Let's Get This Straight

These assholes are not hostages.

They're insurrectionists, thugs, and terrorists. They're scummy little go-bots who've been bamboozled into thinking they're the good guys, and they're doing something patriotic.

Mens Rea

Mens rea is defined in law as the criminal intent to commit a crime and is established by the prosecution in order to prove the guilt of an offender in a criminal trial.

There are four types of mens rea

• acting purposely
• acting knowingly
• acting recklessly
• acting negligently.

The Jan6 trial likely hinges on Trump's mindset at the time, and whether or not the jury buys Trump's "George Costanza Defense" (ie: It's not a lie if you really believe it).

Today's Beau

An excellent point. Haley's not correcting the record because she's trying to co-opt the "issue" and make it her own.

They'll show Trump as a doddering old fool who may be on the brink of a total breakdown, rather than tell their base voters the truth about Jan6.

A Chip In The Big Game

Glenn Kirschner is a little antsy. What's taking so long? Why does it seem like DOJ isn't moving against obvious law-breakers?

My contention is that there's a boatload of sharpsters and hucksters playing their little Intrigue At The Palace games. So it's going to be a while before we get enough of those assholes outa there, so we can start to see something close to "normal" again.

It's Not - But It Is - What We Tho't

In spite of this nerd's maddening difficulty landing the fucking plane, he does finally get around to the point:

The idiots who fucked up the Capitol trying to shitcan American democracy are racist assholes who are scared to death of brown people.

Soak that one in. All these hyper-macho faux-big-dick "alpha" males can't stand the competition, so they'll burn down their own shit rather than see it shared with people they can't admit are out-working them.

Meritocracy my dyin' ass.

Jennifer Rubin

1. Conspiracy to defraud
2. Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding
3. Obstruction of an official proceeding
4. Conspiracy to deprive people of the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.

Opinion

Jack Smith’s case got stronger over the past month

When a federal grand jury in D.C. indicted former president Donald Trump in August, the four charges stemming from his attempted coup were tightly drawn, based on easily provable facts many Americans witnessed with their own eyes. Though most of the attention since then has focused on his legal appeals, the factual case appears to be much stronger than originally recognized.

The first hint came in early December when special counsel Jack Smith filed a document laying out some of his evidence. “Smith alleges that a Trump ‘Campaign Employee’ — also identified as Trump’s ‘agent’ — sought to cause a riot to disrupt the centralized vote counting in Detroit on Nov. 4, 2020,” Tom Joscelyn, Norman L. Eisen and Fred Wertheimer observed in Just Security. “That goes beyond allegations of merely exploiting violence by third-parties to raise a new level of alleged wrongdoing.” Smith also cited some of Trump’s post-indictment statements sympathetic to the convicted rioters as evidence of Trump’s corrupt intent. Even Trump’s statement on Tuesday promising “bedlam” if he loses smacks of the same threats of violence that brought us Jan. 6, 2021.

Joscelyn, Eisen and Wertheimer laid out some of the stunning evidence:

The Justice Department alleges that a “Campaign Employee” — a person who is also described both as an “unindicted conspirator” and Trump’s “agent” — attempted to cause violence to “obstruct the vote count” at the TCF Center in Detroit, Michigan. In the weeks following the presidential election, Trump repeatedly and falsely claimed that there had been election fraud at the TCF Center — the central location where Detroit’s votes were tallied. But the special counsel turns Trump’s lies back against him, writing that “in truth [Trump’s] agent was seeking to cause a riot to disrupt the count.” It is worth repeating: Smith alleges that a Trump Campaign Employee sought to cause a riot — not just use violence by third-parties.
As the Just Security authors pointed out, Trump continued to lie about the Detroit vote counting even after his own attorney general, William P. Barr, told him the allegations were nonsense. “Evidence of the defendant’s post-conspiracy embrace of particularly violent and notorious rioters is admissible to establish the defendant’s motive and intent on January 6 — that he sent supporters, including groups like the Proud Boys, whom he knew were angry, and whom he now calls ‘patriots,’ to the Capitol to achieve the criminal objective of obstructing the congressional certification,” Smith wrote.

Smith also revealed in the December filing key evidence regarding Trump’s phone. As CBS News reported, an expert “specifically identified the periods of time during which the defendant’s phone was unlocked and the Twitter application was open on January 6.” First, this evidence might suggest Trump purposely used his own phone to make calls, perhaps to avoid detection. (That indicates awareness he was engaged in wrongful conduct.) Second, such evidence might help corroborate what we learned just a few days ago from ABC News.

The newest revelation, perhaps the most significant, also related to Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021. “Many of the exclusive details come from the questioning of Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, Dan Scavino, who first started working for Trump as a teenager three decades ago and is now a paid senior adviser to Trump’s reelection campaign,” ABC News reported. “Scavino wouldn’t speak with the House select committee that conducted its own probe related to Jan. 6, but — after a judge overruled claims of executive privilege last year — he did speak with Smith’s team.”

These events preceded Trump’s furious tweet at 2:24 p.m., essentially egging on the crowd to go after Pence. The new evidence bolsters other testimony that family members, lawmakers and aides failed to get him to call off the mob. The obvious conclusion: Trump intended to stop the vote count and was not about to halt the violence.

Moreover, Luna allegedly will provide evidence about a draft tweet Trump showed him that read: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots. … Remember this day for forever!” Even a nonlawyer like Luna knew this could be an admission he was “culpable” or even directing the violent mob.

Not too long ago, skeptical commentators opined that Smith would have a hard time tying Trump to the violence or proving the element of intent needed for the four counts: conspiracy to defraud, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to deprive people of the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted. Not only have we learned Trump was repeatedly told there had been no fraud, but now we have potent eyewitnesses and forensic evidence of Trump’s alleged willingness to stop the electoral vote count at any cost.

Just Security’s model prosecution memo explained the required element of intent. “Regardless of their beliefs about the election outcome, [Trump and his associates] also knew that the means by which they pursued their objective were deceptive and inconsistent with established law. And there is no end-justifies-the-means safe harbor under § 371 for conspirators who deceitfully obstruct a lawful government function, even if they subjectively believe that their cause is justified.” That he not once but twice (in Michigan and D.C.) was eager to reap the benefits of violence certainly should constitute proof of his “deceitful” obstruction of the proceedings.

