A columnist for USA Today, who admitted she was once a supporter of Donald Trump, lashed out at fellow conservatives for continuing to lower the bar for the former president instead of casting him aside over his criminal acts.
In a brutally blunt column released just before the former president heads to a Manttana courtroom where he will face 34 felony charges related to hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels, Nicolle Russell asked: " “What will it take to convince conservatives Trump isn’t fit for office?”
According to Russell, the Republican Party that she knows has been taken in by a "con man" and she is baffled why Republicans have either turned a blind eye to his corruption or they just don't care.
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As she sarcastically began, "No other president in history has been indicted, but lucky for us the Republican running for president again has done it four times. "
Taking up the trial beginning on Monday, she wrote, "I’ll admit as a former Trump fan who has turned, it’s tempting to think that this case isn’t airtight or, on the scale of crimes, that it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Giving hush money to a porn star? Falsifying the payoffs? I spent a decade around Washington, D.C. A lot goes on that is worse. Some conservatives have started thinking this way about Trump. That has to change."
She then unleashed a direct assault on the former president by labeling him an "elderly buffoon."
"Forgive the candor, but this is what I’m paid for: Trump is a narcissistic but whiny, arrogant but thin-skinned, elderly buffoon who has conned more than 70 million folks into thinking he’s a better alternative than a Democrat. A massive feat in political charisma and Republican strategy to be sure," she accused. "He’s a fraud, but he’s not a psychopath; he’s accused of committing just the kinds of crimes one would expect of a high-level, manipulative con man. These are the crimes men like this do because they don’t respect authority, laws or women. These aren't the worst things someone can do, but they're not great things for a Republican president to be legally accused of."
Taking up the party's subservience to Trump she added, "That’s how bad things have gotten in the GOP. We’ve bargained so hard and lowered the standards so much that accusations of hush money to a porn star and falsified payoffs seem tame in comparison with – with what exactly? Tax fraud? State and federal election interference? Stealing classified documents and showing them to people without such clearance? This raises two vital questions Republicans must answer. Where exactly is the bar? What exactly would convince us he’s unfit to represent us and unfit for office?"
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