We begin with a brand-new episode of “Law & Order: Presidential Edition.”
And, yes, in our system Donald Trump is innocent until proven guilty and, indeed, he has a constitutional right to remain silent.
But for some reason, Trump refuses to remain silent. Instead, he literally keeps confessing to the crime of unlawfully retaining U.S. defense secrets and refusing to give them back. And he’s making these confessions on the stump, on national TV ... over ... and over ... and over and over again. He made his latest confession on Monday to Fox’s Bret Baier.
So what you’re saying, man, is that you obstructed the FBI and the National Archives because you’re basically a hoarder, and therefore you commingled classified documents containing our national defense and nuclear secrets with your ... shoes, golf clubs and a bunch of magazine clippings and stuff? Uh, what?!
Look, we all know by now that Trump supporters do not care that Trump openly admitted to breaking the law. We get it. Trump good, Biden bad.
It’s actually easier for them to believe that Bret Baier was colluding with the Department of Justice to entrap poor Mr. Trump into telling the truth.
For most of the folks living in the real world, however, Monday night’s admission was not some innocuous thing. In fact, most normal people who heard his comments recognized them as highly incriminating.
This latest on-air confessional also had the amazing effect of bringing conservative, moderate and liberal minds together — to all agree that Trump’s legal strategy is horse poop and gobbledygook.
While Trump was ignoring his Miranda rights, his former attorney general and DOJ fixer William Barr was giving America a preview of the prosecution’s takedown of Trump’s case.
In an opinion piece, the man who desperately wants to rewrite his reputation from Trump’s paid goon at DOJ to someone who actually recognizes reality, writes:
Trump is a deeply flawed, incorrigible man who frequently brings calamity on himself and the country through his dishonesty and self-destructive recklessness. ...
His handling of these documents in bathrooms and ballrooms at Mar-a-Lago was lawless and exposed the country to intolerable risk. The government had every right — indeed, it had no choice — but to retrieve this material.
And finally, Barr drives a stake into the Republican argument that it is a “double standard,” writing that if Trump “engaged in the kind of brazen criminal conduct alleged, then applying the law in his case is not unfair to him. The injustice lies in not having applied it seven years ago to Hillary. You don’t rectify that omission by giving future violators a free pass.”
First of all, he forgot to add, “And I’m still going to vote for him if he runs for president again.” Yeah, Barr, look: We still remember how you lied about the Mueller report and how you used the DOJ to go after Trump’s perceived enemies. But, you know, good talk!
And unlike most people, Trump doesn’t have the capacity to look at himself in the mirror and think, “Hey, it’s me! I’m the problem!” And like any good episode of “Law & Order,” cornered suspects often turn on each other.
Two sources tell Rolling Stone that in recent weeks, several lawyers and confidants had already discussed their unconfirmed suspicions with Trump that Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff, was being very useful to the feds in order to reduce Meadows’ own possible legal exposure, two other people familiar with the matter say.
One source told Rolling Stone that some of Trump’s longtime allies and close advisers have taken to sardonically referring to Meadows by using the rat emoji in their private conversations.
Meow! We reached out to Mark Meadows through his lawyer, but they were not offering comment on the report.
This is an excerpt from Wednesday’s episode of the “The ReidOut.” It has been slightly edited for length and clarity.