Robert Reich: Most Devastating of All: Mueller's Indictment of Trump's Character

https://prospect.org/article/most-devastating-all-muellers-indictment-trumps-character


Most Devastating of All: Mueller's Indictment of Trump's Character
Robert Reich
April 23, 2019
Even though Mueller apparently doesn’t believe a sitting president can be indicted, he provides a devastating indictment of Trump’s character.

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In other words, Mueller makes it official: Trump is morally bankrupt.

We still don’t have the full story of Trump’s tax evasion and his business dealings with Russian financiers. But we know he has lied to business associates, stiffed contractors, cheated on his wife by having sex with a porn star, paid the porn star hush money, and boosted his wealth while in office with foreign cash.

It continues. In recent weeks he willfully endangered the life of a member of Congress by disseminating a propaganda video, similar to those historically used by extremist political groups, tying her to the 9/11 tragedy because she is a Muslim American speaking up for Muslim Americans. She has received death threats, including one by a supporter of Trump who was arrested.

He has also attacked the deceased Senator John McCain, whom he falsely accused of leaking the Steele dossier and finishing last in his class at Annapolis. Then Trump retweeted a note from a supporter saying “millions of Americans truly LOVE President Trump, not McCain.” Americans know McCain was tortured in a prison camp for five years, in service to this country.

How many of Trump’s followers or those who might otherwise be tempted to vote for him in 2020 will recoil from this moral squalor?

Donald Trump is the living embodiment of the seven deadly sins—pride, greed, lust, gluttony, wrath, envy, and sloth—and he is the precise obverse of the seven virtues as enunciated by Pope Gregory in 590 AD: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility.

Legal debates about obstruction of justice are fine. But no voter in 2020 should be allowed to overlook this basic reality: Donald Trump is a morally despicable human being.