CT Blue

It seems like every Republican that has announced his or her candidacy for the presidency immediately finds a way to say something that proves beyond doubt that he or she is far too stupid to be president, or, is pretending to be far too stupid to be president, because you can’t get the Republican nomination any other way. Case in point, this astonishing quote from Chris Christie, a man who will never come close to getting the nomination, about why he is now choosing to attack Donald Trump, whose ass he used to kiss on a regular basis:

“I would never have supported Donald Trump had I known he had ever shown less than total integrity in his financial dealings.

Just as a for instance, while Trump was running for president he was being sued for scamming people with his Trump University, and he settled that case, paying money to do so, although the money actually came from someone else and we must wonder precisely what that person got in exchange. There’s more, of course:

The office of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in September 2013 that it was considering joining a New York lawsuit against Trump University. Four days later, the Donald J. Trump Foundation donated \(25,000 to “And Justice for All”, a 527 group supporting Bondi’s re-election campaign. Following this, Bondi declined to join New York. According to a Bondi spokesman, Bondi had personally solicited the donation from Trump several weeks before her office announced it was considering joining the lawsuit. In March 2016, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the IRS about the potentially illegal donation. In September 2016, it was reported that the donation violated laws against political contributions from nonprofit organizations, and that Donald Trump had reimbursed the foundation from his own money and paid the IRS a \)2,500 excise tax as a penalty. Trump denied the donation was connected to the Trump University lawsuit, saying it was for Bondi’s performance as Attorney General.

Okay, I admit it was a minor issue during the campaign, because after all, there were her emails! Still, the New York Times did mention it, though it didn’t devote an entire front page to the story.

This was only the first example of financial skullduggery that came to mind when I read Christie’s quote. Were I not so lazy I’d document more. Anyone with an ounce of brains and the ability to read would have known long before 2016 that Trump has, to amend a phrase, “[n]ever shown less than total the least semblance of integrity in his financial dealings”. He has, in short, always been a scam artist, a fierce practitioner of the Art of the Con.

So we are left to wonder: is and was Christie truly unaware of this? It’s unlikely, of course, that he will ever be confronted by a member of the media on this issue, as he will avoid anyone who would bring it up. But, long and short, it’s impossible that Christie didn’t know about Trump’s history, so he’s lying now, but then, he’s a Republican, and that’s pretty much all they do.

Addendum: I spent most of the day driving to Vermont, which is where I am as I’m writing this. I haven’t checked the news all day, and I just now learned that Trump’s been indicted! Two indictments down, and two more to go!