NEWS & POLITICS
GAGE SKIDMORE/CREATIVE COMMONS
RELIANT ON TRUMP: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, favored to be Arkansas’s next governor, has no experience beyond her years lying for Donald Trump.
THE WORST I DONALD TRUMP’S CORRUPT LEGACY. BY ERNEST DUMAS
t has been firmly established for a long time now — five years, to be exact — that Donald Trump is the most corrupt and thoroughly amoral leader in American history, not just among presidents, but all political leaders. No one comes close to him — not Richard Nixon or John Mitchell, not Albert Fall, not even Aaron Burr. Benedict Arnold maybe, but he was not a leader — only a greedy soldier who sold out his commander, George Washington, and his country to King George. Trump would have understood Arnold perfectly. He just wanted the money, and he saw no sense in fighting for your country. The January 6 congressional committee’s formal hearings have cemented beyond a reasonable doubt the fact that Trump organized an insurrection against the United States to keep himself as the nation’s ruler. They also showcased the rarest of all American political phenomena — an endless stream of aides, advisers, cabinet members, military leaders and even family members jumping at the chance to expose their leader’s lies and treachery. It didn’t start in June with Attorney General Bill Barr, or with a revered retired Republican appellate judge, or with so many others — such as daughter Ivanka Trump, or running mate Mike
Pence, or even Pence’s staff — all of whom had covered up Trump’s treacheries and seditious acts for nearly four years until they realized that they had to repair their place in history, for the sake of their own souls and for their families, before it was too late. The real process started with the first Russia investigation of 2016 and 2017 and the scandals that it produced almost daily. That investigation led to firings, resignations, trials and sometimes prison for Trump’s men — followed by Twitter recriminations, would-be bestselling books and television interviews where they revealed their boss’ lies, corruption and frequent imbecilities to those Americans who might care. That first investigation was not fruitless, for it proved the Russian-Trump plan to undermine the 2016 election. It will be remembered that Trump’s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, never denied calling the president “a fucking moron” after one crazy session with him. A global oil baron who got the job because he was supposed to be a pal of Vladimir Putin, Tillerson criticized Putin for poisoning one of his own former spies and, within a few hours, was fired by Trump. But Tillerson hasn’t (yet) hired someone to write a tell-all memoir for him, and hasn’t (yet) consented to be interviewed about Trump’s ARKTIMES.COM
JULY 2022 19
