Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

'Complicit in everything': Questions raised about Jim Jordan after Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony



In a column noting the continuing interference Republican Party members are running for Donald Trump as the Jan 6th Committee exposes more evidence of the former president's links to the Capitol insurrection, political scientist Jeffrey C. Isaac from Indiana University, Bloomington, singled out Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) as the man who could be the key to more information about that day's events.

While Jordan has demurred when asked to testify under oath before the committee, Isaac said his participation is even more critical after comments made by Cassidy Hutchinson during her bombshell appearance on national TV where she kept referring to him as "Jim."

Posing the question, "Was it merely the excessive anger and violence that boiled over? Were they [GOP lawmakers] basically onboard with Eastman’s legalistic fantasies that the Electoral College vote count might might be obstructed with only a minimum of disruption and violence?" he pointed the finger at the controversial Ohio Republican who is in line to the chair of the House Judiciary Committee if the GOP takes the House in November.

"There was a moment in Hutchinson’s testimony when this question briefly sprang into view. She commented that 'Jim' had been trying to reach Meadows by phone as the Capitol was being breached. 'Jim' was Representative Jim Jordan, one of the more notable Trumpists in Congress. The substance of the conversations between Jordan and the White House remains unknown, because Jordan has refused to cooperate with the committee," he wrote before making his case.

'"Jim' was one of the most violent and adamant promoters of Trump’s Big Lie," he accused. "After the violence of Jan. 6th subsided, Jim led the effort on the floor of the Senate to delay and obstruct the counting of the Electoral Votes, and was perhaps the most vocal and visible of the 147 Congressional Republicans who voted to overturn Biden’s victory.

Jim was as vociferous in his opposition to Trump’s second impeachment as he was to Trump’s first impeachment."

Adding, "In the months since Joe Biden’s inauguration, Jim has waged a relentless rhetorical war against the Democratic party and promised that if the Republicans retake the House in November, he will use his position as incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to organize a series of public hearings to investigate the Bidens, hearings that would surely make the Benghazi inquisition of Hillary Clinton in 2015 seem like a picnic," he suggested, "Perhaps it is the case that as the violent mob approached his position, 'Jim' was frantically trying to convince Mark Meadows to get Trump to do something to prevent the crowd from assaulting him and his friends. Or perhaps not."

"But whatever the case it hardly matters, because 'Jim' was innocent of nothing and complicit in everything that transpired that day," he concluded.

You can read more here:

https://www.thebulwark.com/keep-your-eyes-on-the-prize-defeating-trumpism/

[Rick Plant]

Secret Service stories about Trump demanding to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6 have been circulating for over a year: report



According to sources speaking to CNN, then-President Donald Trump demanded to go to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 ahead of the riot and berated Secret Service agents when they refused his request.

The sources say circulating rumors about the incident were similar to the testimony given to the Jan. 6 committee from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who said she heard a story about how Trump allegedly lunged at a Secret Service agent and tried to grab hold the steering wheel of the presidential vehicle.

The details reportedly differ, but the sources say they were told that an angry confrontation did occur. The source, a longtime Secret Service employee, said the agents described Trump as "demanding" and that he said something similar to: "I'm the f***ing President of the United States, you can't tell me what to do."

"He had sort of lunged forward -- it was unclear from the conversations I had that he actually made physical contact, but he might have. I don't know," the source said. "Nobody said Trump assaulted him; they said he tried to lunge over the seat -- for what reason, nobody had any idea."

The source says the story has been circulating since February of last year. Other stories about Trump breaking and throwing things during fits of anger circulated as well.

In a blockbuster appearance before the House committee investigating last year's attack on the US Capitol, Hutchinson delivered what opponents hope will be the evidence needed to run Trump out of town.

"This is the smoking gun," Sol Wisenberg, a former deputy to Bill Clinton impeachment investigator Ken Starr, told The New York Times of Hutchinson's testimony.

"There isn't any question this establishes a prima facie case for his criminal culpability on seditious conspiracy charges."

Trump and his allies have sought to discredit her testimony.

The New Jersey native had honed her interest in the business of government, studying for a political science degree in Virginia before interning for senior Republicans in Congress.

Hutchinson took a role at the White House's legislative affairs office and was promoted to be the principal aide to Meadows in March 2020, allocated a desk just a few steps from the Oval Office.

Working daily with lawmakers and White House officials at all levels, she was "in a position to know a great deal about the happenings in the White House," committee chair Liz Cheney said in her introduction.

Trump took to his Truth Social app, to fire off a 12-post rant dismissing Hutchinson as low-level and calling her a "total phony."

But several of her former colleagues vouched for her, arguing she was perfectly placed to report on activity at the very top.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, the White House director of strategic communications in Trump's final year in office, told CNN that Hutchinson was on a first-name basis with most members of congressional leadership.

