It’s hard to keep making excuses for President Trump who uses a microblogging platform to engage in public battles with opinionated Americans like LaVar Ball.
Ball’s 18-year-old son LiAngelo, brother of Lakers rookie Lonzo Ball, was arrested along with two other UCLA freshmen for stealing a pair of Louis Vuitton sunglasses at a high end mall in China earlier this month.
President Trump, who arrived in China a day after the arrests, spoke to President Xi Jinping on their behalf. The players returned home to the U.S. a week later.
Trump took to his Twitter account to demand thanks from the players, who expressed their gratitude to the president at a press conference later that day.
On Sunday, Trump called out LaVar Ball who claimed Trump’s intervention had no bearing on his son’s release.
“I should have left them in jail!,” Trump raged on Twitter.
This is so beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior for a sitting president.
Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2017
Meanwhile, a less fortunate American sits in a Chinese prison awaiting a verdict for a crime he did not commit.
If President Trump wants gratitude, he should reach out to Antoinette Brown who’s son Wendell Brown has spent the past 14 months in a Chinese jail.
“I’ll thank him,” says Antoinette, a hair stylist who is pleading with President Trump to intervene on her son’s behalf like he did for LiAngelo and his two accomplices.
The 30-year-old former Ball State linebacker was arrested in September 2016 after a barroom brawl left one man injured.
The man said Wendell hit him with a bottle — despite surveillance video that shows Wendell only raised his arms to shield himself from bottles being thrown at him.
His trial was in June but no verdict was ever rendered.
Wendell doesn’t have a famous brother, and his working class parents can’t afford the $100,000 in restitution that a Chinese attorney suggested to buy their son’s freedom.
A GoFundMe page created 8 months ago has raised $14,383 of the $100K goal.
His trial was in June but no verdict was ever rendered.
The judge who is deciding Wendell’s fate has been by the jail four times to check on him.
U.S. State Department officials also make monthly visits to the jail to see Wendell.
They say there is nothing more they can do without intervention by the Trump administration.
Meanwhile President Trump patrols his Twitter timeline like a guard dog waiting for the next tweet to attack.
Many of Trump’s supporters still have faith in him. They know he can do better.
