It’s tempting to laugh at Donald Trump’s suggestion that former President Obama and Vice President Biden should go to jail, along with other top administration officials, without being able to explain what the so-called crime is, but this is dangerous stuff made more dangerous by Trump’s ignorance and a cable news network's amplification.
Almost as awful as Trump’s corrupt authoritarianism was Fox Business interviewer Maria Bartiromo’s complicity. Yesterday, I posted about how this supposedly “straight news” host was a fawning lickspittle during the interview.
She was actually worse than that.
Here’s Bartiromo bringing up the bogus Obamagate "scandal," starting with the bogus unmasking of Michael Flynn “scandal.”
BARTIROMO: We have breaking news today. The names of the people who unmasked General Flynn has been publicized -- Joe Biden, John Brennan, Jim Comey. Your reaction.
TRUMP: It was the greatest political crime in the history of our country. If I were a Democrat instead of a Republican, I think everybody would have been in jail a long time ago. And I'm talking with 50-year sentences. It's a disgrace what's happened. This is the greatest political scam, hoax in the history of our country.
BARTIROMO: Well, it is the biggest political scam in our history.
TRUMP: And people should be going to jail for this stuff. And hopefully a lot of people are going to have to pay. No other president should have to go through -- and I'll tell you, General Flynn and others are heroes, heroes, because what's happened to them. They weren't after General Flynn. They wanted him to lie about me, make up a story, and with few exceptions nobody did that.
There were many people. I watched K.T. McFarland the other day. I watched where she was knock, knock FBI. You know, the FBI, OK. This was all Obama, this was all Biden. These people were corrupt, the whole thing was corrupt, and we caught them. We caught them. What you saw just now, I watched Biden yesterday, he could barely speak.
At that point, as Trump started going on a tangent about Biden lying about the unmasking on Good Morning America, Bartiromo asked Trump to explain the Obamagate “scandal.”
BARTIROMO: Explain to our audience what this means, because I mean, this is a serious thing. They are tracking phone calls. They were tracking a phone call of, I guess, Kislyak. And you're not supposed to -- [Crosstalk]
TRUMP: I'll tell you what it means, it's very simple. So even before I got elected, you remember the famous -- the two lovers, right, Strzok and Page, the insurance policy, she's going to win, but just in case she doesn't we have an insurance policy. That means that if I won, they're going to try and take me out.
That's all it means, it's very simple. It's an insurance policy. So, she's going to win, isn't she darling, isn't she going to win.
Actually, even by Obamagate standards, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page are at most a side issue.
But lapdog Bartiromo to the rescue! She changed the subject to slobber:
BARTIROMO: Mr. President, this is toward the end of your first term as president, and this entire term has been dominated by resistance. You've gotten so much done, tax legislation -- I mean, international things -- so much done. And yet FBI takedown effort, pushback on all of your supreme court judges, a complete drama around Brett Kavanaugh. The Democrats in Congress attacking your call with the Ukraine leader, then an impeachment trial – […] And you keep -- I've never seen anybody who can take a punch and get right back up and keep punching. I mean, where does this resilience come from, that you keep getting things done in the face of all of this?
After a spate of preening, Trump went back to whining about the Mueller investigation.
This time, Bartiromo stopped a hair short of calling for retribution, herself:
TRUMP: The president knew everything. President Obama and Vice President Biden, they knew everything.
BARTIROMO: So what can you do about it?
TRUMP: And again --
BARTIROMO: What can you do about it?
TRUMP: Let me just tell you, if I were in that position, it'd be a whole different thing. If this happened to Obama instead of to a Republican president that's popular -- 96 percent in the Republican Party -- but it's a whole different thing. If this happened to Obama instead of to me, you know what? Everybody would be in jail for years already.
For years. It's a disgraceful thing. But it's -- we caught them in the act, Maria. It's a beautiful thing, and every day we're seeing more and more information come out. We caught them, and their guys are gone.
You can watch this dangerous, disturbing spectacle below, from Fox Business Network’s May 14, 2020 Mornings with Maria.
I mentioned recently in a comment prepare for a rerun of 2016. Substitute “spying” for “emails”. I can already hear the chants of “Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up!”
The funniest bit from Fart-Aroma’s softball interview I’ve come across is this one from Twitter:
https://twitter.com/MelissaJPeltier/status/1261367695724777472
That is not to say Obama or his staff and VP did anything wrong, but being phony is one of those traits our tyrant excels at, as the RW media programs their Manchurian Candidate.