the personal journal of Brent Stewart
I read the Federal indictment of Donald Trump. Trump is charged with:
Today in the United States, every conceivable opinion aligns one with a political party, disagreements end with “their worse” or by comparing “them” to Nazis, and every provable fact is seen as a Rorschach test. It is a difficult moment for truth and integrity. Some say that this nation hangs in the balance, but on a more substantial level I think our souls are in peril. Will we be a people of integrity, or will we be a nation of bootlickers? The party doesn’t matter.
With this background, the indictment repeats things that have been public for a long time. Nothing herein will surprise you if you follow the news much. I think this document does a better job of bringing all the pieces together into a cohesive story and showing how each point reflects on the others. I had two overwhelming takeaways as I read through it.
The first thing that really came through for me was the morally empty people around Trump. The six unnamed co-conspirators are shown as actively moving to subvert the constitution. Conspirator #4 (the Justice official), especially is seen as a sycophant willing to do anything for power and never question. Their behavior was outlandish, self-centered, and deeply disgusting.
The second thing that I saw, and - wow - was the natural way that Trump used lies to manipulate, how he lied to friends, how he used his authority to try to back up his lies and how he combined lies with threats to intimidate. His words show that he changed his story to suit the nature of the pressure he was applying and how he tried to manipulate people who were allies.
On a hopeful note, the many people of principle from many different states who insisted on proof and stood up for factual discourse was stirring. Most of those people have paid for their honesty in many ways, but their names will be taught in history and ethics classes for a long time. If we remain a nation of facts.
I hope that you will read the document. It’s scary and every American needs to see this laid out.