The Rogues' Gallery

Who’s who in Jack Smith’s massive Trump election interference filing

The special counsel’s filing that argues Trump isn’t immune from prosecution offered many details about his allies and advisers.

In attempting to convince a federal judge to allow prosecutors to move forward with their election interference case against Donald Trump, special counsel Jack Smith on Wednesday unspooled events that featured a diverse cast of characters in the president’s orbit in late 2020 and early 2021. Some were longtime Trump allies, some were outside lawyers hired to take on the legal issues, and some were state officials from around the country who the special counsel alleged were on the receiving end of Trump’s wrath as his efforts to subvert the election failed.

Few of the participants were named in Smith’s 165-page brief. Five alleged co-conspirators were identified only as CC1 through CC6. Others are listed as P1 through P77. But The Post was able to identify many of them through their job descriptions, or because the actions described match activity that already was public through media reports or a House committee’s investigation of the Jan. 6 attack.

The brief argues that all of their actions were “unofficial,” not related to Trump’s functions as president — critical, because of a Supreme Court ruling that gave him broad immunity from prosecution for official acts. It provides many behind-the-scenes looks into how the plan to reverse the election unfolded, and then collapsed.

Here are some of those key players:

Stephen K. Bannon

Stephen K. Bannon told a private gathering that “what Trump’s going to do is just declare victory,” which the president then did. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
The podcaster and longtime adviser to Trump joined the Trump campaign a month before the 2020 election. Prosecutors allege that shortly before Election Day, Bannon told a private gathering that “what Trump’s going to do is just declare victory.” Trump did that not long after the polls were closed.

After the election was called for Joe Biden, Bannon told another Trump supporter that he had recommended Trump fire his current lawyers and hire former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, because “if Giuliani was not in charge, this thing is over,” the prosecution brief alleges. Trump announced his changes the next day.

Prosecutors say that Trump and Bannon began having daily contact starting in mid-December 2020, and that Bannon’s podcast on Dec. 14 “focused on spreading lies about [Trump’s] fraudulent electors,” the scheme to submit a second set of electors from contested states such as Pennsylvania and Arizona to support Trump. The prosecutors argue that Bannon was using the podcast to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to stop the certification of Biden’s election.

Trump spoke to Bannon on Jan. 5, 2021, the prosecution filing alleges, followed by a podcast in which Bannon said “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.” Later that night, Trump and Bannon spoke again, followed soon after by a public statement from Trump asserting that “the Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act.” Trump knew that was false because Pence had repeatedly told him he did not have the authority to intervene, prosecutors allege.

Bannon’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Rudy Giuliani

Rudy Giuliani was surprised when conservative officials in Arizona stood behind their election results, according to Smith’s brief. (Sarah Silbiger for The Washington Post)
Much of Giuliani’s work on behalf of Trump happened publicly in front of cameras or in legislative hearings. But it was in closed-door meetings with Republicans in Arizona and elsewhere that he expected he would have success — and was surprised when conservative officials stood behind their election results, according to Smith’s brief.

In late November 2020, Trump and Giuliani called Rusty Bowers, then the speaker of the Arizona House, asking him to replace Arizona’s legitimate electors for Biden with illegitimate Trump electors, the brief states. Bowers was skeptical, and Giuliani told him, “We’re all kind of Republicans and we need to be working together,” the brief alleges. Bowers asked Giuliani for evidence of election fraud but never got any, it says.

Giuliani next tried his luck in Georgia, where he wielded the video of election workers Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman inside State Farm Arena in Atlanta and argued they were committing fraud, according to the brief. Georgia officials told him there was no fraud, but Giuliani continued to criticize the two women publicly. They later sued him and were awarded a $148 million judgment.

Giuliani also spread false claims to legislators in Michigan and Pennsylvania, the brief says, and then became involved in the scheme to organize and submit slates of Trump electors in six states. On Dec. 10, he instructed another lawyer to send directions to the phony electors on “how best to mimic the manner” of valid electors, “along with fraudulent certificates of vote,” the government alleges.

On Jan. 6, Giuliani called senators after the Capitol riot and continued to urge them to delay the certification and to “object to every state,” according to a voicemail left for one senator described in the brief. He falsely claimed Pence’s refusal to intervene was surprising and that Trump needed more time for state legislatures to reverse their votes, the brief states.

Giuliani has been disbarred in New York and Washington for his actions in the case, and he has been indicted in Georgia and Arizona.

Responding to the filing, Giuliani spokesman Ted Goodman said: “This is blatant election interference by Jack Smith, a person with a long track record of weaponizing the law for political gain.”

John Eastman

Eastman, the former dean of the Chapman University School of Law in Orange, Calif., is credited with helping devise the plan to submit a second set of electors from the contested states where Biden had been declared the victor. On Dec. 6, 2020, prosecutors allege, Eastman and Trump called Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chair, to help coordinate the actions of the illegitimate electors, which McDaniel agreed to do.

But prosecutors say Eastman deceived the illegitimate electors by telling McDaniel their votes would only be used if ongoing litigation was resolved in favor of Trump. Though Trump won no lawsuits, his supporters tried to use the fake electors’ votes on Jan. 6.

Eastman also outlined a plan on Dec. 23 for Pence to declare Trump the winner on Jan. 6, “because of the ongoing disputes” in the contested states, the brief states, and to do so without consulting Congress or the courts. Though Eastman had written two months earlier that the law did not allow that, he wrote another memo on Jan. 3, 2021, advocating for Pence to send elector slates back to their state legislatures, then later “conceded that no court would support it,” prosecutors allege.

Eastman spoke at the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, saying that Pence must return the electoral votes to the states, though he knew there was no legal basis for it, which prosecutors said served to spike the crowd’s anger. Later that night, after the Capitol riot had been quelled, Eastman emailed Pence’s counsel Greg Jacob and said “I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation” of the law and adjourn Congress for 10 days, according to the filing. Pence declined.

Eastman was subsequently disbarred in California, which he is appealing, and he faces state criminal charges in Georgia and Arizona. His lawyers did not return a request for comment.

