Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Congressional candidate Tina Forte has won the Republican primary in New York’s 14th Congressional District. She will be the 14th Republican 2022 QAnon congressional candidate to secure a spot on the general election ballot.

Here's more of the MAGA QAnon conspiracy freaks and weirdos running for Congress in the link below. 

https://mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/here-are-qanon-supporters-running-congress-2022

[Rick Plant]

Hitler-praising Carl Paladino loses GOP primary for Congress — and 'deals a blow' to Elise Stefanik



After wishing Barrack Obama would die of mad cow disease, praising Hitler, spreading covid misinformation on Facebook and calling for US Attorney General Merrick Garland to be executed, Carl Paladino lost his party's nomination tonight to New York state Republican Party Chair Nick Langworthy.

As Raw Story reported earlier today, Paladino's campaign was most recently advised by staunch Trump supporter Elise Stefanik's staff.

As reporter Bob Brigham noted:

The New York Times reported in June, "Carl P. Paladino, a Republican running for a House seat in Western New York, praised Adolf Hitler last year for inspiring his followers, describing the fascist dictator as 'the kind of leader we need today.' Mr. Paladino did not specifically condone Hitler’s actions in his remarks, which he made in a 2021 radio interview that was unearthed on Thursday. But he said he was impressed by how the German leader and head of the Nazi Party 'aroused the crowd' in his speeches and suggested that Republicans in New York and Washington ought to emulate his approach."

"On the eve of the NY primary, Elise Stefanik held a telephone rally for controversial GOP candidate Carl Paladino, per source. In another sign of Stefanik’s investment in the race, 2 aides from her political operation are on the ground advising Paladino on comms/strategy," CNN's Melanie Zanona reported,

"Stefanik endorsed Paladino, who has long history of controversial remarks, early on," Zanona explained. "And she has continued to not only stand by him, but also stump for him — even after he most recently suggested AG Merrick Garland should be 'executed.' (He later said he was being facetious.)"

Earlier tonight, Langworthy declared victory, while Paladino refused to concede.

As WKBW noted earlier today, "Langworthy racked up more endorsements from local Republicans in the district, although Paladino had the backing of Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), who is the No. 3 Republican in the House. Paladino’s loss is also a blow to Stefanik and her clout. When the seat opened up in June with the retirement of Rep. Chris Jacobs (N.Y.), Stefanik quickly backed Paladino — reportedly much to the surprise and frustration of other House GOP leaders, not to mention Langworthy."

https://www.rawstory.com/carl-paladino-hitler/



Alt-Right Activist Laura Loomer Loses GOP Nomination in Florida Primary

Laura Loomer, whose views critics have said make lawmakers like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert look like moderates, was narrowly defeated by Rep. Dan Webster for the Republican nomination for Florida’s 11th Congressional District.



After incumbent Rep. Dan Webster snagged the Republican nomination for Florida’s 11th Congressional District on Tuesday night, his opponent, alt-right troll Laura Loomer, told her supporters she wouldn’t acknowledge “Do-Nothing Daniel” and his narrow victory. “I’m not conceding, because I’m a winner,” Loomer said, to cheers and hoots. “And the reality is, is our Republican Party is broken to its core.” The race was called by the Associated Press, with 95 percent of votes reported. Webster took 50.7 percent of the district’s votes, with 42,281 Floridians casting their ballots for him; Loomer crawled away with 44.5 percent, or roughly fewer 5,000 votes than her opponent. An extremist who has espoused conspiracy theories and virulently Islamophobic views, Loomer made waves by drawing attention to the 73-year-old Webster’s age in a number of attack ads, referring to him as “too sick to vote” in one. Webster, who has represented his district since 2011, will face Democratic nominee Shante Munns in the general election come November.

I’M NOT CONCEDING!”  Laura Loomer attacks the Republican Party and alleges voter fraud after losing GOP primary to incumbent Florida congressman Daniel Webster. #news6

Watch Video: https://twitter.com/i/status/1562242537334755328

https://www.thedailybeast.com/alt-right-activist-laura-loomer-loses-gop-nomination-to-rep-dan-webster-in-florida-primary

[Rick Plant]

Nicolle Wallace sounds the alarm: 'Scariest thing I've heard on this program in a long time'

MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace confessed that one of the stories she was covering was "the scariest thing I’ve heard on this program in a long time."

