My Personal Side

By Craig Hastings
I couldn’t stand it. Even though I knew I would be angry during and after, I watched the Michael Cohen testimony before the House Oversight Committee last week. I listened intently to every word. The House Democrats have held true to their words to start a bevy of investigations and hearings into the Trump Campaign practices. Seemingly so far every “fake news” story that has been leaked to public media sources has failed to conjure up enough black magic to influence the American voters to stick pins in their Trump voodoo dolls in their efforts to force him to resign. So this Greatest Show on Earth subtitled House Oversight Committee, Cohen vs Trump, aired last week for all the world to see. Ticket price; free if you cared to watch.

Democrat Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings welcomed Michael Cohen to the big show and offered him center stage to make an opening statement. Of course, Cummings already knew Cohen had a prepared statement to read because Cummings, Cohen, Lanny Davis (Cohen’s attorney), and other democrats had met on several occasions before this hearing. Everything goes in The Swamp in Washington, D.C., regardless of the ethics. Republican and ranking member Jim Jordan called out Cummings on Cummings’ disregard for this Committee’s rules regarding all information about any proceeding being disseminated in a timely manner for all members to study before the proceedings start. Jordan protested and provided television evidence that showed Lanny Davis, Cohen’s attorney, stating in a television interview how advantageous it is to wait until the last moment to provide any and all information that might be relevant. So what did Cummings do next; a roll call in which the Democrats were a majority! Instead of demonstrating strong leadership skills and just denying Jordan’s request, Cummings spread the dirty deed out equally among all the democrats on the committee. Well played.

I chuckled watching each one of these democratic committee members during the roll call. All of them anxiously awaiting for their name to be called so they could lean into their little microphones and give a resounding tough guy, “NO!” vote. When Jordan surprised me by calling to delay I was all on board and was thinking “You go Jordan, you got ’em now”! Even though Jordan’s chess move failed, at days end and when all the testimony was in I was glad it was over. There certainly were not any new bombs exploded that added to the minimal damage already done to the Trump Presidency. The single best scream moment by the Democrats was some old news about a $35,000 check President Trump signed made out to Cohen. It didn’t state what it was for, but the assumption is that it is the last payment owed to Cohen for the Story Daniels controversy. Desperate DC Democrats just haven’t figured it out that the American voters really don’t care. They don’t care even if it was a campaign expense. A check that could never be definitely proven one way or the other.

It was despicable of Elijah Cummings to hold this inquiry on the very day our President was in Vietnam meeting with Kim Jung Un to discuss how best to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. An event on the world stage and of the utmost importance, and Cummings and his cronies are back home trying to embarrass our President. Instead of scheduling meetings to discuss America’s crumbling infrastructure, border security, health care, education, veteran support, the decaying inner cites, and many other real concerns of the American people; democrats are instead expanding their efforts to somehow remove President Trump from office! Soon after the hearing was over we learned that Democrats will expand their probe into the entire Trump family as it concerns their personal business affairs! What has this branch of government sunken to?!

What happened in this very first Oversight Committee meeting of the newly sworn democratic majority in The House was this:  Jim Jordan rose above the rest to explain away the ridiculousness of this Oversight Committee meeting on this day. Jordan countered most every attack Cohen made on the President by reminding the viewers that Cohen is on his way to prison for lying to Congress and would say anything to lessen his sentence he is to begin in March. Cohen was forced to admit that he is indeed still working with prosecutors in New York into their investigation of Donald Trump. In this very meeting Jordan called out multiple more lies Cohen had just made to this very committee! Republicans called out Cohen’s previous lies and crimes, and Democrats wanted to hear about Russia, professional service women, real estate evaluations, and how Cohen would compare President Trump to Mafia bosses! Score, Republicans-0, Democrats-0.

All of this day was a waste of taxpayers money. No real new proof of anything substantial enough to remove a president from office for sure. If Bob were writing this story it would end with this: PSSSHTT, come on man!