Kenneth Chesebro

Kenneth Chesebro helped devise the plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, Smith's brief says. (Alyssa Pointer/Getty Images/Pool/AP)
Kenneth Chesebro is an attorney who helped devise the plan to reverse the 2020 results by having Republicans cast electoral votes for Trump in states he lost.

A day before electors in every state were to meet, Chesebro sent a memo to Giuliani arguing Pence could use fraudulent electoral votes to create the illusion that the election’s outcome was in doubt and push for negotiations that would result in Biden’s defeat, prosecutors allege.

On Dec. 16, 2020 — two days after the electors gathered — Chesebro and others met with Trump in the Oval Office, where Trump complained about a conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who had ruled against him, prosecutors allege. As the group left the meeting, Trump spoke privately with Chesebro, according to prosecutors.

Three days later, Trump urged his supporters to come to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 for a “wild” protest. Chesebro sent word of Trump’s tweet to James Troupis, a Trump attorney who participated in the Oval Office meeting with Chesebro. “Wow,” Chesebro wrote to Troupis, according to prosecutors’ filing. “Based on 3 days ago, I think we have unique understanding of this.”

Later, Chesebro hand-delivered copies of the paperwork for the would-be electors from Michigan and Wisconsin to congressional aides, prosecutors allege. On the morning of Jan. 6, Chesebro consulted with Troupis as Troupis tried to get the paperwork into the hands of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) so he could pass it on to Pence, according to Wednesday’s filing and other documents. The idea fizzled when an aide to Pence said he wouldn’t accept the paperwork.

Chesebro, who has not been charged in the federal case, pleaded guilty in 2023 to conspiring to file false documents in a Georgia case over the attempt to overturn the election. He faces separate charges of conspiring to commit forgery in Wisconsin over his election activities in that state. He has not had to enter a plea in that case.

Chesebro did not respond to a request for comment.

Doug Ducey

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey asked for President Donald Trump to produce evidence of voter fraud. It never arrived. (Susan Walsh/AP)
As the Arizona governor in 2020, Doug Ducey (R) played a key role in certifying the election results in a state that Trump had lost by a mere 10,457 votes. Unlike other Republicans around the nation, Ducey has publicly downplayed his private interactions with the former president and his allies after the 2020 election.

In the days after the election, after Fox News projected Trump’s loss, the president called Ducey to ask what was happening with vote counting in the swing state, according to the filing. Ducey walked Trump through the number of votes that still needed to be counted and described to the president that he was in “the ninth inning, two outs” and that Trump “was several runs down,” prosecutors allege in the filing. Trump raised claims of “election fraud” and the governor asked him to send evidence, the filing says.

“We’re packaging it up,” Trump replied, according to the filing. The evidence did not arrive, and Trump and his allies continued to exert pressure on the governor, the filing says.

On Nov. 30, 2020, the same day the governor signed the state’s certificate of ascertainment formally declaring Biden’s electors as the rightful electors for the state, he got a call from Trump and Pence, the filing alleges. The governor told them he had certified the election. Trump again brought up his claims of fraud; Ducey again asked to see the evidence, according to the filing.

The evidence never arrived, prosecutors allege, and Trump later attacked the governor publicly. A spokesperson for Ducey did not immediately comment on the filing.

Chris Carr

Much of the attention devoted to Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in Georgia has focused on his public pressure campaign on two top Republicans in the state: Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. But Smith’s filing calls attention to a phone call Trump made to a third high-ranking Republican: Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, who is identified as P26 in the redacted court brief.

According to federal prosecutors, Trump called Carr on Dec. 8, 2020, about a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) that asked the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out election results in Georgia and three other key states on claims of fraud. The brief says Carr was warned ahead of time by Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) that Trump had heard Carr was “whipping,” or lobbying, other state attorneys general against filing amicus briefs in support of the lawsuit.

“I hope you’re not talking to your AGs and encouraging them not to get on the lawsuit,” Trump allegedly told Carr on the call, according to Smith’s filing.

Carr told Trump he was not calling other AGs, but if they did call, he told them he wasn’t seeing evidence of election fraud in Georgia, according to the brief. Trump allegedly told Carr to check again “because we’re running out of time,” the brief states.

Prosecutors say Carr tried to get off the phone by “thanking” Trump and telling him he’d voted for him twice and “appreciated” him. “Yeah, I did a hell of a job, didn’t I?” Trump allegedly replied.

Mike Roman

Mike Roman served as the director of Election Day operations for Trump’s 2020 campaign and played a role in having Republicans meet as presidential electors in states Trump lost. He and others on Trump’s team sought to spread confusion as votes were being counted in Detroit, according to Wednesday’s filing.

When a colleague told him a batch of votes heavily favoring Biden were valid, Roman texted “find a reason it isnt” and asked for litigation options, according to the filing. When the colleague said the scene at the counting center could develop into something akin to the “Brooks Brothers riot” from the 2000 election in Florida, Roman responded, “Make them riot,” prosecutors allege.

In December 2020, as Trump’s campaign was urging Republicans to meet as electors in states he lost, Roman bemoaned that Pennsylvania Republicans had grown “squishy,” the filing alleges.

“Whoever selected this slate should be shot,” he wrote to a colleague, according to the filing. The Pennsylvania Republicans added caveats to their paperwork that said they should be considered electors only if a court made such a finding. That prospect raised concerns from Roman, who told a colleague, “if it gets out we changed the language for PA it could snowball,” according to the court filing.

Roman is not charged or listed as a co-conspirator in the federal case but he is separately being prosecuted in three states for his election activities.

He faces conspiracy and other charges in Arizona; racketeering and other charges in Georgia; and conspiracy to commit forgery in Wisconsin. He has pleaded not guilty in Arizona and Georgia and has not had to enter a plea yet in Wisconsin. An attorney for him was not immediately available.

Eric Herschmann

Eric Herschmann represented Trump in his first impeachment and started working in the White House in August 2020. He served as a liaison between Trump and his campaign, passing on information and repeatedly alerting him that the campaign’s theories about voting fraud were bunk.

Trump disregarded the warnings, according to prosecutors. When Herschmann told Trump that Giuliani couldn’t prove claims of fraud in court, Trump responded, “The details don’t matter,” according to Wednesday’s filing.

