Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Watergate's John Dean speculates there might already be a grand jury for Trump's Jan. 6 team

Sunday evening, Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein told CNN's Jim Acosta that the number one responsibility should be the House Select Committee for Jan. 6 and said that their work must be done quickly.

When Richard Nixon's White House Counsel, John Dean, spoke to Acosta, however, he concluded that the committee should be looking at the individuals involved, because there was clearly a criminal liability for those people.

"I think they should be looking at the criminal liability of these people. That will get their attention," Dean explained. "That's what happened at Watergate. There were two tracks. There was a criminal investigation along with a congressional investigation. Jim, there may well be a criminal investigation going on right now. We just don't know."

Dean's comment that Americans don't know is because grand jury investigations are secret. For example, when Steve Bannon was indicted for criminal contempt on Friday, it was only then revealed the Justice Department had impaneled the grand jury. So, it's entirely possible that there is a grand jury that American's aren't aware of.

"And I say that because of the exchange back in October, Oct. 18th, between Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Attorney General Merrick Garland where Whitehouse pressed him as to whether there was going to be more than just the trespassers who would be investigated and charged," Dean continued. "To paraphrase what Garland said, he said, yes, there's no restriction on this, and we may be using techniques that are way beyond your knowledge as a former U.S. attorney. So, that was pretty clear that they're looking at this, and there is a grand jury somewhere, and federal grand juries have a long life. They go 18 to 36 minutes so we're talking Jan. 6th. We're well within the life of a grand jury."

See the full discussion below:

[Rick Plant]

Republicans now openly embrace violent fascism

Despite weeks of worrying that Attorney General Merrick Garland didn't have the guts, the good news finally came down: Former Donald Trump advisor and current fascist propagandist Steve Bannon is under indictment for refusing to honor a subpoena to testify before Congress. Additionally, the announcement appears to have empowered the January 6 commission to enforce its other subpoenas. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., says Congress will "move quickly" to do the same to former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, who is similarly refusing to answer questions about his role in Trump's efforts to invalidate the 2020 election and the violent insurrection on the Capitol that ensued.

Both Bannon and Meadows are clearly at the center of what is very much looking like an insurrectionist conspiracy helmed by Trump. As journalist Lindsay Beyerstein explained on Twitter, January 6 appears to be "an inside game and an outside game," with the former focused on pressuring then-Vice President Mike "Pence steal the election procedurally" and the latter on using the violent mob "to terrorize potentially recalcitrant GOP reps into going along with the theft." New reporting shows the extent to which Meadows was orchestrating the pressure campaign against Pence. Bannon was also in the thick of it and is on tape telling his podcast listeners on Jan. 5 to "strap in" because "we're pulling the trigger on something" and "we're on the point of attack tomorrow."

Meadows and Bannon have always been prime examples of who wannabe fascist dictators like Trump depend on: the lickspittle and the aggro desk warrior, respectively. What really matters now is how the Republican Party responds to efforts to expose the role that Trump's aides and allies played in the coup and the Capitol riot. And that reaction tells us all we need to know about who the GOP is now, and how far they've gone down the fascism rabbit hole.

"Republicans are rallying around former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon," Amy Wang of the Washington Post reports, and "warning Democrats that they will go after Biden's aides for unspecified reasons if they take back the House majority in next year's midterm elections."

The threat that Republicans will have a bunch of B.S. hearings to float right-wing conspiracy theories when they retake the House is meaningless, as they were going to do that no matter what. But it is relevant that they are defending Bannon, a human pile of chewed-up gum who barely even pretends not to see himself as the 21st century Joseph Goebbels. Republicans are no longer interested in upholding the pretense of support for peace and democracy. Embracing Bannon is embracing the ideology of violent fascism that led to the Capitol riot in the first place.

Outside of D.C., we see further evidence in this in the reaction to the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot three people, killing two, after picking up an illegally obtained AR-15 and going, totally uninvited and under the guise of "security," to harass demonstrators at a Black Lives Matter protest.

In the euphemistic parlance of the mainstream media, this trial has "divided" Americans. "In Rittenhouse case, Americans see what they want to see," reads a typical headline at the Associated Press, noting in the text that "he's personified America's polarization."

That's one way to put it. Another is to point out that Rittenhouse had no reason to even be at the protest, and would have been better off respecting the right of all Americans to protest and staying home, rather than trying to menace them with a gun. The rallying around Rittenhouse, as Ryan Busse of Giffords told the AP, is likely "empowering more actors like him who think it's glamorous to go kill somebody with a rifle." Historian John Baick linked the Rittenhouse advocacy to "military groups across the country, anti-mask protests, school board protests" — that is to say, a move among the GOP towards the view that violence and chaos is an acceptable response to political disagreement.

