It is being well reported and commented on that Donald Trump is intentionally interfering with the deliberations of the House and Senate in order to obstruct a border protection deal that will unlock a desperately needed aid package for Ukraine. Once again we have the former president trying to toss Ukraine under the bus to serve his electoral ambitions.

Essentially he is sabotaging the proposed solutions for border security simply so he can blame it on President Biden during the campaign. And all this while the sabotage is out in the open with his acknowledged finger prints all over it. He’s not even good at being covert like his predecessors Nixon and Reagan.

Nixon

Three days before the 1968 Presidential election, Lyndon Johnson was informed by the FBI that Richard Nixon’s campaign had been in communication with South Vietnam, attempting to delay peace talks that Johnson was trying to set up to end the war. This was revealed in a study of recordings of conversations between LBJ and then Senator Everett Dirksen and with Nixon himself.

Nixon essentially committed treason by usurping the authority he did not possess to affect US foreign policy. Johnson never went public with the information because it would have revealed that the FBI had clandestinely bugged offices in the South Vietnamese government. But Nixon’s actions were illegal nonetheless.

Reagan

In 1980 while campaigning against Carter, Reagan made a deal with the new Iranian government under Ayatollah Khomeini to have Iran continue to hold the 52 American hostages they had been holding for over a year—captured when Iranian “students” overran the US Embassy in Tehran.

The fact that Carter could not get those hostages released ended up costing him his re-election bid and Reagan became President. Of course then he got the hostages released with the dirty and treasonous dealings that became known as the Iran-Contra Affair. This information was further confirmed last year by Texas politician, Ben Barnes.

Power First, Everything Else? Who Cares

The blatant illegality and treason committed by or on behalf of these past presidents forms a disturbing pattern we have seen all too often in politics, not just in the United States. The idea is that getting into office is all that matters. “Then we can really make things right.” Of course this is the ethical dithering engaged in by just about every criminal who ever walked. “I’m really a good guy and just trying to help.”

But justifications for a crime have never in the history of everything ever erased a crime. In fact it just makes it worse.

Nixon’s treason caused the war in Vietnam to continue another five years with enormous casualties on both sides and even at home as well—the Kent State Massacre is a case in point.

And Nixon’s ultimate justification that “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal” still haunts us today with another criminal former White House occupant trying to avoid a reckoning of his offenses.

Criminals ultimately want to be above the law, to be immune to the consequences of their actions. But this is something that has never and will never happen. Ultimately criminals know that what they are doing is wrong but will mercilessly attack and criticize anyone who they think might know the whole story. So with Trump, as much as we do know about his crimes, there’s a lot that hasn’t come out yet—this is telegraphed by his incessant and obvious behavior.

Traditions

As we can see from the examples above, Trump is hardly original.Treason in the pursuance of power in presidential politics by the GOP is a long-standing practice.

Trump tried to sabotage Biden’s campaign in 2020 with a fake investigation by Ukraine and by throwing them under Russia’s bus even then by illegally withholding $400 million in funds. That resulted in his first impeachment.

Of course there is his other little treason of trying to overthrow the election of 2020 with his attempted coup of Jan 6th. This is certainly a tradition we don’t need or want.

Trump is now trying to throw Ukraine under the bus once again with his overt sabotage of the border deal being hammered out in Congress.

Meanwhile he has made the ridiculous claim of being able to end the Ukraine war in a day. We can just hear that phone call now,

“Vlad, it’s Don. Yes, Trump.”

“You know that little deal you’ve got going on with Ukraine? We don’t care anymore. Over to you. Rock ‘n Roll, Vlad.”

“It’s an expression. It means go ahead, we’re not going to interfere. You can have the place.”

“Oh, yeah, and NATO? We’re out of there too.”

“Cheers!”

And to the press here at home, “I told you I’d solve it in day. Promises made, promises kept.”