On Jan. 4, 2021, Herschmann went over one of Eastman’s memos with him line by line, and Eastman acknowledged no court would agree with him, according to prosecutors. Herschmann told Trump of Eastman’s admission, and Trump said “Other people disagree” without saying who those people were, according to prosecutors.

Herschmann later told congressional investigators that he told Eastman to “get a great effing criminal defense lawyer. You’re going to need it.”

Herschmann did not respond to a request for comment.

Sidney Powell

A onetime federal prosecutor turned private attorney, Sidney Powell filed lawsuits challenging the outcomes in multiple states after the 2020 election. On Nov. 14, 2020, as Trump and co-conspirators espoused false claims about the security and accuracy of voting machines in various states, Trump announced that she would assist his campaign’s legal efforts, according to the filing.

Days later, in response to a document critical of vote-counting machines that was shared with her on the president’s behalf, she responded that the information “MUST GO IN ALL SUITS IN GA AND PA IMMEDIATELY WITH A FRAUD CLAIM THAT REQUIRES THE ENTIRE ELECTION TO BE SET ASIDE in those states and machines impounded for non-partisan professional inspection,” according to the filing.

Powell took part in a Nov. 19 news conference on behalf of Trump and his campaign at the Republican National Committee headquarters, where she “made false and factually impossible claims” about the nation’s election infrastructure, the filing alleges. After Trump saw the news conference, he said that Powell had appeared “unhinged,” the filing says.

On Nov. 20, Trump had a call with Powell on speakerphone while Dan Scavino and Hope Hicks listened, according to the filing. When Trump mentioned a segment from Fox News that described how Powell did not produce evidence of her claims to them, Trump put the call on mute, deriding her claims as “crazy,” the filing alleges.

When Trump was told by an attorney that the claims were unreliable and should not be included in litigation, Trump agreed, saying he had seen nothing to substantiate Powell’s allegations, according to the filing. Though Trump distanced himself from her, he continued to publicly support her claims, the filing alleges.

Boris Epshteyn

Boris Epshteyn, a Republican strategist, lawyer and top Trump adviser, has been a steady fixture at the former president’s side, dating back to when he began acting as a surrogate for Trump’s 2016 campaign. In April, Epshteyn was among more than a dozen Trump allies indicted in Arizona on charges tied to alleged efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss in that state. The charges stem from Epshteyn’s alleged role overseeing a plan to use pro-Trump electors to overturn Biden’s victory in key battleground states. Epshteyn has pleaded not guilty to nine felony charges. Smith’s redacted brief sheds some additional light on the role Epshteyn allegedly played.

Identified as CC6, Epshteyn is mentioned more than 30 times in the document — allegedly joining Giuliani, then Trump’s personal attorney, in advising Trump on the morning of Nov. 4, 2020, to “just declare victory,” according to the brief, even as the outcome of the election remained uncertain. The brief pointedly describes Epshteyn as one of the “private political operatives” advising Trump — not one of his private attorneys or other legal advisers.

Epshteyn did not respond to a request for comment.

Prosecutors put Epshteyn at the center of executing what the brief calls the Trump elector “conspiracy,” coordinating with campaign staff and lawyers including Giuliani, Eastman and Chesebro.” It cites a January 2021 text thread between Epshteyn and Chesebro as evidence of how “conspirators attempted to keep the full nature of the fraudulent elector plan secret.”

In the thread, Epshteyn tells Chesebro, “Careful with your texts on text groups” and tells the lawyer to only communicate with him and Eastman about the elector plan. “I’m probably a bit paranoid,” Epshteyn wrote, according to the brief. “A valuable trait,” Chesebro responded.

Going Full Bobbitt

On Friday night, May 30, 1907

Bertha cut off her husband's penis

with a straight razor.

She was convicted

on a charge of Mayhem,

sentenced to 5 years,

released in 2.

Today's Dirtbag Republican

Meet 2022 Republican candidate Joel Koskan of South Dakota.

• Koskan is not a drag queen
• Koskan is not transgender
• Koskan is not a 'Democrat Groomer'
• Koskan coerced his stepdaughter into having sex with him
• Koskan is a rapist - he raped a child

Koskan pleads guilty to two charges of incest, sentenced to 10 years in prison

Joel Koskan, 44, waived his right to a delay in sentencing

PIERRE, S.D. - Disgraced former South Dakota state senate candidate Joel Koskan has been sentenced to ten years in state prison on two charges of incest.

Judge Margo Northup, a Sixth Circuit Court Judge, opted to sentence Koskan to the maximum sentence, and to pay roughly $20,000 in fines during a sentencing hearing Tuesday at the Hughes County courthouse.

The charges Koskan pleaded guilty to stem from crimes committed at his residence.

“He acted like a jealous lover more than a father,” Northup said. “He took advantage of a child that viewed him as a father.”

But Koskan’s need for control didn’t end once the investigation began. Immediately after Koskan found out that the victim had reported his crimes to the Spink County Sheriff’s office, Koskan sought to pressure the victim to back off the allegations against him.

Shortly after the victim approached police for the first time, Koskan reported the victim’s vehicle as stolen to the police.

As a result, the victim struggled with mental health issues, having intermittent panic attacks most specifically when speaking with law enforcement and prosecutors.

“She would not be in the position she is if not for the defendant’s actions,” said Brent Kempema, a Deputy Attorney General who represented the prosecution.

Koskan’s family also pressured the victim to not cooperate with law enforcement. According to the prosecution, family members of Koskan’s sent the victim a news article, detailing how a former South Dakota state lawmaker had rape charges dismissed against him because the victims chose not to cooperate in the investigation.

“The defendant’s gamble didn’t pay off. He gambled she would fold and she didn’t,” Kempema said in his closing remarks. “He needs to pay for his failed gamble.”

Koskan apologized to the victim during Tuesday’s proceedings.

Koskan, a resident of Wood, had been an active and involved member of his community for years. In addition to helping run his family’s farm, Koskan at one point served as a firefighter, and on the local school board.

“As far as public image, he had a pristine image,” Northup said of Koskan.

But Koskan’s life and personality at home were far different. A self-admitted porn addict, Koskan “controlled every aspect of the victim’s life,” putting cameras in their room, and tracking their location into adulthood.

