Boss Trump

Poor Donald Trump. Everybody picks on him. And for what? What did Trump do to deserve it? Nothing at all, really. Except for …

I guess you could start with the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump handled that by firing the head of the FBI, James Comey. But then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller special counsel to lead the investigation. And it was back on.

But other than obstruction of justice, what has Trump really done that is so bad? I guess you could count that pesky Emoluments Clause in the U.S. Constitution. Trump isn’t supposed to profit from being president. But he still retains ownership interests in businesses that profit in various ways from his presidency, so yeah, he’s breaking the law. Technically. But only a little. So I don’t see what the fuss is about.

Of course, there was that collusion thing, in which Trump’s son was invited to meet Russian officials to get “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. And he did meet with them. After journalists broke the story of the meeting, Trump lied about the purpose of the meeting. So it appears Trump knew he was breaking federal campaign law. But again, he was breaking the law only a little.

So what else has Trump done that might be considered bad? Let’s see: he did say there were good people on “both sides” of the neo-Nazi riot in Charlottesville. He encouraged police officers to rough up people they have under arrest. He shared anti-Muslim content on Twitter. Little things like that.

Oh yeah, he pardoned Joe Arpaio who had been convicted of contempt of court for refusing to obey a court order. And Trump said that he would pardon any of his aides who broke the law to get a wall built. Some lawyers consider that an abuse of the pardon power.

There’s other stuff, but it’s kind of nit-picky. Like, repeatedly pressuring the Department of Justice and the FBI to prosecute and jail political opponents. What’s wrong with that? I hear they do it all the time in Russia and China.

And of course, there are his constant attacks on America’s free press. Trump calls coverage he doesn’t like “fake news” and journalists “the enemy of the American people”. He threatened to change libel laws and revoke licenses. His dislike of CNN led him to try to interfere in the AT&T/Time Warner merger.

There are people who dislike that Trump’s zero tolerance immigration policy has separated thousands of children from their families. And the Trump administration has no plan to reunite all children with their families, even deporting some parents while their children remain detained. In legal jargon, this is called “violating immigrants’ right to due process” and lawyers say it’s a bad thing. But a lot of people who are not lawyers say immigrants don’t have rights, so who knows if it’s really bad?

There are people who would disapprove of Trump’s extramarital affairs with Stephanie Clifford (“Stormy Daniels”) and Karen McDougal just before the 2016 election. Knowing he might lose their votes if they learned of his indiscretions, Trump directed Michael Cohen to pay hush money to the two women. Once again, picky federal prosecutors have said that Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator for paying money in an attempt to influence the election. It turns out that you can’t do that. I mean, legally.

The cherry on top, so to speak, is the alleged Ukraine arms-for-dirt incident which launched an impeachment inquiry.

Sometimes it seems everything Trump does breaks some law. The conclusion is obvious. This country has too many laws.