Writing at the Guardian, former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich claimed that, regardless of what special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the Donald Trump administration shows, his tenure so far has been one demeaned the office he holds with a display of corruption that will linger long after he is out of office.
According to Reich, Trump -- working in concert with Fox News -- has "undermined the legitimacy of Robert Mueller’s inquiry – repeatedly conjuring a 'witch hunt' and maintaining a drumbeat of 'no collusion' – that Mueller’s report, whatever it shows, will almost surely be overwhelmed by a fog of alt-interpretation and epistemological confusion."
"An American president is not just the chief executive of the United States, and the office he (eventually she) holds is not just a bully pulpit to advance policy ideas. He is also a moral leader, and the office is a moral pulpit invested with meaning about the common good," Reich wrote. "A president’s most fundamental responsibility is to uphold and protect our system of government. Trump has weakened that system."
Reich detailed multiple instances of Trump admitting to buying off politicians, making blatantly racist statements, condoning white supremacists and giving pardons to boosters who were sentenced by the courts to jail time.
"In all these ways, Trump undermined core values of our democracy," Reich wrote. "This is the essence of Trump’s failure – not that he has chosen one set of policies over another, or has divided rather than united Americans, or even that he has behaved in childish and vindictive ways unbecoming a president."
"It is that he has sacrificed the processes and institutions of American democracy to achieve his goals. By saying and doing whatever it takes to win, he has abused the trust we place in a president to preserve and protect the nation’s capacity for self-government," he added, before concluding, "The Mueller report must not obscure this basic reality."
You can read the whole piece here.