Koskan and his attorney, Clint Sargent of Sioux Falls, had initially reached a highly criticized plea agreement with the state that would not have required Koskan to serve any prison time, nor register as a sex offender. Judge Northup rejected that plea agreement last month.

Now, Koskan will have to both serve prison time, and register as a sex offender upon reentering society.

The victim provided a victim impact statement to the court during the proceedings.

“You went to school and know the laws and know what needs to be done,” the victim said to the judge. “This has been going on too long and it has been very hard for me.... What he did will be with him for a long time, but it will be with me forever.”

Attorney General Marty Jackley issued the following statement on the sentencing:

“Justice has been served in this case because the victim overcame extraordinary conditions to cooperate with the prosecution,” said Jackley. “We applaud the victim for her courage and praise the difficult work of the investigators and prosecutors.”

Waiting For That Shoe To Drop

Fulton County DA, Fani Willis, is taking her own sweet time, but it looks like she's fixin' to get ready to bring some shit and lower the boom on The Trump Gang.

We hope.

Rumors have been flying thick and heavy about how the grand jury has recommended racketeering charges for a whole boatload of co-conspirators, with the big fish to include Mark Meadows, Rudy Patootie, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, et al.

We haven't heard much of anything from Meadows or Stone, only a little from Rudy, and just the usual daily bullshit from Bannon.

The guy who stands out a bit is Lindsey Graham, and he's particularly interesting to me.

He's been up and down, and flipping and flopping for 5 years, trying to play that shitty Trump game that not even Lindsey Graham likes to play. Nobody's licked more shit off Trump's boots than Lindsey, and nobody's called it quits with Trump more than Lindsey, only for him to go simpering back again. And again. And a-fucking-gain.

But. I think ol' Lindsey has been waiting in the bushes looking for his chance to butt-fuck Trump with a prickly pear.

This is the guy who read, "Donald Trump is a fuckin' idiot", into the official record of official business being officially conducted by the official US Senate. And the context doesn't matter. Yes, he was quoting, and yes, it was part of a statement during which he was voicing anger at Trump's opponents - or was he?

Graham has been badly damaged with this back & forth, on-again-off-again schtick, so I think he went shopping for an immunity deal. I think he figures it'll let him off the hook, get some ice cold badass vengeance against Trump, which will make Lindsey feel like a brass band hero who rode to the rescue and saved mom and home and apple dumplings - or some shit like that.

I dunno, but it sure sounds like a Lindsey Graham kinda thing to do.

Fulton county prosecutors prepare racketeering charges in Trump inquiry

Exclusive: racketeering charges based on influencing witnesses and computer trespass, sources say

The Fulton county district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia has developed evidence to charge a sprawling racketeering indictment next month, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The racketeering statute in Georgia requires prosecutors to show the existence of an “enterprise” – and a pattern of racketeering activity that is predicated on at least two “qualifying” crimes.

In the Trump investigation, the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has evidence to pursue a racketeering indictment predicated on statutes related to influencing witnesses and computer trespass, the people said.

Willis had previously said she was weighing racketeering charges in her criminal investigation, but the new details about the direction and scope of the case come as prosecutors are expected to seek indictments starting in the first two weeks of August.

The racketeering statute in Georgia is more expansive than its federal counterpart, notably because any attempts to solicit or coerce the qualifying crimes can be included as predicate acts of racketeering activity, even when those crimes cannot be indicted separately.

The specific evidence was not clear, though the charge regarding influencing witnesses could include Trump’s conversations with Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in which he asked Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes, the people said – and thereby implicate Trump.

For the computer trespass charge, where prosecutors would have to show that defendants used a computer or network without authority to interfere with a program or data, that would include the breach of voting machines in Coffee county, the two people said.

The breach of voting machines involved a group of Trump operatives – paid by the then Trump lawyer Sidney Powell – accessing the voting machines at the county’s election office and copying sensitive voting system data.

The copied data from the Dominion Voting Systems machines, which are used statewide in Georgia, was then uploaded to a password-protected site from where election deniers could download the materials as part of a misguided effort to prove the 2020 election had been rigged.

Though Coffee county is outside the usual jurisdiction of the Fulton county district attorney’s office, the racketeering statute would allow prosecutors to also charge what the Trump operatives did there by showing it was all aimed towards the goal of corruptly keeping Trump in office.

A spokesperson for Willis did not respond to requests for comment.

The district attorney’s office has spent more than two years investigating whether Trump and his allies interfered in the 2020 election in Georgia, while prosecutors at the federal level are scrutinizing Trump’s efforts to reverse his defeat that culminated in the January 6 Capitol attack.

A special grand jury in Atlanta that heard evidence for roughly seven months recommended charges for more than a dozen people, including the former president himself, its forewoman strongly suggested in interviews, though Willis will have to seek indictments from a regular grand jury.

The grand jury that could decide whether to return an indictment against Trump was seated on 11 July. The selection process was attended by Willis and two prosecutors known to be on the Trump investigation: her deputy district attorney, Will Wooten, and special prosecutor Nathan Wade.

Charges stemming from the Trump investigation are expected to come between the final week of July and the first two weeks of August, the Guardian has previously reported, after Willis told her team to shift to remote work during that period because of security concerns.

The district attorney originally suggested charging decisions were “imminent” in January, but the timetable has been repeatedly delayed after a number of Republicans who acted as fake electors accepted immunity deals as the investigation neared its end.

The Hunter Thing

There's a distasteful feel about this that smacks of two-tiered justice. If the guy is named Jamal or Pedro or Joe Bob, he doesn't have the .50 caliber legal help that Hunter Biden has, and he's probably already doing time.

On the other hand, this guy is the son of a president who isn't always trying to duck responsibility. So the fact that he's standing up and facing the music speaks well for him and his family.

We can say Hunter's bad behavior is a reflection on his parents, but there's absolutely no guarantee that all of our kids are going to be model citizens no matter how great we think our child-rearing skills are. Everybody's got an uncle or a cousin or a half-brother nobody likes to talk about at Thanksgiving dinner. Everybody.

I'm not excusing the bone-head stunts - or truly shitty things - the young Biden has pulled. Though I will say (not to get all What-About-y on you), that we're seeing a very different thing play out here compared with all the shit the Trump gang has thrown at us.

