I want to give people the benefit of the doubt. I want to believe that people can change. I want civility. And then we have Donald Trump.

I can’t give him any of the above.

He is a man whose reputation is built on himself first, all others second. His pattern is to befuddle and stall until he gets his way. Distract until everyone else gives in. Don’t believe me? Ask the architects, the contractors, the laborers who built his buildings and didn’t get everything that he owed them. Hear what those who sold him goods have to say about his business dealings. Listen to those involved in a 1973 housing discrimination case tell of delay and distraction throughout the case. Learn about the documents destroyed by the Trump organization after a court order was given to produce those very documents. Read his own words on civility, on treatment of others, of conquest against others. Of how to behave.

This is why I can’t give him any of the above.

This is why the firing of James Comey is oh so much more than how he handled investigations of Hillary Clinton nearly a year ago.

This is why Sarah Huckabee Sanders telling Fox News “it’s time to move on” with regard to investigations on Russian influence in the 2016 elections rings so hollow. This is why investigations must continue and must move on and must begin moving at an accelerated pace, because we have seen the pattern of delay before, and this is far too important to delay.

This is why the statements of legislators such as Texas Representative Blake Farenhold, a member of the House Judiciary, and House Oversight committees, arguing that Comey had to go because “his face was on TV way too much” have to be ignored as distraction to the central questions at hand. (http://www.npr.org/2017/05/10/527720128/the-political-implications-of-comeys-firing )

This is why, when the White House fails to produce documents to legal congressional committees, those investigating need to push harder.

We do need to get to the bottom of this, and we need to do it on our timetable, not on the schedule of a man who made his career on manipulating and abusing the legal system. And no amount of being “tired of hearing about Russia. You can’t go ten minutes without somebody bringing up the Russia incident” (Blake Farenhold. ibid. NPR citation) should change that.

I can’t give the benefit of the doubt. I can’t believe that all people can change. I can’t expect civility.

We need a special prosecutor.