Trump’s hush money trial was always going to be a political dumpster fire, but when a man voluntarily lit himself up like a torch outside the courtroom last week, it was a fitting tribute to what the city of New York is trying to do to 45 involuntarily. The protestor, a former Democrat campaign staffer, dropped a conspiracy-laden manifesto before he lit up, full of claims nearly as ludicrous as the Clinton’s Steele Dossier, among them that Charles Manson was framed for the murder of Sharon Tate in order to make people afraid of hippies. And as if to make things even funnier, the protester had posted a photograph of himself with Bill Clinton on LinkedIn a few years ago where he wrote “we’ve got a secret fascism problem.”
Oh honey boo boo… it’s no secret. It’s quite transparent. Who needs a secret Illuminati plot to illustrate conspiracies against the people when you’ve got the average Tuesday as a Republican in New York’s criminal justice system?
But while the fire was beginning to die down outside the courtroom, the slow kindling of stupidity had begun to smolder. Jury selection revealed a predictable parade of horribles: leftists in NYC like one brainlet who at least admitted he couldn’t be impartial because he “grew up in Texas” and worked in finance around people who “intellectually tend to slant Republican.” Sounds like a swell guy.
Herson Cabreras added fuel to the fire calling Judge Merchant cowardly when he was summarily dismissed after initially being empaneled. Cabreras was dismissed after prosecutors brought up the fact that he had been accused of tearing down Republican signs in a New York suburb back in 1991, and was furious he didn’t get to continue his political activism in the court, saying “I didn’t expect they were going to go into my history of 30 years and pull out something I didn’t even remember.” He added, “I just thought it was an excuse” to get him off the jury.
Gee, you think?
And now, the full-on firestorm. The aptly named King of Fake News — David Pecker (yes, really) of the National Enquirer — was brought in to tar Trump with allegations that he agreed to not run negative stories on the former president. Why is Pecker testifying in a trial that is centered around what may at worst be an accounting error? Who knows. This is New York, after all, where justice is politics and tabloid smear merchants are considered credible witnesses when it serves Democratic ends. Not to ruin their fun, but can we remember that Pecker has no hard evidence for his claims that Trump told him to ‘catch’ or ‘kill’ negative stories? We are to take the head of the National Enquirer at his word. Forgive me, but I’m more of a Weekly World News guy. Say what you want about Bat Boy, but he’d be a more credible witness than David Pecker.
For a sample of Pecker’s supposed journalistic ethics, he recounted a $30k payment he made to a Trump Tower doorman to buy a rumor that Trump had a child with an employee. Later he concluded the story wasn’t true, but it’s quite convenient to him that it just happens to also be in his financial best interests to buy these kinds of pants-on-fire stories. It’s almost as if he’d have done this even if he hadn’t been told by Trump to do so…if he was told by Trump at all, because again, he has no evidence to support this claim.
In short, judging by Pecker’s performance, I think it’s safe to say that even the self-described investigative researcher and Charles Manson apologist who set himself on fire outside the trial doors was too credible a journalist to work at the National Enquirer. If he hadn’t self incinerated, maybe he could have gotten a gig at the Weekly World News. That is, if the rest of the team prosecuting Donald Trump didn’t beat him to it, because when it comes to accepting wild rumors, they’re apparently just as credulous as everyone who does believe in the Bat Boy mythos unironically. And since Bat Boy at least gave us a good musical, I wonder if something similar is in the offing here, given how thoroughly all the prosecution’s witnesses are singing like canaries. Then again, maybe it wouldn’t work. No one cares to listen to these particular, deceitful siren songs.