Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Richard Smith]

Nice try. Donald Trump is currently under criminal investigation in Georgia for his election fraud crimes. Criminal Donald is recorded on the phone demanding the Georgia Secretary of State "to find" votes for him. That is illegal and criminal. He will be indicted for this. You can stop with the phony right wing conspiracy theories. 

Hilarious how you deny Trump's election fraud crime when his phone call was recorded on tape by the Georgia Republican Secretary of State which is criminal.

Keep hoping.  Thankfully it was recorded and debunked the fake Wash Post story that every leftist media outlet ran for months.  It validated that Trump believed, rightly or wrongly, that there was voter fraud in Georgia.  It is not a crime to ask for a fair election even if that is based on an erroneous premise.  The underlying story that Trump asked them to "find the fraud" was debunked by the tape recording.  The Wash Post retracted that fake story.  The real intent here is to deny the American voters an opportunity to reelect Trump in 2024.  Why not simply allow the democratic process to decide who will be the next president?  No faith in Kamala?  Where has she been?  No one has seen her in months as disaster after disaster unfolded under Old Joe.  Her only smart decision was to go into hiding rather than be tainted with his disasters.

[Rick Plant]

Keep hoping.  Thankfully it was recorded and debunked the fake Wash Post story that every leftist media outlet ran for months.  It validated that Trump believed, rightly or wrongly, that there was voter fraud in Georgia.  It is not a crime to ask for a fair election even if that is based on an erroneous premise.  The underlying story that Trump asked them to "find the fraud" was debunked by the tape recording.  The Wash Post retracted that fake story.  The real intent here is to deny the American voters an opportunity to reelect Trump in 2024.  Why not simply allow the democratic process to decide who will be the next president?  No faith in Kamala?  Where has she been?  No one has seen her in months as disaster after disaster unfolded under Old Joe.  Her only smart decision was to go into hiding rather than be tainted with his disasters.

 

Fake Wash Post story? You're hilarious Richard. More new info came out today. Keep living in denial. Criminal Donald is going to prison.

Criminal inquiry into Trump’s Georgia election interference gathers steam: The disgraced former president faces a range of possible charges – including conspiracy and election fraud

Tue 5 Oct 2021

Donald Trump is facing increasing legal scrutiny in the crucial battleground state of Georgia over his attempt to sway the 2020 election there, and that heat is now overlapping with investigations in Congress looking at the former president’s efforts to subvert American democracy.

A criminal investigation into Trump’s 2 January call prodding Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “just find” him 11,780 votes to block Joe Biden’s win in the state is making headway. The Georgia district attorney running the inquiry is now also sharing information with the House committee investigating the 6 January attack on the Capitol in Washington DC.

Meanwhile, a justice department taskforce investigating threats to election officials nationwide has launched inquiries in Georgia, where election officers and workers received death threats or warnings of violence, including some after Trump singled out one official publicly for not backing his baseless fraud claims.

Despite these investigations, Trump is still pushing bogus fraud claims in Georgia. Trump wrote to Raffensperger in September asking him to decertify the election results, which is impossible, and with an eye on the 2022 elections is trying to oust Raffensperger, as well as the state’s governor, Brian Kemp, and other top Republicans who defied his demands to block Biden’s win.

Former justice department officials and voting rights advocates say Trump’s conspiratorial attacks on Georgia’s election results, and the threats to public officials, need to be investigated diligently, and prosecuted if warranted by law enforcement, to protect election integrity and public officials.

Experts add that Trump’s alarming refusal to accept the Georgia election outcome and seek revenge on Republican officials who ignored his baseless fraud charges may affect a few pivotal 2022 races. His efforts may also encourage extremism and restrictions on minority and other voting rights similar to ones the Georgia legislature enacted this year.

Veteran DoJ officials and prosecutors say the criminal inquiry launched by the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, into Trump’s call to Raffensperger and other efforts Trump made to overturn the Georgia results, seems well grounded, with ample public evidence. But they said it will probably take some time before Willis decides whether to bring charges.

