The Donald Trump indictment is our Late Roman Republic cirque du jour, and until now I’ve recused myself from writing about it. I had to wait for that one tiny detail to emerge, that one giant tell, so absurd that it required the special attention of the man who invented drunkblogging.
To see that absurdity in all its slimy glory, we must venture now to the pages of POLITICO, the semi-official mouthpiece of all goodthinking Outer Party swamp-dwellers.
“The statement of facts [Manhattan District Attorney Alvin] Bragg filed along with the indictment makes a surprising claim,” and when Gerstein describes it as “surprising,” what I took away from it was “gob-smackingly stupid.” The problem, you see, is “that Trump and his associates engaged in deception by paying New York state more in taxes than it was owed.”
Trump cheated on his taxes by paying too much in taxes? What was he supposed to be distracting us from — that Orange Man Bad because Orange Man Bad?
So if you want to know why Bragg is trying to smear Trump as a tax cheat without actually charging him as a tax cheat, now you know. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
via joemiller