These revelations remind us why Trump’s lawyers are throwing up every legal excuse (including the preposterous and unsustainable position that the president has absolute immunity from prosecution) and using every stalling technique they can dream up to avoid going to trial. Smith has clear statutory grounds for the indictment. And he has evidence — more than we previously knew — from witnesses close to Trump that will help him prove the most difficult element in any crime: intent. If Smith gets to trial, he should have more than enough evidence to clear the bar of beyond a reasonable doubt.

Today's Today

A long-ish think-piece from WaPo.

How the GOP’s rewriting of Jan. 6 paved the way for Trump’s comeback

Pressure from family members and advocates for accused rioters was amplified by online influencers and right-wing media figures, leading lawmakers to minimize, excuse and deny the violence and rehabilitate Trump

Donald Trump spent the days after Jan. 6, 2021, privately fuming about the election and his media coverage. Leaving office with an approval rating below 40 percent, he skipped Joe Biden’s inauguration and retreated to Mar-a-Lago. He was banned from posting on Twitter and avoided public appearances.

The next month, he accepted an invitation to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, his first post-presidential speech. On the drive, Trump seemed surprised that the roads again closed for his motorcade, an adviser said. A rapturous reception appeared to lift his spirits, the adviser said. Still, his speech made no mention of the event that prompted his isolation: the deadly attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

In those early months of lying low, Trump himself was not the main driver in rewriting Republicans’ collective memory of Jan. 6.

Attempts to minimize, excuse or deny the violence of that day began with people returning home from the mob and intensified with family members of rioters, including the mother of a woman killed at the Capitol. Their cause became championed by pro-Trump writers Julie Kelly and Darren Beattie, and amplified by prominent right-wing media figures. The grass-roots and media pressure then spread from far-right lawmakers such as Reps. Paul A. Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene to take over the Republican mainstream.

This changing view of Jan. 6 among Republicans offered Trump a lifeline, paving the way for his political comeback. By October 2021, when he claimed “the insurrection took place on November 3, Election Day,” rather than on Jan. 6, he was merely repeating a meme that was already widely circulating on Facebook.

“There were other people planting the seeds, and then Trump comes to harvest them,” said Jared Holt, an extremism researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, of the rewriting of Jan. 6. “It’s canon at this point.”

Now, on the third anniversary of the nation’s first interruption to the peaceful transfer of power since the Civil War era, Republicans’ attitudes about Jan. 6 are increasingly unmoored from other Americans, and Trump holds a commanding lead in the race for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

The share of Republicans who said the Jan. 6 protesters who entered the Capitol were “mostly violent” dipped to 18 percent from 26 percent in December 2021, according to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll. More than half of independents and about three-quarters of Democrats, on the other hand, believe the protesters were “mostly violent,” numbers that have remained largely unchanged over time, the poll found.

The percentage of Republicans who hold Trump responsible for the attack dropped from 27 percent to 14 percent, compared with 56 percent of independents and 86 percent of Democrats. More than a third of Republicans said they believe the FBI definitely or probably organized and encouraged the attack — a conclusion contradicted by an extensive congressional investigation and more than 725 completed federal prosecutions.

More than 1,000 people have been charged in the Capitol breach. The Post-UMD poll found a majority of Americans believe the events of Jan. 6 were an attack on democracy and should never be forgotten. Trump faces his own criminal prosecution in Washington and Georgia for his efforts to overturn the election, trials his advisers have tried to delay — and fear could alienate him from voters he needs in a general election.

“When I resigned on Jan. 6, if you would have told me that people would have been whitewashing the events of the day or spreading all kinds of conspiracy theories, I would not have believed you,” said Sarah Matthews, who was a deputy press secretary in Trump’s White House. “We all saw the footage. We saw these people violently attacking police officers. To whitewash and downplay the events is so frustrating because if they took place in any other country, we would be calling it a coup attempt.”

Given the total bullshit that Trump spreads every day, plus the specific bullshit known as Lost Cause, I don't know how anybody would be surprised. Frustrated sure - but not surprised.

It's classic Daddy State doctrine.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung accused Biden of trying to distract from his record and criticized him for the prosecutions of Trump. “The fact is that Biden is the real threat to democracy by weaponizing the government to go after his main political opponent and interfering in the 2024 election,” he said.

(The federal charges against Trump were brought by special counsel Jack Smith in accordance with Justice Department rules against White House influence. There is no evidence of coordination with the two cases brought by local prosecutors.)

Trump is holding two rallies in Iowa on Saturday ahead of the caucuses there Jan. 15. His remarks are expected to focus on contrasting his and Biden’s records on the economy and immigration, and it is not clear if he will mention the anniversary.

Biden confronted the subject head-on Friday in a speech in Pennsylvania, near the Revolutionary War campground at Valley Forge. His reelection campaign is preparing to frame the likely general-election rematch as a choice between democracy and authoritarianism.

“When the attack on Jan. 6 happened, there was no doubt about the truth,” he said. “As time has gone on, politics, fear, money all have intervened. And now these MAGA voices who know the truth about Trump and Jan. 6 have abandoned the truth and abandoned democracy. They made their choice. Now the rest of us — Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans — we have to make our choice.”

(11:01 is where Biden says Trump is a sick fuck)

A thought: the 1,200 MAGA thugs arrested and charged with various crimes on Jan6 are basically acting as human shields for Trump. Because, as always, the people up front in the trenches take the pounding while REMFs like Trump hang back, waiting to take credit if the plan works, or duck responsibility and target blame onto everybody else if it doesn't.

In a speech Friday night, Trump accused Biden of “pathetic fearmongering.”

‘Outlier … conspiracy theorist or whack job’

Congress was still meeting through the night to certify the electoral college results as the thousands of Trump supporters who’d gathered on the National Mall started leaving Washington and returning home. Though disappointed that they hadn’t ultimately changed the outcome of the election, many of the demonstrators were still thrilled by what they’d experienced. They texted friends and posted on Facebook about what they’d seen, often reporting joyful scenes and, for those who never approached the Capitol steps, no sign of violence.

Some participants speculated that the violence could have been instigating by anti-Trump interlopers. Others spoke up to refute those suspicions: They were proud to claim responsibility for what they had done. Then some of those self-incriminating social media posts started showing up in warrants and indictments. The FBI posted wanted photos of people in the mob, and amateur online sleuths started hunting them down. Others were turned in by family members and co-workers.