"She would text with them. So she's seen everything," Farah Griffin said. "She's been in so many rooms."

AFP

[Rick Plant]

Trump thought marching to Capitol with rioting supporters would be 'a dramatic made-for-TV moment':

A new report from the Washington Post provides more details about former President Donald Trump's desire to march to the Capitol with supporters who would subsequently illegally break into the building and send lawmakers fleeing for their lives.

One source tells the Post that Trump repeatedly brought up the idea of marching with his supporters down to the Capitol, as he thought it would deliver "a dramatic, made-for-TV moment that could pressure Republican lawmakers to support his demand to throw out the electoral college results" that showed Joe Biden winning the 2020 election.

In reality, as former White House counsel Pat Cipollone allegedly told former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, a Trump-led march to the Capitol would have opened the twice-impeached former president up to massive criminal exposure.

This desire to go with his supporters to the Capitol has come under focus in the wake of Hutchinson's testimony, although Trump has admitted publicly that it was his plan.

“Secret Service wouldn’t let me,” he told The Washington Post earlier this year. “I wanted to go. I wanted to go so badly. Secret Service says you can’t go. I would have gone there in a minute.”

Hutchinson also alleged in her testimony that Trump knew at least some of his supporters were armed with weapons, but nonetheless encouraged them to march to the Capitol anyway.

Read More Here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/01/trump-capitol-riot-march/

[Rick Plant]

Trump's Twitter would incite MAGA base to send 'bloodcurdling' threats: Georgia Lt. Gov.



Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan described a pattern of intimidation that he received immediately after being targeted on Twitter by Donald Trump.

Duncan was interviewed for a CNN documentary titled, "Trumping democracy: an American coup" that aired on Friday evening.

"There was an interesting timeline that started to happen, a pattern is a better way to put it," Duncan told CNN's Jake Tapper.

"So I would go on TV, I would speak the truth and within minutes he would send a tweet out that would say something derogatory or inflammatory," he explained.

On-screen were Trump tweets calling him a "puppet" and falsely claiming a "RINO Never Trumper...Too dumb or corrupt to recognize massive evidence of fraud in GA & should be replaced!"

Duncan explained how the pattern worked.

"And within minutes after that, me or my wife would start to get threats which would show up on our phone. I mean bloodcurdling threats from the most awful sounding individuals. And deep meaning, that they know things about you and your family," he said.

"They intentionally were trying scare us and intimidate us," Duncan said.

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

'Very big deal': Former J6 Committee investigator says messages sent to Cassidy Hutchinson should be referred to DOJ



Discussing reports that associates of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows attempted to influence the testimony of former senior Meadows' aide Cassidy Hutchinson, a former investigator for the Jan 6th committee claimed the Department of Justice needs to step in.

Speaking with hosts Brianna Keilar and John Berman, attorney John Wood said the revelations so far have been devastating to Donald Trump and members of his inner circle, and that attempts to influence witnesses has been a disturbing development.

"To be clear, CNN is reporting that Cassidy Hutchinson herself told the committee that she did receive a message from someone in Trump world that she perceived to be trying to influence her testimony," host Berman prompted. "How big after a deal in your mind is that?"

"It is a very big deal," Wood quickly responded. "It is something that the committee needs to look into and potentially refer to the Justice Department."

"I'm sure the person who sent the message, and according to the media it was Mark Meadows, but I don't have any personal knowledge of that, the person who sent the message I'm sure will say, 'oh, no, I just meant it innocently'," he elaborated. "But the way those messages sound, it certainly sounds like they were intended to influence in some way Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony."

Watch below:

‘No question’: Former top FBI official says Trump world statements are ‘an attempt to intimidate a witness’

Former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi says the messages shared by Vice-Chair Liz Cheney during Tuesday's bombshell hearing of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack are "witness tampering."

"There is no question in my mind that what you just read is an attempt to intimidate a witness. No question about it," Figliuzzi said on MSNBC Friday afternoon about statements now reportedly sent or said to Cassidy Hutchinson, the former aide and advisor to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Parts of those statements read: "He wants me to let you know he's thinking about you," "As long as you stay on the team and do the right thing, you'll stay in good graces," and, "He knows you're loyal and you're going to do the right thing."

Figliuzzi said "there's little doubt here" that those are examples of witness tampering.

"This is law school first year 101 Criminal Procedure. At the very least, DOJ now has enough to open a witness tampering investigation. We can talk about whether they would win or not, who did it or not, reasonable doubt or not, but there is no question in my mind that what you just read is an attempt to intimidate a witness. No question about it. When you then add that to the fact that it appears that they provided, her initial attorney to her, Cassidy Hutchinson, you now have a without a doubt, predication to open a federal witness tampering investigation."

