Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Busted: Matt Gaetz caught on tape promising Roger Stone a pardon from 'the boss' before trial



According to a bombshell report from the Washington Post, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was filmed promising Donald Trump advisor Roger Stone clemency from the "boss" as he prepared to stand trial in 2019.

In a video clip taken by a documentary filmmaker following Stone, Gaetz spoke with him in Florida after he complained that federal prosecutors were pressing him to turn on the now-former president.

According to the report, "At an event at a Trump property that October, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) predicted that Stone would be found guilty at his trial in Washington the following month but would not 'do a day' in prison."

In the video, which can be seen here or below, Gaetz told Stone, "The boss still has a very favorable view of you,” adding he “said it directly," before claiming, “I don’t think the big guy can let you go down for this.”

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1553389704065626112

The Washington Post report adds, "Gaetz at one point told Stone he was working on getting him a pardon but was hesitant to say more backstage at the event, in which speakers were being filmed for online broadcast. 'Since there are many, many recording devices around right now, I do not feel in a position to speak freely about the work I’ve already done on that subject,' Gaetz said."

Gaetz also added, "They’re going to do you, because you’re not gonna have a defense,” Gaetz told Stone.

The recording, the Post reports, was picked up by a lapel microphone Stone was wearing as part of the documentary filming.

You can read more here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/07/30/roger-stone-matt-gaetz-pardon-mueller/

[Rick Plant]

Add witness tampering to Matt Gaetz’s legal problems: legal experts



Legal experts on Saturday weighed in on the bombshell report that GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida was caught on tape discussing a pardon for Roger Stone if he did not testify against Donald Trump.

"As Roger Stone prepared to stand trial in 2019, complaining he was under pressure from federal prosecutors to incriminate Donald Trump, a close ally of the president repeatedly assured Stone that 'the boss' would likely grant him clemency if he were convicted, a recording shows," The Washington Post reported.

On July 10th, Stone told journalist Howard Fineman that Trump "knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t.”

Trump commuted Stone's sentence later that day.

“The boss still has a very favorable view of you,” Gaetz said in the new recording. "I don’t think the big guy can let you go down for this.”

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance said, "sounds like how mobsters talk."

"The Republican Party was — and is — mobbed up," said longtime GOP operative Bill Kristol, who served as chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle.

Prominent conservative lawyer George Conway attempted to translate the tweet into full mob talk to make his point.

Conway said, "our friend, you know, da big guy, da big orange guy in da big house, he'll take care of it, you know, that thing, not that thing, de udder thing, you know, the one wid the guy wid da badge."

But Art Acevedo, who served as chief of police in Austin and Houston, didn't find it funny.

"Mobsters, the whole lot. It’s past time they are all held accountable like everyday Americans," Acevedo said. "The rule of law should be applied equally to all, regardless of societal status."

Read More Here: https://twitter.com/ArtAcevedo/status/1553394937022058497

[Rick Plant]

DOJ focusing on RNC's 'election integrity' director in fake elector plot



According to a report from Politico, the Department of Justice's investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection appears to be adding a major focus on a top Republican National Committee official.

As part of their investigation into the fake elector plot, the name of Joshua Findlay --currently the RNC's director of election integrity -- is appearing in subpoenas being issued by the DOJ.

As Politico's Betsy Woodruff Swan wrote, "At least three witnesses in DOJ’s investigation of so-called alternate electors in the 2020 election — two in Arizona and another in Georgia — have received subpoenas demanding communications to and from Joshua Findlay," adding, "Findlay’s appearance in the documents means the Justice Department has taken interest in his communications as part of its probe related to pro-Trump GOP officials and activists who presented themselves as legitimate electors from states where Joe Biden won."

The report notes that Findlay previously worked for Donald Trump in various capacities including serving on the former president's campaign legal team.

Of note, the DOJ subpoenas are asking the recipients to "share all documents and communications from October 2020 on, '[t]o, from, with, or including' a list of people, including Findlay."