The Jan. 17 arrest of Couy Griffin, a New Mexico county commissioner known in the Make America Great Again movement as the founder of Cowboys for Trump, caught the attention of Julie Kelly, a writer for the pro-Trump website American Greatness. Griffin was charged with entering a restricted area and disorderly conduct.

Because there was no evidence that Griffin assaulted police officers or damaged property, Kelly questioned why he was detained. “His real crime, of course, is that he’s a supporter of Donald Trump,” she wrote on Feb. 4, 2021. “He is, for all intents and purposes, a political prisoner.”

Griffin was released on bond the next day. He was later convicted and sentenced to 14 days, which he’d already served.

“I was being considered an outlier, to put it nicely,” Kelly said in an interview. “Conspiracy theorist or whack job, to put it more accurately, how I was portrayed.”

At that time, even Trump was still denouncing the violence. In a Feb. 28 Fox News interview, he defended his rally before the riot as “a love fest,” but as for the siege of the Capitol, he said, “I hate to see it. I think it’s terrible.”

The biggest exception was Tucker Carlson, then the host of the nation’s most-watched cable news show, on Fox News. In March, he invited Kelly on to question what caused the death of Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who died the day after fighting the mob, including being attacked with bear spray. (The D.C. medical examiner later concluded that Sicknick died of natural causes after two strokes, but that “all that transpired on that day played a role in his condition.” Sicknick’s assailant, Julian Khater, pleaded guilty in 2022.)

“The details of that day matter, Carlson said, “because they’re being used as a pretext for changing this country.” Carlson did not respond to requests for comment.

Carlson also took an interest in another fatality connected to the attack: that of Ashli Babbitt, the Trump supporter who was shot trying to enter the lobby of the House chamber while lawmakers were evacuating. In the months after the riot, far-right communities online started portraying her as a martyr and trying to identify and harass the officer who shot her, according to Holt’s research for the Atlantic Council.

In June, Carlson brought on Babbitt’s widower, who repeated the call to identify the officer who killed her. “The silence is deafening,” he said.

Babbitt’s mother, Micki Witthoeft, started holding a nightly vigil outside the D.C. jail where Jan. 6 defendants were being held, either while being arraigned, awaiting sentencing after conviction, or because a judge found them too dangerous to release before trial. The inmates started a tradition of singing the national anthem every night at 9.

One of the defendants in the jail was Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, an Army reservist from New Jersey who gained notoriety for wearing a Hitler-style mustache. He was charged and later convicted of charges including obstruction of an official proceeding, and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building.

His aunt, Cynthia Hughes, asked the judge to release Hale-Cusanelli pending trial, arguing that he wasn’t dangerous. The judge, Trump appointee Trevor McFadden, disagreed and denied bond. Hughes started a fund called the Patriot Freedom Project to raise money for the lawyers and families of Jan. 6 defendants. Hughes declined to comment.

One night that summer, Kelly was standing in her kitchen in suburban Chicago when she got a call from the jail. She used her daughter’s cellphone to record the prisoners singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” then posted it online. “That started to get attention,” Kelly said.

‘It came from the grass roots’

That spring, the pressure from activists and right-wing media started getting back to Congress.

At first, the main voice was Gosar (R-Ariz.), who had appeared at “Stop the Steal” rallies leading up to Jan. 6. In the months after, Gosar used his time at congressional hearings to question former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen about Babbitt’s death, claiming she was “executed,” demanding that FBI Director Christopher A. Wray identify the officer who shot her, and falsely insisting that there were “zero” firearms among the mob.

Witthoeft said in an interview that when she began approaching members of Congress about her daughter, Gosar was the only one who would meet. “One of my first meetings, I was told by a staffer that Jan. 6 was a political football that no one wanted to touch,” she said.

But other lawmakers soon started getting involved. In May, Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), who on Jan. 6 helped barricade the doors of the House chamber, spoke at a hearing to deny there ever was an insurrection and suggested the rampaging mob looked like “a normal tourist visit.” Greene (R-Ga.) and Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) tried to visit the Jan. 6 defendants in the D.C. jail. They were turned away.

“It came from the grass roots,” said a former senior House Republican leadership aide. The aide said most Republicans who had been at the Capitol “knew exactly what happened, knew how wrong it was, and knew that Donald Trump was responsible” but shifted after hearing from constituents.

Over time, about a dozen members of Congress became reliable allies, said Witthoeft, who said she began to regularly talk to congressional staff members, along with activists, documentary filmmakers and others. “People do return our phone calls now, people will open our doors and take meetings with us,” she said.

By mid-2021, online rumors accusing left-wing agitators of instigating the Capitol riot had fizzled out. In their place, Darren Beattie, a former speechwriter for Gaetz and the Trump White House who’d gone on to found a pro-Trump website called Revolver News, started publishing articles suggested a different source of subterfuge: the FBI.

Beattie focused on a man named Ray Epps, who appeared in videos urging on the mob and whom Beattie suspected of being an undercover operative. Justice Department leaders have repeatedly confirmed that Epps never worked for or with them. In 2023, Epps pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct.

Beattie was a frequent guest on former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, one of the most influential talk shows in the MAGA movement. In June 2021, he found an even bigger audience on Carlson’s show. (Epps is now suing Fox News, alleging defamation.) Clips from the show were shared online by Greene and Gaetz, and Gosar read one of Beattie’s articles into the official congressional record.

“It took the media by storm,” Beattie said in an interview.

Carlson followed up in November with “Patriot Purge,” a multipart movie on Fox News’s streaming arm that drew on Beattie’s work and other unsubstantiated allegations to portray the riot as a staged feint to discredit Trump and his supporters. Two longtime Fox News commentators, Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes, quit the network in protest. The network stood by Carlson at the time. (He was abruptly terminated in 2023.)

By the time Congress marked the attack’s first anniversary, Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) was the only Republican who attended a moment of silence on the House floor. Gaetz and Greene held their own news conference where Gaetz promoted Beattie’s “fed-surrection” claims.

That night on Carlson’s show, the host pressured Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) to walk back his description of Jan. 6 as “a violent terrorist attack” during a Senate hearing the day before.

“By no definition was it a terror attack, that’s a lie,” Carlson told Cruz, who had been one of the leading lawmakers trying to block the 2020 election results in Congress.

Cruz maintained that he was referring to people who attacked police officers, not other protesters. “That being said, Tucker, I agree with you, it was a mistake to say that,” Cruz said.

