Page 570 - Demo

Fools%u2019 Journey564and under New York law, he would have to provide a DNA sample to the state%u2019s crime databank. The judge said the light sentence was because Trump would soon be president of the United States, and he wouldn%u2019t have been as lenient if the defendant was a civilian. A mere six days before his second inauguration, the Department of Justice released its Final Report detailing the case against Trump for attempting to subvert the 2020 presidential election. In it, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith said, %u201cthe admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.%u201d However, all the charges were dropped prior to the report%u2019s release, because the Justice Department had a long-standing policy that prohibited the prosecution of sitting presidents. The specific crimes Trump was accused of were quite serious, and included Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Obstruction and Conspiracy to Obstruct, and Conspiracy Against Rights.If all this had truly been a Saturday Night Live skit, the audience would have laughed, but no one would have believed it possible in real life. A few days after his inauguration, Lynn and I were watching Frontline on PBS, when veteran political reporter Peter Baker mentioned that Trump would say to his aides: %u201cThink of every day as another half-hour episode in this show. So how do we get attention?%u201d After hosting The Apprentice for 14 seasons, he seemed to believe that the purpose of his presidency was getting attention, more so than governing. Later, we heard another reporter, Anne Applebaum, describe the early days of the second Trump presidency as Dada-esque %u2014 a reference to the Dada art movement in the early 1900s which rejected many of societies established norms. Dadists even professed to be anti-art, and Trump was certainly anti-all-sorts-ofthings, even the government he was supposed to be in charge of. During the early weeks of Trump%u2019s second term, in order to maintain our mental health, Lynn and I slowly began to ignore much of the news coverage featuring him. This man %u2014 our president %u2014 defied logic, was reckless, and would likely do a great deal of harm over the next four years, and there was nothing we could do about it. It would simply be up to future politicians to pick up the pieces and repair all the damage he caused.