I think the big takeaway from the Trump years is that so much of our governance has been conducted under an illusion of noblesse oblige, or at least within a basic honor system that those with whom We the People™ task with overseeing our welfare will act within a certain principled code as outlined in the Constitution. Few of these constitutional issues have ever been put to the test. Now, virtually all of them have been, all at once.
Trump’s only talent is to see how many locks he can break to either a) enrich himself; or b) save his own skin before someone actually objects and does something about it. Turns out he could break quite a few with help from a craven Republican Party and the Russians.
The People™ were expected to elect honest, responsible persons to high office. We failed. Now we have learned where that leaves us, and more particularly, where it leaves us when virtually an entire political party abdicates its responsibility to the country in order to serve their lust for power.
The primary purpose for the January 6th House Committee is to learn what happened, where government failed and to make recommendations about how to strengthen our system to prevent such a thing from ever happening again.
I hope there will be laws that include such things as mandatory submission of tax returns; clarification on conflict-of-interest situations with mandatory divestment of assets and/or laws governing blind trusts; laws preventing casual nepotism; laws outlining minimum qualifications for certain high offices in the land… these and so much more.
Much better would be an educated populace that understands the importance of selecting honorable, educated, decent people to hold high office. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed. We are a nation of ignorants who prefer to be entertained and who are easily bamboozled by the latest P. T. Barnum.
For these reasons, together with the willingness of the Republican Party to lie, cheat and steal their way to “victory” together with their hand-picked Federalist Society judges and help from adverse foreign interests, I am not confident it will be enough.
I believe Trump will be charged with something, if not treason. There are too many obvious signs this is where things are heading. Where Mueller failed, I believe lessons were learned about the degree of rot within the Republican Party.
I do not expect the House Committee to make the same mistakes. Nor am I worried about the DOJ failing to act once they have specific recommendations for criminal indictments from the Committee. If warranted, that will include Trump. The Committee has let drop too many clues about where they are heading with respect to Trump. They would not do it without express support from the DOJ.
I guess we’ll see soon.
