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Republicans’ response to Donald Trump espionage charges: ‘But Her Emails’

Chris Graham
hillary clinton but her emails
Photo: Instagram/hillaryclinton

I definitely want one of those Hillary Clinton “But Her Emails” hats.

“Bringing this back in light of recent news,” the 2016 presidential popular-vote winner posted on her ‘Gram on Friday, as word circulated that Donald Trump was about to be indicted on Espionage Act charges.

The word circulated, natch, because Trump circulated the word – bragging, as usual, and as usual making himself a martyr.

He’s a martyr to his own hubris, but that’s an oft-told tale.

You may have noticed that his defenders – the sycophants who know better, and are using Trump’s appeal to white nationalists and the rest of the American Taliban to their advantage, and the sycophants who don’t know better, and think the white nationalists and American Taliban are an oppressed class – don’t actually try to say that he’s not guilty of what he’s being charged with.

Consider, for instance, Ben Cline, the Sixth District Republican who voted with 146 other congressional Republicans to try to decertify the 2020 presidential election hours after Trump loyalists attacked the Capitol, sending Cline, those 146 and the rest of Congress fleeing.

This is what Cline took to Twitter to say in the vein of weighing in on Trump’s latest legal predicament:

“Our Constitutional Republic is supposed to guarantee ‘Equal Justice Under the Law,’ not ‘Weaponized Justice Against Your Political Opponents.’”

That was Cline on Friday.

His Twitter was silent on Monday when Trump pledged to “go after” President Biden if Trump were to win the 2024 presidential election, without going into specifics about what he would “go after” Biden for, making it sound like, you know, “Weaponized Justice Against Your Political Opponents.”

At least Cline hasn’t raised the “But Her Emails” argument, though that one is surely to come, given what we’re seeing from his fellow travelers in the fascist movement.

“What is it that Donald Trump did that was worse than Hillary Clinton? Nothing, nothing, nothing,” said Jason Chaffetz, the Utah Republican who wasted millions of your tax dollars in the runup to the 2016 election in fruitless “Weaponized Justice Against Your Political Opponents” investigations of Clinton’s emails.

The sum total of years of those “Weaponized” investigations: a finding from the State Department that “there was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.”

Which is not at all what we have with Trump, who directed the packing of sensitive national security documents that he continues to assert are his personal property, and willfully obstructed government efforts to retrieve the documents, which are most certainly not his personal property, any more than the White House is his personal property just because we put him up there for four years.

Trump could have avoided being arraigned on Tuesday by just giving the documents back when asked, instead of directing his body man to move them around from place to place, storing them in bathrooms and the like, making you wonder, was he really just hanging onto those documents because he wanted to brag about them to his golfing buddies?

That’s the story now, and I don’t think I’m the only one not buying it.

The Ben Clines of the world buy it, because they’re not smart enough to know any better, but the ones trying to distract you with “But Her Emails” know that the Cheetos Emperor has no clothes on this one, and they’re going back to Clinton to buy some time.

On the flip, I love that Clinton is using her time back in the spotlight to move some merch.

I need one of those hats.

Chris Graham

Chris Graham

Chris Graham is the founder and editor of Augusta Free Press. A 1994 alum of the University of Virginia, Chris is the author and co-author of seven books, including Poverty of Imagination, a memoir published in 2019, and Team of Destiny: Inside Virginia Basketball’s Run to the 2019 National Championship, and The Worst Wrestling Pay-Per-View Ever, published in 2018. For his commentaries on news, sports and politics, go to his YouTube page, or subscribe to his Street Knowledge podcast. Email Chris at [email protected].