Hold Trump Accountable

Organized by Indivisible East San Jose, over 500 of us gathered in front of City Hall in downtown San Jose on a busy Thursday evening to proclaim that no one, not you, not me, and certainly not president Trump, is above the law.

We were part of over 1,000 emergency protests across cities and towns in all fifty states of America, a day after Trump replaced the spineless and robotic attorney general Jeff Sessions with a lackey and a certified hack and fraud named Matthew Whitaker to oversee the Department of Justice and the ongoing investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

"Nobody is above the law" was the unifying theme, protection of the Mueller investigation the focus.

Trump made his preemptive move just two days after Democrats regained majority in the House in the midterm elections. In his crude and demagogic way, he threatened democrats with "war" if they dared to investigate him for his complicity in the Russian meddling in the 2016 election and for his nefarious financial dealings. By appointing a crony, whose appointment as acting AG was unanimously declared unconstitutional by legal experts, Trump thought he could bend the law to his will and make the Mueller investigation disappear.

Before politicians could respond, people responded. From sea to shining sea, in sunshine, rain and snow, Americans of all ages and from all walks of life came together to tell Trump that his days of holding truth and law captive to his ego was over. There was going to be accountability. The Mueller investigation will continue and when its findings are revealed, the chips will fall where they must.

On August 9, 1974, at 8:35 am PST, Richard Nixon resigned as president of the United States to avoid imminent impeachment over the Watergate scandal. Thirty minutes later, Republican Gerald Ford was sworn in as president. “My fellow Americans,” he said, “our long national nightmare is over." He added, “Our Constitution works. Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule.”

Forty-four years later, we find our ourselves also confronting a terrifying truth: Our two-year-long national nightmare is still with us. But with people speaking boldly to power, and with Democrats claiming the House, we are filled with hope that our current nightmare will soon be over. And people power will again prove for generations to come that ours is, and will remain, a government of laws and not of men.