Trump fantasizes about Adam Schiff enduring “tougher” Guatemalan punishments
Unrepentant, incorrigible, and shameless are just a few of the words that apply to Donald Trump on the eve of the historic impeachment vote in the House of Representatives tomorrow.
After sending a furious 6-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) compiling the same tired excuses and accusations he posts on Twitter on a daily basis into a somewhat more linguistically-polished version of a defense of the actions that led him to his embarrassing and potentially term-ending current situation, the president further vented his frustration by repeating his parcel of blatant lies during a question and answer session with the press following his meeting with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales in the Oval Office.
Sticking to his tired talking point that the “whole impeachment thing” is “a hoax,” despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary in publicly sworn congressional testimony — the type of testimony he refuses to allow any member of his administration to deliver — Trump lied about the impeachment process in the House and made an implied threat against the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who spearheaded much of the impeachment inquiry for the Democrats, Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA).
Denigrating the congressman as “Shifty Schiff,” Trump harped yet again about Schiff’s parodic paraphrasing of the president’s incriminating phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and made an implied threat against the Democratic leader, saying that “In Guatemala, they handle things much tougher than that.”
Trump then went on to lament — without a scintilla of evidence of awareness of the supreme irony of his statement — the fact that he could not prosecute the Intelligence Committee Chair over his supposed lies because of his congressional immunity.
The president’s willingness to imply the threat towards one of his principal antagonists demonstrated his frustration and anger towards the entire impeachment process, but unsurprisingly he was unwilling to admit to an iota of responsibility for his current fate or the actions that he and his administration took to engender the patriotic efforts to end his term ahead of schedule, as this response to a direct question shows.
REPORTER: Do you take any responsibility for the fact your about to be impeached?
TRUMP: "No. I don't take any. Zero. To put it mildly." pic.twitter.com/9tdMolnDzt
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 17, 2019
With the fix already in the works for a Senate trial where Republicans will likely vote to acquit the president of his high crimes and misdemeanors — unless the consciences of at least a few GOP senators reinhabit their empty souls — Trump will no doubt continue his time-tested strategy of constant denial of his guilt and the projection of his own crimes upon his opponents.
If only enough of America was aware of the danger that a failure to hold the president and his administration accountable will bring to our democratic system and its constitutional basis, and reject Trump’s cynical self-serving lies and propaganda, we could enter the holiday season with a sense of renewed hope and optimism.
Instead, we will celebrate under a cloud of dread over what the next possible atrocity that our authoritarian-leaning president may pull out of his posterior may be.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
