Cheaters never prosper. Or do they? We get our answer in November.
If the election is a cheating contest, just mark down Donald as your winner. Especially if he holds the Sharpie. Or the ballots. No one cheats more or better than Trump. This is where our president excels.
Trump’s cheating is hardly hidden. Mobsters like people to witness their misdeeds and then say they saw nothing. Trump then controls those people. Now that’s power.
Louis DeJoy is our newly appointed Trumpster Postmaster General. At Trump’s not-so-hidden direction, DeJoy is simultaneously ruining the postal service and democracy, two cherished American institutions.
Cory Gardner, elected in 2014 via mailed ballots, is avoiding Trump’s postal attacks. Colorado’s outgoing senator’s gone fishing with his family in the wilderness. Who wouldn’t hide? Trump and DeJoy are indefensible.
The sham Senate impeachment trial proved Gardner’s a Trump-owned accessory. The Ukrainian Shakedown was an effort to cheat to win the 2020 election. More evidence about Russia’s 2016 cheating for Trump will soon emerge from Gardner’s U.S. Senate.
No amount of cheating will enable Gardner or Trump to win Colorado. But battleground swing states are susceptible to cheating. Funny thing, though. Americans generally like mail. We rely on that unofficial motto of the USPS that promises delivery of our mail no matter the conditions.
Most people fear messing with the mail. Doing so violates the U.S. Code and can land you in Leavenworth or FCI-Englewood. Perhaps federal crimes are no big deal if your boss has pardon power. Besides, Trump recently confessed he’s messing with the mail to stop all mail voting in America.
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Colorado must react because this is how we vote. We have gold standard elections. We have benefited from law-abiding Colorado Secretaries of State from both parties, Republican Wayne Williams and now, Democrat Jena Griswold.
As for federal voting rights’ officials, we have Trump’s corrupt consigliere, AG Bill Barr, who regularly cheats for the president. Watch out! Prepare for arrests and indictments and flagrant abuses of the rule of law. Thank goodness Barr’s Justice Department’s efforts to silence Michael Cohen have failed thus far.
Mary Trump, the president’s niece, could not be silenced. This credentialed psychologist wrote compellingly of the manifest mental health and morality issues permeating the progeny of Fred and Elizabeth Trump, especially their favored son, Donald.
Mary Trump’s knowledge of dirty deeds is distant compared to the ribald recounting expected from her Uncle Donald’s fixer lawyer, Michael Cohen. This bombshell foreword to Cohen’s tell-all bestseller, Disloyal, whets our appetites. Finally, a made man in the Trump mob willing to spill his guts.
Trump and his cronies have committed many crimes. Post-election prosecution and prison are on the mind of this desperate president, who will do everything possible to avoid accountability. The next several months are perilous. Add to it the pandemic that Trump keeps botching, and America is in real trouble.
Call in an experienced ex-prosecutor. I like it! Kamala Harris claims the case against Trump and Mike Pence is open and shut. Sen. Harris is by far the best Dem pick at this moment in history.
The best Trump’s got on Harris is to have his senior legal adviser, Colorado attorney Jenna Ellis, tweet the Dem VP nominee’s voice sounds like Marge Simpson. Ellis also backs Trump’s racist birtherism tactic against another Black candidate. Asinine attacking of immutable human characteristics reveals the cruel and bigoted stupidity of Trumpism and its adherents. It’s wearing thin. Even on Marge Simpson.
Taylor Swift has also had enough. This all-American superstar understands Trump is a blatant cheating challenge to our nation. America’s president is using Swift’s troubled nemesis, Kanye West, as a vote disrupter for Democrats in states like Colorado where Republican operatives helped the rapper onto the presidential ballot. Haters gonna hate. Cheaters gonna cheat.
Colorado’s own Rick Reilly has known Trump for three decades. They met as fellow celebrities at the AT&T Celebrity golf tournament at Pebble Beach. Trump sought out the famous sportswriter, because he and Marla Maples wanted Rick to write about The Donald.
Wow, did Reilly ever do that, culminating with the 2019 publication of Commander in Cheat – How Golf explains Trump. This richly researched expose hilariously pulled down The Donald’s golf pants and would have humiliated a normal human. Chapter after chapter reveals the myriad ways Trump egregiously cheats at every conceivable aspect of golf.
Reilly described Trump to me as a fabulist who, when caught flagrantly cheating, tells the witness he cheats on his wife, he cheats in business, and so of course, he’s going to cheat on his own golf course. Trump feels like he owns America and can get away with anything. Lord help us.
Jena Griswold put it best when she told me that, beyond the voting suppression, this mail messing tactic will lead to fatalities. Trump can’t even pronounce “fatalities.” All Trump cares about is an appearance of Trump winning.
It now appears Trump’s a loser headed for ignominy. And perhaps incarceration. Trump losing bigly will advance that adage about cheaters never prospering.
Craig Silverman is a former Denver chief deputy DA who also has worked in the media for decades. Craig is columnist at large for The Colorado Sun. He practices law at the Denver law firm of Springer & Steinberg, P.C. and is host of The Craig Silverman Show podcast.
The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy and submit columns, suggested writers and more to opinion@coloradosun.com.