The report points out that Findlay's name has come up in testimony before House Jan. 6 panel and that an email was "sent to him on December 12, 2020, showing David Shafer — head of the Georgia Republican Party, and himself an alternate elector — directing one of his subordinates to contact Findlay about the alternate elector plans."

Woodruff Swan also reported that when Findlay assumed his new job after Joe Biden was inaugurated, RNC head Ronna Romney McDaniels introduced him by stating his job would center on "ensuring voters have confidence in future election processes.”

Read More Here: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/30/doj-jan-6-capitol-riot-joshua-findlay-00048809


Following Trump's lead, Republicans push bill to make federal workers fireable 'at will'



U.S. Rep. Chip Roy's introduction Friday of a bill to make federal bureaucratic personnel at-will employees further stoked fears that marginalized workers will suffer discriminatory firings under a future Republican administration or even GOP-controlled Congress.

"This is obviously a huge and major change, an effort to gear up a major assault on the federal employment system."

The Public Service Reform Act "will empower federal agencies to swiftly address misconduct and remove underperforming or ill-willed employees, creating a federal workforce focused on service to the American people," Roy (R-Texas) said in a statement.

The bill "would make all federal bureaucrats at-will employees—just like private sector workers—and claw back the inordinate protections some federal employees grossly abuse," he added.

The proposed legislation comes a week after reports that aides to former President Donald Trump are working to revive a plan to reclassify federal civil service personnel who worked under both Democratic and Republican administrations as at-will workers subject to easier termination.

Don Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, told Government Executive that "this is obviously a huge and major change, an effort to gear up a major assault on the federal employment system" that "is being helped and aided unquestionably by a set of groups like America First Works, Heritage Action for America, FreedomWorks, and Citizens for Renewing America, who have endorsed the bill."

"Much of the debate has largely been about if Trump is reelected," he added, "but what this makes clear is the efforts to try to change the civil service aren't just Trump necessarily, and if Republicans take control of Congress following the midterms, this may very well go from idea to specific action."

According to Government Executive:

Although the bill stands nearly zero chance of passing in the current Congress, experts say that it, combined with recent news that conservative political operatives with Trump's endorsement have devised plans to revive Schedule F, a proposal to strip the civil service protections from tens of thousands of federal employees in "policy-related" positions, indicates the civil service system as we have known it for the last 150 years will be under attack under the next Republican administration.

Although Roy says his bill "will provide justice to federal employees who are victims of discrimination or whistleblower retaliation," Kettl warned that the measure "dramatically limits the amount of whistleblowing activity that's possible," noting that "it creates a disincentive to blow the whistle because your retirement benefits could be reduced."

"When you put it together," he added, "it's a very big deal" and "would dramatically change the incentives for individuals who are being dismissed because of whistleblowing."

Author and transgender activist Brynn Tannehill worries that, should at-will employment become reality, "a purge of trans people from federal service" would follow a return of Trump or another Republican president to the White House.

Commenting on the mass firing of progressive staffers by San Francisco's new tougher-on-crime district attorney following Chesa Boudin's recall, socialist organizer Julian LaRosa recently argued for a codified employment termination standard similar to the one realized in the limited laws that labor activists led by Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union helped enact in Philadelphia and New York.

"You can bet your ass that every transgender federal employee who falls under this classification... is getting fired posthaste."

"Can we just get universal just cause in the workplace already?" he asked.

Testifying before New York City Council members in support of that city's 2021 just-cause law, former Chipotle worker Melanie Walker said she was suddenly fired by her manager one day for not smiling, even though there were no customers in the store.

"Everyone who's working needs to have some type of stability in your life," she said. "You should be able to go to work without thinking you have to be on eggshells all day, thinking that you can be fired at any moment for any cause."

"I'm loyal to you as a worker and you should be loyal to me," Walker added. "People still have to feed their families."

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-makes-easier-to-fire-fed-workers/


Marjorie Taylor Greene slammed by colleague for support of Christian nationalism



Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) recently weighed in with a critical assessment of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-Ga.) support of Christian nationalism.

