Trump Ends

 

As the final countdown counts down to Trump's term finally ending it's fun to see the Trump apologists out in force.  

Not just those who still believe in the disgraced leader but those warning us sternly of the dangers of prosecuting political leaders.  For the greatest fear of all politicians is that they and their mates should also end up in chokey.

"Donald Trump like a 'mob boss' but he shouldn't be prosecuted, says ex-FBI boss Comey" over at SKY.  After comforting us that "There's a menace to him in private that you don't pick up in public," Mr Comey goes on to cavet his comments that Trump should not be prosecuted because "prosecuting him would only give him the attention he craves".  If only we'd tried that tack with the Yorkshire Ripper ...maybe he'd have behaved himself.  Mind you I can't see direct quotation marks around what SKY says he said...

Meanwhile over at the Independent Blair apologist in Chief John Rentoul ponders that "If Trump does end up in jail it will be because the US courts will have put him there. The convention in the US is that former presidents are immune from prosecution, which is rather wonderful, because the country has a constitution that is supposed to do away with the muddled nonsense of the British way of doing things. As it happens, the American convention is a sensible one, precisely because it guards against the criminalisation of politics. It means that disagreements about a president’s policy while in office should not be relitigated in the courts afterwards. "  

To be fair this is a slightly more nuanced argument he makes than just "let him go" ...ultimately  impeachment at this point is silly.  Impeachment exists for sitting Presidents who are immune from prosecution.  It should be for the criminal courts.  But still you can smell the fear...  One wonders why sitting Presidents are immune from criminal prosecution.  One could make up arguments about separation of powers but ultimately it makes no real sense.  The advantages to immunity from prosecution were so obvious to Mr Trump that he actually said early on "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.". Well, he may have lost voters but... 

Elsewhere there is a lot of glee about the prospect of the orange one in orange...