Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

​'This was a national security emergency': Woodward says Trump's post-election meltdown nearly led to 'catastrophe'

Legendary reporter Bob Woodward told CNN's Jake Tapper on Tuesday that America was in grave peril while suffering through former President Donald Trump's meltdown over losing the 2020 presidential election.

Woodward, who has just published a new book called Peril with fellow Washington Post reporter Robert Costa, relayed the extraordinary lengths that national security officials went to keep Trump from potentially dragging the United States into a war in a desperate bid to keep power.

"Here we have the Speaker of the House and the senior military leader, General Milley, concluding that they believe he's crazy," said Woodward. "The issue... is not some abstract problem. It's do we have control of nuclear weapons? And if there's a catastrophe that could befall the United States or the world, it would be the use of nuclear weapons."

He then broke down how Milley worked to ensure Trump could not unilaterally launch a nuclear war against China as part of a last-ditch effort to remain president.

"This was a national security emergency, not just about control of nuclear weapons, but about whether there might be a war with China," said Woodward, who said Trump's unstable emotional state could have resulted in "another catastrophe."

Watch the video below:

'It’s all in writing': Nicole Wallace breaks down damning new Trump campaign memo

MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace on Tuesday broke down the breaking news on "what the Trump campaign knew and when they knew it" about the truth of the results of the 2020 presidential election.

"Breaking news this afternoon from The New York Times that could represent a serious threat to Donald Trump's 2020 campaign and potentially even to the former president himself. Their claims about election fraud were a lie — and Trump's campaign reportedly new it," Wallace reported.

Trump's campaign reportedly knew that Dominion did not use Smartmatic, and also knew that Dominion did not have ties to Venezuela or George Soros.

"That's about as clear and unequivocal as it can get," Wallace said. "That members of the Trump campaign knew there was no evidence to support the conspiracy theories Trump and his allies were very publicly spouting — and it's all in writing."

Wallace interviewed Michael Steel, a spokesperson for Dominion, who said the report showed that "these claims that the president's supporters were making were not knowingly false, they were easily knowingly false."

Steel added that Trump's allies could have debunked their own claims using a "simple Google search" because "it was easy and obvious what they were trying to portray as reality is simply not true."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

The shocking new evidence of the GOP conspiracy against the U.S.

By now, you've read about John Eastman's secret memo outlining six points by which he believed the vice president could overturn the results of the 2020 election on January 6. I defer to legal scholars to explain the memo's legal absurdities. I defer to political scientists to explain why the memo represents forces threatening our republic.

What I want to suggest is so plain I'm surprised that no one else has asked: isn't this evidence of a conspiracy to commit a high crime?

News of Eastman's memo put the debate over democracy reform into overdrive. The hope has been that the Democrats in the United States Congress, especially Senate moderates, will see the light. They must kill off, or seriously change, the filibuster in order to pass election laws that would not only reach or surpass the 1965 Voting Rights Act but also prevent a political party from pulling off a coup in broad daylight.

While the Eastman memo should, for obvious reasons, put that debate into overdrive, I'm wondering if we're misplacing our hopes. It's not that I think the filibuster is good. It needs to go. It's not that I think new election laws would be bad. We need more, in a hurry. It's that laws require enforcement, and enforcement of the law is pretty much the only thing that's going to stop people who have no respect for democracy, principle, the Constitution, tradition or anything else. Without equal treatment under law, in the form of prosecution, I don't see why new laws would stop people who hold themselves above it.

We really need to acknowledge the elephant in the room before we pin our hopes for democracy on changing a Senate rule. We really need to acknowledge the reason it's possible, in a rule-of-law country, for powerful and power-hungry people to hold themselves above the law. The reason is so obvious as to be invisible, and because it's invisible few people are talking about it right now. It's because powerful and power-hungry people are in fact above the law. "No one is above the law"? Pish. Anyone with senses, and sense, can see that's not true.