Indeed, the celebration of Rittenhouse's violence has been accompanied by Republicans in statehouses passing laws to make it easier to get away with killing left-wing protesters. As Jess Bidgood of the Boston Globe reported last month, "there have been scores of people hit, dozens of injuries, at least three deaths" due to right-wingers mowing down protesters with their cars. But rather than prosecute such people, "Oklahoma and 15 other states have considered bills protecting drivers," and in many cases, they've passed them.

The love for Rittenhouse — or similarly, the way Capitol insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt has been turned into a Trumpian martyr — is not an anomalous event. It's a sign of a systematic shift across Republican America, in both the halls of power and at ordinary dinner tables, to the view that co-existence with liberal Americans is no longer possible. Conservatives continue to believe, despite the recent Virginia gubernatorial win, that they and their ideas cannot compete in free and fair elections. And so violence to crush the left is becoming an ever more acceptable answer in GOP circles.

Late last week, ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl released audio of an interview in which Trump argues that it was "common sense" for his supporters who stormed the Capitol to be chanting "hang Mike Pence." It was justified, Trump suggested, because "the people were very angry" and the "vote is fraudulent." (The vote was not, in fact, fraudulent, and this is just a racist conspiracy theory like Trump's other favorite racist conspiracy theory, that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen.) It's clear that Trump continues to believe, as he did on January 6, that Pence both had the right and the obligation to simply declare the 2020 election null and void, even though there's simply no legal or factual basis for the claim. And he sees violence in the name of trying to force this vision as justified and, in his words, "common sense."

But, of course, Republican leaders aren't abandoning Trump over this. Instead, they bat away questions about whether or not such endorsements of political violence are a good idea. There's absolutely no evidence this is slowing down Trump's momentum for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, which he has all but locked up nearly two and a half years before voting even starts.

In their 2021 year out memo released Monday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wrote, "The moment Washington Republicans felt their grip on power loosen, they unleashed a full assault on American democracy, culminating in a murderous assault on the Capitol and the introduction of anti-voter legislation across the country."

This is not an exaggeration. If anything, it's an understatement, if only because Democrats continue to sidestep the F-word. Understandably so — way too many Americans are still strapped to the "it can't happen here" mentality, and check out mentally the second the word "fascism" is in play. But it's all there in the GOP.

Republicans embrace violence to get their way. They promote a white nationalist definition of the national character. They display an eagerness to censor dissenting views, through violence or book-burning. And share a belief that the law is not about justice, but enshrining the power of a right-wing minority over everyone else. Theirs is an absolutist view of power and a rejection of democracy. Perhaps calling it by its name doesn't help move the needle of public opinion or get voters to wake up any faster. But Trumpism is just fascism, and Trumpism is what the GOP is about these days.

https://www.rawstory.com/republicans-now-openly-embrace-violent-fascism/

[Rick Plant]

The Orange Lunatic should've been removed via the 25th Amendment long before.

Steve Mnuchin called Mike Pompeo about invoking the 25th Amendment on Jan. 6: ABC's Jonathan Karl



Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Monday, ABC's Jonathan Karl revealed that former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin put in a call to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on January 6th about invoking the 25th Amendment and removing Donald Trump from office.

Speaking with host Jonathan Lemire, Karl explained, "I learned rock-solid sourcing on this. I learned that Steven Mnuchin had a conversation with Mike Pompeo on the evening of January 6th. And I learned that Mnuchin had several conversations about the 25th Amendment and further, that Pompeo actually asked for a legal analysis of the 25th Amendment and how it would work."

"The idea quickly was jettisoned -- you had on January 7th cabinet members resign, DeVos resign, the labor secretary resign," he continued. "It became apparent that the 25th Amendment was not going to work. It would not be quick enough and it would be subject to legal challenges, but in the hours after the riot, there were high-level conversations about this."

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

And some people scoff when Trump is compared to Hitler. This is right out Hitler's playbook. 

Plot to turn the military into Trump’s 'personal goon squad' revealed by 'sinister' memo: columnist

In his column for the Washington Post, conservative military expert Max Boot pointed to a memo submitted to Donald Trump making the case to fire Defense Secretary Mike Esper as evidence that the former president wanted to find someone else who would assist him in staying in power.

Boot started off by apologizing to Esper for not pushing back when the former president stuck his nose in military affairs that rankled the Pentagon.

With that in mind, he noted the memo listed 14 reasons for firing Esper, which ultimately happened three weeks later via Trump tweet. The memo, which was written by Trump's director of presidential personnel Johnny McEntee, was revealed by ABC's Jonathan Karl.

