Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

John Eastman reveals Trump took a direct role in developing legal strategy to overturn election loss



John Eastman revealed Friday in a court filing that he routinely communicated with Donald Trump either directly or through "six conduits" in the weeks ahead of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The right-wing attorney asked a federal judge to maintain attorney-client privilege over his work for the former president, and the late-night filing gave the clearest view yet of the communications between Trump and the battalion of attorneys and allies helping his effort to remain in power despite losing the election, reported Politico.

The filing shows Trump took a direct role in those efforts, describing “two hand-written notes from former President Trump about information that he thought might be useful for the anticipated litigation," which Eastman is looking to shield, and the attorney also said he spoke directly to the former president about legal challenges in states he lost.

Eastman wants to prevent the House select committee from obtaining 600 emails related to his so-called "coup memo," which sought to enlist Mike Pence and GOP-led state legislatures to overturn the 2020 election outcome, and he also asked U.S. District Court Judge David Carter of California to shield his contacts with state legislators to discuss appointing pro-Trump electors in state Joe Biden had won.

The filing does not identify the White House officials and attorneys he communicated with during that period, but some of those attorneys -- including Kurt Olsen and Bruce Marks -- filed declarations supporting Eastman's claims about his work for Trump.

Eastman also reveals that he exchanged a dozen emails with Fox News host Mark Levin, whom he doesn't identify by name but whom he describes as “an individual who, in addition to his role as a radio talk show host, is also an attorney, former long-time President (and current board Chairman) of a public interest law firm, and also a former fellow at The Claremont Institute.”

Read more here: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/20/eastman-trump-role-legal-overturn-election-00034023

[Rick Plant]

Trump growing gun shy about endorsements as his losses pile up



According to reports from both Politico and CNN, former President Donald Trump is unhappy that a substantial number of candidates he has endorsed have faltered at the polls and he will be more circumspect going forward over fears that he will be seen as weak when it comes to dictating the future of the Republican Party.

As Politico Playbook notes, Trump has not been as successful at picking winners as his supporters would like people to believe, and his success rate has been inflated by endorsing candidates facing little or no competition.

Adding to his current woes and damage to his reputation is the floundering campaign of Dr. Mehmet Oz for the GOP nomination for an open U.S. Senate seat that could be headed to a recount.

As Politico's Ryan Lizza wrote, "Trump’s endorsement losses are starting to pile up," adding, "Most of his endorsements have been in races where his anointed candidate faced little or no competition. Nobody would be impressed by a handicapper who won placing bets at a track featuring races with only one horse."

Writing Trump’s record in competitive races now stands at "seven wins and four losses — a 64% winning percentage" Lizza suggested, "That’s not bad, but it’s not nearly as good as the padded win-loss record Trump world promotes."

That, in turn, led to CNN's Gabby Orr reporting that aspiring candidates seeking the former president's endorsement may not get their phone calls returned.

As Orr reported, Trump is "'agitated' by the uncertain outcome in the Keystone State primary, where his endorsement of celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz failed to translate into a decisive win against former hedge fund manager David McCormick. As of Thursday morning, the race remains tight and appears likely to head to an automatic recount as required by Pennsylvania law when the vote margin falls below 0.5%."

As one of his advisers put it: "This is not how he expected this to go. If Oz loses, it puts him in an awkward spot because he absolutely trashed David McCormick at his rally and pissed off quite a few allies who never thought he should have endorsed Oz."

According to the report, things are about to get worse for Trump with Georgia's primary on Tuesday, with Orr reporting, "...while Tuesday's primaries in Pennsylvania and North Carolina may have delivered mixed results for the former President, next week's much-anticipated gubernatorial primary in Georgia is looking increasingly likely to hand Trump a major setback. With a flood of support from big-name Republicans such as former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp is widely favored to fend off a GOP primary challenge from former Sen. David Perdue, who was hand-picked and recruited by Trump last year amid the former President's frustration with Kemp's refusal to contest the 2020 election results in Georgia."

As one Trump aide lamented, "Georgia will be an absolute bloodbath. My guess is that will have the biggest effect on the endorsement process."

https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-endorsements-2657359611/

[Rick Plant]

Another MAGA lunatic running for Governor of Pennsylvania.

Trump-loving Doug Mastriano aired 'poisonous' conspiracies in old thesis calling for military takeover of US society



Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano wrote a master's thesis two decades ago warning of a left-wing “Hitlerian Putsch."

The Donald Trump-endorsed Republican candidate published the highly unusual thesis in 2001, when he was a major at the Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College, from the point of view of a colonel living in 2018 who has taken refuge in an "isolated cavern" following the collapse of the U.S. military and the deaths of millions of Americans under a left-wing leader by the United Nations and the European Union, reported the Washington Post.

“Domestically, life was bleak with a rampant drug culture, hedonism and a plethora of ‘alternate’ religions dominating the American youth,” wrote Mastriano, in the voice of his fictional colonel. “We were a people without vision or direction.”

Mastriano concluded the military must take action to "prevent the destruction of the republic," which he linked to “aberrant se*ual conduct,” and the thesis foreshadows the right-wing conspiratorial worldview that fed his claims about Donald Trump's election defeat and the Jan. 6 insurrection.

“This thesis proves that Mastriano’s embrace of activity that undermines the U.S. Constitution is no recent corruption,” said Peter Feaver, a former senior White House official under George W. Bush. “It stems from poisonous views and misunderstandings that he has held for a very long time.”

Read more here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/20/mastriano-thesis-hitlerian-putsch-pennsylvania/

[Rick Plant]

'Sordid, corrupt, lawless': Experts call new Ginni Thomas revelations 'breathtaking' and ask 'what did her husband know?'



The latest revelations about the actions of Ginni Thomas, the far right wing activist, lobbyist, and spouse of a sitting U.S. Supreme Court justice who had unprecedented access to the Trump White House are leading experts to demand Clarence Thomas' recusal while calling the combination of their actions "breathtaking corruption," and noting the Justice's extraordinary hypocrisy.

Later Friday morning The Washington Post reported that Ginni Thomas pressed two Arizona lawmakers to overturn the will of Arizona's voters in the 2020 presidential election by choosing a "clean" slate of electors, representing Donald Trump and not Joe Biden. The Post notes Thomas did not mention any candidate by name but reports "the context was clear."

“Before you choose your state’s Electors ... consider what will happen to the nation we all love if you don’t stand up and lead,” an email bearing Ginni Thomas' name, sent to the Arizona lawmakers, reads.

It included a link to a video of a man delivering a message meant for swing-state lawmakers, urging them to “put things right” and “not give in to cowardice.”

“You have only hours to act,” said the speaker, who is not identified in the video.

Thomas also pressed Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to work to overturn the election, as has been widely reported.

Her efforts, combined with Justice Thomas' actions on the Supreme Court, amount to "breathtaking corruption," writes Slate's legal expert Mark Joseph Stern.

"The conflict of interest between Ginni and Clarence Thomas has never been greater. While Clarence was applying the 'independent state legislature doctrine' from the bench, Ginni was using the exact same theory to try to overturn the 2020 election. Just breathtaking corruption," Stern says.

Clarence Thomas' continued service on the Supreme Court is a scandalous and appalling breach of judicial ethics. He is implementing the exact same theories that his wife used to try to steal the 2020 election for Trump. It is sordid, corrupt, and lawless in the extreme.

He adds:

To be clear, I put “independent state legislature doctrine” in quotes because it’s a baseless theory that shouldn’t be taken seriously. It is precisely what Ginni Thomas describes in that email, though she didn’t use the academic name for it. Read more:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/supreme-court-democracy-independent-state-legislature.html

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance, now an NBC News/MSNBC legal analyst and law professor, issued a strong warning:

"Either Justice Thomas recuses in every case that comes to the Court where his wife is heavily involved in the action or the public’s confidence in the Court will be damaged beyond repair."

Reuters reporter covering the U.S. Supreme Court, Lawrence Hurley:

"I wonder how long we’re going to have these institutions at the rate we’re undermining them," Justice Clarence Thomas, Ginni's husband, said last week.

Former federal corruption prosecutor Noah Bookbinder, who is president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) says it is "outrageous" Justice Thomas has refused to recuse:

"New evidence that Ginni Thomas's participation in efforts to overturn the 2020 election was even greater than we knew; in this case pressure on AZ legislators to overturn that state's vote. Makes it even more outrageous that Justice Thomas did not recuse."

"Wow!" exclaimed Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and former New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. "Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressed Arizona legislators to overturn Biden's win and choose a 'clean slate of electors.' In other words, she supported a coup to overthrow an elected president. What did her husband know?"

Economist and frequent political commentator David Rothschild observes, "Ginni Thomas was conspiring with high ranking Republicans to overturn [the] republic, and her husband was either privy to or actively involved in this conspiracy before using his position to coverup his wife’s role."

Former SDNY Asst. U.S. Attorney Richard Signorelli sums up:

"clean slate of Electors" = sedition
Ginni Thomas = psycho

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/05/ginni-thomas-also-pressed-arizona-lawmakers-to-overturn-2020-election-stand-strong/

[Rick Plant]

Billionaire Twitter takeover backer was on coup planning call with Lindsey Graham and Sean Hannity: report



Billionaire Larry Ellison participated in a phone call with some of Donald Trump's biggest supporters discussing efforts to keep the former reality TV star in office despite the fact he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, according to a new report.

"Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder and chairman of the software company Oracle and the biggest backer of Elon Musk’s attempted Twitter takeover, participated in a call shortly after the 2020 election that focused on strategies for contesting the legitimacy of the vote, according to court documents and a participant," The Washington Post reported Friday. "Ellison’s participation illustrates a previously unknown dimension in the multifaceted campaign to challenge Trump’s loss, an effort still coming into focus more than 18 months later."

The newspaper reported that also on the call were Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-SC), Fox News personality Sean Hannity, Trump attorney Jay Sekulow and far-right attorney James Bopp, Jr.