In a lot of cases, it's not so much what you did that counts - it's how you react when you're caught doing it.

Morality is the understanding that we're punished by our sins, not for them.

Hunter Biden reaches deal to plead guilty in tax, gun case

The president’s son would get about two years probation and enter a diversion program, people familiar with the negotiations said

President Biden’s son Hunter has reached a tentative agreement with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to two minor tax crimes and admit to the facts of a gun charge under terms that would likely keep him out of jail, according to court papers filed Tuesday.

Any proposed plea deal would have to be approved by a federal judge, and it was not immediately clear what day Hunter Biden, 53, might appear in court to enter his guilty plea.

The agreement caps an investigation that was opened in 2018 during the Trump administration, and has generated intense interest and criticism since 2020 from Republican politicians who accused the Biden administration of reluctance to pursue the case. The terms of the proposed deal — negotiated with Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a holdover from President Donald Trump’s administration — are likely to face similar scrutiny.

The court papers indicate the younger Biden has tentatively agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges of failure to pay in 2017 and 2018. The combined tax liability is roughly $1.2 million over those years, according to people familiar with the plea deal, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe details of the agreement that are not yet public. Prosecutors plan to recommend a sentence of probation for those counts, these people said. Biden’s representatives have said he previously paid back the IRS what he owed.

In a letter filed in federal court in Wilmington on Tuesday, federal prosecutors said they were filing two documents called criminal informations — typically used in cases in which a defendant has agreed to plead guilty.

“The defendant has agreed to plead guilty to both counts of the tax Information,” the prosecutors wrote. The second criminal information is about the gun charge. “The defendant has agreed to enter a Pretrial Diversion Agreement with respect to the firearm Information,” the letter says.

Both the prosecutors and the defense counsel have requested a court hearing at which Biden can enter his plea, the letter said.

While Biden is pleading guilty to two tax charges, handling the gun charge as a diversion case means he will not technically be pleading guilty to that crime. Diversion is an option typically applied to nonviolent offenders with substance abuse problems.

In all, prosecutors would recommend two years of probation and diversion conditions, these people said. If Biden successfully meets the conditions of the diversion program, the gun charge would be removed from his record at the end of that period, the people familiar with the plea deal said.

The gun purchase that led to the criminal charge happened in late 2018, at a time when, by his own telling in his autobiography, Hunter Biden was regularly abusing crack cocaine. When he filled out paperwork to buy the gun, however, he denied using drugs or having a drug problem, exposing him to a potential charge of making a false statement on the document, as well as illegal gun possession once he acquired the weapon. Biden owned the gun for less than two weeks, because his then-girlfriend threw it away, according to public accounts of that time period.

Hunter Biden’s proposed plea deal will likely become grist for the 2024 presidential race, as the nation’s two main parties once again debate the influence of politics on law enforcement, and the effects of law-enforcement investigations on political campaigns.

Biden’s defenders have argued that Hunter Biden is a recovering addict accused of relatively minor offenses — the type of case that would not typically be prosecuted by federal authorities, barring some additional aggravating factors that are not present in this case. They suggest the investigation would have been dropped long ago if he wasn’t the president’s son.

Republicans seeking to win back the White House have sought to tie Hunter Biden’s legal woes directly to his father, claiming the extent of wrongdoing in the Biden family goes far beyond a simple tax and gun case, and that the Justice Department is trying to avoid prosecuting more serious matters. Attorney General Merrick Garland has said he gave full authority over the investigation to Weiss, a Trump appointee, and would not interfere in any charging decision.

Trump, who is the early front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination for president, frequently tries to contrast the Justice Department’s treatment of Hunter Biden with his own legal jeopardy involving the discovery that hundreds of classified documents were kept at his Mar-a-Lago home and private club. Trump was indicted earlier this month on 37 federal charges of withholding highly sensitive national security information and trying to prevent the federal government from regaining possession of that material. He has denied wrongdoing.

Federal authorities began investigating Hunter Biden’s finances in 2018. Much of that work has centered around whether he evaded paying taxes on money he collected from overseas business clients. Last year, witnesses were called before a grand jury in Wilmington to answer questions about what they knew about Biden’s spending and work. Over time, the inquiry expanded to look at whether Biden’s gun purchase amounted to a crime.

People familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing case, told The Washington Post in October that federal agents had determined there was enough evidence to file tax and gun charges. Last month, The Post reported that prosecutors in the case were nearing a decision.

Lying on the government forms needed to purchase a firearm represents a small percentage of the nation’s overall firearm-related prosecutions. Between October 2022 and March 2023, federal prosecutors filed 3,863 cases in which the unlawful possession of a firearm was the lead charge, according to Syracuse University’s TRAC database, which gathers federal data. In 130 of those cases, or about 3 percent, the lead unlawful possession charge was related to making a false statement to acquire the weapon.

During that same six-month period, federal prosecutors in Delaware filed nine cases in which unlawful gun possession was the lead charge, according to the TRAC data. One of the nine involved making a false statement to acquire the weapon.

Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor whose research focuses on gun policy, said prosecutors typically would not charge lying on a gun form as a stand-alone crime, instead filing it as a secondary charge when someone also may have committed a violent crime with the weapon.

President Biden stands with his son Hunter Biden and sister Valerie Biden Owens as he looks at a plaque dedicated to his late son Beau Biden while visiting Mayo Roscommon Hospice in County Mayo, Ireland, on April 14. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
In recent months, Hunter Biden has tried to take a more public and publicly combative stance in the face of the accusations. His revamped legal team has fired countersuits, issued criminal referral letters, and sent cease-and-desist letters to some of those who have publicly argued he committed crimes.

In April, he also was part of a high-profile visit to Ireland with his father, who introduced him enthusiastically to crowds, along with the president’s sister.

Hunter Biden’s finances became a subject of heated debate during the 2020 presidential campaign, in part because of reports in the New York Post about a laptop computer that he purportedly dropped off at a Wilmington repair shop in 2019 and never came back to collect.

The laptop was turned over to the FBI in December 2019, according to documents reviewed by The Post, and a copy of the drive was obtained by Rudy Giuliani and other advisers to then-President Trump a few months before the 2020 election.