Willis has said prosecutors are scrutinizing “potential violations of Georgia law prohibiting the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration”.

The Georgia investigation’s merits were bolstered in late September by the release of a well-documented 107-page study from the Brookings Institution detailing Trump’s high-pressure drive to block Biden’s win in the state. The report concluded that Trump faced “substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes”.

Boasting extensive documentation from the public record, the report notes that Trump’s broad effort to nullify the outcome in Georgia included personal contacts with the governor, the state attorney general and the secretary of state’s chief investigator.

“Trump engaged in a pattern of repeated personal communications aimed at altering the vote count and making himself the winner in Georgia,” Donald Ayer, one of several authors of the Brookings report and a former deputy attorney general in the George HW Bush administration, said in an interview.

“He did so in the absence of any even arguable evidence of voting or counting irregularities. Unless there are other presently unknown facts that would explain it, this conduct appears to satisfy the requirements of a number of Georgia criminal statutes.”

To further the Georgia inquiry, Willis reportedly has in recent weeks turned to the House select committee looking into the 6 January attack on the Capitol to share documents and information that could assist her work.

Willis’s outreach to the congressional committee doesn’t surprise some expert observers.

“Her resources to address local crime are already taxed and any investigative steps taken on Capitol Hill means her likely marathon of a case against the former president may be a little closer to the finish line,” Michael J Moore, a former Georgia prosecutor and Democrat, said in an interview.

The district attorney’s progress was underscored by Raffensperger telling the Daily Beast in August that Fulton county investigators had “asked us for documents, they’ve talked to some of our folks, and we’ll cooperate fully”.

According to the news outlet, at least four people in Raffensperger’s office have been interviewed, including attorney Ryan Germany and the chief operating officer, Gabriel Sterling.

On another legal front, the FBI has begun interviews in recent weeks with several Georgia election officials about death threats and other dangerous warnings they received in the months after the election from Trump backers suggesting falsely that Georgia officials were involved in election rigging.

For instance, Richard Barron, who heads the Fulton county board of elections, told the Guardian he was interviewed by two FBI agents in early September and informed them about two death threats he received, including one in the summer “full of white supremacist language” which warned he would be “served lead”.

“I hope the FBI makes some arrests,” Barron added. “People need to be held accountable for making threats against public officials.” Barron noted that threats against him and his majority Black staff rocketed after the election, when Democrats also won two Senate seats in the historically red-leaning state. Threats against Barron escalated further after Trump singled him out by name at a rally, he said.

Former justice department prosecutors say that the taskforce looking into these threats has to be aggressive. “Absent rigorous law enforcement, responsible citizens will shy away from seeking these types of important public jobs, especially if they feel their families will be under threat,” said Paul Pelletier, a former acting chief of the fraud section at DoJ.

But even with these inquiries heating up, Trump has continued to spread his false claims about the election results, as he did at a campaign-style rally in Perry, Georgia, on 25 September, where a few of his favored Georgia candidates spoke –including Representative Jody Hice, who is hoping to defeat Raffensperger in a primary contest.

Trump’s drive to retaliate against Republican politicians who defied his efforts to overturn Biden’s Georgia win has dismayed some veteran party operatives who see them as counterproductive.

“I think the Trump presence in Georgia has not been good for the GOP’s politics the last two years,” said Republican lobbyist Ed Rogers, who hails from Alabama. “Politics is about addition, and vengeance is not consistent with addition.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/05/donald-trump-criminal-investigations-georgia-election-interference

[Richard Smith]

Fake Wash Post story? You're hilarious Richard. More new info came out today. Keep living in denial. Criminal Donald is going to prison.

Criminal inquiry into Trump’s Georgia election interference gathers steam: The disgraced former president faces a range of possible charges – including conspiracy and election fraud

Tue 5 Oct 2021

Donald Trump is facing increasing legal scrutiny in the crucial battleground state of Georgia over his attempt to sway the 2020 election there, and that heat is now overlapping with investigations in Congress looking at the former president’s efforts to subvert American democracy.

A criminal investigation into Trump’s 2 January call prodding Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “just find” him 11,780 votes to block Joe Biden’s win in the state is making headway. The Georgia district attorney running the inquiry is now also sharing information with the House committee investigating the 6 January attack on the Capitol in Washington DC.

Meanwhile, a justice department taskforce investigating threats to election officials nationwide has launched inquiries in Georgia, where election officers and workers received death threats or warnings of violence, including some after Trump singled out one official publicly for not backing his baseless fraud claims.

Despite these investigations, Trump is still pushing bogus fraud claims in Georgia. Trump wrote to Raffensperger in September asking him to decertify the election results, which is impossible, and with an eye on the 2022 elections is trying to oust Raffensperger, as well as the state’s governor, Brian Kemp, and other top Republicans who defied his demands to block Biden’s win.

Former justice department officials and voting rights advocates say Trump’s conspiratorial attacks on Georgia’s election results, and the threats to public officials, need to be investigated diligently, and prosecuted if warranted by law enforcement, to protect election integrity and public officials.

Experts add that Trump’s alarming refusal to accept the Georgia election outcome and seek revenge on Republican officials who ignored his baseless fraud charges may affect a few pivotal 2022 races. His efforts may also encourage extremism and restrictions on minority and other voting rights similar to ones the Georgia legislature enacted this year.

Veteran DoJ officials and prosecutors say the criminal inquiry launched by the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, into Trump’s call to Raffensperger and other efforts Trump made to overturn the Georgia results, seems well grounded, with ample public evidence. But they said it will probably take some time before Willis decides whether to bring charges.

Willis has said prosecutors are scrutinizing “potential violations of Georgia law prohibiting the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration”.

The Georgia investigation’s merits were bolstered in late September by the release of a well-documented 107-page study from the Brookings Institution detailing Trump’s high-pressure drive to block Biden’s win in the state. The report concluded that Trump faced “substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes”.

Boasting extensive documentation from the public record, the report notes that Trump’s broad effort to nullify the outcome in Georgia included personal contacts with the governor, the state attorney general and the secretary of state’s chief investigator.

“Trump engaged in a pattern of repeated personal communications aimed at altering the vote count and making himself the winner in Georgia,” Donald Ayer, one of several authors of the Brookings report and a former deputy attorney general in the George HW Bush administration, said in an interview.

“He did so in the absence of any even arguable evidence of voting or counting irregularities. Unless there are other presently unknown facts that would explain it, this conduct appears to satisfy the requirements of a number of Georgia criminal statutes.”

To further the Georgia inquiry, Willis reportedly has in recent weeks turned to the House select committee looking into the 6 January attack on the Capitol to share documents and information that could assist her work.

Willis’s outreach to the congressional committee doesn’t surprise some expert observers.

“Her resources to address local crime are already taxed and any investigative steps taken on Capitol Hill means her likely marathon of a case against the former president may be a little closer to the finish line,” Michael J Moore, a former Georgia prosecutor and Democrat, said in an interview.

The district attorney’s progress was underscored by Raffensperger telling the Daily Beast in August that Fulton county investigators had “asked us for documents, they’ve talked to some of our folks, and we’ll cooperate fully”.

According to the news outlet, at least four people in Raffensperger’s office have been interviewed, including attorney Ryan Germany and the chief operating officer, Gabriel Sterling.

On another legal front, the FBI has begun interviews in recent weeks with several Georgia election officials about death threats and other dangerous warnings they received in the months after the election from Trump backers suggesting falsely that Georgia officials were involved in election rigging.

For instance, Richard Barron, who heads the Fulton county board of elections, told the Guardian he was interviewed by two FBI agents in early September and informed them about two death threats he received, including one in the summer “full of white supremacist language” which warned he would be “served lead”.

“I hope the FBI makes some arrests,” Barron added. “People need to be held accountable for making threats against public officials.” Barron noted that threats against him and his majority Black staff rocketed after the election, when Democrats also won two Senate seats in the historically red-leaning state. Threats against Barron escalated further after Trump singled him out by name at a rally, he said.

