Trump's Expanding Mafia State
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| This post on its own is an impeachable offense wherein Trump, in writing, directs the Attorney General to prosecute his enemies |
This is not how a public servant speaks. This is how a Trump henchman—you might say one of his gangster operation’s captains—talks when he feels unfettered by the law or a sense of shame.
Underscoring his belief in his
power to persecute individuals and media companies who disagree with his boss,
Carr told CNBC after Kimmel lost his job that he was not done—that he was
strengthened by “the permission structure that President Trump’s election has
provided.”
Unsurprisingly, Trump has praised
Carr as “a tough guy.” It’s just the kind of flattery that his old
lawyer Roy Cohn would have used to describe his notorious mafia clients, a list
that included John Gotti, Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno of the Genovese crime
family, Carmine Galante of the Bonanno crime family, and Paul Castellano, head
of the Gambino crime family who sold
concrete to Trump for Trump Tower.
Is it any surprise that the underboss of the Gambino family, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, served up this indirect endorsement of Trump not long after he got out of prison in 2017?
What would it look like if we were facing a mafia state with
a mob boss in charge? A demand for total loyalty; the use of fear, intimidation
and violent threats to get what he wants; the exploitation of cracks in the law
to expand his power and wealth; the transformation of an independent Justice
Department into an arm of his criminal operation; the extreme abuse of his
public position to enrich himself and his cronies; and, of course, the
aggressive plan to pursue retribution against his perceived enemies, no matter
how powerful they are, to weaken their threat to him.
In such a scenario, there’s little room for the public’s
interests. Worse, these corrupt and criminal pursuits ensure that the interests
of most Americans are aggressively undermined, making everyday survival harder
and crueler. This abandonment of a president’s responsibility to govern should
mobilize we the people to demand change.
Six weeks before the 2024 election, so-called “border czar”
Tom Homan was caught
on camera by the FBI in Texas taking a bag of $50,000 in cash with a
promise to assist border security companies seeking to land government
contracts. Once Trump got back into power, his Justice Department operatives
didn’t just bury this bribery case involving federal undercover agents, they
condemned it as a politicized “deep state” investigation.
If Trump knew about Homan’s activities, we can presume he
didn’t care less: This is the guy he wanted to hand enormous power to oversee
his mass deportation operation, ostensibly to root out criminals.
“Pam Bondi knew. Kash Patel knew. Emil Bove knew,” California Sen. Adam Schiff posted after MSNBC aired its report about the case this weekend. “And they made the investigation go away. A corrupt attempt to conceal brazen graft.”
But two other cases offer even more egregious evidence of a
lawless boss flexing his muscles to consolidate his power. First, on Friday,
Trump pressured Virginia prosecutor Erik Siebert to resign after he refused to
bring a weak case against New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged
mortgage fraud. “I want him out,” Trump said, adding in
his mob boss-style about James, “It looks to me like she's very guilty of
something, but I really don't know.”
That’s not all. When asked about Siebert, the interim U.S.
attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, he explained his desire to get
rid of him like this: “When I saw that he got two senators, two gentlemen that
are bad news, as far as I'm concerned, when I saw that he got approved by these
two men, I said, 'pull it,' because he can't be any good.” Who were those “bad
news” senators? Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both Democrats.
Then, on Saturday, Trump demanded that Attorney General Pam
Bondi urgently prosecute some of his perceived enemies. His list posted on
Truth Social included former FBI Director James Comey, Letitia James and Adam
Schiff, all of whom he claimed are “guilty as hell.”
So much for justice. So much for judicial protocol. So much
for an independent Justice Department, in which prosecutors pursue actual
evidence without fear or favor. Trump wasn’t even pretending to care about any
of that: Justice is only what serves him.
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and
credibility,” Trump wrote in a post addressed to “Pam,” referring to Bondi.
“They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE
MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
This is what we get when a corrupt right-wing supermajority
on John Roberts’ Supreme Court hands a convicted felon—who promised retribution
if he got back into power—near-total immunity for “presidential acts.” This is
what we get when millions of Americans vote for a vengeful, lawless candidate,
likely assuming he didn’t really mean it when he pledged to go after his
political enemies.
And this is exactly why it’s critical that Americans
continue to speak out against this regime and say enough is enough. We cannot
simply stand idly by and watch this continuing desecration of our norms, values
and laws by a man who treats our beloved country like his personal mafia state.
One more thing: As much as this is a tragedy for
America, it’s also a continuing danger to the globe. Trump’s reckless disregard
for human life and disregard for lawful action is also visible in the regime’s
three attacks on Venezuelan boats in international waters. The death count so
far: 17 humans.
Trump and his henchmen have justified their deadly attacks
by claiming, without evidence, that they are confronting the spread of drugs by
drug traffickers—as if the appropriate response is to kill them rather than
arrest them and hold them legally accountable.
But as New York Times military
reporter Eric
Schmitt writes, these attacks may be just a cover for a broader military
operation in the pursuit of regime change of Venezuela’s current president,
Nicolas Maduro. That assessment would help explain the presence of 4,500
military on eight warships in the Caribbean, as well as 10 F-35 stealth
fighters at the ready in Puerto Rico. (Ironically, Trump and his regime is
questioning the legitimacy of Maduro’s election and government; they insist
he’s abusing his power to direct Venezuela’s drug cartels.)
“The massive naval flotilla off the coast of Venezuela and
the movement of fifth-generation F-35 fighters to Puerto Rico has little to do
with actual drug interdiction — they represent operational overkill,” Adm.
James G. Stavridis, former head of the Pentagon’s Southern Command, told
the Times. Rather, this is a signal to Maduro that they are willing
to escalate their efforts to drive him from power.
And if that operation requires killing several dozen
Venezuelan boat passengers—whatever may be the truth of their activities—then
so what? To the Trump regime, that’s just collateral damage. Human life is
expendable when a mafia state chooses to flex its muscles.
This is not just a warning. It should be a call to action
for everyone who values human life and expects a White House occupant to
respect the rule of law and the people’s will. It may seem impossible to
unravel an expanding mafia state, but let’s not give up our belief that when
the majority fights back, such lawlessness and hostility can’t endure.