Inside Hunter Biden's multimillion-dollar deals with a Chinese energy company

Trump and his supporters have repeatedly argued that Hunter’s legal problems were evidence not just of his wrongdoing but misconduct by his father. Two areas of the younger Biden’s work came under particular scrutiny — a deal with Chinese firm CEFC, and his membership on the board of the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma.

As the 2020 election drew closer, Republicans pressed the FBI and Justice Department to explain the status of the Biden investigation and the relevance of the laptop to that investigation. The bureau declined to do so, citing the intense criticism directed at the FBI in 2016 for publicly reopening an investigation of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton just weeks before Trump’s victory at the polls.

In December 2020, after Joe Biden was elected, FBI agents approached Hunter Biden seeking to question him about his finances, and he publicly confirmed he was under investigation.

At the time, a spokesman for Joe Biden said the president-elect had “never even considered being involved in business with his family, nor in any overseas business whatsoever.”

It's Bad

• We need to regard Campaign Finance violations as very serious crimes
• Tax evasion - ie: ducking your responsibilities as an American citizen - should be a bad one too

Put it all together, and it's about rigging an election. And IMHO, in a democracy, that's the same as Sedition or outright Treason.

It should be obvious that there are forces in and around the GOP that are trying to kill our system of democratic self-government.

To me, that's not far removed from conspiring to commit murder. People need to burn for that.

Analysis: A Surprise Accusation Bolsters a Risky Case Against Trump

The unsealed case against Donald J. Trump accuses him of falsifying records in part to lay the groundwork for planned lies to tax authorities.

WASHINGTON — The unsealed indictment against former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday laid out an unexpected accusation that bolstered what many legal experts have described as an otherwise risky and novel case: Prosecutors claim he falsified business records in part for a plan to deceive state tax authorities.

For weeks, observers have wondered about the exact charges the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, would bring. Accusing Mr. Trump of bookkeeping fraud to conceal campaign finance violations, many believed, could raise significant legal challenges. That accusation turned out to be a major part of Mr. Bragg’s theory — but not all of it.

“Pundits have been speculating that Trump would be charged with lying about the hush money payments to illegally affect an election, and that theory rests on controversial legal issues and could be hard to prove,” said Rebecca Roiphe, a New York Law School professor and former state prosecutor.

“It turns out the indictment also includes a claim that Trump falsified records to commit a state tax crime,” she continued. “That’s a much simpler charge that avoids the potential pitfalls.”

The indictment listed 34 counts of bookkeeping fraud related to Mr. Trump’s reimbursement in 2017 to Michael D. Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer. Just before the 2016 election, Mr. Cohen had made a $130,000 hush money payment to the pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels, who has said she and Mr. Trump had an extramarital affair.

Various business records concerning those payments to Mr. Cohen, an accompanying statement of facts said, falsely characterized them as being for legal services performed in 2017. For each such record, the grand jury charged Mr. Trump with a felony bookkeeping fraud under Article 175 of the New York Penal Law. A conviction on that charge carries a sentence of up to four years.

But bookkeeping fraud is normally a misdemeanor. For it to rise to a felony, prosecutors must show that a defendant intended to commit, aid or conceal a second crime — raising the question of what other crime Mr. Bragg would contend is involved.

On Tuesday, Mr. Bragg suggested that prosecutors are putting forward multiple theories for the second crime, potentially giving judges and jurors alternative routes to finding that bookkeeping fraud was a felony.

As was widely predicted, he is pointing toward alleged violations of both federal and state elections laws. By doing so, he is in part plunging forward with a premise that has given pause to even some of Mr. Trump’s toughest critics.

As a matter of substance, it can be ambiguous whether paying off a mistress was a campaign expenditure or a personal one.

As a matter of legal process, to cite federal law raises the untested question of whether a state prosecutor can invoke a federal crime even though he lacks jurisdiction to charge that crime himself. Still, Article 175 does not say that the second intended crime must be a state-law offense.

To cite state law raises the question of why New York election rules would apply to a federal presidential election, which is governed by federal laws that generally supersede state laws.

At a news conference, Mr. Bragg pointed to both state and federal election law. He cited a New York state election law that makes it a misdemeanor to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means, but did not explain why that law would apply to a presidential election. He also described a federal cap on campaign contributions without indicating why he had the authority to invoke a crime he could not himself charge.

But Mr. Bragg also introduced yet another theory, accusing Mr. Trump of falsifying business records as a way to back up planned false claims to tax authorities.

“The participants also took steps that mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme,” Mr. Bragg wrote in the statement of facts that accompanied the indictment.

The statement of facts also described how Mr. Trump paid Mr. Cohen more than Mr. Cohen had paid Ms. Daniels to cover income taxes Mr. Cohen would incur. Mr. Bragg further emphasized that point in his news conference.

His wording was ambiguous in places. At one point, he seemed to suggest that a planned false statement to New York tax authorities was just an example of the ways by which Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen purportedly violated the state law against conspiring to promote a candidate through unlawful means.

But it is also a crime to submit false information to the state government. At another point Mr. Bragg seemed to put forward an alleged plan to lie to tax authorities — an intention to say Mr. Cohen had earned income for “legal services performed in 2017” to launder what was in reality a repayment — as a stand-alone offense.

In addition to covering up campaign-finance crimes committed in 2016, Mr. Bragg said: “To get Michael Cohen his money back, they planned one last false statement. In order to complete the scheme, they planned to mischaracterize the repayments to Mr. Cohen as income to the New York state tax authorities.”

In the courtroom, the prosecutor Christopher Conroy accused Mr. Trump of causing the Trump Organization to create a series of false business records, adding that he “even mischaracterized for tax purposes the true nature of the payment.”

That prosecutors cited the possibility of planned false statements on tax filings struck some legal specialists as particularly significant, given the speculation over how bookkeeping fraud charges would rise to felonies.

“The reference to false tax filings may save the case from legal challenges that may arise if the felony charges are predicated only on federal and state election laws,” said Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University.

