PIERS MORGAN: Shameful would-be mob boss Don Trumpone needs to be 'whacked' by decent Republicans

I owe a humble and sincere apology to President Donald J. Trump.

He was right all along.

There HAS been absolutely appalling corruption surrounding the 2020 US Election.

In fact, it’s so bad that the perpetrator may now face serious criminal charges.

There’s just one problem for the man in the White House who’s been screaming about the corruption: the perpetrator of it… is President Donald J. Trump.

I’ve watched with increasing dismay at the way Trump’s thrown his toys out of the stroller since losing the Election, whining and bleating in a way that would embarrass even the most spoiled of babies.

But that dismay turned to genuine horror and fury when the Washington Post dropped their bombshell leaked tape yesterday in which he can be heard trying to put the arm on Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger and governor Brian Kemp like some mafia mob boss.

In the shocking hour-long conversation, ‘Don Trumpone’ can be heard threatening, cajoling and pleading the two Republican officials to do whatever they can to overturn the election result in Georgia.

The nadir of the explosive and incredibly damaging exchanges is the moment when Trump says: ‘So look. All I want to do is this – I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state…. the people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry… there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.’

Actually, there’s everything wrong with saying that.

Let’s be very clear: this is a blatant attempt by the current President of the United States to make two elected officials commit a deliberate fraud on the American people.

Trump is therefore breaking the law, in the most brazen way imaginable.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris called it ‘the voice of desperation’ and a ‘bald-faced, bold abuse of power by the president’ – and she’s absolutely right.

Legal experts agree.

‘The president asked, in no uncertain terms, the secretary of state to invent votes, to create votes that were not there,’ Anthony Michael Kreis, a professor at the Georgia State University College of Law, told Politico. ‘Not only did he ask for that in terms of just overturning the specific margin that Joe Biden won by, but then said we needed one additional vote to secure victory in Georgia.’

Andrew Weissman, a veteran attorney who spent 20 years with the Department of Justice, tweeted: ‘Trump’s statement shows he knows what the law is and he is doing precisely what it forbids: seeking to cause submission of false election results, and threatening folks to do that to book. Federal and state crimes.’

There are therefore solid legal grounds for Trump to now be impeached for his actions, as many Democrats are suggesting.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said: ‘I absolutely think it’s an impeachable offense and if it was up to me, there would be articles on the floor quite quickly. He is attacking our very election.’

Yes, he is, and it’s an absolute disgrace.

Trump’s behaviour since he los
t has been absolutely pathetic and made America the laughing stock of the world.

But his behaviour in this phone call goes way beyond a temper tantrum or something to laugh about.

Legendary reporter Carl Bernstein, who with Bob Woodward helped bring down Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal – also exposed by the Washington Post – said this was ‘far worse’ and called the tape ‘the ultimate smoking gun.’

Bernstein said it shows what Trump ‘is willing to do to undermine the electoral system and illegally, improperly, and immorally try to instigate a coup.’

He added: ‘In any other presidency, this tape would be evidence enough to result in the impeachment of the President of the United States, his conviction in the Senate of the United States, and really an immediate call by the members of Congress — including of his own party — that he resign immediately.

‘That’s really what we ought to be hearing at the moment.’

I totally concur.

Trump has triggered a national emergency with his outrageous criminal conduct.

What’s needed right now is Republicans to stop colluding with their corrupt leader like snivelling mob under-bosses – and stand up to him.

That’s what ultimately brought down Nixon; when his own party turned on him, sickened by the way he had demeaned the office of the presidency.

But where are any similar Republican principled heroes today?

Instead of growing a pair and telling Trump where to stick his absurd and now law-breaking nonsense, 12 Republican senators are planning to oppose the counting of certified electoral votes on Wednesday.

The Dirty Dozen are led by Ted Cruz, who in 2016 called Trump a ‘snivelling coward, a ‘pathological liar’ and ‘utterly amoral.’

They’re not stupid people so they know that for all his incessant bluster and bullsh*t since losing the election, Trump has produced zero evidence of the supposed widespread voter fraud he claims robbed him of victory.

He hasn’t produced any, because there isn’t any.

If there was, he’d have shown us by now.

Instead, all Trump has shown us is what a terrible loser he is, and now, just how far he is prepared to go to try to overturn the result of a free, fair and democratic election.

Yet still numerous senior Republicans are prepared to hitch themselves to the Trump wagon as it careers into the abyss of ignominy and criminality.

When people warned a few months ago that Donald Trump would refuse to accept the result and might even launch a coup to keep himself in power, I ridiculed the very notion of such a scenario.

I was wrong.

Trump’s proven all his most ardent critics right with his appalling assault on US democracy and now he’s been caught on tape directly threatening elected officials and urging them to fix the result by breaking the law.

Carl Bernstein’s correct when he says this is worse than Watergate.

President Donald J. Trump is now imperilling the very foundations of American democracy and he must be stopped.

It’s time for leading Republicans to remind themselves that that their first duty is to the American people, say ‘ENOUGH!’ and whack their boss.