A man of the lowest character defended by another of similarly low repute, characters who would have been little more than footnotes in any other era, contemptibles unworthy of a historian's sneer, have today knocked our system of justice to its knees.
But no matter how negligible Stone and Trump may be as people, no matter how far beneath contempt they are and always will remain, it is worth remembering that they engaged in an effort to undermine our democracy in conjunction with a foreign enemy three years ago.
That foreign enemy must see the damage that they wrought including today's body blow to the credibility of the U.S. Department of Justice as one of the greatest international successes in its history. They did not achieve it with a great act of strategy or courage.
They mortally damaged the U.S. by reaching out to the least among us and appealing to their most base instincts. And they were aided not just by the manifold character flaws of Trump and Stone, Manafort and Flynn and all the others.
They were aided by the fact that the U.S. political party that had promoted itself as the champion of U.S. values and our Constitution, valued nothing above its own hold on power, including either the future of the U.S. or the integrity of our Constitution.
And so we are now seeing daily great blows being taken that shake the foundations of our democracy and we are left to wonder, will the election come soon enough, will it still be fair enough to save us from this alliance of the worst among us and those who wish the worst for us?
