Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Trump is a 'deeply wounded narcissist' who is 'incapable of acting other than for revenge' — according to his former White House lawyer



A former White House lawyer during Donald Trump's administration says he thinks the Justice Department's investigation into whether Donald Trump improperly removed classified documents from the White House is actually related to Jan. 6, CBS News reports.

"It is about the bigger picture, the Jan. 6 issues, the fake electors, the whole scam with regard to the 'big lie' and the attempts to…cling to the presidency in a desperate fashion," Ty Cobb said on the The Takeout podcast.

"The search warrant is unusually large and broad," Cobb said. "It's very, very comprehensive in terms of the types of documents that the government could take."

"For example, you can take any box that has a document. You can take any box adjacent to a box that has it," he said. "Those are pretty broad parameters."

As CBS News points out, Cobb represented the White House during Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump's campaign's alleged "collusion" with Russia -- an investigation that yielded no charges.

During his time in the White House, Cobb says Trump "was cautioned many times about not tearing up documents."

"In my own experience, I have to say, there wasn't really anything quite as consequential as the press reports that I've read," Cobb said. "I saw him tear up newspaper articles which sadly, some staffer would have to tape back together at the end of the day. I saw him tear up inconsequential documents, but I never saw him tear up a classified document or something that was important."

Cobb went to say that he does not believe the DOJ's investigation is the biggest threat to Trump.

"I think the president is in serious legal water, not so much because of the search, but because of the obstructive activity he took in connection with the Jan. 6 proceeding," Cobb said. "I think that and the attempts to interfere in the election count in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and perhaps Michigan. That was the first time in American history that a president unconstitutionally attempted to remain in power illegally."

"I believe former President Trump to be a deeply wounded narcissist, and he is often incapable of acting other than in his perceived self-interest or for revenge," Cobb added. "I think those are the two compelling instincts that guide his actions."

Read More Here:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/former-trump-white-house-lawyer-ty-cobb-trump-investigation-jan-6-the-takeout-podcast/



See video of ex-Georgia official escorting Trump operatives into election offices

Newly obtained video by CNN shows a former Georgia Republican Coffee County official escorting two operatives, hired by an attorney for former president Donald Trump, into the county's election offices on the same day a voting system there was illegally breached. CNN's Drew Griffin has more.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Doug Mastriano:
- Was part of the January 6 mob
- Prayed for MAGA to "seize the power"
- Speaks at rallies about how becoming governor will give him "direct control" over elections

The anti-democracy MAGA machine at work.


Caught on Tape: Doug Mastriano Prayed for MAGA to ‘Seize the Power’ Ahead of Jan. 6

In a Dec. 2020 meeting with Christian Nationalists, the man who would become the GOP nominee for governor prayed Congress would "disregard" Pennsylvania's election results


Donald Trump applauds Doug Mastriano, the GOP nominee for Pennsylvania governor

A WEEK BEFORE Jan. 6, on a Zoom call organized by far-right Christian Nationalists seeking to reinstall Donald Trump in the White House, a man with a booming baritone voice bowed his bald head and began to pray. “We remember the promises of old,” he said, before invoking the book of Revelations and its account of the End Times: “We know we overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony and not loving our lives unto death.”

Seated before a Revolutionary War flag with the motto “An Appeal to Heaven,” the man spoke of the nation’s founding in biblical terms: “We remember 1776, our Declaration of Independence, speaking God’s Truth and Word over what would become the United States of America.” He tied Pennsylvania to God’s divine plan, from the Battle of Gettysbug to the fate of Flight 93, which crashed after a “strong Christian man” confronted Islamist hijackers on 9/11, with the cry, “Let’s roll!”

“God I ask you that you help us roll in these dark times, that we fear not the darkness, that we will seize our Esther and Gideon moments,” the man said, invoking a pair of Old Testament heroes who made themselves instruments of God’s vengeance. “We’re surrounded by wickedness and fear, and dithering, and inaction,” he added, “But that’s not our problem. Our problem is following Your lead.” Looking ahead to Jan 6, the man said: “I pray that… we’ll seize the power that we had given to us by the Constitution, and as well by You, providentially. I pray for the leaders also in the federal government, God, on the Sixth of January that they will rise up with boldness.”

