Until Trump Is Indicted, Arrested and Jailed, This ‘Voice’ Is Shutting Down

It’s time to put the country out of its Donald J. Trump misery. The former and twice-impeached president has dragged this 246-year-old republic through enough abuse — verbal, physical and emotional — in a criminal attempt to deconstruct the American democracy.

So, until Trump is indicted, arrested and jailed, this “voice” of The Shinbone Star is shutting down any future commentary on unhinged, angry, abusive, slanderous actions coming from Trump World designed solely to keep his name and face front and center every day of the year.

Some argue he’s a former president, he can’t be charged, let alone put on trial for any illegal activity. Trump by his words and actions was far from a president of this country. Most pointedly, he never fulfilled the oath of office every president takes before occupying the White House.

Here’s a reminder of what he was supposed to do for four years: “”I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Trump swore allegiance only to himself. He couldn’t have cared less about the Constitution or the country. He ignored as often as possible the laws detailed in that founding document. He lied as often as possible — more than 35,000 times while president, according to The Washington Post — to bolster his crusade against America.

When he lost his desperate bid to become “president for life” of the country in November 2020 to President Joseph Biden — by more than 7 million votes — he and his enablers used a “Big Lie” that the election had been “stolen” by Democrats to orchestrate a terrorist attack on Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, as lawmakers carried out their duty to confirm the Electoral College results.

Private citizen Trump continues to thumb his nose at the laws of the land. He feeds off the negative energy his words and deeds produce in terms of news media coverage.

Some might say there’s not enough to indict, arrest and jail Trump. Let’s review just the current mountain of evidence to the contrary.

There are countless hours of damning testimony against Trump — in person, on video tape, in documents — from former high-ranking members of his administration secured by the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. This includes descriptions of Trump’s actions, inactions, angry and borderline life-threatening verbal assaults he used in his quixotic attempt to refrain from engaging in a peaceful transfer of power to Biden.

In a related grand jury investigation based in Georgia, Trump and his enablers are fighting off charges he personally tried to bully that state’s elected officials into “finding” 11,000 votes in order to change the outcome of 2020 Election Day results in that state. There’s an audio recording of his asking Republican state officials and well-known Trump supporters to find the votes, to do the “right thing.”

Fortunately for the country, Georgia officials put country before Trump and told him in no uncertain terms they would not be a party to his illegal request.

Then there’s the issue of Trump “stealing” highly classified documents on his way out of the White House. By law, presidential documents and materials are the property of the U.S. government. When a president leaves office, the materials are turned over to the National Archives. If a president wants access to some files for various purposes following his presidency, he consults with Archives officials.

Trump, however, had a large number of boxes filled with sensitive documents delivered to Mar-a-Lago as he fled Washington, D.C. When archivists discovered the illegal action, they attempted to work with Trump and his team to bring the documents and materials back to Washington.

Earlier this year, Trump turned over 15 boxes to the Archives. When archivists started reviewing the contents, however, they notified the U.S. Department of Justice that a considerable number of the documents were marked classified, top secret or top secret/SCI (sensitive compartmented information). As if that weren’t bad enough, the archivists told DOJ officials that some documents were still missing and most likely remained at Mar-a-Lago.

After another attempt at settling the issue of ownership of the presidential materials in June ended with another partial release of boxes containing sensitive material and an insider’s tip that more remained behind in South Florida, FBI agents, using a legally authorized search warrant, worked through Mar-a-Lago in early August and sent an additional 11 boxes of material back to the National Archives.

Instead of just a question of a former president illegally moving documents and materials to an unsecured South Florida private residence, the question facing DOJ now is who had possibly seen the information that was essential to the nation’s intelligence community.

Violation of the country’s Espionage Act is now in play.

Trump’s response: He had declassified all the documents when he was president. Apparently, no one in his administration was aware that he had taken this action on or before Jan. 20, 2021. Doesn’t matter to him. He has executive privilege, so he thinks, so no one should be able to indict, arrest or jail him.

Sorry, but it’s time to put an end to this Benedict Arnold-type of behavior. Trump’s actions throughout his years in the White House and now as he rants and raves from Mar-a-Lago are nothing but anti-American and treasonous in nature.

So, until this amoral madman, this mob-like political hack is indicted, arrested and locked up, this Shinbone commentator is shutting off his laptop.

Lock him up, and I’ll turn it back on.

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