On Friday, Kinzinger tweeted a response to Greene's call for the Republican Party to operate as the "party of Christian Nationalism." The Illinois lawmaker compared Greene's remarks to the Taliban's claims of being "the party of Islamic nationalism."

We need to prove to people we are the party of Christian Nationalism,” Kinzinger tweeted echoing Greene's remarks. He added, "Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene 'We are the party of Islamic nationalism…' Taliban. I oppose the American Taliban."

Greene's recent remarks follow a string of similar comments where she has advocated for such practices within the Republican Party. In the past, former President Donald Trump has also publicly referenced Christianity recently saying, "Americans kneel to God, and God alone."

According to Christianity Today, the ideology behind Christian nationalism is "the belief that the American nation is defined by Christianity, and that the government should take active steps to keep it that way."

Similar to Greene's remarks, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) recently shared her opposing view on the separation of church and state. According to Boebert, the church should "direct the government."

"There is no difference between this and the Taliban. We must opposed [sic] the Christian Taliban. I say this as a Christian," Kinzinger tweeted.

Kinzinger has been quite vocal about his opposing stance when it comes to far-right Republican lawmakers like Greene. He and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) are the only two House Republicans who have stood with Democratic lawmakers to hold Trump and his allies accountable for the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.

https://twitter.com/AdamKinzinger/status/1552988769665548288

[Rick Plant]

Lawrence: Leaks Of DOJ's Criminal Investigation Of Trump Will Keep Coming

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson is reportedly cooperating with federal prosecutors in the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of Donald Trump. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell explains why leaks like these will keep coming.

[Rick Plant]

Trump 'has to be rattled' at the new line of inquiry by the Jan. 6 committee: biographer



Appearing on MSNBC on Sunday afternoon with host Lindsey Reiser, Donald Trump biographer Tim O'Brien said the former president can't be pleased that former members of his cabinet are speaking privately with investigators working for the House Jan 6 committee looking into the Capitol insurrection.

Reacting to reports that former secretary of state Mike Pompeo might join ex-Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin, former Education Department head Betsy DeVos and Mick Mulvaney voluntarily testifying, O'Brien said Trump is likely "rattled"by the news.

As host Reiser noted, questions about Trump administration officials considering invoking the 25th Amendment, that would have stripped the now-former president of his powers around the time of the Trump-inspired riot, seem to be the focus of the interviews.

"Do you think Trump is rattled by these senior members of his administration cooperating?" she asked.

"I can't get inside his head that completely," O'Brien admitted. "But Trump has always believed in unwavering loyalty, it is usually a one-way street, he never gives the people around him as much loyalty as he expects and I think throughout most of his presidency that was a pretty firm wall."

"I don't think he saw many people in his inner circle, they quit before they really decided to rat him out, and Trump rewarded some of them like Roger Stone with pardons." he continued. "I think the work of the Jan. 6 committee has convinced those sort of people like Mnuchin, like Pompeo to decide to testify. It's unfortunately very late in the process but I think they took their cues from people like Bill Barr, from conservative Republicans like Liz Cheney, who decided to partake in that process because it has merit, because Trump tried to stage a coup."

"I think the substance of what the committee appears to be asking Mnuchin and Pompeo and others about, Betsy DeVos too I believe, is whether not they were so alarmed by what happened on Jan. 6 that they wanted to invoke the 25th Amendment and force Trump's removal from office," he elaborated. "So he has to be rattled by that, because these are people in the past, Mick Mulvaney is another, who never would have publicly gone on the other side against him."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Donald Trump's lawyers are already at work on a defense of possible criminal charges from the Justice Department



Donald Trump's lawyers apparently believe that the ex-president will be criminally charged for his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election and subsequent efforts to stop the Electoral College vote count.

Rolling Stone reported Sunday evening that three different sources wrote to the magazine to report the Trump lawyers are at work on strategy and defense options if the Justice Department charges the former president.

The work began months ago, but according to the report, after former Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified, the legal team's "effort intensified." After Hutchinson's testimony, Trump went off on her, saying that she wasn't mentally sound and calling her "crazy." He implied that the only reason that she was coming forward with the accusations was to promote her own career. She has actually been under threat and intimidation since it was revealed she gave information to the committee and is now in hiding.