According to Boot, "The very premise of McEntee's memo was both sinister and ludicrous — a 30-year-old of no professional or intellectual distinction, whose path to power was carrying Trump's bags, was making the case for getting rid of a senior Cabinet officer for insufficient loyalty to the president."

According to the columnist, Trump was looking for a way to use the military for his own benefit.

Writing, "This revealing and chilling document deserves to be read not as a historical curiosity but as a terrible portent of what could be in store if Trump wins another term. He appears determined to turn the military into his personal goon squad," he then warned, "Trump tried to destroy the professional, apolitical ethos of the armed forces — and if given the opportunity, he will almost certainly do so again."

"The next time around, Trump would want to ensure that the 'guys with guns' are on his side," he cautioned. "If he wins a second term, Trump's next defense secretary (Johnny McEntee perhaps?) would almost certainly be somebody more devoted to him than to the Constitution. For anyone concerned about the future of U.S. democracy, that should be a cause of considerable alarm at a time when Trump and Biden are running almost neck and neck in polling matchups."

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-military-2655552412/


'Personal goon squad': Why a newly-reported memo by a Trump loyalist is 'cause of considerable alarm' for US democracy

ABC News' Jonathan Karl has reported that on October 19, 2020, Trump loyalist John McEntee — then serving as White House director of presidential personnel — issued a memo listing reasons to fire then-Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper from the Trump Administration. Never Trump conservative Max Boot discusses Karl's reporting and that memo in his November 15 column for the Washington Post, explaining why McEntee's memo should be a "cause of considerable alarm" if Donald Trump runs for president in 2024.

Boot was highly critical of Esper in the past, describing him as a Trump enabler. But in light of Karl's reporting, the conservative columnist now believes he "may have been too harsh on" the former defense secretary — who Trump fired on November 9."

Now that we have seen fresh evidence of how much Trump and his henchmen loathed Esper, he is rising in my estimation," Boot explains. "That evidence comes courtesy of ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl, who has unearthed a memorandum from Johnny McEntee, Trump's director of presidential personnel, listing 14 reasons for ousting Esper. That document was dated October 19, 2020. Three weeks later, Esper was fired by a Trump tweet."

Describing McEntee's memo as "both sinister and ludicrous," Boot notes that the Trump loyalist "was making the case for getting rid of a senior cabinet officer for insufficient loyalty to the president."

"This revealing and chilling document deserves to be read not as a historical curiosity, but as a terrible portent of what could be in store if Trump wins another term," Boot writes. "He appears determined to turn the military into his personal goon squad."

Boot goes on to note some of McEntee's reasons for wanting Esper fired. Esper, McEntee complained, "approved the promotion of Lt. Col. (Alexander) Vindman," a key witness during Trump's impeachment — and Esper "publicly opposed the president's direction to utilize American force to put down riots just outside the White House," McEntee wrote.

Boot observes, "This was a reference to Esper's brave decision in June 2020 to resist Trump's desires to deploy active-duty troops to suppress Black Lives Matter protests. Esper acted after he and Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had been lured by Trump into a bizarre photo op in Lafayette Square, which been cleared by force of peaceful protesters."

In the memo, Boot adds, McEntee (now 31) also wanted Esper fired for removing Confederate flags from military installations.

McEntee's memo, the Never Trump conservative warns, underscores the fact that a second Trump presidency —should he run in 2024 — would be disastrous for the United States.

"Trump would want to ensure that the 'guys with guns' are on his side," Boot warns. "If he wins a second term, Trump's next defense secretary — Johnny McEntee perhaps? — would almost certainly be somebody more devoted to him than to the Constitution. For anyone concerned about the future of U.S. democracy, that should be a cause of considerable alarm at a time when Trump and (President Joe) Biden are running almost neck and neck in polling matchups."

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-coup-memo-2655717243/

[Rick Plant]

Alex Jones handed a devastating loss in lawsuit filed by Sandy Hook parents

Connecticut court handed down a sweeping win for the families of eight victims of the Sandy Hook massacre against right-wing broadcaster Alex Jones.

A superior court judge ruled Monday that Jones was guilty by default because he refused to turn over financial records and other documents ordered by the courts in the defamation case filed by the parents of eight people killed in the 2012 mass shooting, which the conspiracy theorist claimed was a "false flag" by the U.S. government to confiscate firearms, reported the New York Times.

Jones claimed the families of 20 first-graders and six educators killed in the shooting were "actors" taking part in the scheme, and the Sandy Hook plaintiffs claimed he profited from spreading lies about their murders.

He also has lost three defamation cases in Texas, and juries in both states will determine how much money he must pay in damages, in addition to court costs.'

[Rick Plant]

Trump could face 3 years in prison for political coercion in office: watchdogs



The Department of Justice has additional cause to file charges against Donald Trump after the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) found 13 senior Trump officials violated the Hatch Act, two legal experts explained in a Slate column on Tuesday.

Prof. Claire Finkelstein of the University of Pennsylvania and Prof. Richard Painter of the University of Minnesota Law argued the report bolstered the case for a criminal investigation.

"Yet the OSC finding may be significant for another reason, namely its implications for another Hatch Act complaint we filed, this one a criminal complaint against Donald Trump brought last October with the Department of Justice. Although the president and vice president are immune to the ordinary Hatch Act prohibitions on use of public office for political purposes, there is a separate provision (18 U.S.C. § 610) under which it is a crime for any person to 'intimidate, threaten, command, or coerce … any employee of the Federal Government … to engage in any political activity.' Violations are punishable by up to three years in prison," the two noted.

They noted the complaint was filed with the Public Integrity Division of the Department of Justice.

"That means the decision of whether to investigate lies squarely in the hands of Attorney General Merrick Garland. The threshold legal determination Garland—or a special prosecutor appointed by Garland—must make is whether Trump coerced or ordered the political activity identified as Hatch Act violations by the OSC. If so, Trump could be liable to prosecution for political coercion under the aforementioned statute," they wrote.

The two noted Trump's habits while in office.

"Certainly, there are multiple accounts of Trump exerting precisely this kind of pressure on those in his inner circle. Numerous government officials, from the then head of the FBI, James Comey, to former White House lawyer Don McGahn, as well as state election officials like Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and even Vice President Pence, have experienced the brunt of Trump's coercive tactics. The pattern of behavior throughout Trump's presidency suggests that the Hatch Act violations OSC has identified did not occur spontaneously," they wrote.

They wrote that DOJ has failed to act on their complaint for 13 months.

"Certainly, there are multiple accounts of Trump exerting precisely this kind of pressure on those in his inner circle. Numerous government officials, from the then head of the FBI, James Comey, to former White House lawyer Don McGahn, as well as state election officials like Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and even Vice President Pence, have experienced the brunt of Trump's coercive tactics. The pattern of behavior throughout Trump's presidency suggests that the Hatch Act violations OSC has identified did not occur spontaneously," they wrote.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-prison-2655746262/

[Rick Plant]

Trump was fed so many 'bonkers' coup memos it's getting hard to keep them straight: columnist



The accounting for the Jan. 6 insurrection has reached the point where multiple members of Donald Trump's inner circle advancing competing views for overturning his election loss.

Recent reporting has revealed that Trump legal adviser John Eastman wrote a memo laying out a theory for vice president Mike Pence to undo the election results, while former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark crafted a similar plan, and campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis and White House aide John McEntee also advanced strategies to subvert the election, reported MSNBC.

"We've reached an awkward point in American history: When the political debate turns to Team Trump's coup memo, we now have to ask, 'Which one?'" wrote columnist Steve Benen.

Pence ultimately concluded he didn't have the authority to overturn the election, but that doesn't excuse the multi-pronged effort to convince him otherwise -- and which provoked the deadly U.S. Capitol riot that came within a few strokes of luck from succeeding in keeping Trump in power.

"To be sure, by any fair measure, this strategy was utterly bonkers," Benen wrote. "Nevertheless, on New Year's Eve, the then-White House chief of staff thought it'd be a good idea to send a copy directly to Pence's top aide, as part of an effort to lobby the then-vice president to help overturn the results of an American election that Trump didn't like."

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-coup-memo-2655745887/


Trump took a 'dark, dark turn' after the election -- and anyone who pushed back was 'scared into silence': Jon Karl



Reporter Jon Karl talked with the Washington Post's Karen Tumulty on Tuesday about his new book about the final days of Donald Trump's presidency, titled "Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show."

In the interview, Karl talked about the role Trump loyalist Johnny McEntee played in systematically purging the Trump administration of officials whom he deemed to have insufficient fealty to the former president, which meant that those who remained in the White House at the end of his term were the hardest of the hardcore loyalists.

The result of this, said Karl, was that no one in the White House was willing to stop his potentially illegal efforts to overturn the results of the election.

"McEntee was able to get rid of officials who were not sufficiently loyal, and he was also able to frighten people into silence," Karl explained. "So when Trump took that dark, dark turn after the election, there was really nobody around him who was willing to question him, to push back on him, to rein him in, to challenge him... because they were all either fired, or scared into silence."

Karl then marveled that McEntee could wield such power in the White House despite being so young.

"That's Johnny McEntee, 29 years old, bossing around Cabinet secretaries and junior assistants and everybody in between."

Watch the video below: