I’m a MAGA, she’s a MAGA, he’s a MAGA three!

Commentary

GOP pol’s defense of the “indictment and arrest” of Trump is stunning, particularly given that there hasn’t been an indictment, let alone an arrest.

As recently reported by the major media, including the one and only Around the Block, based on his post on his own social media site, Truth Social, ex-president Donald Trump is to be indicted today by the Manhattan DA’s office. As I wrote in a post the other day:

“Donald Trump claimed today that he was going to be ‘arrested’ by New York authorities. The potential indictment, not confirmed by the office of the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, is likely to stem from an alleged 2016 hush money payment to porn star, Stormy Daniels. Trump announced the arrest, which he claims will occur on Tuesday, in a communication on this social media platform, Truth Social.“

Well, today is Tuesday and guess what? So far we’re looking at a ‘nothing-burger’ as there is no indication that the DA’s office will issue an indictment today. In fact, at this point we can’t be sure that there will even be an indictment. I want to say “clearly” Trump’s post was a figment of his warped imagination but Trump’s imagination and “clearly” are contradictions in terms. In fact (fact is another word that is difficult to use when talking Trump), his post most likely was an attempt to whip up support among his MAGA minions, particularly when he closed the message with echos of a January 6th Trump trope, “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK.” (all caps courtesy of Trump).

Yet, despite the fact that there has been no indictment and, if there is going to be one, no one outside the Grand Jury knows what it might contain, the MAGA-world hair is literally on fire in outrage over the treatment of their leader. And nowhere is that outrage more fiery than among elected Republican officials.

A sampling:

• “You are reportedly about to engage in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority: the indictment of a former President of the United States and current declared candidate for that office,” Republican Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio), James Comer (Ky.) and Bryan Steil (Wis.), who chair the Judiciary, Oversight and House Administration committees, respectively, wrote in a letter to Bragg dated Monday.
• Jordan, never one to share the stage with his fellow MAGA-ites, followed up with”God Bless President Trump. Real America knows this is all a sham.”

• Despite his recent strong comments slamming Trump over Jan. 6th, former Vice President Mike Pence, who’s nearing a decision on a 2024 presidential bid, said the potential indictment “reeks of the kind of political prosecution that we endured back in the days of the Russia hoax. This is what the Manhattan DA says is their top priority?”

• Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the third-ranking Republican in the House, called Trump’s possible arrest “unAmerican” and said Democrats have reached “a dangerous new low.”

• Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., downplayed the Manhattan district attorney’s case and said he thinks prosecutors are “afraid” of Trump. “The prosecutor in New York has done more to help Donald Trump get elected president than any single person in America today,” Graham said. If I were President Trump I’d take this all the way to the damn Supreme Court.”*

*(Yikes, we know how that will turn out!)

• Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona tweeted, “If they can come for Trump, they will come for you. This type of stuff only occurs in third world authoritarian nations.”
• “Virtually every campaign finance violation involves either 1) spending other people’s money illegally or 2) taking money into your campaign that you shouldn’t. Trump did neither,” tweeted Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida. “He used his own money to resolve a private dispute, irrespective of any campaign.”
• Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, another Trump ally who has advanced his baseless theories of a stolen 2020 election, criticized Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, saying he “will prosecute” Trump while “violent criminals” roam New York City.
• And finally, the irrepressible Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG) characterized the allegations against Trump as “fake” and “outdated.” She tweeted, “Republicans in Congress MUST subpoena these communists and END this,” writing in another tweet, “we don’t need to protest,” adding: “These idiots are sealing their own fate in 2024 because the silent majority has two feelings right now about the current regime.”

Of course the grand prize in fiery outrage must go to the Congressional leader of the MAGA GOP, House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, who, as Around the Block reported previously, tweeted,

As I commented, [McCarthy is] “inserting himself in a legal procedure that has nothing to do with him, calling a duly-elected local DA an abuser of power in a Grand Jury investigation into which McCarthy has no insight.”

Writing, “I doubt he (McCarthy), or any or the other Trump acolytes in Congress recognize the irony of McCarthy’s statement about “subvert[ing] our democracy.” This is doubly ironic given McCarthy’s recent empowerment of the House Sub-Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government! If Congress going after a local, elected DA investigating a potential crime isn’t weaponizing the federal government, I either don’t understand the term “weaponizing” or am confused about what the federal government is.

But I guess, like so many of his MAGA ilk, McCarthy doesn’t know the meaning of irony.

So in the public interest, and for the two MAGA subscribers to Around the Block (or is it one?), in the words of John Oliver, “And now this…”