By Chido Nwangwu. Founder & Publisher of USAfricaonline.com and USAfrica magazine, Houston
Former President Donald Trump’s lead defense attorney, for his February 2021 trial for impeachment in the U.S Senate, is an interesting but pitiable manipulator of the language of jurisprudence and politics. He’s what we refer to as a prevaricator. Someone who speaks artfully to avoid the precise truth and facts of an issue.
The man, Bruce Castor, has decided as “defense strategy” in the latest impeachment of the congenitally corrosive, divisive and aggressive Trump that his client bears no responsibility for anything Trump has said or done which imposed global disgrace to the greatest country on planet Earth!
Castor said on Wednesday February 3 that “Just because somebody gave a speech and people got excited, it doesn’t mean it’s the speechmaker’s fault — it’s the people who got excited and did what they know is wrong.”
First, Castor’s latest meandering and double-speak reminded me of the warning and words of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, the German scientist and prolific writer, that ‘The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth.”
Second, on the face of it, Castor is right that everyone should be he held responsible for his or her actions. That is a classical example of “a slightly distorted truth.”
He knows it, as a lawyer, that there are such a criminal misconduct referred to as “incitement”, “sedition” and “insurrection”.
Third, to be sure, on January 6, 2021 as well as on several and previous occasions during his 4 years of his intemperate presidency, Mr. Trump was a flame-thrower, an instigator, a motivator for a very violent insurrection of his own making and motivation! A brutal violation of his oath of office and fundamental obligations to the diverse people of these United States.
Fourth, as a partisan power-play, the Trumpists (the new but temporary owners of the Republican Party) and their intimidated and pacified enablers will lack the balls and lack a high sense of self that they will not vote to impeach or indict Trump.
Fifth, the conspiracy-theorists, anti-Semites and anti-African peoples troops and supremacists who have coalesced into this grotesque apparition of the Grand Ol’ Party (Trump Republicans) remain bereft of a true sense of patriotism are incapable of raising only 17 courageous votes to impeach or indict Trump.
Sixth, the Trumpists and their confederacy of extremism remain so drunken in false piety about “taking back our country” and misreading the Constitution that they cannot summon the decency and “testicular fortitude” to rid the party of Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, George W. Bush, John McCain, John Kasich and Adam Kinzinger of hurricane Trump.
Seventh, awash in the putrid politics of xenophobia. Blinded by their racism and their philistinism, the Trumpists will not see beyond the potential political high of Trump 2024! Trump 2024 will be a socio-political calamity; of which foretaste of the ghost of things to come, we all witnessed on January 6, 2021! The bottomline: Trump’s footstools and apologists will not vote for his evidence rich indictment or impeachment!
Eight, that we thought we heard the boisterous ex-President say and unleash on January 6, 2021 specifically schemed and scheduled to coincide and disrupt the final protocols of the certification of the electoral college votes holding around the same time in the Capitol were phantasmagoric swings of the stupefying kind!
Nineth, that Trump’s incitement of the crowd of thousands near the U.S Capitol, where he specifically called on his supporters to “fight like hell” for “your country” — several minutes before they stormed the Capitol — was not incitement but a garden-variety, full-troth on the highways of the freedom of expression! I know freedom of expression when I see one; I am, professionally and personally, committed to the freedoms of expression.
I am an advocate for the factual interrogation of the human experience, past and present. Yes; in as much as I respect and support the freedom of expression, I insist that it must be responsible and factual. The fundamental question remains: does Trump have a constitutional right to incite mob action? And, brag he’s coming back to the White House in 2024?
God bless America!
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Dr. Chido Nwangwu, the Founder of USAfrica multimedia networks and public policy organization since 1992 in Houston, established the first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper published on the Internet USAfricaonline.com. He served as adviser on Africa business to the ex-Mayor of Houston, Dr. Lee P. Brown. Chido is the first continental African to be admitted to the 100 Black Men of America. He is the author of the February 2021 book, MLK, Mandela & Achebe: Power, Leadership and Identity. In July 2017, he was issued a U.S. Congressional Recognition for USAfrica’s 25 years. Chido has been honored by the Washington-D. C.based National Immigration Forum for utilizing multimedia to fight authoritarianism and foster freedom of expression in parts of the African continent. He has been profiled by the CNN International for his pioneering works on multimedia/news/public policy projects for Africans and Americans. Chido247@Gmail.com follow @Chido247
