The rot from the top won't stop

In case you’re still wondering why there was so much noise last week about Trump’s Department of Justice moving to drop bribery corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, it’s not because of what has happened, but because of what is yet to come in "King" Trump’s America.

We have now entered a new era of legitimized political and financial corruption in this country, all because one rich deranged deity-wannabe is in charge.

The Washington Post said it best about the crying shame that is the Eric Adams case: The damage here is “… the ugly impression of raw political force controlling Justice Department decisions.”

Keep in mind that traditionally, the U.S. Dept. of Justice is supposed be independent of the Executive branch, for obvious reasons.

With that, consider the following:

FACT - In September 2024, Eric Adams was indicted by a federal grand jury in a sealed criminal indictment involving his 2021 run for NYC mayor. 

According to The Hill, “The indictment alleged Adams accepted and sought [foreign] bribes throughout much of his political career, dating back to at least 2014 and continuing through his 2021 mayoral campaign and his tenure as mayor.”

Adams was just one of several members of his administration to be implicated in alleged crimes, and had to leave. In fact, published reports said that more charges were coming against him for destroying evidence.

Adams has maintained that he is innocent of any and all alleged wrongdoing.

FACT - January 17, 2025, Mayor Adams, a Democrat, meets with Republican Pres.-elect Trump at his Mar-a-lago Resort in Florida just days before Trump’s inauguration. The two get along swimmingly, raising eyebrows, though what they talk about is not revealed.

FACT - January 20, 2025, Mayor Adams skips attending Martin Luther King Jr. holiday events in NYC commemorating the slain civil rights leader (something the Black mayor of any American city should NEVER do), to attend the Trump inauguration in Washington, D.C..

FACT - Jan. 31, 2025, The acting U.S. Attorney for Manhattan attends a meeting with Adam's attorneys where they "...repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.”

FACT - Feb. 10, 2025. Trump’s Justice Dept subsequently orders the acting U.S. Attorney in Manhattan’s Southern District to drop its corruption case against Adams. 

Indeed, Trump’s Justice Dept justified the order “…citing concerns that the investigation was hindering [Adams’] ability to support President Trump’s immigration policies,” according to The NY Times. There was also some nonsense about hindering Adams’ ability to fight violent crime, and run for re-election in November 2025.

You've heard of the notorious "Trump deal?" Well here it is!

NBC News added, Trump Justice officials “… are not permanently dropping the charges against Adams. They are planning to dismiss the indictment “without prejudice,” a legal maneuver that would allow federal prosecutors to restore the charges against Adams at any time — for instance, if he were to stop cooperating with Trump’s immigration policies.”  

  In plain-speak, if Adams behaves himself and does what he’s told like a good little boy who understands who his Daddy is, then he’s free to at least act as if he’s in charge of something until further notice. The classic quid pro quo.

Well guess what? In any other world but Trump’s, you can’t legally do that.

“No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives,” one of the seven outraged line prosecutors on the Adams case who subsequently quit, wrote in his 350-word resignation letter. “Our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way.” 

“It is unheard of in a criminal justice proceeding to suggest you not deal with the criminal allegations for political or policy reasons,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, once a close associate of Adams.

Hey, when your mayor shows he’s willing to take a Trump deal to save his butt from even a day in federal prison (a deal that is definitely NOT in the public’s interest, but certainly in his own), THAT’s corruption folks.

As noted, seven federal prosecutors who worked the Adams case resigned rather than be part of a shady political deal that made a joke of the criminal justice system. Whether these dedicated prosecutors know it or not, their bravery, and devotion to duty in the face of clear political interference from the Trump Administration warmed the hearts of those of us who still believe in truth and justice. I particularly note the courage of their leader, acting Southern District U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, a conservative Republican and Federalist Society alum who just flat out refused when she was first ordered to drop charges against Adams.

She firmly believed in her case against Adams, and was not going to give it up because  she believed she had the evidence prove Adams was corrupt, and had violated the public's trust.

Sassoon reminds many of us old-timers of Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, a conservative Republican who forced a crooked President Richard Nixon to release his Oval Office audiotapes despite threat of being fired, busting the Watergate scandal wide open, and sending Tricky Dick shamefully packing for civilian life.

Sassoon won’t save the nation like Cox, but she has shown us that she has the kind of courage it takes to stand up to Trump and his corruption. Maybe she and Liz Cheney can get together and have tea sometime.

I pray that there are more federal prosecutors like Sassoon, because we’re going to need them. The Eric Adams case is just the beginning. Let’s face it, as long as a politician or businessperson is trying get away with murder in this country, regardless of who is hurt or what U.S. laws are broken, they’ve got a friend in Donald Trump.

To Trump, the rule of law is transactional, and applies to everybody but him, and those who support him.

Again, NBC News reports, “In a series of unprecedented actions, President Donald Trump and his deputies have scaled back or eliminated the government’s tools to ferret out and prosecute corruption, including efforts by foreign actors to interfere in American politics, experts and former officials say.”

The NBC News report continued, “The administration previously made other moves that place a lower priority on corruption cases and scaled back the grounds to launch prosecutions. The Justice Department said it will limit the enforcement of a law designed to expose secret lobbying by foreign governments, the Foreign Agents Registration Act. It also disbanded a Justice Department unit that prosecuted large-scale corruption by foreign governments or their allies who use the U.S. financial system to launder their stolen gains.” 

