This man can expose Trump — the GOP just silenced him

I will never get over the attack on my country January 6, 2021, by the anti-American lowlife, Donald J. Trump.

I will never move on until the man who spearheaded that attack is brought to justice.

Trump is the most dangerous man in the world, and if this has somehow escaped you until this point, he made the case yet again Wednesday night when he assaulted a podium, a microphone and our senses on primetime TV, telling approximately four lies every minute.

It was an unhinged performance worthy of one of history’s most notorious dictators.

Just six hours earlier, we had learned that former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith privately testified in front of a closed House Judiciary Committee hearing that his legal team had “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that the convicted felon, Trump, conspired to overturn the 2020 election.

Proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Can we stop for a minute and consider what another day in America looked like Wednesday?

First, you have Smith telling a closed hearing that his team had “powerful evidence” on the morally dead Trump, who only hours later would claim he had the goods on America, and we better like the beating he is giving her or else.

A closed hearing …

Of course the damn thing was closed, because Republicans know good and damn well that if Smith were to take his testimony public, we all would have been forced to reckon with the worst attack on our Capitol since the War of 1812.

We would have been reminded that the traitor, Trump, did nothing but root for the attack’s success for hours while he sequestered himself in a room and punished ketchup bottles.

We would have been reminded that when the beatings and the threats, and the fires and the damage to our Capitol and worldwide reputation were finally over that gruesome day, the belligerent Trump stumbled in front of a camera and told his anti-American thugs who had attacked us that “he loved them.”

We would have been reminded how little Republicans did to safeguard this country from the worst possible outcome: The return to office of the man who is hellbent on destroying our Democracy and turning America into an authoritarian cesspool ruled by the very worst among us.

Finally, we would have been reminded in the wake of all THAT, how damn little Joe Biden’s Attorney General, the feckless Merrick Garland, did to bring America’s greatest enemy to justice.

Well, I am not moving on from this, dammit.

Ever.

We all watched in horror as America was being murdered in cold blood, hour after hour that day, and nothing was being done to stop it.

WE KNOW HE DID IT.
HIS FAMILY KNOWS HE DID IT.
HE KNOWS HE DID IT.

It was one of the most appalling days in American history, and everything should have been done to make sure it never, ever happened again.

Instead, nothing was done.

NOTHING.

I say again: I am NOT done with this, and I NEVER will be.

As a U.S. Navy veteran who served this country, and a man who cares deeply for her, I am demanding we get to the bottom of just what-in-the-hell happened January 6, 2021.

I will not be shutting up about it until I am dead and gone, because if there really are going to be no consequences for an assault on our country, the idea of America is as hollow as the tiny heart of the lowlife who attacked us.

Jack Smith testified in so many words Wednesday that the man who is currently taking a bulldozer to our White House and our human rights is a traitor.

Just what-in-the-hell is anybody who REALLY cares for his or her country supposed to do with this kind of information?

Let it go?

And what about Garland, this deplorable and gutless loser, who catastrophically failed in his greatest responsibility: PROTECTING AMERICA.

Where is this so-called man? Why wasn’t he on Capitol Hill with Smith on Wednesday?

I remind you: We are paying for hisquiet retirement.

So I ask again: Just what in the hell is going on here?

For close to the past five years, I have lived in a constant state of trying to make sense of it all.

Why isn’t Trump rotting in jail right now?

Here is a part of one of the many pieces I wrote about all this following Trump’s attack. I spun this one in March 2023, in the weeks after the man who attacked us announced he was running for president so that he could finish us off.

Re-reading it again this morning, I began to shake with anger:

Just 10 weeks ago, the traitor, Donald J. Trump, announced he was once again running for the most powerful office in the world, the President of the United States of America.

This immediately made the disgusting man the Republicans’ frontrunner in the 2024 presidential election, and elevated the stakes in this contest to a sky-high level. If Trump wins, there’s every reason to believe it will be the last presidential election in American history.

The only person in America who seemed genuinely surprised by Trump’s terrifying and completely predictable announcement was our unflappable Attorney General Merrick Garland, who after nearly two years of doing nothing to punish Trump for his attack on our country, was finally forced out of his malaise and into making a move.

After careful consideration, the three-dimensional grandmaster judicial chess player studied the board, and outdid himself by actually putting himself in check when he pawned off his responsibility to somebody else to take care of this monumental threat to America.

Watching Garland glide to the podium, raise his voice to a thundering whisper, and haul out some unwritten rule to the game that actually tied both his hands behind his back was pretty galling, and plenty pathetic.
Essentially, he took out an empty gun, held himself up, and surrendered.

Grandmaster Crash told us that because Trump was now shockingly a candidate for president, he had been forced to appoint a special counsel to look into the former president’s violent attempt to overturn a free and fair election that he lost by more than seven millions votes.

Brilliant, eh?

Before moving onto Garland’s willing accomplices in our race toward fascism, let’s once and for all dispense with the stupid argument that even had he done his damn job and charged the treasonous Trump with some semblance of alacrity, it wouldn’t have prevented the rotten bastard from running for office while he was on trial.
Technically that’s true. Realistically, it’s laughable.

Had Garland charged Trump in a reasonable timeframe, say, ‘only’ one year after his coup attempt, there’s every reason to believe his gutless party, now provided the necessary political cover by the AG, would have long since abandoned Trump, and moved onto nominating far more qualified and cunning fascists like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for president.

As bad as that would be, at least Trump would have been finished as a candidate, law and order would have prevailed, and the rotten, orange bastard would be staring at prison where he most certainly belongs.
Most important, there would actually be consequences for disgusting actions like the traitor, Trump’s, which would serve to prevent further attacks like this on our country.

There would be justice.

Except we never did get that justice, and because of that America has never been in this kind of danger.

Trump is every bit as guilty this morning as he was January 6, 2021, and far more dangerous. Predictably, he is failing catastrophically at his job, and lashing out at anybody who dares blame him for it.

He will own none of this, and warm his stubby, bandaged hands on the fires he has kindled.

That unhinged, unfit primetime performance on Wednesday night won’t be the last time he commandeers our TV networks (which one by one are falling at his fat feet and swollen ankles), and relentlessly lies to America, and threatens patriots who stand in his way.

We are in a battle for our survival.

If Jack Smith has “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that ties Trump to the attack on America then everything must be done to make sure that everybody sees this evidence just as soon as possible.

Because if we are OK with the man who violently attacked our country now leading it, Democracy is dead.

• (D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.)