Indeed, a range of election-law specialists on Tuesday expressed fresh doubt about whether Mr. Bragg could successfully use campaign finance laws alone to elevate the bookkeeping fraud charges to felonies. Among those skeptics were Richard L. Hasen, a University of California at Los Angeles legal scholar, and Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a longtime election lawyer for the Republican Party and a critic of Mr. Trump.

Even with the addition of the claim about intended false statements to tax authorities, Robert Kelner, the chairman of the election and political law practice group at the firm Covington & Burling, remained uncertain that it would show an intent to commit another crime.

“The local prosecutors seem to be relying in part on a bank shot exploiting Michael Cohen’s guilty plea in a federal campaign finance case,” he said. “But there were serious questions about the legal basis for the case against Cohen, making that a dubious foundation for a case against a former president. Prosecutors also allude vaguely to ‘steps’ taken to violate tax laws, but they say little to establish what that might mean.”

Still, Mr. Bragg emphasized that at this stage, prosecutors did not need to go into detail about what other crimes they believe Mr. Trump intended to commit.

But he will eventually have to show his hand. Barry Kamins, a retired New York Supreme Court judge who is now in private practice, said the next phase of the case would require prosecutors to divulge more.

“What is going to happen now is that the prosecutors are obligated to disclose things in discovery,” he said. “Defense counsel will learn in discovery the nature of the elections laws violations and the tax issues that were raised by Mr. Bragg in his statement of facts.”

Today's Fuckin' Wack-Doodle

Kayla Epstein, WaPo:

Matt Bevin is no longer the governor of Kentucky, but his decisions continued to send shock waves through the state’s legal system this week after he issued pardons for hundreds of people, some of whom committed violent offenses.

Bevin issued 428 pardons since his defeat to Democrat Andy Beshear in a close election in November, the Louisville Courier Journal reported. His list includes a man convicted of reckless homicide, a convicted child rapist, a man who murdered his parents at age 16 and a woman who threw her newborn in the trash after giving birth in a flea market outhouse.

He also pardoned Dayton Jones, who was convicted in the sexual assault of a 15-year-old boy at a party, Kentucky New Era reported.

It is not unusual for governors to issue pardons as they leave office, but Bevin’s actions boggled some of the state’s attorneys, who questioned his judgment.

“What this governor did is an absolute atrocity of justice,” said Commonwealth Attorney Jackie Steele, a prosecutor for Knox and Laurel counties. “He’s put victims, he’s put others in our community in danger.”

And the kicker:

“I’m a big believer in second chances,” Bevin said in a message left with The Washington Post on Thursday afternoon. “I think this is a nation that was founded on the concept of redemption and second chances and new pages in life.”

Can you say, "What a crock of shit that is"? I knew you could.

Outside of when they're taking about themselves and their god-knobber buddies, when was the last time you heard any Republican touting the value of giving anybody a second chance at anything - especially when the topic is crime and prison and shit?

There's something else at work here, and I'm gonna let the paranoia fly - I think it's a weird variation on Daddy State Awareness rule 3:

Every prediction of some dire consequence is a threat of the pain they intend to cause - or a signal that they’re already causing that pain - in an attempt to coerce us to do what they want.

First, I'll go ahead and say Bevins isn't actually mentally ill - no more than the usual pathologies that beset "conservatives" anyway.

So second, what Bevins is doing is planting time bombs that he figures will explode somewhere down the road "on the Democrats' watch". 

The main point is that he's sending a signal. ie: "You rejected me and now I will rain fire and fury down upon you. So don't do that again - we don't mind making it worse."

Alternate: Matt Bevins is guilty of some really bad shit and he's trying to soften things up a little so it doesn't land quite so heavily on his pointy little head when it comes out.

Holiday Safety Tip

Nothing spoils the Christmas mood like some thieving asshole.

And while I'd rather watch these dripping dicks get blown up, that wouldn't exactly be in keeping with the spirit of the season - or the law, for that matter. 

It's just good to know there are people out there who know how to do stuff, and do it in a way that makes the point while staying inside the boundaries (something we've been sorely missing of late).

May the fake lord bless you and keep you, Super Nerds.

Adventures In Good Government

Constituent Service - services provided by the government - paid for by those constituents - in service to the community - the way it's supposed to be.

What a grand idea.

The Baltimore Sun, Luke Broadwater:

In Baltimore’s most crime-ridden zones, city officials are conducting an experiment in government. They started last year by targeting four small, deeply troubled areas to be flooded with more police patrols and city services. They called them “Transformation Zones,” at first, then rebranded them as “Violence Reduction Zones.” They’ve since added three more zones, bringing the total to seven.

Each zone gets several dedicated police officers, called Neighborhood Coordination Officers, and an extra focus across city government for ramped-up services. Mayor Catherine Pugh has put $1.6 million in the city’s budget for two “rapid response” crews from the Department of Public Works to quickly clean up these areas, three more housing inspectors to enforce code violations such as peeling lead paint and extend hours at local recreation centers.

The idea is simple: If it can be rightly said that these areas were for far too long over-policed and under-served — and if this punitive style of government did not produce lasting crime declines — then officials should try the opposite: The zones should be drowning in services, from job training to street cleaning.

Everything costs something

So if you want this:

You'll have to stop doing this:

Times Change

...except when they don't.

This takes a while and it's not the greatest thing anybody ever put on, but there're great recurring themes - as in: History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure as fuck rhymes.

Today's Tweet

There's so much we're not paying any attention to while we're playing high school fuck-around with 45*, how do we keep track of it?

White & black Americans use drugs at same rate (12%), but African-Americans are 6x more likely to be sent to prison for it. @VanJones68 pic.twitter.com/BJiy6mhuUK

— Our Revolution (@OurRevolution) January 19, 2017

Welcome To Pottersville

It's Russia TV, but the truth is what the truth is.

Know Your Rights: Medical, Dental and Mental Health Care (2012 resource): Prison officials are obligated under the Eighth Amendment to provide prisoners with adequate medical care. This principle applies regardless of whether the medical care is provided by governmental employees or by private medical staff under contract with the government.

Know Your Rights: Publications Sent by Mail (2012 Resource): Restrictions on prisoners’ access to publications cannot be arbitrary; they must be “reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.” That said, in practice, courts often will accept the judgment of prison authorities in deciding whether censoring a publication is reasonable.