Now Trump counters that all he’s doing is preventing the weaponization of government by rolling anti-corruption laws back. In effect, he's saying that America runs best, when it runs on corruption. Talk about a "get-out-of-jail-free" card.

The source of this warped “thinking” ? Always the crooked businessman, Trump believes that screwing people is the natural order of things, and since that’s what he does best, why not make it legal, or at least protect the practice from the rule of law.

Remember when he vowed, “Everybody is going to be rich!” because of his economic policies? Yeah, just as long as they’re screwing “suckers and losers”- Trump's moniker for folks and countries he plans to scam.

Indeed, that’s how Trump intends to “save” America, by making it a haven for financial and political predators.

“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Trump bellowed on his social media platform recently. Consequently, this clown believes he IS the law now, he IS the power. and by making America more corrupt, either for money or power, he’s “saving” it!

 Hard to follow anybody else’s laws when you’re running around under the deluded notion that YOU are THE law!

This stuff is right out of a bad comic book!

The point is, if this is the way the U.S. Justice Department is going to operate under Trump, then it opens the floodgates for crooked elected officials and businesspeople from coast to coast to line up for their pat on the head from Daddy T. They won't ever have to worry about a federal prosecution for their crimes because they can be controlled like puppets.

          In Trump’s world, the good guys are always the bad guys, because they’re “suckers and losers.”Anyone seeking to uphold the rule of law, is the enemy, because to Trump, there is only one law, and that’s his. That's why he wanted everyone who's ever investigated him, or judged him, to be investigated, because they dared to try to bring him down for just following HIS law. That's why he hates the Democrats and Pres. Biden so much.

Corrupt Daddy can’t even stand for there to be a federal agency devoted specifically to saving innocent consumers from corruption, enforcing federal consumer financial restrictions or protecting consumers in the financial marketplace.

 Spent your money and got stiffed? Too bad, government has no business protecting you anyway, he says! 

 That’s why Trump and Elon Musk closed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and fired its employees. Trump called the CFPB “vicious,” whose only purpose is “to destroy people.”

 If there were a flag honoring the sly, the slick, and the wicked, Trump would be flying it over the White House. Honesty is like rat poison to this despot. He can’t stand to be anywhere near it. I mean bad people just gravitate to him. And ultimately, that's bad news for the average citizen, the “suckers and losers” who get screwed, especially those who voted for him. 

As we've all seen, if you’re someone whose heart can be corrupted or bought, you have a home in Daddy Trump’s Republican Party. If you break the rule of law, but claim you’re doing it for Trump, he’s more than happy to go to bat for you. Just ask most of the folks he’s pardoned, including the 1500 convicted January 6th rioters.

Eric Adams, whose defense attorney also represents Elon Musk (well fancy that) is a “conservative” Democrat, but is so confident that he’s now in the good graces of Trump, he had the gall to show up on “Fox and Friends” with ICE enforcement chief Tom Homan last Friday morning grinning and back slapping, because he knew his new daddy was watching.

Fox News NEVER defends a Black Democrat, so you knew something was up.

And Homan, of course, had Trump’s long dog leash unmistakably around Adam’s sellout neck for all the world to see, promising if the NYC mayor doesn't hold to a deal to allow ICE agents into the city's Riker's Island jail, Homan would come back to New York, back to Adams' office, and get right "up his butt."

Gee, what a delightful experience to look forward to for a sellout.

And no surprise, the motion to dismiss the five-count federal indictment against Adams finally has been filed, waiting for a federal judge to sign off on, or not.

  Meanwhile, four deputy mayors working for Adams have quit in protest of his alleged Trump deal, and at press time, the governor of NY, Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove Mayor Adams, is reportedly considering that. On Wednesday, a federal judge heard arguments about whether to grant the government's request to drop the charges without prejudice. 

Judge Dale E. Ho heard arguments from the Justice Dept and Adams' attorneys - both on the same side - that there was no quid pro quo deal, and keeping the mayor in office and on the job fighting illegal immigration was a "matter of national security." Adams then testified that he did nothing wrong, and the attorneys urged Judge Ho to grant a quick dismissal of the case.

But the judge would not make a quick decision, saying he refused to "shoot from the hip.

I expect Judge Ho to ultimately reject the Trump Justice Dept. argument, for the exact same reasons that NY prosecutors quit in the first place. If that happens, Adams will stand trial in April. But Gov. Hochul should remove him beforehand.

Mind you, no New York City mayor has ever had to be removed from office by the governor in the city's 235 year history. In my opinion, Eric Adams should be the first!

Meanwhile, Adams defiantly refuses to resign, comparing calls for him to do so to the Nazi persecution of the Jews during WWII. When you go that low in your defense, you're clearly hiding something.

As you can imagine, that hasn't gone over well at all with New York's large Jewish community. 

The N.Y. Daily News calls Adams a “hostage” to the president’s agenda.

More like a hostage to the president's corruption!

Let’s be frank here. Our democracy is over. How do I know? Because rich, wealthy predators like Trump and Elon Musk can’t survive in a world where “suckers and losers” have an equal say and authority. In their worldview, the corrupted rich must be in charge. They must make the laws. 

They must, in fact,  be THE law! They must have control!!!

So yes, folks, we are rotting from the top, and there’s no end in sight.

Once again, THIS is what you voted for America! Live with it!