News of the Eastman memo only adds to what we already know. According to CNN, the plan was for Vice President Mike Pence to throw out "the results in seven states because they allegedly had competing electors. In fact, no state had actually put forward an alternate slate of electors — there were merely Trump allies claiming without any authority to be electors." That didn't matter, though:

Pence would have declared Trump the winner with more Electoral College votes after the seven states were thrown out, at 232 votes to 222. Anticipating "howls" from Democrats protesting the overturning of the election, the memo proposes, Pence would instead say that no candidate had reached 270 votes in the Electoral College. That would throw the election to the House of Representatives, where each state would get one vote. Since Republicans controlled 26 state delegations, a majority could vote for Trump to win the election.

Two important points. One is about recognizing competing slates of electors when there were none. New laws in Georgia, Texas and other states now fill in what was missing in Eastman's memo. They allow for GOP-controlled legislatures to overrule election officials. They make room for assigning competing slate of electors when outcomes are undesirable. A future vice president might do what Mike Pence didn't.

My other point is about the impression made by CNN's reporting, and by the new book all this news comes from by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa — that Donald Trump's GOP allies believed the US Constitution forbade a vice president from recognizing competing slates of electors. The impression is of a founding document that sets the rules. "You might as well make your case to Queen Elizabeth II," Mike Lee reportedly said. "Congress can't do this. You're wasting your time." That's a dangerous impression to have in a rule-of-law country in which powerful and power-hungry people are in fact above it.

The Constitution is many things, but a set of unbreakable rules isn't one of them. It is whatever powerful and power-hungry people want it to be, when they want it to be and why. I don't know why Lee, Lindsay Graham and other high-profile Republicans were not all-in on the Eastman memo, but I do know the Constitution didn't stop them. I am confident, and you should be confident, that if they had reason to believe they could get away with it, they'd have found a way to make a coup by a political party in broad daylight seem "constitutional."

The Eastman memo is putting debate over democracy reform into overdrive. Fine and dandy. But the memo is also why we shouldn't pin our hopes on democracy reform. The incentives to cheat, steal, lie and otherwise commit treason in the pursuit of raw political power will be with us long after we've made all our dreams come true with the death of the filibuster. New laws won't take away corrupt incentives. The only way to do that is prosecuting the laws we already have. The only way to do that is prosecuting the principle of equal treatment under law so that powerful and power-hungry people are not in fact above it.

The Eastman memo is evidence of a conspiracy — a GOP conspiracy — to commit a high crime. And yet no one is being held accountable. No one will be held accountable as long as the Department of Justice is soft on high crime. Amid such lawlessness, why not give treason another go? By then, perhaps Lee, Graham and others will have found what they need to make a coup in broad daylight seem "constitutional."

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-attempted-coup/

[Rick Plant]

Judge orders Trump Org to turn over docs as New York AG accuses company of ‘hiding behind excuses’

New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is investigating the Trump Organization for allegedly manipulating the value of its assets, says the former president's company has been "hiding behind procedural delays and excuses" and failing to comply with her office's subpoenas for more than a year.

Now, in response to complaints from James' office, a New York state judge has ruled that if the Trump Organization doesn't comply with the subpoenas by next week, the company will have to hire an outside expert to search its documents.

"The Trump Organization has until Sept. 30 to file a report on its efforts to preserve, collect and produce all documents responsive to subpoenas issued by James as part of a civil probe into whether the company manipulated the value of its assets for loans and tax breaks, state court Justice Arthur Engoron said in a Sept. 2 order unsealed on Friday," according to a report from Bloomberg.

In a statement responding to the judge's order, James' office said: "For more than a year now, the Trump Organization has failed to adequately respond to our subpoenas, hiding behind procedural delays and excuses. Once again, the court has ordered that the Trump Organization must turn over the information and documents we are seeking, otherwise face an independent third-party that will ensure that takes place. Our work will continue undeterred because no one is above the law."

The civil case is separate from a criminal investigation into alleged tax-fraud by the Trump Organization that's being conducted by James in conjunction with the Manhattan district attorney.

