The Donald J. Trump–bashers have been saying for years, "Trump should go to jail!"  This hostile attitude is intended to retaliate for his saying to Hillary Clinton in one of their debates that if he were in office, she would be in jail.  So, hearing this public slurring of their village queen, the vengeful hearts of her loyal fans desired to turn the tables and actually put him in jail.

One of the real Trump-haters who tried to turn his hate into cash was Michael Avenatti.  He was the lawyer for Stormy Daniels, a leading pornicator, while she went on many TV shows claiming that Trump had committed fornication with her while married and that she had been paid off.  She even cast aspersions on his private parts.  Later, when Mr. Avenatti, her lawyer, tried to cheat her, she turned on him and publicly stated that she had lied about Mr. Trump.  She did not call it an extortion plot, but that is what it was.  Now Avenatti is going to jail for 30 months for trying to extort money from Nike.  It seems that cheating Nike gets you punished, but throwing some repulsive dirt on a sitting president does not.

The Trump-bashers have been investigating DJT for years now — they keep throwing you know what at the wall.  Many of the Trump-haters are smart people who know how to research and how to produce reams of papers filled with lies.  Yet these same manipulators and scoundrels have not been able to pin one credible criminal offense on him.  Nevertheless, they continue to make it their life's work to keep trying.

To the people who support this endless fantasy of putting Mr. Trump in jail, I can only say, "Give up your bitterness."  You don't have to vote for Trump or like his personality, morals, or policies.  But nursing endless revenge fantasies is not only neurotic; it's also immoral.  "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these shall be added unto thee."

As part of the crusade to defame Trump, his enemies have gone after one of his strongest supporters and advisers: Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City.  They claim that Rudy committed crimes when he went to Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter.  Yet, any citizen might ask: when is it wrong for politicians to try to get dirt on their opponents?   Politicians like to slime their opponents if they can.  The Mueller investigation was a $45-million project to try to slime DJT, and Trump perhaps sent his smart snoopers to look under some rocks to find d-i-r-t about Mr. Bidiot.  It used to be called mudslinging.  The Democrats had pulled out all the stops on seeking to find dirt on DJT, so it would be fair game for him to do the same.  These types of maneuvers are why most people understand that politics is a dirty game.

Those searching for dirt have to be careful because certain types of snooping are illegal.  Mr. Giuliani, being one of the more brilliant lawyers in the country, would be someone who knows where those fine legal lines are drawn.  It remains to be seen if he will survive the anti-Trump hate machine.   

The anti-Trump voices like to blame DJT for the disturbances (not insurrection) in Washington, D.C. of Jan. 6.  Instead of starting with an accusation, let's start with a definition: what is "responsibility"?  There are direct responsibility and indirect responsibility.  So if I take out a pistol and go into a store and say, "This is a robbery; shut up, and give me your cash," that would be direct responsibility for the robbery.  One type of indirect responsibility is if a crook had earlier been walking with an alluring woman, and they passed a jewelry store and looked in the window, and she said, "That ring is really nice.  If I had a ring like that, it would be great."  Then, later, he robbed the store to get the money to buy the ring and win the heart of the woman.  In this sense, she is indirectly responsible for the robbery by expressing her interest in the ring.  Would it make sense for the police to arrest her for the robbery?  Most people would agree that it would not.

To the extent that Trump is responsible for the events of Jan. 6, it would be only in the above indirect sense.  He never told anyone to go break into the Capitol building.  He never told anyone to threaten anyone else.  He never said, "Let's show those Democrats what a riotous insurrection really looks like."  He was in no sense an accessory.  So there might be a sense in which he inspired the rioting of Jan. 6, but it would entail no legal culpability.

As an important side note to this matter of responsibility, many of those being accused of direct responsibility for January 6 are nevertheless not receiving due process as guaranteed under the Fifth Amendment, and there are habeas corpus issues in their detention as well.  Even if one thinks they are vile because of their aggressions (if indeed there were serious aggressions, which is questionable), one would expect that there would be greater concern about their not having their constitutional rights respected.  If they are being held in solitary confinement, then other citizens could likewise be victimized on some other occasions having nothing to do with DJT.  Authoritarian failure to apply the Constitution is a serious matter.  

The attempts to judge Trump as a man of vice, a sinister spymaster, and a violent insurrectionist are all empty as well as vicious charges.  We have to see through them in order to remain temperate, rational persons.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.