a retrospective
(cover Photo by Justin Lane-Pool/Getty Images)
For those who accept the notion that “voting does not matter” the recent conviction of Donald J. Trump serves as a real example of why it does matter!
If Democrats did not win the majority in 2018, Elijah Cummings would not have received the gavel. But, by doing so he was able to have a hearing just two months after the session begin, marking Feb. 17, 2019 when Michael Cohen told the committee of Donald Trump’s criminal behavior. That hearing resulted in the Manhattan District Attorney to start an investigation which resulted in the jury convicting Trump of all 34 charges.
The testimony has been heard and the jury found that Trump resorted to illegal activities in 2016 that helped him achieve being elected the forty-fifth president of the United States. After being sworn in he was on his merry way to manipulate the norms of the United States government. As president he garnered a complete sweep by controlling both houses of Congress. Yet, two years later the voting public caught on to his antics and in 2018 the Democrats seized control of the House of Representatives which entitled them to manage various oversight functions of how the government works.
One such committee that will go down as historic in bringing Donald J. Trump to justice was the Oversight Committee. The democratic chairperson was Elijah Cummings (D. Maryland). From the time he took office there were ongoing rumblings that something was amiss with the way Trump was manipulating the government to his personal benefit.
As hearings commenced, it was the pivotal one on February 27, 2019 that will mark the day the antics of Trump became more public as Michael Cohen who had been kicked to the curb by Trump and his acolytes testified and communicated to the committee some of the deeds he was responsible for. A good portion of Cohen’s testimony led to the investigation of Trump, and several became the cornerstone of the charges brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg.
History was realized on May 30, 2024, as Donald J. Trump became the first United States president to be convicted on thirty-four felonies. The bottom-line message is simple; if the Democrats had not voted in the mass to achieve the majority, surely there would not have been an Elijah Cummings as chairperson of the oversight committee. And, without the committee there would not have been public testimony to gather enough documentation to start the investigation which led to the criminal charges Donald J. Trump was called to answer.
The moral of this report: Voting does matter.
Here is the full hearing of the Oversight Committee on 2.17.2019 where Cohen came clean
Thomas Reports 