Super Bowl Canceled by Refs

Senators: Give the President a Fair Trial

Call Witnesses . Require Documents . Deliberate. 

"…give me back the damn money that I’ve been paying you for so many years." — Donald Trump

From time to time, Salvador Rizzo, reporter for The Fact Checker, delivers a detailed analysis of false or misleading claims made by American political figures from both parties.

I think Rizzo's accounting of Donald Trump's December 18, 2019 rally in Michigan is especially noteworthy because,

A) in his two-hour speech, Mr. Trump made 179 assertions of fact, of which 120 ... two out of three ... were found to be false, mostly false, or unsupported by known evidence, and,

B) one of the most troubling moments in the speech came in a statement that is mostly accurate. 

Donald Trump told the crowd in Michigan:

I see a woman, Carolyn Maloney. I was with her. Her first race, I helped her. She was always so nice. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I made lots of contributions over the years. You know in New York, it’s like, purely Democrat, especially Manhattan. So, what happens? I make lots of contributions for years and years and years. ... ‘I raise my hand to impeach.’ Well, give me back the damn money that I’ve been paying you for so many years. Let her pay me back all the money.

Mr. Rizzo found confirmation from Federal Election Commission records that Donald Trump did, from 1993 to 2009, contribute $4,000 to Representative Maloney's campaigns — though his first donation was apparently after she was already in Congress, not during her first race.

Most important, to me, is the fact that Mr. Trump regarded those political donations as payments. He asserts that he was buying something from a Member of Congress ... that his $4,000, disbursed over 16 years, were payments to Representative Maloney.

As it turns out, he appears to believe he was buying a "no" vote on articles of impeachment:

"Well, give me back the damn money that I’ve been paying you for so many years. Let her pay me back all the money.”

What a bizarre and simplemindedly corrupt understanding of citizenship and governance.

Mr. Trump's boyish misjudgment in this matter dates from 1993, when he was just a 47 years-old with a dream and staggering debt.

But he asked for his money back last month, the day he was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives at age 73.

There is, as far as I can imagine, no good reason for a president of the United States of America to think as little of representative democracy as this man does. We will be well shed of him ... the sooner the better.