‘He became more engaged’

In June 2021, one of Trump’s assistants called Witthoeft, Babbitt’s mother. “Would I want a call from the president?” Witthoeft recalled the assistant asking.

A week later, Trump called. During the 30-minute conversation, Witthoeft said, Trump acknowledged that her daughter died in support of him and was complimentary of Babbitt. Witthoeft said she pushed Trump to talk more about what she termed “the political prisoners” of Jan. 6 — people who were being held in detention after being charged with crimes.

While Witthoeft described Trump as a “real gentleman,” she said he had been slow in the early days of 2021 to embrace the issue. She said she asked the president to keep saying her daughter’s name. “I think President Trump was a good leader. But he’s one man,” she said. “For everyone to wait for him to save the day, the past three years could have been better spent.”

After that call, Trump became increasingly defiant in his defenses of Jan. 6. In July, he joined calls to identify the officer who shot Babbitt and described her in a Fox News interview as “innocent.” He said the defendants were being treated unfairly and repeated the falsehood that there were no guns at the riot. In October, he recorded a video message to mark Babbitt’s birthday, calling her a “truly incredible person” whose memory would live on “for all time.”

Trump’s escalating identification with the cause of Jan. 6 defendants coincided with his own deepening criminal jeopardy — and his moves toward a new presidential campaign. In August 2021, the FBI conducted a court-approved search at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to recover classified documents improperly taken from the White House. Trump began portraying the investigation as politically targeted, in step with the Jan. 6 defendants, for whom he adopted Kelly’s term — “political prisoners.”

Later that month, Trump met at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., with Kelly and Hughes, the Patriot Freedom Project founder. Kelly recalled she told Trump that his supporters frequently said to her: “We were there for him on Jan. 6. Where is he for us?”

Trump asked how he could help, she said. She pointed to Hughes, who was raising money for the defendants and their families. “From that point on he became more engaged,” Kelly said.

Trump also renewed attacks against Mike Pence, his vice president, who had refused to help Trump overturn the election on Jan. 6. In the days after the attack, Trump had expressed what Pence thought was genuine contrition over the attack, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation. For months, the two men occasionally spoke, and Trump even invited Pence to come see him at Mar-a-Lago. But with Trump’s shift, the former vice president grew frustrated and resigned to what he saw as the futility of the relationship. Now, the two men haven’t spoken in years, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private interactions.

In January 2022, Trump first floated pardoning Jan. 6 defendants. His rallies for that year’s midterms featured a video showing clips from Carlson and other right-wing media hosts repeating the conspiracy theories suggesting the attack on the Capitol was staged. He also gave an extended interview to Beattie.

“You’re right about Epps,” Trump told him of the man Beattie falsely accused of being an undercover operative.

At a September 2022 rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., he recognized Hughes to stand and be applauded. “What a job,” he said. “We all appreciate it.” Trump also recorded a video message that was played at a fundraiser for Hughes’s group.

That month, he also called into the nightly vigil outside the D.C. jail. “I just want to tell everybody that’s listening, we’re with you,” he said.

In early 2023, Trump allies began producing a track of the inmates singing the national anthem, mixed with a recording of Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. He played the finished song — “Justice for All,” featuring the “J6 Prison Choir” — to open the first campaign rally of his 2024 campaign, in Waco, Tex., in March 2023. The song jumped to No. 1 on iTunes.

The next month, Trump dropped into a diner while campaigning in Manchester, N.H. The crowd inside started calling out that there was a “J6er” present. She was Micki Larson-Olson, who had been recently released after serving a 180-day sentence for unlawful entry onto public property. Trump called her over, hugged her and signed the backpack she said she was wearing that day.

By May, Trump expanded his pardon pledge, now promising to “most likely” grant clemency to “a large portion” of Jan. 6 defendants. “And it’ll be very early on,” he said in a CNN town hall.

At a rally in Durham, N.H., last month, he went further than Kelly’s phrase for the Jan. 6 defendants.

“I don’t call them prisoners,” he said. “I call them hostages. They’re hostages.”

And So To Michigan

If I'm a local politico, and I get a call from POTUS and the national chair of the GOP, I think my answer to the "Tell us about the phone call" question is going to have quite a bit more detail than "Gosh, I don't really remember."

I swear to Pete - all these fucking jerks have gotten so used to getting away with the scam, they think we're all as stupid as the average rube who swallows every little turd that floats down from DumFux News.

Trump recorded pressuring Wayne County canvassers not to certify 2020 vote

Then-President Donald Trump personally pressured two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers not to sign the certification of the 2020 presidential election, according to recordings reviewed by The Detroit News and revealed publicly for the first time.

On a Nov. 17, 2020, phone call, which also involved Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Trump told Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, the two GOP Wayne County canvassers, they'd look "terrible" if they signed the documents after they first voted in opposition and then later in the same meeting voted to approve certification of the county’s election results, according to the recordings.

"We've got to fight for our country," said Trump on the recordings, made by a person who was present for the call with Palmer and Hartmann. "We can't let these people take our country away from us."

McDaniel, a Michigan native and the leader of the Republican Party nationally, said at another point in the call, "If you can go home tonight, do not sign it. ... We will get you attorneys."

To which Trump added: "We'll take care of that."

Palmer and Hartmann left the canvassers meeting without signing the official statement of votes for Wayne County, and the following day, they unsuccessfully attempted to rescind their votes in favor of certification, filing legal affidavits claiming they were pressured.

The moves from Palmer, Hartmann and Trump, had they been successful, threatened to throw the statewide certification of Michigan's 2020 election into doubt.

The revelation of the contents of the call with the former president comes as he faces four counts of criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States and its voters of the rightful outcome of the election. Efforts to prevent certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s 154,000-vote victory in Michigan are an integral part of the indictment.

The call involving Trump, McDaniel, Hartmann and Palmer occurred within 30 minutes of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers meeting ending on Nov. 17, 2020, according to records reviewed by The News.

The recordings further demonstrated the direct involvement of Trump, as an incumbent president, with Republican officials in Michigan in a bid to undermine Biden's win and how some details of his efforts had remained secret as he launched a campaign to win back the White House in 2024.

Neither Palmer nor McDaniel and Trump, through spokespeople, disputed a summary of the call when contacted by The News. Hartmann died in 2021.

The News listened to audio that was captured in four recordings by someone present for the conversation between Trump and the canvassers. That information came to The News through an intermediary who also heard the recordings but who was not present when they were made. Sources presented the information to The News on the condition that they not be identified publicly for fear of retribution by the former president or his supporters.

