Trump Demands Illegal Extradition, Jailing of British Citizen

Most tinhorn dictators, or in Trump’s case, wannabe dictators, tend to celebrate “victories” by doubling down on their authoritarian instincts. Trump celebrated the commutation of the jail sentence of his accomplice in crime Roger Stone with a ridiculous and unenforceable demand for Christopher Steele to be extradited to the United States for — well, we don’t quite know. Certainly nothing good.

What we do know: Christopher Steele is a former MI6 agent with a sterling reputation among the Western intelligence community, who created a dossier of information documenting Trump’s deep and criminal ties to Russia. The intelligence in them was raw, some unverified, and though some minor inclusions in his dossier have had doubt cast on them (as he predicted some of it would), all of his major points remain undisputed.

For three years, Trump and his sycophants have conducted a scorched-earth propaganda war against Steele, falsely tying him to the “failed” Mueller investigation and blaming him for everything from the Trump impeachment to Trump’s ridiculously bad golf game.

Saturday morning, Trump sat on his royal potty throne, and farted out the following tweet:

This man should be extradited, tried, and thrown into jail. A sick lier who was paid by Crooked Hillary & the DNC! https://t.co/ywMBeAgaGz

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2020

If you can’t read his bloviating bullshit, he retweeted a post by the discredited “journalist” John Solomon wrote the following: “Credibility shredded? British court identifies at least five inaccurate or unproven allegations in just one of the many memos that made up Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier.” Trump added: “This man should be extradited, tried, and thrown into jail. A sick lier who was paid by Crooked Hillary & the DNC!”

Trump’s spelling (“lier”?) is as bad as his reasoning. No charges in any US court are pending or contemplated against Steele, so there’s no reason to extradite him. Without charges, you don’t try anyone, and without a trial, you don’t throw anyone in jail.

The charge that Steele was paid by the Clinton campaign in conjunction with the DNC is a half-truth. The Steele dossier was originally commissioned by the research firm Fusion GPS via the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative newspaper whose owners did not want Trump as the 2016 presidential nominee. Clinton’s campaign agreed to take over the Fusion GPS contract after Trump won the primary and the Beacon lost interest in pursuing the investigation. (No one in the campaign or the DNC knew anything about Steele’s assignment.)

About 20 minutes after the first tweet, Trump had another Twitter movement and shit this out:

Bring back Steele!!! https://t.co/jL5c8WF28Z

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2020

Trump again retweeted a post about Steele, demanding “Bring back Steele!!!”

We all know that Trump doesn’t know a goddamned thing about the US justice system. He sees himself as a Roman emperor, demanding that a political or family enemy be brought for him, forced to his knees, berated by God-Emperor Trump, and fed to the lions. Who exactly does he see “bringing back Steele” to the US? The UK has no legal reason to extradite him. No US law enforcement agency has a legal right to demand his extradition or hold him.

Trump doesn’t care. He wants what he wants and he will bang his princely rattle on his kingly high chair until he gets it — or, which is more often the case, forgets about it in the rush to excoriate someone else and tell one colossal. self-aggrandizing lie after another about his royal self.

The sooner we get him out of there, the better.

(If you’re interested in learning more about the Steele dossier, I’d suggest you read Crime in Progress, by the founders of Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch.)