I didn't watch Donald Trump's "town hall" on CNN, although it was impossible to be on the Internet and avoid excerpts here and there. It was, of course, exactly what you'd expect of a Trump appearance these days, especially one conducted in front of an audience that D.T. would consider "his people." Choosing to watch one of those and being outraged is like deciding to watch The Three Stooges and being upset because Moe poked Larry in the eyes and Curly ran around going "Woo woo woo!" [Insert obvious quip about how any of the Stooges would make a better president than Donald.]
The Trump event spawned two kinds of articles from those who think the man is a dangerous, lying psychopath. On one hand, you have folks who are furious that CNN gave this person a platform to lie, make light of sexual abuse, lie some more, claim he won, lie some more, etc. Just when on-air Fox News personalities are occasionally pushing back against Trump untruths, CNN is letting him do an infomercial for himself. Typical of such indignant articles would be this one in the Seattle Times but you can find hundreds of others like it.
The other category would be articles — and there have been a lot of these, too — that say that in that infomercial, Trump bestowed all sorts of gifts on the many prosecutors who are now working to hold him accountable for many misdeeds. Here's one such article and here's another.
Here's an excerpt from a piece on Slate…
When asked why he took government documents from the White House, Trump answered: "I was there and I took what I took…I had every right to do it. I didn't make a secret of it. You know, the boxes were stationed outside of the White House."
With those fateful words, Trump admitted that he was involved in willfully removing the documents from the White House. It is a federal crime to "willfully and unlawfully…remove…any…document…in any public office…of the United States." Indeed, the Justice Department has identified "improper removal," or "unlawful" removal, as a key concern in court filings in the Mar-a-Lago litigation.
There are a lot of such comments online. I can't be the only one who sees a contradiction between the two reactions. It's like "How dare CNN give that man who should be in prison more opportunity to say things that will help put him there?!"