The lawyers are discussing ways that they can find someone else to blame instead of Trump.

"Trump got some terrible advice from attorneys who, some people would argue, should have or must have known better," one of the sources told Rolling Stone. "An ‘advice of counsel’ defense would be a big one."

One of the things explained by Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor with Robert Mueller's team, is that the evidence is showing former Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) could end up being the fall guy. Witnesses have testified that he was in every meeting with Trump dealing with Jan. 6, the so-called "Stop the Steal" rally, and other schemes.

"The timeline is, I think, the key because there is a ticking clock," Weissmann said. "And I think that what you're ultimately going to have to see is the department trying to get witnesses and putting pressure on or charging people like Mark Meadows."

Former prosecutor Glenn Kirschner explained that Meadows is only going to be the fall guy if the DOJ allows him to be.

"Should he be charged for his crimes, absolutely, but does that mean the Department of Justice should stop at Mark Meadows? Absolutely not," said Kirschner. "Donald Trump is the hub, of the hub and spoke conspiracy that I've been talking about, including on your show for a very long time. Donald Trump is the hub from which all of these criminal spokes radiated. You know, we heard about this battle royale in the Oval Office with Team Normal, the folks that passed for adult in the Trump administration, and the crazies, the QAnon people, the Powells and Giulianis and you got the sense from listening to the evidence that everyone in the room knew that there was absolutely no evidence supporting these absurd claims of election fraud."

Another legal strategy they're discussing is saying that Trump has a First Amendment right to say whatever he wants and to petition his government or political grievances. Rolling Stone cited the sources saying that such arguments were viewed internally as the best way to fight back against the "fake electors" scheme.

In a statement after the eighth public hearing of the House Select Committee, the former president released a statement admitting to the attempt to overthrow the Electoral College count.

"This was a major event because everybody ganged up and said that Mike had no choice, he could not send the slates back to the States (which is all I suggested he do)," he said.

A former top lawyer in Trump's White House, Ty Cobb, said in June that he thinks criminal prosecutions are possible.

"Whether they are advisable is a more difficult consideration for the country,” he said. “Possible for Trump and [Mark] Meadows certainly. And for the others, including lawyers, who engaged fraudulently in formal proceedings or investigations.”

The Trump insider was dismissive that it goes beyond good lawyering, "We’ve gotten to a point where if you don’t think criminal charges are at least somewhat likely, you are not serving the [former] president’s best interests."

AFP


Trump’s Lawyers Are Preparing Legal Defenses Against Criminal Charges

According to internal communications reviewed by Rolling Stone, Trump’s team is “quietly” planning for criminal charges as they wait for the Justice Department to make its move



Donald Trump's lawyers are preemptively preparing a legal defense against criminal charges from the Justice Department, as the former president’s lawyers are increasingly anxious that their client will be prosecuted for his role in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

Members of the ex-president’s legal team have already begun brainstorming strategy and potential defenses, according to three people familiar with the matter and written communications reviewed by Rolling Stone. Trump himself has been briefed on potential legal defenses on at least two occasions this summer, two of the sources say.

That effort intensified after former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s June testimony before the House committee investigating Jan. 6.

“Members of the Trump legal team are quietly preparing, in the event charges are brought,” says one person familiar with the situation. “It would be career malpractice not to. Do the [former] president’s attorneys believe everything Cassidy said? No … Do they think the Department of Justice would be wise to charge him? No. But we’ve gotten to a point where if you don’t think criminal charges are at least somewhat likely, you are not serving the [former] president’s best interests.”

The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Official Trump spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

In their preparations, Trump’s team has discussed strategies that involve shifting blame from Trump to his advisors for the efforts to overturn the election, per the three sources, reflecting a broader push to find a fall fall-guy — or fall-guys. “Trump got some terrible advice from attorneys who, some people would argue, should have or must have known better,” says one of the sources with knowledge of recent discussions in Trumpland. “An ‘advice of counsel’ defense would be a big one.”