Former justice department prosecutors say that the taskforce looking into these threats has to be aggressive. “Absent rigorous law enforcement, responsible citizens will shy away from seeking these types of important public jobs, especially if they feel their families will be under threat,” said Paul Pelletier, a former acting chief of the fraud section at DoJ.

But even with these inquiries heating up, Trump has continued to spread his false claims about the election results, as he did at a campaign-style rally in Perry, Georgia, on 25 September, where a few of his favored Georgia candidates spoke –including Representative Jody Hice, who is hoping to defeat Raffensperger in a primary contest.

Trump’s drive to retaliate against Republican politicians who defied his efforts to overturn Biden’s Georgia win has dismayed some veteran party operatives who see them as counterproductive.

“I think the Trump presence in Georgia has not been good for the GOP’s politics the last two years,” said Republican lobbyist Ed Rogers, who hails from Alabama. “Politics is about addition, and vengeance is not consistent with addition.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/05/donald-trump-criminal-investigations-georgia-election-interference

Tell it to the Wash Post.  They retracted the fake story when faced with the transcript of the call.  Why are you so obsessed with Trump being investigated?  Time after time you have claimed he is going to prison based on some fake investigation.  Time after time it has come to nothing.  Why are you so fearful of allowing the democratic process that would allow Americans to decide who will be president instead of throwing candidates in prison like something from Commie China?  It highlights the hypocrisy of harping on Jan. 6 while trying to use the legal process to usurp the will of the American people.  That's the real insurrection attempt.  Silencing dissenting voices through arrest or censorship.  It makes Jan. 6 look like child's play. 

[Rick Plant]

Tell it to the Wash Post.  They retracted the fake story when faced with the transcript of the call.  Why are you so obsessed with Trump being investigated?  Time after time you have claimed he is going to prison based on some fake investigation.  Time after time it has come to nothing.  Why are you so fearful of allowing the democratic process that would allow Americans to decide who will be president instead of throwing candidates in prison like something from Commie China?  It highlights the hypocrisy of harping on Jan. 6 while trying to use the legal process to usurp the will of the American people.  That's the real insurrection attempt.  Silencing dissenting voices through arrest or censorship.  It makes Jan. 6 look like child's play.

 

What conspiracy are you trying to peddle? 

There was never any "fake investigations". Criminal Donald used his stooges like Bill Barr to shutdown any criminal investigation into his crimes. Those days are over and he can't do thst anymore.     

The Washington Post has nothing to do with it. The Fulton County DA is criminally investigating Criminal Donald. They reported it as well as major news outlets all over the world.

Americans already decided who they wanted President. Joe Biden won in a blowout. Criminal Donald and his thugs tried to steal the election and overthrow the US Government.

Why do you still support a brazen criminal and feel he is above the law? Treason is a serious crime Richard.

When someone is involved in felony crimes like Criminal Donald they will be prosecuted. Seems like you are against law and order.   

[Rick Plant]

Would a real billionaire need to run scams to steal money from his gullible followers? The answer is NO!

Trump is running a 'shadow campaign' so he can use super PAC money like 'a giant slush fund'

Donald Trump is running a "shadow campaign" for president in 2024 so that he can skirt campaign finance laws by using money from his super PACs to finance his travel, MAGA rallies and other activities — and possibly inject money into his own pockets.

"As long as Trump doesn't explicitly announce he's running for president, he can essentially raise as much money as he wants from whomever he wants, and spend it unfettered by the restrictions or transparency requirements imposed upon actual candidates," Rolling Stone reported Tuesday.

Fred Wertheimer of the reform nonprofit Democracy 21 told the magazine, "The way to look at the super PAC is as a giant slush fund for Trump to do whatever he wants with."

The report blames Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell for blocking campaign finance reform, in part by installing Don McGahn — who would later serve as a Trump administration lawyer — as an FEC commissioner in 2008. Other presidential candidates who've taken advantage of the super PAC loophole include Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio — "but there are few entities in the history of humankind who are more keen to exploit lax financial oversight than Donald Trump," the report states.

"It's unclear exactly if and to what extent Trump will use this potential pre-campaign campaign to enrich himself personally," Rolling Stone reported. "He has at every step found ways to funnel money into his own pockets, toeing the line of what's legal and bulldozing past any ethical considerations."

Nick Penniman, CEO of the political reform group Issue One, said: "The opportunity for self-dealing with leadership PACs is really extraordinary. [They] are pretty much used for lifestyle. If, for instance, Trump were to hold some kind of an event at Mar-a-Lago, he could 'reimburse' that event out of his leadership PAC. This could very well end up just being a way for him to inject money into Trump, Inc."

Rolling Stone reported that Trump's "burgeoning shadow campaign, complete with media appearances and rallies and public displays of dominance over his competitors, is the loudest siren yet that Trump is very much not gone, and neither is his unfathomably brazen corruption."

According to Penniman, "All of that crossing of lines between politics, business, and public life is going to come roaring back like acne. All this stuff that we just cringed at is just going to be happening again."

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-shadow-campaign/

[Rick Plant]

Another corrupt Trump henchman taking money for personal use. He should be forced to pay it all back. All these slimy Republicans all look the same.

Trump official billed US for $456,000 in private jets over five months



New information is coming out about the use of private jets by Tom Price, the former Georgia congressman who spent eight months as Secretary of Health and Human Services in 2017.

"Tom Price, the health and human services secretary, resigned under pressure... after racking up at least $400,000 in travel bills for chartered flights and undermining President Trump's promise to drain the swamp of a corrupt and entitled capital," The New York Times reported at the time. "Already in trouble with Mr. Trump for months of unsuccessful efforts to repeal and replace President Barack Obama's health care program, Mr. Price failed to defuse the president's anger by offering regret and a partial reimbursement."

A Freedom of Information Act request was filed by The Washington Post and the new emails the newspaper obtained shed light on how the scandal began.

It started in April of 2017, only four months after Price took over the department. Price's staffers sought to fly him to Los Angeles after his Delta Air Lines flight was delayed due to bad weather.

"Officials quickly secured a $29,000 charter flight — which also had to be scuttled, as tornadoes plagued the D.C. region. But the day's events left a scar on Price's top aides, who vowed that the Trump Cabinet official would never again wait on a commercial airline's schedule, and foreshadowed a five-month travel sprint in which the health department spent $456,000 in taxpayer money on Price's charter flights across the United States," the newspaper reported.

In one case, Price did not even need to fly at all, much less on a private jet.

"One of the final trips came in September 2017, when health officials chartered a jet for Price, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway and their aides to fly round trip between Washington and Philadelphia — at a cost of $14,955 to taxpayers, according to government records," The Post reported. "The department's Office of Inspector General later concluded that Price's flight to Philadelphia wasted more than $10,000 in taxpayer money compared with flying commercial, and that he could have made the trip by train."

Prior to joining the Trump administration, Price spent a dozen years in Congress and chaired the House Budget Committee.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/06/tom-price-hhs-charter-jets/

[Rick Plant]

President Biden is building back better and fixing the damage Criminal Donald caused. President Biden is the greatest jobs President in history. No other President has created this many jobs at this record pace.

Latest Economic Report Shows Joe Biden’s Economy Surging Ahead

According to a new report from the payroll processing company ADP, a substantial number of new hires were made across the economy in September, hitting a higher-than-expected rate of expansions of payrolls. According to the company, some 568,000 private jobs were added in September, which is over 100,000 jobs ahead of the Dow Jones estimate from economists that just 425,000 private jobs would be added for the month.

CNBC notes that these latest jobs numbers emerged “amid concerns about how fast hiring would grow considering ongoing fears over the delta spread and signs that the brisk economic growth of 2021 was beginning to slow heading into autumn, particularly due to supply chain bottlenecks that have driven inflation sharply higher.” Since hiring has continued, surpassing expectations, the Biden administration’s approach to COVID-19 and related issues appears to be paying off. Specifically, 226,000 of the new jobs were added in the leisure and hospitality sector, while goods producers were also high on the list of sectors with new jobs, adding 102,000 in September, according to the ADP report.

The ADP report can be significantly different from jobs reports for the same time period from the Labor Department — but according to CNBC, the difference is often that the ADP findings sit below numbers from federal officials. As the outlet put it, “Through August, the ADP count of private payrolls had undershot the government’s tally by an average 37,000 per month.” Thus, with the high numbers from ADP, there should be reason for optimism about the impending September report from the Labor Department, which is set to be released on Friday. Before Biden won the presidency and took office, predictions abounded — including from former President Trump himself — that a Biden administration would mean economic ruin for the United States. These predictions have not turned into reality.

Presently, Democratic leaders are promoting two government spending pushes, including an infrastructure bill and a bill involving federal financial support for what’s been termed “human infrastructure,” meaning child care, care for elders, and the like. Both pieces of legislation essentially amount to jobs bills, supporting the creation of significant numbers of accessible jobs throughout the country for initiatives like the expansion of broadband internet service in rural communities and more.

https://bipartisanreport.com/2021/10/06/latest-economic-report-shows-joe-bidens-economy-surging-ahead/


September private payrolls rose by 568,000, topping estimates: ADP

U.S. private employers added back more jobs than expected in September as COVID-19 cases moderated from a summer peak and alleviated some stress on the labor market.

Private payrolls grew by 568,000 last month, ADP said in its closely watched monthly report on Wednesday. Economists were looking for private payrolls to grow by 430,000, according to Bloomberg consensus data. During the prior month, private-sector jobs had risen by 340,000. This figure was downwardly revised from the 374,000 previously reported for August.

Wednesday's report reflected an acceleration in hiring in the U.S. services sector, with 466,000 net payrolls coming back last month. The biggest contributor to this figure, in turn, came from leisure and hospitality industries, with employers across these firms adding back 226,000 jobs. Job gains in education and health services, and professional and business services, each also came in above 60,000.

The goods-producing sector also saw a strong pick-up in hiring, with payroll gains rising by 102,000 to more than double the number of jobs brought back in August. Manufacturing and construction jobs each rose by nearly 50,000.

Wednesday's report marked a ninth consecutive month of private payroll growth in the U.S. economy, with the labor market making strides to recoup jobs lost over the course of the pandemic. Other reports have also underscored some firming trends in domestic employment: Both the Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing and service sector employment indexes held in expansionary territory in September, and weekly unemployment claims dropped to a pandemic-era low at the start of the month.

"Bottom line, labor demand remains exceptionally strong, and with COVID cases seemingly to have peaked early last month, we expect the pace of hiring to have come more in line with its recent trend," Sam Bullard, senior economist for Wells Fargo Corporate and Investment Banking, wrote in a note.

ADP's private payrolls report also sets the tone for the Labor Department's "official" September jobs report on Friday. In that report, economists are expecting to see an acceleration in payroll gains after a sharply disappointing August jobs report, when just 235,000 jobs returned versus the more than 700,000 expected at the time. The consensus estimate for non-farm payrolls gains in September is 488,000.

Many economists have warned that ADP's report does not serve as a precise indicator of payroll trends seen in the government data due to differences in methodology. ADP counts active employees on company payrolls toward its headline figure, while the Labor Department counts those paid during the survey period towards its non-farm payrolls increase or decrease.

One of the biggest discrepancies between the ADP private payrolls report and Labor Department jobs report last month was over service sector job growth. ADP reported that 201,000 leisure and hospitality jobs came back in August, whereas the Bureau of Labor Statistics' report reflected zero.

"We would not be surprised to see the BLS revise its August estimate for this sector, which despite last month's pause accounted for 51% of the roughly 4.1 million private-sector job gains year-to-date," Deutsche Bank senior U.S. economist Brett Ryan wrote in a note.

The Labor Department is set to report its monthly jobs report Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET.

https://news.yahoo.com/adp-private-payrolls-september-2021-employment-labor-market-coronavirus-121614244.html