In a recent report by Washington Post reporter Aaron Davis, it was revealed that allies of former President Donald Trump copied files from Georgia's electronic voting systems and then shared them with Trump's lawyers and other election deniers.

Wallace asked if that meant that people like Sidney Powell had her hands on such data. Davis said that they've made inquiries about whether Powell is one of those who has the data, but they haven't heard back yet.

"One interesting thing that you can tell, because of the detail of this particular computer data, is that while it was being taken from Georgia and used and shared among people in Georgia, it was also being shared among, say, Doug Kogan with the Cyber Ninjas working in the Arizona case and being shared with lawyers working on the Antrim, Michigan case," David explained. "So, there was multistate sharing of this data by attorneys who were trying to maintain some kind of arm's length from the Trump campaign itself and make it appear as if these were individual efforts."

He said that it's clear that all of it was being organized by the same pro-Trump sources.

"There are contracts that show — signed by Sidney Powell, signed by Jesse Banal, attorney and outside counsel for the Trump campaign, authorizing this forensic work, and one of the almost laughable parts of the contracts that have turned up now is that the computer forensics firm said, 'We trust that all of this information and stuff is stuff that you're licensed to use,'" Davis cited.

It turns out the info they were evaluating and doing forensic work on belonged to the government.

So, "it is a national issue," Davis continued. "And to your lead-in, you're right. So much of the post-2020 time period was people trying to look back and say, 'what happened before,' and 'was there problems about how the election was taking place?' Here, we're starting years before the next presidential election with a certain segment of the population bent on proving that there are problems with this software, and now have it. And we don't know how they could untangle and use it to manipulate or sabotage future elections."

"That is the scariest thing I've heard said on this program in a long time," Wallace confessed. She then turned to former CIA officer Tracy Walder and asked, "what do you need Russian election meddlers for when you have Sidney Powell?"

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Trump advisors fear the reason he refused to hand over classified documents: report

Donald Trump's own advisors were worried his refusal to hand over classified documents was essentially "daring" the FBI to come after him.

That dynamic was reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday under the headline, "FBI's Mar-a-Lago search followed months of resistance, delay by Trump."

"Donald Trump’s lawyers received ominous news in an April 12 email from the National Archives: The FBI would soon examine sensitive documents the former president had reluctantly returned to the government from his Florida club three months earlier," the newspaper reported. "The communication, which has been reviewed by The Washington Post, was a crucial pivot point in the probe of Trump’s handling of classified documents that led to the dramatic search of his Mar-a-Lago Club earlier this month."

Trump has reportedly displayed "anxiety" over his precarious legal position.

"In a legal filing on Monday, Trump’s lawyers insisted that he had been cooperating with Justice Department requests," the newspaper reported. "In fact, however, the narrative they laid out, as well as other documents and interviews, show that Trump ignored multiple opportunities to quietly resolve the FBI concerns by handing over all classified material in his possession — including a grand jury subpoena that Trump’s team accepted May 11. Again and again, he reacted with a familiar mix of obstinance and outrage, causing some in his orbit to fear he was essentially daring the FBI to come after him."

The newspaper described the situation before the search warrant as a "tortured standoff."

Read the full report: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/23/trump-records-mar-a-lago-fbi/



‘Something is different’ as Trump faces legal battle outside of presidency: NYT



Donald Trump is facing a precarious legal situation as his classified document scandal continues to look worse with every new revelation, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

"Mr. Trump has projected his usual bravado, and raised millions of dollars online from outraged supporters, since federal agents descended on the property more than two weeks ago and carted off boxloads of material including highly classified documents," Maggie Haberman, Glenn Thrush, and Alan Feuer reported. "But something is different this time — and the errant court filing offered a glimpse into the confusion and uncertainty the investigation has exposed inside Mr. Trump’s camp."

Late on Monday, Trump's team revealed an incriminating letter from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) sent in May.

"The documents investigation represents the greatest legal threat Mr. Trump has faced in years, and he is going into the battle shorn of the protective infrastructure and constitutional armor of the presidency. After years of burning through lawyers, he has struggled to hire new ones, and has a small group of lawyers of varying experience," The Times reported. "He is facing a Justice Department he no longer controls, run by a by-the-book attorney general, Merrick B. Garland, who has pursued various investigations into Mr. Trump methodically and quietly. Mr. Trump is serving as his own communications director and strategic adviser, seeking tactical political and in-the-moment public relations victories, sometimes at the risk of stumbling into substantive legal missteps."