Other potential strategies include defenses based on the First Amendment and the right to petition the government over a political grievance. Such arguments are viewed internally as potential defenses against charges related to the “fake elector” scheme.

Federal prosecutors have questioned aides to former Vice President Mike Pence about Trump’s involvement in his campaign’s effort to put forth slates of those fake electors, the Washington Post reported last week. After Trump lost the election in November, his campaign and supporters recruited the fake electors to proclaim Trump to be the recipient of their state’s electoral college votes. The effort aimed to provide an air of legal legitimacy to Trump’s election fraud conspiracy theories, as well as to pressure officials in battleground states to declare him the winner. The effort failed, but it has since attracted the attention of prosecutors, not just at the Justice Department, but in the swing states where Republicans assembled slates of phony electors.

If the Justice Department does come with charges, Trump’s current team has acknowledged they would have to bring on more legal firepower to handle the historic legal defense. “You’d need to have a real heavyweight at the top [of the legal team] for something like that, but right now nobody knows who that would be,” one Trump adviser says.

Some of Trump’s higher ranking legal and political counselors doubt Attorney General Merrick Garland would be willing to go through with charges. Biden’s pick for Attorney General has been long regarded as a consummate institutionalist, wary of the unintended consequences or precedents that could come from criminally charging a former president.

“I do think criminal prosecutions are possible. Whether they are advisable is a more difficult consideration for the country,” Ty Cobb, a former top lawyer in Trump’s White House, told Rolling Stone in June. “Possible for Trump and [Mark] Meadows certainly. And for the others, including lawyers, who engaged fraudulently in formal proceedings or investigations.”

Criminal charges against a former president would mark the first time in American history that a former president has been prosecuted for crimes committed in office. A Nixon-era Justice Department memo, reiterated during the Clinton presidency, stated that presidents should not be charged while in office. But how the prosecution of a former president could take place legally remains unclear, given the lack of precedent, and would invite constitutional challenges ending up to the Supreme Court.

Trump also seems keenly aware of the blowback that could result from a federal indictment — and is telling supporters it could be politically advantageous. Early this year, the former president told fans at a Texas rally that if prosecutors go after him, “we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we have ever had…in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere.”

Trump has that rally repeated versions of that line to confidants and longtime pals, including at casual gatherings this summer, a person with direct knowledge of the matter says. “He says,” the source recalls, “it would make the crowd size at [Jan. 6] look small by comparison.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-lawyers-planning-for-charges-1390669/

[Rick Plant]

Fox News' treatment of Trump is 'the biggest burn' that can be inflicted on him: reporter



Reacting to reports of a schism between Donald Trump and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, reporter Tara Palmieri told CNN host Brian Stelter on Sunday that the former president is feeling "bruised" that he doesn't get praise on Fox News anymore -- if he gets mentioned at all.

With the Washington Post reporting that the House Jan. 6 hearings have put a damper on Murdoch's enthusiasm for Trump running for office again, Palmieri and GOP strategist Liz Mair had differing opinions on why Trump is on the outs with Fox.

"Donald Trump isn't as entertaining as he was in 2015 or 2016, " Mair suggested. "In 2015 and 2016 and beyond that, whether you loved him or hated him, I was definitely on the hate side, he was like the car crash on the side of the road you couldn't take your eyes off. That's not the case anymore. He's not very interesting to anybody, whether you're talking about progressives, conservatives, libertarians."

"People like [Florida Republican] Ron Desantis are more interesting, that's a judgment call. I think Fox naturally is going to make it," she added.

"I would disagree," Palmieri. "I think the Donald Trump show is still a car crash, just a very expensive one to follow like Fox News learned with that Dominion suit."

"At the end of the day they don't need to cover Trump anymore," she continued. "That's so bruising for him. Trump is okay with the critical coverage, but to be ignored is the biggest burn you can do to Donald Trump."

"I don't think the show has changed, it's the same show, it's just they're not watching it anymore," she added. "Then you just have Breitbart and the marginal outlets watching, but not the older voters you need."

Watch: