and treason is an insult to the work, legacy, and memory of the men of both political parties who put America before their own egos, their own political fortunes. The sense of anger, outrage, and disgust on the part of Americans with the slightest sense of conscience is palpable and justified. That is directed not only at Trump but all those who serve and enable him, and dare call that public service.