The timestamp of the first recording was 9:55 p.m. Nov. 17, 2020. The time was consistent with Verizon phone records obtained by a U.S. House committee that showed Palmer received calls from McDaniel at 9:53 p.m. and 10:04 p.m.

Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, said Trump's actions "were taken in furtherance of his duty as president of the United States to faithfully take care of the laws and ensure election integrity, including investigating the rigged and stolen 2020 presidential election."

"President Trump and the American people have the constitutional right to free and fair elections," Cheung said.

Allegations that the 2020 election was "stolen" remain unproven. In Michigan, a Republican-controlled state Senate committee investigated the claims and found no evidence of widespread fraud.

Palmer acknowledged to The News that she and Hartmann took the call from Trump in a vehicle and that other people entered the vehicle and could have heard the conversation. She said she could not, however, identify who entered the vehicle or might have heard the conversation.

Palmer told The News repeatedly that she didn't remember what was stated on the phone call with McDaniel and Trump.

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has said she stands by her past push for an audit of the election in Michigan.
“What I said publicly and repeatedly at the time, as referenced in my letter on Nov. 21, 2020, is that there was ample evidence that warranted an audit," McDaniel said in a statement.

But Jonathan Kinloch, who was a Democratic member of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers in November 2020, said what happened on the call with Trump was "insane."

“It’s just shocking that the president of the United States was at the most minute level trying to stop the election process from happening," said Kinloch, a Wayne County commissioner.

Monica Palmer, Wayne County Board of Canvassers chair in 2020, said at the time that her vote to certify the election was contingent on an audit of out-of-balance counting boards.
Despite the urging from McDaniel to seek an audit or not sign the certification, Michigan law required county canvassers across the state to prepare a statement of the votes in their counties and advance the findings to the Secretary of State's office.

About 18% of Michigan's population resides in Wayne County, and there were about 878,000 votes cast there for the November 2020 election.

Palmer previously said she left the Nov. 17, 2020, Wayne County Board of Canvassers meeting prior to physically signing the certification. As she was leaving, Trump called out of a "genuine concern for my safety," Palmer told reporters three years ago.

Back then, she described the contents of the Nov. 17, 2020, call with Trump as "Thank you for your service. I’m glad you're safe. Have a good night.”

The segments of the call reviewed by The News didn’t include those comments.

However, in the days after the call on Nov. 17, 2020, Palmer and Hartmann publicly attempted to rescind their votes and said "intense bullying and coercion" plus bad legal advice forced them to agree to certify the election after they had voted no.

'Never know what happened'

During an interview in September 2021, Palmer told the U.S. House's Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol that she couldn't recall the exact words that Trump used on the call and whether he raised issues related to the election.

The recordings reviewed by The News, which covered four minutes of a longer exchange that could have lasted no more than 11 minutes, according to phone records, clearly showed that Trump was focused on the 2020 election.

Trump said Republicans had been "cheated on this election" and "everybody knows Detroit is crooked as hell," according to the recordings.

McDaniel said if Hartmann and Palmer certified the election without forcing an audit to occur, the public would "never know what happened in Detroit."

"How can anybody sign something when you have more votes than people?" Trump asked the canvassers, according to the recordings.

About 13 hours after the call, Trump posted on social media about Wayne County, again saying there were more votes than people.

"The two harassed patriot canvassers refuse to sign the papers," Trump added, referring to Hartmann and Palmer.

Trump's statement about there being more votes than people was inaccurate. There were only out-of-balance precincts in Detroit where there were mismatches between the number of ballots counted and the number of voters tracked. The absentee ballot poll books at 70% of Detroit's 134 absentee counting boards were initially found to be out of balance without explanation, an outcome that was not unusual for the largest city in Michigan.

In addition, Trump performed better in Detroit in 2020 than 2016, with his percentage of votes rising from 3% to 5%, and the Republican receiving 5,200 more votes in 2020 than four years earlier, according to the city's official results.

Jonathan Brater, Michigan's election director, said in an affidavit that the overall difference citywide in absentee ballots tabulated and names in poll books in Detroit was 150. There were "fewer ballots tabulated than names in the poll books," Brater said.

"If ballots had been illegally counted, there would be substantially more, not slightly fewer, ballots tabulated than names in the poll books," Brater said.

A call at night

The high-profile Wayne County canvassers meeting drew a national spotlight as supporters of Trump publicly urged the board not to certify the election based on unproven allegations of widespread fraud focused on vote counting in Detroit, a Democratic stronghold that's located in Wayne County.

Hartmann and Palmer initially voted to block the certification of the county's election, withholding the votes needed to approve certification. But later in the meeting, they changed course and supported certifying the election based on the condition that an audit take place of some precincts within Wayne County.

Later, Hartmann and Palmer refused to sign the official certification paperwork and publicly acknowledged they received a call from Trump and McDaniel.

Palmer and Hartmann participated in the call inside a vehicle that was parked outside the county's election department building on East Jefferson Avenue in Detroit, Palmer said. Hartmann was sitting next to Palmer during the call, she said.

Kinloch said Hartmann and Palmer left the meeting room on the night of Nov. 17, 2020, and never came back to sign the official statement of the votes for Wayne County.

The Michigan Bureau of Elections later told county officials the vote that occurred and the signatures of the chair or vice chair of the four-member canvassing board and the county clerk were the only things necessary to advance the certification to the State Board of Canvassers, Kinloch said.

The state board certified the 2020 presidential election on Nov. 23, 2020, solidifying Biden's victory in Michigan.

During the Nov. 17, 2020, call, Trump specifically told the Republican canvassers they'd look "terrible" if they signed the certification after initially voting against certification.

Chris Thomas, a lawyer who served as Michigan's elections director for more than three decades, said the Republican canvassers in Wayne County had no legal reason to block certification of the election.

It's pretty unfortunate, Thomas said, that Republican leaders offered to give them something, legal protection, for not doing their jobs.

"Offering something of value to a public official to not perform a required duty may raise legal issues for a person doing so," Thomas said.

Uh-Oh

Breaking down the $148 million Giuliani verdict

Local reporter covering appellate courts in Washington and Richmond.
Here’s how a jury got to that number when deciding what Rudy Giuliani owes two Georgia poll workers for falsely accusing them of helping to steal the 2020 election:

Ruby Freeman was awarded $16,171,000 for the damage done to her reputation.

Her daughter, Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, was awarded $16,998,000 for the damage to her reputation.

Each woman was awarded $20 million for the emotional distress caused by Giuliani’s defamation.

Finally, Giuliani was fined $75 million in punitive damages for defaming them.

It'll be appealed, and eventually, it'll prob'ly get whittled down considerably. But the numbers are generally based on estimates of the defendant's net wealth, and future earning potential.

I think the significance lies in the (apparent) fact that the jury had no patience with any of the bullshit stories of "fraud" and "stolen election".

This could bode very badly for whoever's next on the docket - whether it's a similar defamation trial in civil court, or the felonies the various bad actors are going to be tried for in criminal court(s).

And this is how this kinda crap usually ends - somebody gets sued and it just stops.

Juries of 12 regular everyday Americans look at it and say no - we're not putting up with any more of this shit.

Under The Radar

Having pled guilty in the fake electors scheme in Georgia, Ken Chesebro is apparently on tour, hitting all the hot venues, even though it's not been a big news item.

Exclusive:

Pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro cooperating in multiple state probes into 2020 fake electors plot

The pro-Trump lawyer who helped devise the 2020 fake electors plot and already pleaded guilty to the conspiracy in Georgia is now cooperating with Michigan and Wisconsin state investigators in hopes of avoiding more criminal charges, multiple sources told CNN.

In a dramatic turnaround from 2020 – when the lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, was at the center of efforts by former President Donald Trump to subvert the Electoral College and overturn his defeat – Chesebro is now helping investigators in at least four states who are looking into the scheme.

Chesebro’s cooperation in Wisconsin is the first indication the state attorney general’s office has launched its own investigation into the false slates of pro-Trump electors. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, has not publicly announced that an investigation is underway.

Chesebro also recently testified to a grand jury in Nevada, where indictments against six fake electors were announced Wednesday by state prosecutors. Additionally, Chesebro has been in contact with prosecutors in Arizona, where he plans to sit for an interview as part of that state’s ongoing investigation into fake electors.

CNN has previously identified Chesebro as an unindicted co-conspirator in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal indictment against Trump, where the former president is charged with organizing the fake electors scheme “to disenfranchise millions of voters” and unlawfully remain in power. There is no indication Chesebro is cooperating in the federal probe, or that Smith has ruled out charges against him.

The Trump campaign targeted seven states with the scheme in 2020. Charges have been filed against fake electors in Georgia, Michigan and Nevada. Investigations are underway in Arizona, New Mexico and now, apparently, Wisconsin. The seventh state in the plot was Pennsylvania.

The Michigan inquiry, led by state Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, was the first in the nation to produce criminal charges. It now appears that the scope of Nessel’s investigation may be broader than previously known, and is looking at other figures with ties to the scheme beyond the fake electors themselves.

The Michigan attorney general’s office confirmed to CNN in an email this week that their investigation is still active.

The Wisconsin attorney general’s office declined to comment, as did Chesebro’s lawyer.

Chesebro has entered into what’s known as proffer agreements in several states, which gives him some protection from prosecution, according to multiple sources. His cooperation with investigators in Michigan and Wisconsin has not been previously reported.

But cooperating with state prosecutors does not guarantee Chesebro will avoid criminal charges in one or all of the ongoing investigations, the sources cautioned.

Another pro-Trump lawyer in Michigan

Nessel’s ongoing investigation has already produced charges against the 16 fake electors in Michigan. One agreed to cooperate in exchange for his case being dropped. The rest pleaded not guilty, and there are key hearings this month in their bid to toss the case.

Sources told CNN that Nessel has scrutinized another pro-Trump lawyer, Ian Northon, who was in contact with top Trump allies after the 2020 election and accompanied the fake electors when they tried to enter the Michigan statehouse.

In charging documents against the Michigan fake electors, prosecutors highlighted how Northon tried to persuade a state trooper to let them into the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing – but they were rebuffed. This was a key part of the plan that Chesebro and others devised: Federal law and Michigan statutes require the electors to meet in the statehouse, and Chesebro hoped the pro-Trump slate would hew to the law as closely as possible.

An attorney for Northon did not comment for this story.

After the 2020 election, Northon participated in conference calls with then-Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman where they discussed how to contest the results, according to Northon’s testimony to the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

Northon also had a phone call with Sidney Powell, a right-wing attorney and conspiracy theorist who has pleaded guilty in the Georgia election subversion case. She asked him to join a lawsuit she was filing in Michigan about nullifying the election – he declined and filed a separate suit contesting the results. The meritless cases went nowhere.

According to his congressional testimony, Northon had no ties to Chesebro, except that a colleague forwarded to him one of Chesebro’s memos about the Electoral College after the 2020 election. Northon also said he learned from a pro-Trump state legislator that the fake electors would be meeting in Lansing.

“I was as disappointed, I think, as anybody to see what happened on January 6 at the Capitol,” Northon told the House committee in 2022. “My efforts in representing these private clients were to get people to follow the law, not to encourage people to break it.”

And Now To You, Mr Perry

This is from almost 2 weeks ago. Sorry - I missed it.

Rep Scott Perry (R - PA10) appears to be a major player in the Jan6 coup attempt.

• He pushed for Jeff Clarke to be appointed AG
• He kinda spear-headed the court challenges in Pennsylvania
• He asked Trump for a pardon

All of which makes me think the assumptions are true - that Mr Perry has at least a few counterparts in other states. eg: Arizona, New Mexico, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Court filing reveals Rep. Scott Perry’s vast web of contacts in bid to reverse 2020 election

A federal appeals court on Wednesday released previously secret text messages from Perry — only to remove them from the public docket later in the day.

At 11:08 p.m. on Dec. 30, 2020, days before Donald Trump prepared to install Jeff Clark atop the Justice Department amid his frenzied push to remain in power, Clark got a text from one key ally, Rep. Scott Perry.

“POTUS seems very happy with your response. I read it just as you dictated,” Perry (R-Pa.) texted the senior Justice Department official.

“I’m praying. This makes me quite nervous. And wonder if I’m worthy or ready,” Clark replied.

“You are the man. I have confirmed it. God does what he does for a reason,” Perry continued.

At the time, Clark was supporting Trump’s false claims of voter fraud — and Trump, hoping to harness the Justice Department in his bid to overturn the 2020 election, was nearing a decision to appoint Clark as acting attorney general. He ultimately backed off amid a high-level rebellion at DOJ and in the White House. But the newly disclosed text messages — contained in a court filing that appears to have been erroneously made public on Wednesday — show that Clark was girding for the appointment, bolstered by support from Perry, a conservative leader in Congress.

The intimate exchange, along with a batch of other communications, was released by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which previously heard litigation over special counsel Jack Smith’s effort to access the communications stored on Perry’s cell phone. The court partially blocked Smith’s effort in a ruling that relied on the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which allows members of Congress to prevent certain communications from being probed by prosecutors.

Many of the documents connected to the case had been kept under seal. But on Wednesday, the D.C. Circuit unsealed them — including a lower court’s opinion that described and quoted from a large volume of the very text messages that Smith has been seeking. By Wednesday evening, the unsealed opinion appeared to have been removed from the court’s public docket, suggesting it may have been posted inadvertently.

A spokesperson for the court did not immediately respond to a request for comment. John Rowley, an attorney for Perry, described dismay at the public release of the communications.

“The disclosure of Representative Perry’s private communications, taken from the phone of a sitting Member of Congress — who has never been accused of wrongdoing — is unfortunate,” Rowley said. “The communications reflect his efforts to understand real-time information about the 2020 election. They were confidential and intended to address critical business before Congress in service of his constituents.”

The FBI seized Perry’s phone in August 2022 — three months before Smith took over the probe — but the congressman quickly moved to block prosecutors from accessing the files it contained, citing his constitutional protections.

Wednesday’s unsealed filing shows that the warrant prosecutors obtained to access Perry’s phone sought an extraordinary array of information related to the investigation of efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election. It included a demand for any communications related to “alleged election fraud,” “efforts to install Jeffrey Clark as Acting Attorney General,” as well as contacts between Perry and Clark, his deputy Ken Klukowski, Trump, Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorney John Eastman and others. The warrant sought any discussions related to “overturning, decertifying, delegitimizing, challenging, or questioning the results of the 2020 United States presidential election in any state.”

The newly disclosed documents reveal an extraordinary web of communications between Perry, who is now the chair of the House Freedom Caucus, and key figures in Trump’s orbit. 

They include:

• A Dec. 12, 2020, text exchange with Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel discussing efforts to challenge Joe Biden’s victory in the election.
• A series of exchanges between Perry and a former DOJ colleague, Robert Gasaway, between Dec. 30, 2020, and Jan. 5, 2021, in which Perry embraced a plan to have then-Vice President Mike Pence “admit testimony” prior to the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021. Perry agreed to “sell[] the idea” with a call to Trump, Pence and Trump adviser John Eastman, but Perry later alerted Gasaway that Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, “will not allow access.”
• A description of numerous exchanges between Perry and top Trump administration officials, including Clark, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, senior adviser Eric Herschmann and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, a former House colleague of Perry.
• A Nov, 12, 2020 text to Trump campaign lawyer Alex Cannon advising the campaign on challenges to the election results in Pennsylvania, as well as numerous other contacts with Trump-affiliated lawyers Jenna Ellis, Boris Epshteyn and Justin Clark.
• An exchange with Simone Gold, a doctor known for opposing the Covid vaccine who would later plead guilty to misdemeanors for her role in the breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6.
• Exchanges with numerous Pennsylvania state legislators, including Doug Mastriano, strategizing ways to challenge the state’s election results.
• Texts with “cybersecurity individuals” working with attorney Sidney Powell to challenge the election results, including Phil Waldron. In one exchange, Perry emailed former Trump National Security Council staffer Rich Higgins to relay an “incredibly spooky” allegation that the U.S. Army had confiscated election servers in Germany to help cover up fraud.
• In the days after the election was called for Biden, Perry told one ally, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, that he would attempt to help get him or Sidney Powell booked on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. The filing shows Perry was in touch at times with Phil Waldron, a purported cybersecurity expert working with Powell, and discussed ways to get a pipeline of information to state legislative leaders.
• “Rep. Perry asked Waldron to ‘show me what you have’ and agreed to ‘fast track any questions/answers right to the leadership in the pa state legislature,’ and stating '[w]e’ll need a connection in the other states,’” the filing reveals.

But the exchanges with DOJ’s Clark — described in Smith’s federal indictment of Trump as one of six unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators in an effort to subvert the 2020 election — are perhaps the most revealing. Clark, then a low-profile figure who oversaw the Justice Department’s civil litigation in the final months of the presidential term, was introduced to Trump by Perry amid Trump’s effort to remain in office.

Trump came close to appointing Clark as acting attorney general in the early days of 2021 before backing down amid a mass resignation threat by senior DOJ and White House officials. During this time, Clark pressured top DOJ officials to send a letter to state legislatures urging them to consider sending alternate slates of presidential electors to Congress, and he obtained a security clearance to review intelligence about potential foreign efforts to interfere in the election.

Perry indicated in one newly disclosed exchange that Trump had personally approved a “presidential security clearance,” a comment that followed Clark asking Perry to ensure that Trump was aware that CIA Director Gina Haspel needed to supply him with “security clearance tickets” to access intelligence related to the 2020 election.

In one exchange, Perry told Clark that Trump was upset with Clark for using the Justice Department to defend Pence against a lawsuit brought by another House member, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). Gohmert was seeking a court ruling declaring that Pence had the power to unilaterally reject Biden’s electoral votes, but DOJ’s civil division — then under Clark’s leadership — stepped in to defend Pence against the suit, which failed.

“[H]e’s not thrilled with your decision regarding Pence and Gohmert,” Perry texted.

Clark responded, “The branch within Civil Division responsible for Gohmert brief refused to have anything to do with my brief.”

“Folks are rebelling against [POTUS] because they know time is short and they yearn for Biden,” he added.

Clark has pointed to his involvement in the Gohmert suit he defends himself against criminal charges brought against him by Georgia prosecutors.

“I was in charge of the defense of this 2020 presidential election case and my name is the first one on the filings defending the Vice President,” he wrote in a September declaration.

On Wednesday evening, a spokeswoman for Clark said the former DOJ official had never disclaimed responsibility for the Justice Department brief that helped Pence fend off Gohmert’s lawsuit.

“True to form, POLITICO is taking a piece of the story and spinning a fake narrative worthy of regime accolades,” the spokeswoman said.

The newly disclosed exchanges also include Perry’s contacts with other House members seeking to reverse Trump’s defeat or to raise challenges to the election results. Perry texted Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) on Nov. 7, 2020 that there was “concrete evidence” of fraud in Michigan. The same day and on Nov. 8, Perry “exchanged text messages with Congressmen Hice, Jordan, and Roy, about issues with ‘the Dominion voting system,’ prompting comment from Rep. Hice, ‘YES!! ... And don’t forget, on the Trump campaign call this afternoon, they have uncovered ‘illegal ballot harvesting’ in 3 GA counties,’” the filing reveals.

And Perry also exchanged texts with then Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene, who complained about “incompetence here in Georgia,” prompting Perry to respond, “Nothing can beat effective cheating.”

This shit is wide and deep

Bureaucratizing The Coup

Ari Melber breaks it down.

Ted Cruz is a dirt bag extraordinaire.

And speaking of both coups and dirt bags:

(via MSN)

Trump's campaign is growing nervous about his behavior

U.S. presidents have been accused by their political rivals of wanting to be kings or dictators ever since the very beginning of the Republic. It's even a charge that's had some merit from time to time.

In 1800, Thomas Jefferson charged John Adams with acting like a king when he expanded federal power and passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which effectively made it a crime to criticize the government. But Adams lost his re-election and gracefully conceded, establishing the tradition of the peaceful transfer of power that until very recently was observed by every president. Then there was Andrew Jackson, who critics assailed as a would-be king for wielding his veto pen for political purposes and challenging the primacy of the Supreme Court to decide constitutional matters, among other things. But he too left peacefully after eight years. Abraham Lincoln was repeatedly accused of being a dictator during the Civil War for implementing numerous extreme measures including the suspension of habeas corpus and the jailing of journalists. And in the 20th century, both wartime presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt were called dictators for expanding the powers of the presidency. Roosevelt even ran for four terms, precipitating the 22nd Amendment which limits future presidents to only two.

A few years back, President George W. Bush jokingly said, “If this were a dictatorship it would be a heck of a lot easier... as long as I'm the dictator." But except for that quip, I don't think there's any example of a president or someone running for president actually saying that he planned to be a dictator ... until Donald Trump. Not that anyone should be surprised by that. He is, after all, the president who plotted a coup to stay in office and fomented an insurrection to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power.

Last week, Fox News' Sean Hannity asked Trump a simple question: "Do you in any way have any plans whatsoever have any plans if you are re-elected president to abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people" and Trump said, "like they are doing now" and went on to talk about how he's been indicted more than one of the greatest criminals of all time, "if you happen to like criminals" —- Al Capone.

Hannity pressed the question again:

I want to go back to this one issue, though, because the media has been focused on this and attacking you. Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody.

Trump's answer was, "except for day one." Hannity was taken aback. Trump explained, "He says you’re not going to be a dictator, are you? I said, no, no, no. Other than day one. We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator. Okay?"

Actually, it's not ok.

If Hannity were anything but a Trump flunky he would have at least followed up and asked him exactly what plans he had to accomplish those two things on "day one." But he didn't because he knew that Trump was trying to be clever and have it both ways. He admires dictators and it's clear from his stated agenda that he plans to implement it through the use of dictatorial powers. But he smugly said he just wants to use them for rather mainstream Republican policy goals rather than revenge which Hannity quickly acknowledged and then moved on. After all, the crowd loved it.

It was clear from Hannity's question that he was worried about the fact that the media has finally focused on the threat of a second Trump term. He did everything he could to give Trump the opportunity to say, "Of course I'm not going to abuse my power or become a dictator, that's ridiculous" but Trump couldn't do it.

It's starting to concern other people around him as well.

Many of the stories last week featured background quotes from people dropping names of potential Cabinet picks and other personnel choices for a second Trump term which clearly spooked the campaign. Axios had reported that people like Tucker Carlson were on a short list for VP while cronies Steve Bannon and Kash Patel were named for other important posts in the administration. Patel immediately appeared on Bannon's podcast to declare that they certainly did have big plans, one of which was to go after the media, "whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out." He told Bannon that they had a "bench" of "all-American patriots" who would get the ball rolling immediately.

This is likely what led senior campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita to issue a statement on Friday, saying that "no aspect of future presidential staffing or policy announcements should be deemed official" unless it came from them. This was on the heels of a similar statement from a couple of weeks ago after the first flurry of reports about the planned dictatorship started appearing in the mainstream media, in which they proclaimed that "any personnel lists, policy agendas, or government plans published anywhere are merely suggestions."

But that's not true at all. Agenda 47, right there on his campaign web site, is hair raising. Here's just one of the more recent videos in which he promises "take the billions and billions of dollars that we will collect by taxing, fining, and suing excessively large private university endowments, and we will then use that money to endow a new institution called the American Academy" where there will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed.

Wiles and LaCivita can try all they want to distance the campaign from the likes of Bannon and Patel but they aren't the problem. The candidate is.

You might have thought that Trump would press pause on all the dictator talk considering that his campaign is obviously getting very nervous about it. But no. He appeared before the New York Young Republicans over the weekend and repeated his "dictator on day one" line, making even less sense than before:

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Wiles and LaCivita wrote in their statement that "he is not interested in, nor does he condone, selfish efforts by ‘desk hunters" — but that doesn't seem to be the case:

The few professionals in the Trump campaign understand that it's lethal for Trump's chances in the general election if the public is actually informed of what he plans to do. Now that the press is no longer under the illusion that ignoring what he says is the best way to cover him, those pros are starting to realize that they can't control Trump or the people around him. They aren't the first to have that rude awakening. It would be a big relief if they were the last.

Another Shoe

Why there's no reason to believe a conspiracy fantasy when it requires total secrecy on the part of lotsa people.

Like they say:

Three people can keep a secret -

as long as two them are dead.

It Goes Around

... and then it comes around.

Runnin' Wild

Speaker Johnson releases all 44,000 hours of Jan6 video, and the wingnut lunacy is rampant.

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he’s not a cop, he’s holding a vape, and he’s got a photo he stole from Nancy Pelosi’s office hidden under there. He’s been sentenced to four years in prison. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna94150

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The person in the photo is Kevin Lyons. He has been sentenced to 51 months in prison for his illegal activities inside the Capitol on J6.

He is not a police officer and he's not holding a badge. He is carrying a vape and a photograph and a wallet stolen from Pelosi's office. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna94150