Trump's Corruption Embraced by Iowa's Top Republicans - Reynolds, Grassley & Ernst

Let's call it what it is. Corruption. It sure isn't "politics as usual"

That Donald Trump was the most corrupt President of the United States ever, and is now the most corrupt ex-President in the nation’s history should surprise no one. What is surprising, however, is what Iowa’s top three elected Republicans did this past week regarding Trump’s corruption.

Governor Kim Reynolds and US. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst - put out their written reactions to the news of the pending indictment of former president and perpetual one-man crime wave Donald Trump.

They not only embraced Trump’s corruption, they made it their own.

It has been nice to look away over the years and pretend they have not been part of it. Even as both voted against impeaching Trump, especially after he launched the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

Looking away and pretending, however, is no longer possible.

In my view, they are now not just enablers of Trump’s corruption, but accomplices to it, at least the part that involves Trump’s effort to intimidate prosecutors and potential jury members.

Let’s call it what it is. Corruption. It sure isn’t “politics as usual.”

It is a corruption of public discourse. A corruption that attacks vital institutions of our democracy. A corruption birthed by Trump and now carried forward by Reynolds, Grassley, Ernst and other Republican elected officials.

Their responses to news of the impending indictment, in my view, stepped well over the lines of “politics as usual” and ethical reactions. Like human cannon balls, they loaded themselves into the barrel of a circus cannon and launched themselves well over those lines, deep into the next county.

What they said, and the way they said it, is now part of Trump’s corrupt effort to avoid responsibility and accountability for his crimes. It is more evidence of the deep corruption that now infects the way Republicans talk about grave and serious matters. They lie. They misrepresent. They attack bedrock institutions of democracy - in this case, our constitutional justice system - when things aren’t going their way.

They are all in on it now. Even Reynolds, Grassley and Ernst.

An impartial grand jury has spoken. None of us have yet heard what it has to say, but even before the grand jury releases its indictment, Reynolds, Grassley and Ernst, and other Republicans in Iowa’s congressional delegation - are trying to discredit, demolish and destroy it.

It’s January 6 all over again.

Don’t like the result of a constitutional process? Derail and destroy it. That’s the aim here. Once again, Trump is at the steering wheel, but this time, elected officials, including Iowa’s Governor and two U.S. Senators are in the side car along for the ride.

It is inexcusable and unacceptable.

Again, keep in mind that no one outside the Manhattan District Attorney’s office; the judge presiding over the grand jury proceedings; court officials; and the grand jurors themselves know what the actual charges against Trump are at this point.

No matter.

The Governor pronounced the charges she’s never seen, based on evidence she’s never heard, to be a “sham.” She doesn’t even know how many charges there are, much less what they are. Yet she pronounces them a “sham.”

Senator Grassley, who by his own admission didn’t even know anything was going on all around him on January 6 as security agents walked him out of the Senate chamber as the Capitol was literally being over run by a mob of noisy insurrectionists, said the charges he’s never seen, based on evidence he’s never heard is an “incredibly weak case” that “smells like politicization of our justice system” and “highlights the increasing politicization of our federal justice system.”

Would someone please tell Iowa’s 89 year old Senator who stayed too long that a Manhattan District Attorney - a local government elected official - has nothing to do with the federal justice system? It’s like if the Audubon County Attorney did something Grassley didn’t like, and he ran out and blamed the federal Justice Department and the President of the United States for what the Audubon County Attorney did.

Grassley seems confused about something else, too. While he says the pending indictment in New York “highlights the increasing politicization of our federal justice system,” he also notes in the same Twitter post that the federal Department of Justice declined to prosecute the case the New York DA is bringing.

Some politicization of the federal justice system, if declining to prosecute Trump is his best evidence of it.

Seriously. This man once chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee??

Finally, never mind that the grand jury that indicted Trump was composed of randomly selected private citizens. They sat for months listening to, and seriously considering the evidence. They did their civic duty under the U.S. Constitution.

No one knows what their political party affiliations might be or if the grand jurors even have any. We don’t even know how many - if any - voted for Trump in the 2016 or 2020 elections.

Never the less, Senator Ernst declares the charges she’s never seen, based on evidence she’s never heard, to be “politically motivated.”

They are - all three of them - to put it in the vernacular, blowing smoke out of their “you know whats.”

They are deliberately undermining confidence in our constitutional system of justice. They are attacking civic minded citizens who did the hard work of democracy.

Iowa’s top Republican elected officials literally don’t know what they are talking about. We know that because none of the information they would need to reach their conclusions has been released by anybody to anybody.

Reynolds, Grassley, and Ernst are making it all up.

They are lying - again, let’s call it what it is - and all to take a wrecking ball to a system of justice that is operating within the law, within ethical boundaries, and within the confines of the New York and United States Constitutions.

Reynolds, Grassley and Ernst are doing all of this for purely partisan purposes, to defend a man their party should never have nominated for president and that they and their entire party should have left burned rubber tracks backing away from long ago.

They have a different view of who and what Donald Trump is than the grand jury?

Fine.

When formal charges are brought, let the justice system, with its juries composed of serious, patriotic, randomly selected, unbiased citizens, public trials and strong advocates on both sides do its work work and decide. And let them do so without the interference or intimidation of Reynolds, Grassley or Ernst, or any others.

That’s how the system works. That’s what’s normal.

Two other things bother me about the way Reynolds, Grassley, and Ernst are talking about this.

The first is, they are not talking. They are “talking” tough while hiding behind written statements and Twitter posts. Neither, of course, allow questions from the media. Accordingly, reporters can’t ask probing questions or follow up. Therefore, there are no explanations by Reynolds, Grassley or Ernst about how they arrived at such absolutely certain conclusions about indictments they have never seen, based on evidence they have never heard. Because no one can ask them such questions.

Secondly, their canned statements are obviously part of a highly orchestrated, coordinated, partisan effort. When major elected officials across the country, from the same party, do written statement and Twitter drops virtually at same time, saying essentially the same thing, you can be sure it is not happening that way by accident.

The obvious coordinators and script writers of all this are Trump’s allies - political or legal. Seems to me that anyone participating in that intimidation effort becomes complicit with Trump’s on going intimidation of the prosecutors and potential jurors.

One final thought: Did you notice there was one thing none of Iowa’s top three elected Republican officials said in their blustering, huffing and puffing statements about Trump’s pending indictment?

None of them made the claim that Trump is innocent.

Probably not an oversight - the one lie they were all apparently careful not to tell.

Just saying.

Barry Piatt’s weekly column is part of the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative (IWC), which links some of Iowa’s best writers and thinkers directly with readers. The IWC, like this column, is a reader supported effort, so, please check out the columns listed below and consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to any or all of them.

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