"Ellison is the 11th-richest person in the world, with a net worth of about $85 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He became a major political power broker during the Trump administration, hosting the president in 2020 for a fundraiser at his estate in California’s Coachella Valley and contributing millions to Republican candidates and committees, including to Graham, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission," the newspaper reported.

The existence of the call was revealed by a message sent by Graham.

"Ellison’s participation in the call was confirmed by a participant, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private matters. This person said Ellison, as a technology executive, may have been enlisted to assess claims about voting machines made by Sidney Powell, a onetime member of Trump’s legal team. And the person said the GOP megadonor was probably looped in by Graham, as part of a discussion about whether the Trump campaign had assembled an effective legal team," the newspaper reported.

The newspaper noted Oracle donated $499,000 to the Federalist Society in 2019.

"Ellison personally has invested significantly in Republican candidates and causes," the newspaper reported. "This month, Ellison pledged $1 billion to support Musk’s $44 billion Twitter takeover, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That makes him the largest single backer of the bid, which has been cheered by Trump allies because of comments Musk and his associates have made about loosening rules on content moderation and possibly letting the former president back on the platform."

Ellison is on the board of directors of Musk's Tesla.

"He owns nearly all of the Hawaiian island of Lanai," The Post noted.

Read the full report:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/20/larry-ellison-oracle-trump-election-challenges/

[Rick Plant]

Watch: Lauren Boebert called out by local media for 'openly espousing' the Buffalo shooter’s racist creed



Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-CO) received a sharp rebuke from a local media outlet this week for echoing an insidious racist conspiracy theory that appears to have inspired the suspected Buffalo gunman.

"The targeted killing of Black shoppers at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, over the weeks is just the latest mass shooting apparently inspired by the baseless and racist replacement theory," said News 9 anchor Kyle Clark. "The idea that Jews and Democratic elites are trying to replace white Americans with people of color from other countries."

"There are some conservative political figures that will hit about this theory or speak about it in code and then there’s Colorado Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert."

Clark then played a clip of Boebert speaking about a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, in which she remarked "yes, there is definitely a replacement theory that’s going on right now."

"That was Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert openly espousing replacement theory by name in 2021," Clark emphasized.

The 18-year-old suspect, Payton Gendron, took explicit inspiration from the white supremacist gunman who murdered 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019.

The Christchurch killer had warned in a manifesto of a "Great Replacement" of white Christians of European descent by Blacks, Jews, Muslims, Latinos and others, a theory that has found an increasing echo in American right-wing politics and on cable news.

Lifting often word-for-word from the rambling text, Gendron produced a chilling 180-page manifesto of his own -- in which he stated his goal: to "kill as many Blacks as possible."

Gendron himself came from a rural town in New York state that had a very small number of non-white residents.

He learned his hate almost exclusively online, a pattern of "radicalization" that law enforcement authorities say has only increased in recent years to become a major threat for the United States.

Gendron drove 200 miles to the Tops market in Buffalo to carry out his attack in a neighborhood he knew had a large African American population, during the busiest shopping period of the week.

His shooting spree left 10 African Americans dead.

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

'Coup memo' author threw Trump under the bus in new court filing: Nicolle Wallace



MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on Thursday said that efforts by lawyer John Eastman to protect himself further implicated Donald Trump as the ringleader of the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

"John Eastman, the attorney who architected Donald Trump’s last-ditch legal strategy to overturn the 2020 election, revealed Friday that he routinely communicated with Trump either directly or via 'six conduits' during the chaotic weeks that preceded the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol," Politico reported Friday. "In a late-night court filing urging a federal judge to maintain the confidentiality of his work for Trump, Eastman provided the clearest insight yet into the blizzard of communications between Trump, his top aides, his campaign lawyers and the army of outside attorneys who were working to help reverse the outcome in a handful of states won by Joe Biden."

Eastman is seeking to convince U.S. District Court Judge David Carter to shield his conversations from the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Eastman says he received “two hand-written notes from former President Trump about information that he thought might be useful for the anticipated litigation.”

Wallace described how she perceived the dynamics.

She said Eastman, "who from the outside, it looks like he's trying to strengthen attorney-client privilege claims, but in doing so, he seems to either wittingly or unwittingly be throwing Donald Trump under the bus as the architect of the coup. He's alleging that, I guess, everything he did was in direct consultation with and after conversations and handwritten notes from Donald Trump."

"How does the 1/6 committee view those revelations?" she asked New York Times reporter Luke Broadwater.

"Yeah, it's really a fascinating court filing from John Eastman, where he says that he spoke directly to President Trump as they were coming up with some of these legal theories to try to overturn the election," he replied.

"Now, we know Donald Trump called John Eastman into the Oval Office and the two of them together attempted to pressure Mike Pence and then later Mike Pence's attorney, lead attorney, to go along with the plan to overturn the election throughout legitimate votes or delay the certification of the votes to give state legislatures the chance to install pro-Trump electors and put Donald Trump in office for a second term," he explained.

"But yeah, I mean, he directly names Donald Trump here as being one of the people who directed this plan and came up with it, and you know, I do think this is a fascinating revelation," Broadwater noted.

Watch: