Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

DOJ subpoenas Pat Cipollone in ‘dramatic escalation’ of Trump coup investigation: report

Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury investigating the efforts of Donald Trump supporters to overturn the 2020 presidential election, ABC News reported on Tuesday.

"The sources told ABC News that attorneys for Cipollone -- like they did with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol -- are expected to engage in negotiations around any appearance, while weighing concerns regarding potential claims of executive privilege," ABC News reported. "The move to subpoena Cipollone signals an even more dramatic escalation in the Justice Department's investigation of the Jan. 6 attack than previously known, following appearances by senior members of former Vice President Mike Pence's staff before the grand jury two weeks ago."

In July, the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol played testimony from Cipollone's deposition.

Attorney Tristen Snell, who prosecuted Trump University for the New York attorney general's office, said the subpoena was a sign that the Department of Justice "is almost caught up with the January 6 committee."

Cipollone's lawyers told ABC News they plan to engage in "negotiations" over following the subpoena.

Read the full report:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/white-house-counsel-subpoenaed-federal-grand-jury-investigating/story?id=87845397

[Rick Plant]

'Taken over by nutjobs': MSNBC's John Heilemann explains how Trump gave Democrats 'strong hand to play' in Arizona

[Rick Plant]

Cipollone will spill the beans — and make it the 'worst day for Donald Trump': Watergate prosecutor

On Wednesday's edition of MSNBC's "The Beat," former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman laid out the significance of former Trump White House Counsel Pat Cipollone being subpoenaed by DOJ investigators to speak to a grand jury as part of their investigation into the plot to overthrow the 2020 presidential election.

This development, argued Akerman, could pose a new and grave legal threat to the former president.

"I want us to really be clear about what's happening," said anchor Ari Melber. "There is this thing, a bias in the human mind, and certainly in the news media, where you get tired of something. You say, I heard about Cipollone, so what. But from what I understand, the worst day ever in this whole thing is now, because this isn't the whole thing. This is the federal criminal probe. For someone who says 'Enough with Pat,' can you explain that?"

"I think that this is actually the worst day for Donald Trump, because Pat Cipollone is going to be talking more before the grand jury," said Akerman. "The January 6 Committee — they were concerned about getting him in there, getting Pat in there. But they bent over backwards. They allowed him, basically, to claim executive privilege with any conversations he had with Donald Trump. They allowed him to claim attorney-client privilege. None of this is going to go anywhere with the feds. He is going to claim privileges with individual questions. They will take him to a court judge, who is going to order him to testify and tell him there is no privilege. He could appeal it to the circuit court, but all of this will go much quicker behind closed doors."

Akerman proceeded to explain another key difference between the DOJ investigation and the January 6 Committee that is relevant for Cipollone.

"Unlike the committee, the Department of Justice doesn't have to worry about midterm elections, and the fact that they may not be around next year," said Akerman. "That's not going to happen. I think that the Department of Justice is going to get a lot more information from Pat Cipollone. If he thought that was his worst experience going before the committee, he is in for a major surprise when he appears before that grand jury."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

DOJ expands probe with another subpoena for key Trump White House official: CNN

[Rick Plant]

Right-wing conferences have become more plentiful and more 'extreme': report



Far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has been drawing vehement criticism around the world for a July 23 speech in Romania, where he declared that a “mixed-race world” is harmful to western countries and promoted the racist Great Replacement theory. The speech was so racist that even long-time Orbán adviser Zsuzsa Hegedüs resigned in protest, calling it “a purely Nazi diatribe worthy of Joseph Goebbels.” But despite that controversy, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) plans to go ahead and feature Orbán at the start of its Dallas gathering. Orbán, in fact, is scheduled to give one of the keynote speeches when the event opens on Thursday, August 4.

The four-day Dallas event, which continues through Sunday, August 7, has a far-right lineup of MAGA culture warriors. In addition to Orbán, CPAC Texas 2022 will feature former President Donald Trump, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, “War Room” host and former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

In an article published by Mother Jones’ website in early August and also included in the publication’s September/October 2022 print edition, journalist Stephanie Mencimer takes a look at the abundance of right-wing conferences and conventions that are being held in the U.S. in 2022 — stressing that such events have become both more plentiful and more “extreme.”

“With no analog on the left, these events are an underappreciated component of the MAGA infrastructure,” Mencimer explains. “Amplified by conservative media, they help propel candidates and influencers far beyond in-person audiences. Even as they claim to showcase the GOP’s best and brightest, they also provide a national platform for disgraced politicians, bona fide criminals, and others who might have trouble finding a real job — but discover the conference circuit to be a generous source of speaking fees and book sales. These gatherings are a stew of nationalist ideas and conspiracy theories served to the movement’s most enthusiastic base, priming them for future election battles. And oh, the merch!”

Mencimer continues, “There are now so many conservative events that they are practically a full-time job for a host of Trump acolytes…. These events also offer a springboard for purported victims of woke cancel culture or otherwise infamous actors seeking to become GOP candidates, a dynamic that pushes the party further to the extremes.”

CPAC was founded in 1974, the year in which President Richard Nixon resigned because of the Watergate scandal — and in 2022, it is way to the right of where it was 48 years ago. Never Trump conservative S.E. Cupp has slammed CPAC’s willingness to promote Orbán as a glaring example of the event’s intellectual decline.

CPAC is competing with many more right-wing events than it was in the past. Mencimer notes that when she started covering CPAC in the late 2000s, the “options” for right-wing conferences “consisted mainly of…. CPAC and the Value Voters Summit.” Now, she observes, the options also include everything from AMPFest to the Truth & Liberty Coalition Conference to the Turning Point USA Young Women’s Leadership Summit to White nationalist Nick Fuentes’ America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC).

The journalist points out that CPAC, along the way, became more and more supportive of Republican Party “wingnuts.”

“Even before the Trump era,” Mencimer notes, “CPAC was a playground for the party’s wingnuts…. A decade ago, CPAC came under fire for featuring White nationalists on a panel. Today, such views have arguably moved center stage, with Trump and Tucker Carlson as headliners. Even so, organizers walk a fine line in trying to keep out the party’s most embarrassing racists or professional trolls drawn to the show, like the vendors selling anti-Muslim t-shirts, or White nationalists like ‘groyper’ Nick Fuentes, who is always trying to crash the party. After CPAC banned them, Fuentes and the groypers started a rival conference — same time, same town."

Read More Here:

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/08/trump-merch-rabid-fans-disgraced-ex-officials-inside-the-right-wing-conference-circuit/

[Rick Plant]

More on Cipollone.

Federal grand jury subpoenas ex-Trump WH counsel Cipollone in 2020 election probe, source says
https://www.wishtv.com/news/federal-grand-jury-subpoenas-ex-trump-wh-counsel-cipollone-in-2020-election-probe-source-says/

[Rick Plant]

GOP’s new ‘bathrooms, bedrooms and race’ mantra on display at ‘fascist’ CPAC summit: report



The Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas was a sign of a troubling fascist direction being chosen by American conservatives.

"Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban won over the crowd at CPAC Texas on Thursday, arguing that his nationalist agenda in Hungary aligns with the goals of the American conservative movement – and sounding a lot like the conference’s upcoming Saturday keynote speaker, former President Donald Trump," CNN reported Thursday. "The right-wing European leader hit guaranteed applause lines – including telling the Texas crowd that 'Hungary is the Lone Star State of Europe' – and criticizing liberals, the news media and the Democratic Party."

During his speech, Orban said he predicted tomorrow's headlines in America would declare, "Far-Right, European Racist and Anti-Semite, Strongman, Trojan Horse of Putin, Holds Speech at Conservative Conference.

MSNBC anchor Mehdi Hasan described it as fascism and displayed a list of ten Republican election deniers on the ballot.

"They do not believe in liberal democracy," Hasan said. "And so today, in 2022, I'm sorry to say the Republican playbook is Viktor Orban playbook, and you can call that what you want, but I'm going to continue to call it fascism.

Anne Applebaum, author of the 2003 book Gulag: A History and the 2020 book Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, posted to Twitter four reasons that CPAC "admires" Orban.

"He bent the rules, changing his constitution and altering voting laws in order to remain in power, indefinitely," Applebaum wrote. "He destroyed the independent media; nothing remains but a few websites."

"He doesn't keep his homophobia, his anti-semitism or his racism a secret," Applebaum continued. "He moves, walks and talks like a Ruritanian dictator from a movie."

NYU Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the author of the book Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present, noted that Fox News host Tucker Carlson traveled to Hungary in 2021 to hype Orban.

"Orban's appearance today at CPAC is the outcome of a carefully cultivated relationship," she said. "He can be the Big Man mentoring the GOP in how to wreck a democracy."

In May, after CPAC held a summit in Budapest, Ben-Ghiat wrote, "we can also see Orban's impact on things like the rollback of reproductive rights in the U.S. Former Vice President Mike Pence previewed the Supreme Court opinion in Budapest last fall as a speaker at Orban’s 'Summit for Democracy' where 'pro-family' agendas, meant to increase the 'right' kinds of births (white, Christian births) twinned with anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ platforms."

Stuart Stevens, the Lincoln Project strategist who has worked on five GOP presidential campaigns, posted, without attribution, “This is why we have always fought: we are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become peoples of mixed-race.”

"That’s not David Duke, it’s Viktor Orban, the star of CPAC, the new darling of American conservatism," Stevens noted. "Bathrooms, bedrooms & race. That’s who they are."

Reflecting on the embrace of Orban by the far-right, civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill noted, "over 400,000 Americans were killed in WWII-a war in which 88% of the soldiers were white. And yet we see so many Americans (mostly white) so readily defile the sacrifice of their grandparents and forbears who fought in WWII and defeated fascism, by embracing the rise of fascism here."

"And perhaps that’s because so many who fought fascism abroad were still prepared to tolerate, embrace or promote white supremacy and racism at home. And there’s the rub," Ifill wrote. "Orban and Trump’s rhetoric is not alien to this country. It had been pushed to the margins. But it is not alien."

And that’s why we have to confront and grapple with the contradictions of our history," she counseled. "So that we can understand what calls will resonate in times of fear and stress-calls that repeat earlier unresolved contradictions and threaten the project of building a healthy multi-racial democracy."

Watch Mehdi Hasan's analysis: