I’m sort of astonished we are still wondering if Steve Bannon will end up in jail for defying a congressional subpoena. Why is this the news? I seem to remember a loudmouth orange man admitting to, committing, or having released audiotape of crime after crime on TV, Twitter, and in front of large crowds with many, many witnesses. I’ve honestly lost track of them all and I’m sure we can link to some other better written diaries listing them all out. But let me see how well I can do in 60 seconds. We have:
- Inciting violence offering to pay legal fees for people who hit protestors at his rallies
- Admitting to sexual harassment on audio
- Inviting a foreign power to commit espionage against a political opponent
- Flagrant violation of the emoluments clause
- Attempting to inappropriately influence an FBI investigation
- Flagrant obstruction of an investigation by firing the Director of the FBI
- Extorting a foreign power for personal political gain
- Publicly tampering with witnesses by threatening them over twitter while they testify
- Countless and flagrant Hatch Act violations
- Use of law enforcement and National Guard to stage a photo op at a church that didn’t want him there
- Committing biological warfare against political enemies
- Or negligent homicide of 100s of thousands of people
- Attempting to coerce voting officials to commit fraud
- Publicly inviting people to a rally to obstruct congress, then inciting them to violence in order to unlawfully maintain power
I am quite positive I missed another 10 or so examples. I’m also quite positive that if I committed a crime of comparable level to any of the above on live TV I would be in FBI custody by nightfall. Yet here we wait for indictments and one could make a plausible argument none will ever come. I understand that investigations can be long and traditionally the person at the top is indicted last. But this isn’t normal. Normally people don’t commit crimes of this level in public for all to see. Does there exist reasonable doubt the man hasn’t committed at least one of the above crimes? He certainly poses an ongoing threat to society with every day he is free.
Let’s approach this another way. Assuming he is guilty of one of the above, let’s remember this man is 75 years old and already barely able to pass a test screening for dementia. Getting everything perfect for a trial set to start 5 years from now and sentencing him to 20 years in prison means he may be dead or mentally unfit to stand trial before it concludes. Indict him now and let him rot in prison while waiting to go to trial.
Even better, plea deal him down to a 5 year sentence in exchange for giving up every single other person in his life. I’m willing to bet he’d even make something up about Barron if he thought it would keep him out of prison one day less. Let him sell out Ivanka, Jr., Eric, McConnell, and any other Republican he has the goods on. Then let him spend the best 5 years of his remaining life in jail. If he makes it through that, I imagine his fortune should be gone as he’ll have sold out anyone involved with maintaining it. Let him live out whatever years after that friendless and penniless. He can half-vacantly pan handle the streets of New York scaring little children as they walk by muttering to no one in particular how he’s still President and they should bow down before him. (Yes I’ve watched too much Princess Bride “To the PAIN!”)
But seriously, THERE IS ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO INDICT. We all watched it live on TV. Any random person on the street can be a witness. Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be by following every loose end. Convict Trump now and go after the little fry latter. Sure its backwards, but so is this whole last 5 years.