The Committee did not reveal who made those statements, but later reporting indicates Hutchinson conveyed both those messages to the Committee, suggesting she was the recipient.

On Thursday Politico reported that "Hutchinson told the committee she was contacted by an intermediary for Mark Meadows, according to a person familiar with her final deposition." Meadows has since denied the allegation.

Pointing to that Politico article on Twitter, Figliuzzi on Thursday wrote: "This is witness tampering. Cassidy Hutchinson was the target. They picked the wrong young woman."

Read More Here:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/30/jan-6-hutchinson-meadows-mystery-messages-00043638


'May be one of the biggest threats to Trump yet': Legal expert shocked by latest Jan. 6 hearing revelation

The revelation that individuals connected to Donald Trump had reached out to pressure witnesses in the Jan. 6 investigation poses a legal risk to the former president, according to former prosecutors.

The House select committee revealed two messages received by witnesses in the investigation, including former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, that indicated Trump was following their testimony and expecting loyalty, and former prosecutor Michael Moore told CNN how that posed a risk of legal jeopardy.

"We're not at a prosecution, we're in a congressional inquiry," said Moore, the former U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia. "Interestingly enough, the issue of witness tampering may be one of the biggest threats to Tump yet. That's because it's an offense that happened after he was a sitting president, and so it sort of removes some of the argument we're going to hear about whether or not he had privilege, whether or not a president can be charged with a crime and those things. Whether or not he was a candidate at the time."

"They were talking about it and the communication is going on now," he added. "So that, in and of itself, is a separate federal offense [from anything that happened on Jan. 6, 2021], so we don't need to get caught up into whether or not we go after somebody on a whim and speculation and this type of thing, and i hope they have more evidence and direct links to him as they go forward if they decide to charge him, but you have here a clear indication that it's coming from his inner circle."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

All of these Trump MAGA backed candidates receive full endorsements from Nazi and white supremacist hate groups. These MAGA Trump neo nazi radicals do not belong in our government.

Trump-loving Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters receives 'forceful endorsement' from Nazi Daily Stormer founder



One of the internet's most notorious neo-Nazis has joined Donald Trump in endorsing Arizona candidate Blake Masters for the U.S. Senate.

Andrew Anglin, who publishes the hate site Daily Stormer, announced his endorsement of Masters in a blog post that also expressed support for Trump-endorsed Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance, another GOP candidate bankrolled by billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel, reported Jewish Insider.

“I cannot give a more forceful endorsement, and I demand that anyone in Arizona (who is not some kind of known neo-Nazi or whatever) get in contact with his campaign and see what kind of help he needs,” Anglin wrote in the June 9 entry. “This is exactly the kind of man this country needs."

The 37-year-old Anglin, an outspoken admirer of Adolf Hitler and an early Trump supporter, has gone into hiding since helping to orchestrate the 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and he has struggled to keep his operation online while evading lawsuits related to various harassment campaigns he allegedly provoked.

“Anglin habitually uses The Daily Stormer to celebrate and encourage right-wing political violence,” said journalist Luke O’Brien, who has written extensively about the neo-Nazi influencer. “He has a tepid blanket disclaimer on the front page of his site in an attempt to create legal cover for himself.”

Masters refers to himself as a "nationalist" and approvingly quoted Nazi leader Hermann Goering in a 2006 online essay, and he has expressed agreement with the white nationalist "great replacement theory" and blamed gun violence on "Black people, frankly," so Anglin's endorsement is somewhat unsurprising.

“White supremacists like Anglin have long telegraphed their desire to occupy our institutions, and the fastest way to get there is through political campaigns,” said Michael Edison Hayden, a senior investigative reporter and spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center. “He apparently sees an ally in Masters. I’d be very curious to see whether Masters will make any effort to disavow him.”

The Masters campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but O'Brien said Anglin has worked directly with Thiel associates in the past, including entrepreneur Jeff Giesea, who has collaborated with Daily Stormer associate Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer and others associated with the site.

“Peter Thiel’s losing streak is up,” Anglin wrote. “I don’t agree with everything the man endorses, and I don’t think he agrees with everything he endorses, but JD Vance and Blake Masters are going to change the entire game.”

“Masters is better than Vance, frankly,” he added. "[He is] married to a white women [sic] with sons despite some possibly questionable mannerisms.”

https://www.rawstory.com/blake-masters-endorsement/

[Rick Plant]

All of these MAGA Trump candidates are all the same. They spout off the same hate and radical right wing conspiracy theories. And when they are called out on their lies by the press, they immediately get an attitude and start attacking the press trying to copy Trump.     

‘Aggressively dishonest’: Trump-backed Kari Lake whacked with brutal CNN fact check



Election denier Kari Lake was the subject of a hard-hitting new analysis by CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale.

