Montini: Will Trump admit Newtown massacre occurred?

It didn’t get the attention such a day deserves, but Wednesday of last week was the fourth anniversary of the massacre of 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

Unless … you don’t believe those horrific murders happened.

In which case you are either grotesquely uninformed, delusional or … a friend and adviser of Donald Trump.

Politicians say despicable things during a campaign. They do despicable things. And for the most part, we forgive them.

But how can anyone forgive Trump for kissing up to the loathsome conspiracy theorist Alex Jones?

This is what Alex Jones really believes

Jones is the founder of the conspiracy-spreading InfoWars. He is a crank, but one with a large radio audience. During the campaign Trump, who uses conspiracy theories when they benefit him, kowtowed to Jones, appearing on his show and telling Jones, “Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.”

Amazing?

Not let him down?

This is a man who, among other things, has said the 9/11 attacks were staged by the U.S. government; a man who said the government is using chemicals to “create” gay people. Genuflecting before such a man should have been disqualification for a presidential candidate.

It wasn’t.

Of the Newtown massacre Alex Jones said, “Sandy Hook is a synthetic completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured.”

Manufactured?

Twenty dead children?

Six dead adults?

Our president-elect thanked this guy

After the election Jones reported that Trump called to thank him.

According to Jones, “He said, Listen, Alex, I just talked to kings and queens of the world, world leaders, you name it, but he said it doesn’t matter, I wanted to talk to you, to thank your audience, and I’ll be on the next few weeks to thank them. I said is this is a private call? And he said no, I want to thank your viewers, thank your listeners for standing up for this republic, we know what you did early on, throughout this campaign, standing up for what’s right.”

What’s right?

Is it right to go along with a vile conspiracy theorist?

Is it right to dishonor the memory of those lost children or the unbearable grief of their families?

The father of one of the victims, Mark Barden, whose 7-year-old son Daniel was murdered in the massacre, said during the campaign, “The Republican presidential nominee of the United States is being advised by a delusional sociopath. It speaks for itself. What else can you say about that? It’s disgusting.”

Now, he is the president-elect.

What does Trump think about Newtown?

Would Trump go along with his friend Alex Jones and deny that Ana Grace Greene, the beautiful daughter of Jimmy Greene and Nelba Márquez-Greene, is dead?

Would he deny that she was murdered along with 25 others that day at Sandy Hook?

Writing on the fourth anniversary of the massacre, her father Jimmy recalled his daughter’s last embrace: “She raised herself up onto both knees beside me, threw her arms around my neck and buried her head in my neck, squeezing with all her might. She kissed me and said, ‘I love you, Daddy… Little did I know it would be the last hug I would receive from her.”

We count on the president to speak for us after such tragedies. Such horrors.

At a prayer service after the killings President Obama said:

“Here in Newtown, I come to offer the love and prayers of a nation… you must know that whatever measure of comfort we can provide, we will provide. Whatever portion of sadness that we can share with you to ease this heavy load, we will gladly bear it. Newtown, you are not alone…”

Donald Trump, then a private citizen, tweeted at the time, “President Obama spoke for me and every American in his remarks in #Newtown Connecticut.”

Donald Trump, as a presidential candidate, licked the boots of a man who said the tragedy was “completely faked.”

Then he pandered to him again after the election.

Not many things in politics are unforgivable.

That is.