Know Your Rights: Legal Rights of Disabled Prisoners (2012 Resource): Statutes exist under both the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to protect the rights of prisoners with disabilities.

LA County Jails: The ACLU has served as a court-appointed monitor of the L.A. Country jails since 1985. During this time, the ACLU and the ACLU of Southern California have documented overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and extreme abuse of inmates at the hands of deputies. The ACLU is working to expose and put an end to the unconstitutional conditions and ongoing climate of violence the nation’s largest jail system.

Stop Solitary - The Dangerous Overuse of Solitary Confinement in the United States: Over the last two decades corrections systems have increasingly relied on solitary confinement as a prison management tool – even building entire institutions called “supermax prisons” where prisoners are held in conditions of extreme isolation, sometimes for years or decades. But solitary confinement jeopardizes our public safety, is fundamentally inhumane and wastes taxpayer dollars. We must insist on humane and more cost-effective methods of punishment and prison management.

Charlie Gets It

It starts with what seems like an unrelated event in Georgia, but Charlie knows there's no such thing as unrelated event.

Mr Charles Pierce at Esquire:

Somewhere in itself, and not very far from the surface, either, this country has gone mad with fear and rage. As a result, it is finding sustenance in the acts of official violence, and doing so in more different ways than the republic has seen since we had lynching, union busting, and Red Scares at the same time, back when the 19th century was turning into the 20th. Anyone who can't see the political and sociological tissue connecting the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, and the revelations of a decade's worth of CIA brutality, and the execution of Robert Holsey isn't looking hard enough. In the country's untrammelled fear and rage, it is exercising the only function of self-government it can recall as its mad brain turns to red fire -- to encourage the exercise of the state's power to wound and kill all the right people. In this madness, race and class are mere diagnostic categories. In this madness, the politics of right and left, of Republicans and Democrats, of conservatives and liberals, of red and blue, are pathetically inadequate to assess the situation. In this madness, the choices are not made within the easy and obvious contexts . This is a choice between barbarism and not, between savagery and not. This is a choice between the national soul and the national Id. This is a choice of whether to take inchoate and weaponized vengeance against the living representations of the monsters in our paranoid dreams. That's the last vestige of self-government that we have allowed ourselves. The right to demand that the institutions of government kill what we fear. By any means necessary, as someone once said. 

Comfort

Charlie Pierce at The Atlantic:

The comfort of the ordinary. The comfort of the mundane. Let's just have a trial. Let's just have an open and honest trial, with all the evidence right there in the open, and not whispered piecemeal and half-baked out of Spookworld to Richard Engel or Barbara Starr. Let's have an open and honest trial with no showboating from an embattled U.S. Attorney, and all the evidence laid out there in good, honest cop-speak -- "The suspect said..." "The suspect did..." (One of the most startling examples of this came during the sanity hearing granted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in Milwaukee when, reading from his own notes, one of the arresting officers testified, "The suspect stated it takes about an hour to boil a head.") We can do that here. 

God Love The Onion

I'm really hoping Candy Crowley et al at CNN were just trying to give us some small added  perspective about how perpetrators fuck up more than just their victims' lives - and to warn other young dudes about impulse control - but in our current style of political debate, where only Binary Reasoning is allowed, this is what it ends up sounding like:


College Basketball Star Heroically Overcomes Tragic Rape He Committed

Above The Law

Elizabeth Warren is on 'em like the sun covers Dixie - and my mad crush on that woman continues unabated.

“Beginning in 2008, the federal government poured billions of dollars into AIG to save it from bankruptcy. AIG’s reckless bets nearly crashed our entire economy. Taxpayers across this country saved AIG from ruin, and it would be outrageous for this company to turn around and sue the federal government because they think the deal wasn’t generous enough. Even today, the government provides an ongoing, stealth bailout, propping up AIG with special tax breaks — tax breaks that Congress should stop. AIG should thank American taxpayers for their help, not bite the hand that fed them for helping them out in a crisis.“

The violence that some of these fuckwads did to our economy is criminal.  And while I'm trying to reform my hard-ass Ayn Rand reactionary self, I have to wonder: when do we get to hang a few of these jag-offs?

One Example

Government as Business can be even more of a nightmare than what "conservatives" are always creamin' their jeans over.

A teenager in a For-Profit Prison in Mississippi turned up missing, and it took his dad more than a month to find him - in a local hospital, after suffering irreparable brain damage in a riot that was possibly instigated by at least one of the guards.  That's pretty fucked up right there.

From AlterNet via Democratic Underground:

On March 26, U.S. District Judge Carlton W. Reeves issued a blistering court order approving the settlement of the lawsuit. He wrote that the GEO Group Inc., the company that runs Walnut Grove, “has allowed a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate.”

Violence by youths and guards wasn’t the only problem. Neither were the gang affiliations of some guards. Or the grossly inadequate medical and mental health care. Or the proliferation of drugs and other contraband. Or the lack of educational and rehabilitative programs. Or the wild overuse of pepper spray on passive youths.

Indeed, the DOJ found that sexual abuse – including brutal youth-on-youth rapes and “brazen” sexual misconduct by prison staffers who coerced youths – was “among the worst that we have seen in any facility anywhere in the nation.”
What’s more, both the prison staff and the Mississippi Department of Corrections, which pays GEO $14 million each year to run the prison, showed “deliberate indifference” to these problems.

This hyper-macho, get-tough bullshit just ain't workin', guys.  We gotta figure out something else.

Death Penalty

I don't really have a hard and fast position on the death penalty.  I think I have to lean more to the Anti side because we seem to have such a hard time getting it right; ie: there's a heavy probability that hundreds of not-really-guilty people have been killed by state governments over the last 20 or so years.

That said, I still think there're people in this world we can do without:  Charles Manson, Tim McVeigh, Celine Dion.  Anyway, I think what has to happen is that we need to raise the standard of proof a bit if we want the jury to convict for a capital offense.

We can argue about "cruel and unusual" or the over-representation of minorities on death row, or the silliness of continuing to apply 8000-year-old philosophies to modern age problems; but the main reason we need to change the way we approach capital punishment is that we have to keep assholes like GW Bush from killing innocent people in order to score  political points.

Read this.