Trump is going into this battle without the protections of the presidency.

"Now, as in the days after he lost the 2020 election, Mr. Trump is relying on an ad hoc team of advisers with varying levels of experience and judgment, and trying to use his political support as both a shield and a weapon to be aimed at the people investigating him," the newspaper reported. "But even as he fuels outrage in sympathetic media outlets and tries to turn attention to Mr. Biden and the so-called deep state, Mr. Trump is to some extent walking on the phantom limbs of his expired presidency, claiming executive privilege still applies to him even though he’s out of office and maintaining he had a sweeping, standing order to declassify some documents, which his aides have declined to produce."

Trump is also experiencing a shrinking inner circle.

"Mr. Trump’s court filing on Monday requesting the special master to review the seized documents was styled as a legal motion, but it sounded more like a news release drafted by Mr. Trump himself," the newspaper reported. "His concentric circles of political advisers, several layers deep when he held power, are also shrinking. Mr. Trump is thinly staffed as he sits at his private club at Bedminster, N.J., or at Trump Tower in New York City for the summer, and sometimes makes decisions without keeping his close advisers in the know."

Read the full report: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/23/us/politics/trump-struggles-strategy.html



‘There is no fall guy’: George Conway says Trump’s fingerprints are ‘literally' on the documents

Prominent conservative attorney George Conway described Donald Trump's legal maneuvering as "incomprehensible" during a Tuesday evening interview on CNN.

"So here's the question, did one of Trump's allies actually further implicate the former president of a potential crime?" CNN's Laura Coates asked. "After all, it was this letter that Trump ally John Solomon disclosed last night that revealed alarming new details about those 15 boxes of materials investigators received back in January."

Coates asked Conway why Trump's team released the letter.

"It's incomprehensible to me," Conway replied. "Basically that — and the motion he filed yesterday — are essentially admissions of guilt."

"And it's inexplicable to me other than you have a deranged client and bad advisers, both legal and political, Conway said. "That's the only explanation I have for it, but he is basically -- what he should be doing with this documents case is what he did in the New York attorney general case, which is pleading the Fifth Amendment and keeping his mouth shut."

Coates noted the reporting that Trump personally went through the boxes and concluded, 'That is very, very bad."

Coway said, "There is no fall guy."

"He can't dump it on [Mark] Meadows, there's no Allen Weissberg here," Conway explained. "He did this. His fingerprints literally and figuratively are on these documents and we have not heard a defense, we have not heard a single coherent defense. the only one they could possibly posit would be that he lacks the literacy skills to understand what was in the boxes."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Trump whines over classified documents: 'I don't understand why I can't have these things'

Former President Donald Trump said he doesn't understand why he can't have classified and top secret documents that were seized from Mar-a-Lago by the FBI, according to a report.

A source told The Wall Street Journal that Trump wants the FBI to return about two dozen boxes that included 11 sets of classified information.

“He has said, ‘People put this stuff in their library. How can they put it in their library if it has to go back to the Archives? I don’t understand why I can’t have these things,’ ” the source said.

The search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate came after the former president refused to return documents belonging to the National Archives.

Trump has claimed that he declassified all of the documents but has not presented any evidence of the declassification.

Read more here:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-search-of-trumps-mar-a-lago-heads-to-court-11661342557

[Rick Plant]

DOJ isn’t naming the prosecutors involved in the Trump case — legal experts think it's for their own safety



Former federal prosecutor and Los Angeles Times legal expert Harry Litman and Robert Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann noticed a key piece of information missing on the case around former President Donald Trump.

Weissmann pointed out that the Justice Department hasn't named the prosecutors who are on the case around the Mar-a-Lago search and investigation, which is a dramatic shift from previous cases, like his. When Weissmann was working under special counsel Robert Mueller his name as well as the names of other prosecutors were named in court documents. Now, they're not.

Weissmann wondered if this is an indication that there is a fear of physical threats and character assassination from supporters of the former president. Thus far they've done that with the judge who approved the search warrant of Mar-a-Lago. They not only attacked him, but they searched for his children and went after his Synagogue, forcing them to cancel Shabbat services.

Litman explained that it's a kind of caution that he's "never seen before."

Harry Litman @harrylitman

That’s an abundance of caution I’ve never seen before. It also keeps us from surmising some important facts, especially if there is an AUSA assigned from SDFL, which would suggest they really mean business

https://twitter.com/harrylitman/status/1562507088869306369


Andrew Weissmann@AWeissmann_

DOJ Lesson Learned? DOJ has not revealed names of line prosecutors on Trump investigations (MAL, J6) in contrast to practice in other high profile matters like Special Counsel investigation. Protection from physical threats and reputational assassination, one has to assume.

https://twitter.com/AWeissmann_/status/1562482551167787008

[Rick Plant]

The majority of Americans now feel that the threats to our democracy by the radical right is the #1 important issue in the upcoming midterm election as it should be. MAGA Republicans tried to end our democracy by stealing the 2020 election for Criminal Donald and are doing everything possible to turn America into a fascist country like Hungary. Republicans are in trouble with democracy as the #1 issue that's important to voters. 

New NBC News poll finds “threats to democracy” has overtaken the “cost of living” as the most important issue facing the country.

[Rick Plant]

'That's not what our report said': Mueller lawyer nails Bill Barr for lying in bombshell Trump memo



Last week, a Washington court of appeals ruled that former Attorney General Bill Barr lied about Donald Trump's involvement in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign cycle. Just days prior to Mueller's report being released, Barr said that he'd read the report and Trump did nothing wrong.

The Justice Department released the memo on Trump's obstruction of Mueller's prob revealing that it was more than clear he believed that Trump committed a crime in several cases when he tried to obstruct justice.

Speaking to MSNBC about the release of the memo on Wednesday, former Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann explained that the memo, penned by Barr's two top deputies Steven Angel and Ed O'Callaghan, provides new evidence that Barr covered up for Trump.

"Essentially it lays out a lot of what was redacted and we know it was a heavily redacted form of this before and it lays out the basics," explained NBC News justice reporter Ryan Reilly. "It does seem to be making what amounts to a defense argument for Trump in a lot of these cases. There's one line in here regarding the line where this was [former FBI Director James] Comey telling the president that he hoped that he could let this go, and they actually write in here that there was not -- it was not directing a, quote, clearly directed particular action in the investigation and Comey did not react at the time as though he had received the direct order from the president."

He went on to call it "defensive" and make a case for what Barr had already decided: that Trump wasn't going to be guilty of anything.

But it was Weissmann who gave inside information into what he experienced while working for Mueller. The Mueller report made it clear that there were at least 10 instances of obstruction of justice by the former president. Barr, on the other hand, wrote there was no obstruction.

"This memo, as you said, is a doozy because it has been kept under wraps and the Department of Justice thought even giving it to the district court for [the judge] to read, there is a reason when she read it that her decision was that this needs to be made public. The court of appeals agreed with her. Now to the substance. Why did they try and keep this under wraps? There is a sentence in here that is astounding to me," Weissmann continued. "The two senior staff, say to Bill Barr that the reason he should make the decision is because if the memo comes out it might be read to imply that the president committed obstruction. Let me just repeat that: that the reason Bill Barr needs to say something is because if the memo because if the report comes out it could be read to say that the president committed obstruction."

He explained that it's noticeable that there's no discussion on the memo about Bill Barr telling Mueller that he wants the special counsel to conclude whether Trump committed any obstructions of justice in his investigation or not.

"We now know clearly from his memo did not send it back to Mueller — who reported to him — was because he knew exactly what the answer would be. Because it says in black and white that this memo could be read to conclude that the president committed obstruction," Weissmann concluded.

There is another point, he explained, that is simply "dead wrong." At one point in the memo it says that Trump didn't commit obstruction of justice because you can't obstruct justice when you're not guilty of the underlying crime.

"That is legally wrong," he explained. "Our report actually addresses that. We cite all cases including the Arthur Anderson case which I know very well and this memo simply does not successfully, at least in my view, address the legal precedents, and it is not the case that you cannot be guilty of obstruction if you didn't commit the underlying crime."

Finally, he said that the point the memo gets completely wrong is that Mueller's report found no evidence of an underlying crime or conspiracy with the Russians.

"That's not what our report said," Weissmann concluded. "It said that there's evidence. It's just that we didn't think there was evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. So, the sort of upshot, Nicolle is, I can understand why the department has fought long and hard not to have this see the day and it's quite a shocking document."

Watch: