Former special counsel Jack Smith set off a MAGA triggerstorm on Tuesday after Senate Republicans bombed their questioning during a cringeworthy embarrassment of a hearing.
While he was warmly welcomed by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Smith received the full MAGA beclowning treatment from such political luminaries as the ancient Chuck “Grasshole” Grassley (R-IA) and Eric “Schmitthead” Schmitt of Missouri, who may be the dumbest MAGA clown of them all.
Trying to “gotcha” the unflappable Smith — who never once invoked the 5th Amendment — Schmitt instead humiliated himself when he got all of his facts wrong, while also confusing two different sports teams.
Schmitt is just the latest Trumpsimp to humiliate himself on the global stage, doing his part to weakly distract from the Epstein Files, but instead reminding everyone that everything they’re doing is a weak distraction from the Epstein Files.
It makes me sick to my stomach whenever MAGA Republicans try to make the actions of one person apply to a completely different person. In this case, Schmitt was trying to get Jack Smith to admit he conspired with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a woman Smith has never actually met, by mentioning her alleged affair with a former colleague. No mention of the thrice-married serial cheater Epstein Bestie, of course.
Schmitt was getting rightfully dragged all over social as a result, but he wasn’t alone in showing just how low the Republican Party has sunk under the weight of Trump’s ineptitude while weakening America on the global stage. Sen. John “I Don’t Deserve This Name” Kennedy (R-LA) brought the collective IQ down even more.
"Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy?" he asked Smith. "How about the Easter bunny?"
When Democrats get their Congressional majority back, I hope they’ll launch investigations into their Republican colleagues’ full fealty, because it’s gone on for far too long.
A decade too long, to be precise.
It’s easy enough to pinpoint when it all began, because we watched it happen. First, Trump was the joke candidate, the spoiler, the media ratings boon of a buffoon. And then the RNC and DNC servers were hacked by the Russians, which Trump clearly knew about because he asked Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s missing emails. We remember that the Russians released what they found on the Democrats (cue the craving for that national security risk of a risotto recipe), but held onto whatever dirt they found out about the GOP.
I’ve written before about what horrors could be so bad that someone would rather be blackmailed into treason against their country than have anyone find them out, and the mind truly reels at the thought.
Whatever their individual reasons are for protecting one man over our democracy — and trust me, I’d love to be able to ask every single Trumpublican myself what they are — there’s also their full compliance this entire time with almost no pushback from within the party.
The Jack Smith testimony reminds us that Trump should’ve been prosecuted once he lost the protection of the White House.
Why that never happened is one of the many frustrations that is beyond me. Trump and his co-conspirators first tried to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 election, then staged an insurrection when that failed. Republicans spoke out against Trump in the wake of January 6th, yet soon went right back to him, even after he left the White House.
I’d love to know why, wouldn’t you? Were they still so worried about blackmail at that point? The smart move for the GOP at that moment would have been to stand together against Trump and use his Russian Propaganda tactics against him. Imagine if they had stood up to Putin and told the world that they had been threatened by Trump. What if they had said he was a liar who stole Top Secret government documents to keep them compliant while he plotted his return to the White House in 2024? What did they have to lose when Trump went on to get arrested four separate times, resulting in a mugshot and 34 felony convictions?
A MUGSHOT. Instead of being embarrassed by it, they embraced it with their newfound false bravado, pretending it was perfectly normal for a former President to have a rap sheet.
That was the moment to collectively shed his blight and walk away to find a proper candidate to run in 2024. Whatever Trump said about any of them after that could be dismissed as lies to overcompensate for what was happening to him.
And yet, they stayed with him.
Even after he lost in court to E. Jean Carroll, branding him a sexual abuser to add to his convicted felon title.
The old Grand Old Party would have walked away long ago.
Now they say nothing as he demolishes the White House and decorates whatever’s left with tacky gold overstock that fell off a Hobby Lobby truck. Save for Thomas Massie, who’s leaving the House early after being primaried because Trump got mad about him over the Epstein Files, they’re all involved in the Epstein Files coverup, a scandal that includes the Attorney General.
None of this is normal and none of it should have been normalized in the first place.
Democrats need to make the Republicans’ fealty to a fascist a much bigger talking point as we barrel ahead towards the midterms. Make everything about Trump stick to them. His every lie, grift, threat, and crime is theirs, too. His legacy of failure and death belongs to all of them as well.
They are Trump. He is them. They made their choice to protect him over our democracy a decade ago, but we should never have to suffer for their sycophantic suppliance.
But every last traitorous Trumpublican should suffer the consequences of their actions.