"A leading Republican candidate for governor of Arizona, Kari Lake, continues to put lies about the 2020 presidential election at the center of her campaign – this week calling it 'disqualifying' and 'sickening' for a rival candidate not to say that the election was stolen, though it wasn’t stolen," he reported. "Lake’s strong performance in the Republican primary so far means that an aggressively dishonest promoter of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election could potentially have a prominent role in the 2024 presidential election in a key swing state."

At the debate, Lake lied about President Joe Biden when she said, “He lost the election and he shouldn’t be in the White House.”

"As supposed proof, Lake cited a 'forensic audit.' A shambolic Republican-initiated partisan review, described by supporters as an audit but marred by problems, confirmed that Biden beat Trump in Arizona’s most populous county," Dale noted. "Lake also defended a right-wing film about the 2020 election that is filled with holes of logic and evidence, even after the debate moderator noted that Trump-appointed former Attorney General William Barr had scoffed at the film. And Lake falsely said that 34,000 Arizona ballots 'were counted two, three and four times,' though this simply did not happen."

And Lake is even trying to clean up her lies during the debate.

"Lake’s campaign declined to make a substantive comment for this article. When asked for supporting information about Lake’s false claim that ballots were counted up to four times, an adviser replied only by mocking CNN," Dale reported.

Early voting begins on Wednesday in the August 2 GOP

Lake has been endorsed by Trump.

Arizona's Kari Lake, who is waging one of the country's most aggressively dishonest 2022 campaigns, says it’s "disqualifying" and "sickening" for her top rival to not call the 2020 election "stolen," though it wasn't stolen:

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1542986774003286016


Two Trump-loving attorneys general just suffered a humiliating defeat



The U.S. Supreme Court gave a rare victory today to President Joe Biden in its 5-4 ruling that will allow him to reverse one of the Trump Administration’s most xenophobic policies on the Southern border.

The Court found that the Biden administration “had the authority to reverse a Trump-era initiative that requires asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases are reviewed in U.S. courts,” the Washington Post reported. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts “said federal immigration law gives the executive discretion: He may return asylum seekers to Mexico but is not required to do so.”

The case wasn’t just a big victory for Biden: It was also a stinging rebuke to two of the most activist Trump-enabling attorneys general in the nation: Ken Paxton of Texas and Eric Schmitt of Missouri. The same pair had led the key failed “Big Lie” lawsuits after the 2020 election.

The case has been a major MAGA talking point for both men. Paxton and Schmitt have bellowed press releases claiming victory as lower federal courts ruled in their favor on the “Remain in Mexico” program.

Last August, Schmitt’s office trumpeted, “Attorney General Schmitt Scores Massive Win in “Remain in Mexico Lawsuit.”

“In April, along with my colleague from Texas, I filed suit to halt (Biden’s suspension of the Trump policy). Today, in a huge win for the Missouri Attorney General’s Office and in a big step towards securing the border, a federal court issued a nationwide permanent injunction.” Today’s massive win was crucial – re-implementing the Migrant Protection Protocols will help secure the border and fight the scourge of human trafficking.”

In December, Paxton was equally effusive about another lower-court decision in their favor. “Paxton Declares Victory on Reinstatement of ‘Remain in Mexico’ program,” read the press-release headline.

"The restoration of the ‘Remain in Mexico’ program is a huge win for Texas! This is one of the many lawsuits I have filed against the Biden Administration,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said. “I will continue to fight to restore safety and order along our southern border, making sure that this essential program is implemented in full compliance with the court’s order.”

After the two made their ultimately unsuccessful oral arguments before the justices April 26, Schmitt – who is running the U.S. Senate in Missouri – went full MAGA on Fox News. He claimed that the “Remain in Mexico” program hurt drug-cartel profits.

“Having Mexico be the waiting room is… very important not just for the people that actually are not being sent into the interior of the United States never to be seen again, which is what Joe Biden wants," Schmitt said. "But also, I think it sends a very strong signal to Central and South America and to the cartels that there's not a financial incentive for you to just get them across."

But that rhetoric was a thing of the past today as Schmitt and Paxton suffered the ignominious fate of losing a major case before what many consider the most-politicized right-wing Supreme Court in U.S. history. Paxton whined in a press released that the matter was “wrongly decided” by the justices.

“Today’s decision makes the border crisis worse,” Paxton said. “But it’s not the end. I’ll keep pressing forward and focus on securing the border and keeping our communities safe in the dozen other immigration suits I’m litigating in court.”

Schmitt’s prolific Twitter account ignored the defeated entirely while celebrating another key SCOTUS decision – its landmark decision curbing the EPA’s ability to fight climate change.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote the decision, joined by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, and the court’s three liberals, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

https://www.rawstory.com/two-trump-loving-attorneys-general-just-suffered-a-humiliating-defeat/