"The New York attorney general opened the investigation in March 2019 after the president's former attorney, Michael Cohen, testified to Congress that President Trump had altered the value of his assets in financial statements in order to get loans, better insurance rates and tax breaks," the Hill reports. "In the civil case, court records show that James' office is investigating the valuation of several Trump properties including the Seven Springs resort in Westchester County, N.Y.; an office building on Wall Street in New York City; the Trump International Hotel in Chicago; and the Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles."

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-organization-documents/

[Rick Plant]

Trump has made it clear: He thinks his own supporters are discardable losers

In May of this year, Donald Trump began telling associates that he plans to run for president in 2024 if he is healthy enough. In July, he told dinner pals that he is running. Just this month, he reiterated that he is likely to run again. The twice-impeached ex-president is increasing his media appearances and planning campaign-style rallies in Georgia and Iowa.

Trump's humiliating defeat to Joe Biden — which he refuses to acknowledge even occurred — has fomented a yearning for redemption. Whether he actually runs again remains uncertain, but he wants his supporters to be ready, willing and primed.

As Trump keeps his millions of supporters in suspense, they must answer one difficult question: Do they really want to continue to support a man who despises them and hurts them?

Donald Trump has always abhorred his supporters. He does not feel an ounce of empathy or affection for those who profess their devotion to him. He sees his supporters as weak, stupid and inferior. They are losers to him. He hates his supporters as much as he wants to destroy his detractors.

Actions speak louder than words. Just look at Trump's actions toward his supporters.

The best example is his detached, irresponsible and inept handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died on his watch. He relied on conspiracy theories, magical thinking, blatant lies and distractions to fool the American public. Trump followers in red states have died in huge numbers because they erroneously and foolishly believed he was the benevolent master of their fate. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was, in fact, an accessory to murder. His supporters' lives meant nothing to him.

Another example is Trump's incitement of the insurrection of the Capitol on Jan. 6. He was willing to overthrow democracy in order to remain in power. So he fabricated the Big Lie, knowing full well that his cult followers would carry out his anti-democratic mission. Was he on the front line with his supporters? Of course not — because he is a coward. He watched it all unfold on television as he cheered them on from the protected and comfortable surroundings of the White House. Trump wanted the election undermined and demanded that followers accomplish that goal. The result was failure, destruction, deaths, arrests and widespread condemnation. Trump has left his followers dangling in defeat. He has taken no responsibility for his incitement and has demonstrated no concern or remorse for his loyalists who face damaging legal consequences. He has thrown them under the bus because he detests them.

Millions of aggrieved Americans have tethered themselves to Trump's fake persona of superiority and strength. They think he is the answer to their prayers. They think he cares about their lot in life. They think he will remedy their grievances. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Trump is a shameless opportunist. He manipulates people to achieve his personal goals, then discards them. He does not care if his supporters are racists, felons, crooks or murderers. He does not care if they are xenophobes or misogynists. He will accept the support of anyone who will blindly follow his lead and put him on a pedestal — after all, exalted status is what he longs for. He desperately wants to be a dictator so that his grifting and corrupt impulses can run wild. And, remember, dictators only care about themselves and loathe people who expect anything from them.

Trump scorns those who are weak or foolish enough to need him. He does not want to be needed — he wants others to serve and satiate his needs. He thrives on their praise, adulation and unconditional loyalty. The whole concept of public service is foreign to him because he perceives every interaction is a transactional game that must be won. And winning, for him, inevitably means defeat and humiliation of the other person. In Trump's psyche, even his supporters need to be humiliated and defeated.

It is puzzling that Trump supporters have not realized that he does not give a damn about their grievances or station in life. His Republican Party literally has no platform or set of guiding principles — all that was abandoned during the 2020 campaign. Nor does the Republican Party have a single substantive policy initiative on the table. Other than conservative judicial appointments, Trump did absolutely nothing for his supporters during his miserable presidential term. Except, of course, to let them be killed by a virus and incite them to a failed overthrow of democracy.

Until Trump is gone and the Republican Party reinvents itself, Trump supporters are all alone to fend for themselves. Their cult leader is an illusion. He is a pied piper leading them only to destruction. He has brought them only pain and suffering and sold them a bill of goods consisting of lies and conspiracy theories.

All because he despises his supporters. That's the best reason why they should dump him now, before he harms them even more.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-s-planning-to-run-again-in-2024-will-his-supporters-ever-realize-he-hates-them/

[Rick Plant]

More evidence of corruption and criminality by Criminal Donald.

Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Buddies Tried to Get the VA to Sell Access to Veterans’ Medical Records

A congressional investigation prompted by ProPublica’s reporting found Trump’s “Mar-a-Lago crowd,” wealthy civilians with no U.S. government or military experience, pursued a plan to monetize veterans’ medical data

Former President Donald Trump empowered associates from his private club to pursue a plan for the Department of Veterans Affairs to monetize patient data, according to documents newly released by congressional investigators.

As ProPublica first reported in 2018, a trio based at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort weighed in on policy and personnel decisions for the federal government’s second-largest agency, despite lacking any experience in the U.S. government or military.

While previous reporting showed the trio had a hand in budgeting and contracting, their interest in turning patient data into a revenue stream was not previously known. The VA provides medical care to more than 9 million veterans at more than 1,000 facilities across the country.

“Patient data is, in my opinion, the most valuable assets [sic] the VA has,” a consultant said in a June 2017 email released Monday by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. “It can be leveraged into hundreds of millions in revenue” by selling access to major companies, he said.

The consultant, Terry Fadem, ran a private nonprofit for Bruce Moskowitz, a West Palm Beach, Florida, physician who was one of the three Trump associates given sweeping influence over the VA, known to officials as “the Mar-a-Lago crowd.”

In response to Fadem’s email, Moskowitz told then-VA Secretary David Shulkin that he had discussed the plan with interested companies including Johnson & Johnson, CVS and Apple. Shulkin replied that he liked the idea, according to the documents.

Senior officials scrambled to hire Fadem as a contractor, the emails show, but it’s not clear whether his contract was awarded. “I am working on trying to understand why and where [h]is contract is stuck,” Poonam Alaigh, then the agency’s top health official, said in a June 2017 email. “I agree, having him on board as soon as possible will be critical.”

The documents do not show what became of the plan or whether the VA ever sold access to patient data. Nor do the records include evidence that Moskowitz or the other Mar-a-Lago associates were in a position to profit personally.

A spokesman for the trio said as far as they know Fadem was not hired and the VA never acted on the licensing idea. “We were asked repeatedly by former Secretary Shulkin and his senior staff, as well as by the President, to assist the VA and that is what we sought to do, period,” the three said in a statement.

Shulkin, Alaigh, Trump’s office, the VA, Johnson & Johnson, CVS and Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Fadem died in 2019.

The latest revelation helps complete the picture of the Mar-a-Lago triumvirate’s extensive influence over Trump’s agenda for veterans, a signature issue in his 2016 campaign. ProPublica’s revelations about the men’s day-to-day involvement prompted investigations by congressional committees and the Government Accountability Office, as well as a court challenge.

House Oversight Committee chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and House Veterans Affairs Committee chairman Mark Takano, D-Calif., said in a statement on Monday that the documents show “the secret role the trio played in developing VA initiatives and programs, including a ‘hugely profitable’ plan to monetize veterans’ medical records.”

“Ike Perlmutter, Marc Sherman, and Dr. Bruce Moskowitz, bolstered by their connection to President Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club, violated the law and sought to exert improper influence over government officials to further their own personal interests,” the chairs said.

Perlmutter, Sherman and Moskowitz have previously said that they obtained no personal benefits, had no official role and exercised no formal authority.

But the newly released documents show that they did view themselves as an official advisory committee — and disregarded repeated warnings that they needed to comply with a Watergate-era transparency law.

“As the President asked, we can now formally create an official committee,” Perlmutter, the group’s leader and chairman of Marvel Entertainment, wrote in a February 2017 email after a meeting with Trump. Perlmutter is a Mar-a-Lago member and one of Trump’s biggest political donors.

Perlmutter went so far as to rebuke White House staff for holding discussions without him.

“I am shocked and extremely disappointed with the manner in which you have engaged in individual communications with Apple — and intentionally excluded our broader team of subject matter experts,” Perlmutter said in a March 2017 email to White House aides. “I understand that these backdoor discussions have apparently been occurring almost daily for weeks, and you have not told anyone and refuse to return phone calls and emails.”

Official advisory committees are governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The 1972 law, known as FACA, requires federal agencies to inform the public when they consult outside experts.

Administration officials repeatedly told the Mar-a-Lago trio that they would have to comply with the law. The law compels advisory committees to represent a range of views and disclose their activities to the public.

“It appears FACA may be implicated,” a VA lawyer said in a January 2017 email that Shulkin shared with Moskowitz.

That April, White House aide Reed Cordish told Perlmutter directly, “You will need to form a FACA group.”

But Perlmutter demurred, replying, “We have been advised that FACA does not apply because we are not a formal group in any way.”

Instead, the group took efforts to conceal its activities, documents show. “We are still unsure what can be put in emails and what to discuss verbally,” Moskowitz wrote to Shulkin in February 2017.

The group’s spokesman maintained they weren’t a formal committee and said complying with FACA was the agency’s responsibility.

In March 2021, a federal appeals court in Washington held that a liberal veterans group could proceed with a lawsuit to enforce FACA’s disclosure requirements around the Mar-a-Lago trio.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trumps-mar-a-lago-buddies-tried-to-get-the-va-to-sell-access-to-veterans-medical-records

[Rick Plant]

Wow...what a deranged lunatic. The brain of a 2 year old child. This nut should have been removed from office via the 25th Amendment.

Trump had 'Music Man' to calm his rages: new book

An aide dubbed the "Music Man" was tasked with playing calming tunes for Donald Trump when he went into rages, according to a scandal-filled book by a former press secretary.

Stephanie Grisham, notorious for not giving a single televised press conference while serving as Trump's chief spokeswoman, writes in "I'll Take Your Questions Now" that her boss went into "terrifying" rants.

The former president and his wife Melania have vociferously condemned the book, excerpts of which appeared Tuesday in The New York Times and Washington Post.

However, as a longtime insider in the tumultuous Trump years, Grisham's book is attracting attention ahead of its publication next week.

One frequent target of Trump's anger, the Times quoted the book as saying, was chief White House lawyer Pat Cipollone because he'd warn Trump that he was looking to do things that "were unethical or illegal. So (Trump would)... scream at them."

Sometimes, Trump's displeasure took bizarre turns, Grisham was quoted saying.

To calm Trump's moods, a handler known to White House staff as the "Music Man" would play him Broadway tunes, including "Memory" from the long-running hit show "Cats," the book claims.

According to Grisham, the Trump White House revolved around the boss's outsized ego, even when that meant lying to the public or stirring damaging rumors.

An example was Trump's mysterious visit to the presidential hospital at Walter Reed Medical Center in 2019.

The White House's refusal to explain the nature of the visit led to speculation that he was hiding a serious health problem.

Grisham says the visit was merely for a "very common procedure," which she hints was a colonoscopy. However, Trump refused to go under sedation because that would have meant handing power for a short time over to his vice president, Mike Pence, and he believed this would be "showing weakness," the Times quoted her as writing.

As for her own much criticized performance while holding the office of press secretary -- she was often unresponsive to journalists and killed off the traditional daily briefing -- Grisham claims she was just trying to stay out of trouble.

"I knew that sooner or later the president would want me to tell the public something that was not true or that would make me sound like a lunatic," she wrote.

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-had-music-man-calm-155735436.html

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White House aide played Trump show tunes to calm him down: Grisham book
https://www.businessinsider.com/max-miller-music-man-trump-showtunes-calm-down-grisham-book-2021-9

[Richard Smith]

In which we learn, after endless words, that Trump had a colonoscopy procedure in 2019!  Wow.  This from the same guy who claimed it was all a cover for a heart attack etc.  More lies exposed.  2024 is another day closer.