A MOTE OF DECENCY?

Once upon a time, I represented the widow of an assassinated President of the United States. Her name was Jacqueline Kennedy. She and her children were entitled to the benefits of a statute called the Former Presidents Benefits Act. The widow received Secret Service protection that ended with her remarriage. The children’s right to protection ended when they reached the age of 16.

Recent articles about Trump’s post-presidential (yes, he is a former president) benefits bring to mind the secret service protection issue and a touch of humor arising out of the Kennedy secret service team's devotion to duty. Here it is:

Our trial team and our client daily attended a four-week trial that ended with an injunction against a photographer who was obsessed with the Kennedy family and made life miserable for them. We were on trial five days a week. On Fridays, the trial judge gave us the afternoon off so he could attend to other matters on his calendar and that’s when the trial team and client traditionally lunched at a super-nice restaurant near our office called “The Brussels.” Jacqueline, as you might expect, attracted a great deal of attention, and I suspect many of the sophisticated Friday diners suffered from indigestion from swallowing their food without chewing. But the star of that day was not Jacqueline, but Caroline.

I guess school was off or something and her mom invited her to join us for lunch. We were all at table when Caroline rushed in out of breath. She had neglected timely to inform her security team of the luncheon engagement, and when she did tell them, they scrambled to get the car out of the garage, circle around the block to pick her up at the front door of 1040 Fifth Avenue, etc. That process was way too time-consuming for Caroline and while the Secret Service officers frantically ran for their vehicle, Carolyn jumped on a Fifth Avenue bus and rode down to 54th Street. She arrived at the restaurant before her secret service detail did. The guys forgave her.

What brings all this to mind is an article I saw the other day about Donald Trump. The piece noted that as a former president, Trump was now entitled to i) a pension ($220,000 a year), ii) funds for his transition, (I can only imagine what it cost to move Melania’s wardrobe and Donald's golf clubs), iii) an office, iv) staff for the office, v) free medical care (apparently NOT contingent upon his telling his doctors to tell the truth in any public statements,) and vi) Secret Service protection for him and his wife for the rest of their lives. (Oh yeah, his wife is also entitled to a $20,000 annual pension!)

All of this in the face of a recent report that Trump made $1.6 billion in the four years of his presidency. How much of that income was captured via leveraging his position as the president of the United States can only be left to one’s imagination because the emolument clauses lawsuits seeking an accounting and recompense of those sums have been dismissed.

And this for a person whom a majority of the Congress of the United States has found to have inspired and provoked an attempted insurrection. His effort to frustrate the will of the voters and to make a mockery of our Constitutional scheme almost succeeded. A majority of the House of Representatives voted to impeach him for that seditious conduct, and 57% of the Senate voted to convict him. Included among the latter were seven Republicans. And the former majority leader of the Senate openly declared his guilt, but said he voted to acquit on the feigned incumbency issue. And a number of Republican Senators who voted to acquit also said they based their acquittal votes on the same phony issue.

What’s to be done about this? Aside from the overwhelming evidence of his insurrection attempt, and the fact that a majority of the Congress, and a majority of the public are persuaded of his guilt, there are now at least three jurisdictions pursuing criminal investigations into Trumps’ conduct before and during his presidency. Those investigations will be ongoing while he takes the taxpayers' money to play golf while protected by a squad of secret service officers also funded by you and me.

So here’s my proposal: The least we can do now is to strip this criminal from continuing to steal our tax dollars. To do that we would need a majority of the House of Representatives and 60 (not 67) votes in the United States Senate. The former is a lock, the latter is a close call but doable. One would need only three more votes out of the Republican caucus. And this time no one can hide behind the incumbency claim. The facts proving Trump’s attempted insurrection are simply undeniable. The very least the Republican Senate caucus can do in order to maintain a shred of dignity is to put together 10 votes to support a bill of censure that strips Trump of his benefits under the Former Presidents Benefit Act.

We could not expect the bootlickers who have visited him at Mara-Lago to do the decent thing, but there must be at least three Republicans who voted to acquit on make-believe incumbency grounds who are nauseated by the Trump post-presidency benefits, non?

Really, now, Is that too much to ask?

Yeah, it probably is, but I feel better already for putting the proposition out there.

A bientot.

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Additional details regarding the Onassis v Galella trial and appeal are reported in my memoir, The Client Decides, available on Kindle and on Amazon.