October 22, 2021:

10/22/21: The House panel examining the January 6 riot has voted unanimously to hold Trump whisperer Steve Bannon in criminal contempt, for refusing to comply with a House subpoena. Unfortunately, there are only two Republicans on the nine-member panel, because almost the other Republicans in Congress prefer not to know what President Trump was doing that fateful day. In fact, if they had proof that Trump was dancing around the White House in the nude, and shouting, “Hang Mike Pence and make me King of the World!” they’d do whatever they could to bury the truth and try to re-elect the crazy man in 2024. 

P. G. Sittenfeld (left) in happier days.

The full House vote to hold Bannon in contempt, goes 229 for, 202 against, with only nine members of the GOP siding with the majority. And we should remind Trump fans: Bannon defrauded dupes who thought they were donating their money to help build a border wall with Mexico – and then, after getting indicted – secured a pardon from the arch-crook, President Donald J. Trump.

 

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SPEAKING OF pardons, Rep. Matt Gaetz may want to work overtime to help Trump win re-election. He may need a “Get Out of Jail Free” card, himself. According to The New York Times, two top federal prosecutors have been added to the child sex-trafficking investigation in which Gaetz figures. (See: 10/20/21.)

 

Again, we make note. The smarmy lawmaker from Florida may be innocent; and we at this blog are not ready to start chanting, “Lock him up!” We find the typical chanting crowds at Trump rallies, with their calls to lock up various and sundry uncharged, un-convicted personages, to be a highly disturbing aspect of what to us seems to be the delusional Trump cult. 

Still, one can dream! Rep. Gaetz is one of the most loyal toadies in the mucky Trump swamp. And it would be the ultimate irony if he fell afoul of the law. 

Simply put, it is this blogger’s belief that we should celebrate when justice ensnares crooks and sleazy characters in government, no matter of what party, or none, since crooks and sleazy characters in government are almost always stealing money from us, the put-open taxpayers. We want the crooks caught. 

We don’t want them pardoned.

 

Here in Cincinnati, Tamaya Dennard, a member of the City Council, was arrested last year on federal bribery charges and rather quickly plead guilty. (So, yeah, “Lock her up!”) Dennard is a Democrat, but no one should care what flavor of crook gets snared and brought to justice. The flavor is: Skunk. Next: Councilman Jeff Pastor, a Republican, got hit with a ten-count indictment, including charges of bribery, extortion, money laundering and conspiracy.

 

With the parties tied at 1-1, P.G. Sittenfeld, a Democrat, stepped to the plate and belted a fat corruption pitch over the centerfield fence. Sittenfeld is alleged to have taken checks totaling $40,000, on three separate occasions, from individuals he believed were property developers but were – sadly for him – agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. So, he got charged with bribery and extortion. 

The Democrats then padded their lead, with Councilman Wendell Young busted on a third-degree felony charge of tampering with records. Because crooks (alleged) in government like to cover their trails (alleged). Young is scheduled for trial in December, Pastor in May 2022, and Sittenfeld in June 2022. 

Should Congress, in other words, want to know what Bannon was doing on January 6, and what then-President Trump was up to? 

Of course. 

Call this blogger a cynic, perhaps. It seems suspicious that the following felons got pardons from Trump on his way out the White House door: Bannon, Roger Stone, Elliott Broidy, Paul Manafort, etc.

 

And we aren’t even done with the topic of crooks, proven or potential, in government. CBS reported this week that a federal grand jury had charged GOP Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska with lying about campaign contributions he received in 2016. As CBS explains, “Investigators say Gilbert Chagoury, a Nigerian-born billionaire, arranged for contributions of more than $30,000 to Fortenberry’s 2016 re-election campaign through other individuals. And Fortenberry knew the donation was illegal.” Chagoury agreed in 2019, to a deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors, “admitting that he had provided about $180,000 to make illegal contributions to four different candidates. He agreed to pay a $1.8 million fine and cooperate with authorities.” An associate also entered into a deferred prosecution agreement.  

Please, please, please, let one of the other three who took the illegal money be Matt Gaetz! But even if they’re all Democrats, and they knew the cash was dirty, and you can prove it in court, oust them posthaste. 

Only then should you cue up the chant: “Lock them up!” 

 

FUN FACT: Since the topic is illegal campaign cash, we should remind Trump fans: Elliott Broidy plead guilty to passing on large chunks of illegal foreign donations to Republican campaigns (then got a pardon). Thomas Barrack, head of the Trump 2016 Inaugural Committee, and longtime buddy of the ex-president, has been indicted on similar charges. See also: Iman Zuberi, who took baskets of illegal foreign lucre, and dumped those baskets into grasping GOP hands, and who then plead guilty to selling influence to foreigners, and got twelve years in jail. Toss George Nader into the felonious mix, a man who worked cheek to cheek with Broidy, got busted both for selling influence and for sex-trafficking a minor, and didn’t get the coveted pardon. If you don’t see a trend, maybe you should visit an optometrist.

 

FUN FACT #2: I knew Nader had been a business partner of Broidy’s, and that the pair worked assiduously to pile up their personal piles of bucks, but I missed part of the story. From 2019! 

What a bonehead I am! 

Nader was not only charged with funneling cash to the Trump campaign, but, taking no chances, funneling a large stack of Benjamins to the Hillary Clinton campaign! No joke! A total of $3.5 million in illegal foreign cash was passed on to the campaigns of politicians on both sides of the aisle. 

(Trump fans: Before you start chanting again, I don’t see any evidence that Clinton knew the donations were illegal. And Nader’s biggest schemes, by far, were perpetrated during the “drain the swamp” days of Donald J. Trump, with Broidy, for example, netting a deal with the United Arab Emirates potentially worth hundreds of millions. Also: Nader was an advisor to the Trump 2016 campaign and headed for a celebration at Mar-a-Lago on the day he was first busted. When federal agents seized his phone, as part of the Mueller probe, child pornography charges were a bonus.

 

FUN FACT #3: Did you know that the staff of U.S. News put together a ranking of the ten worst presidents in U.S. history. I missed this story from July 6, but as expected, most of the usual suspects appeared. At #1: James Buchanan. Franklin Pierce, Millard Fillmore, and Herbert Hoover also made the Top Ten. 

Only one living president cracked the rankings, at #2 all-time worst: None other than Donald J. Trump.

 

FUN FACT #4: Also this week, F.B.I. agents raided two homes belonging to relatives of Oleg Deripaska, one in New York City, the other in Washington D.C. 

Deripaska is famous (at least at this blog) for his ties to the criminally-inclined Paul Manafort, stalwart of the 2016 Trump campaign, and himself a close ally of the murderously-inclined Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 

FUN WITH FASCISTS: We also learned this week that back in the spring of 2020, White House aide Stephen Miller hatched a plan to close the border with Mexico. Hey, Miller thought, why not deploy 250,000 troops to seal off entry! 

President Trump thunk about it and decided he could add another cool aspect to the plan. Why not send some of those soldiers crashing across the Mexican border to take out the drug cartels!! 

Yeah, that wouldn’t seem like an act of war, would it? And having all those U.S. troops deployed on home soil? Boy. Maybe you could turn them around and have them march into states that voted against Trump in November. 

That marching across the blue states was, as I’m sure you remember, suggested by various friends of then-President Trump, including the MyPillow guy and the pardoned-but-still-obstreperous Gen. Michael T. Flynn. 

Fortunately, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, in a heated meeting in the Oval Office, quashed Miller’s quixotic plans.