The man was state senator Doug Mastriano, now the Republican nominee to be the next governor of Pennsylvania. As he spoke, Mastriano held up letters to Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy that he said Trump personally asked him to write to the Republican leaders “outlining the fraud in Pennsylvania.” He implored that Congress “disregard” the certified election results for the state, “in Jesus’ name, amen.”

The prayer meeting — one of a series of nearly two dozen “Global Prayer for Election Integrity” calls organized between election day and Jan. 6 — was organized by Jim Garlow, a prominent figure in the far-right New Apostolic Restoration movement. Garlow believes that U.S. government should operate according to biblical principles, because, “He knows best how government is to function.” Mastriano’s participation on the call was first reported by Right Wing Watch last year, but the video of Mastriano’s remarks is published here for first time:

Watch Below:

The content of and context of Mastriano’s participation on the call gives lie to his protestations that he’s neither affiliated with NAR nor a Christian Nationalist. The video also sheds a harsh light on Mastriano’s mutinous mindset in the buildup to the Jan. 6 insurrection. Mastriano was on ground in Washington D.C. on that day and allegedly crossed police lines at the Capitol. (Mastriano has insisted he “respected all police lines as I came upon them.”) Mastriano’s role is of keen interest to the Jan. 6 Committee which has sought to compel his testimony. On Sept. 1, Mastriano filed a lawsuit against the Committee, challenging its authority to depose him. Mastriano did not respond to an interview request.

Christian Nationalism is the radical notion that the United States should not simply protect the religious freedoms of Christians, but that the nation should be governed according to their biblical beliefs, and that Christianity’s moral codes should be imposed on all citizens. Christian Nationalism is a rising force within the Trumpist, authoritarian GOP, with sitting members of Congress now openly rejecting the separation of church and state.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene identifies as a “proud Christian Nationalist” and Rep. Lauren Boehbert spoke succinctly of its aims in a June appearance at the Cornerstone Christian Center: “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk,” she said. “The church is supposed to direct the government; the government is not supposed to direct the church.”

Christian Nationalism is a central tenet of a religious movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation. NAR emerges from charismatic Christianity (think: Pentecostalism) and is anchored in the belief that we are living in an age of new apostles and prophets, who receive direct revelations from the Holy Spirit. NAR adherents hold that the End Times are fast approaching and that it is their calling is to hasten the second coming of Christ by re-fashioning the modern world in a biblical manner.

Prominent NAR leaders, including as the “apostle” Dutch Sheets, believe that the U.S. is a divine instrument for spreading Christianity across the globe. Sheets projects his fundamentalist religious values on the nation’s founding, seeing America’s religious destiny as rooted in the Revolutionary War, symbolized by a flag flown by the Colonial navy that features a pine tree (which Sheets claims symbolizes Abraham’s covenant with God) and the slogan “An Appeal to Heaven.” 

NAR adherents view current events through a lens of “spiritual warfare” — seeing a constant battle between Christ believers and their enemies, whom they hold are literally afflicted by demons. Israel also holds outsized importance to NAR followers. They believe that Jews securing Israel as a homeland is a precondition for Christ’s return. (In their belief system Jews are prophesied convert, en masse, and accept Jesus as the messiah.)

The “Global Prayer for Election Integrity” call series was convened by Garlow, an apostolic leader prominent in the NAR movement who also had significant ties to the Trump White House; Garlow even prayed with Trump in the Oval Office. Based in southern California, Garlow blasts the separation of church and state. His ministry, Well Versed World, seeks to actualize “biblical principles of governance,” claiming that government should be Godly because “God originally established government.”

In late 2020, Garlow saw the effort to overturn Joe Biden’s election to the presidency as divinely inspired. “This is good versus evil,” he said on a Dec 20 call featuring special guest Steve Bannon. “This is righteous people versus unrighteous people. This is a biblical theological situation we’re facing,” Garlow insisted. He argued that those seeking to return Trump to the White House were “following truth, righteousness, holiness, [and] biblical justice.”

Garlow was joined organizing the call series by the “apostle” Mario Bramnick, who heads up the Latino Coalition for Israel. Bramnick was also tied to the Trump administration, serving as a faith envoy for the White House. On the Dec. 30 video, it’s Bramnick who introduces Mastriano. “We’re honored to have with us Senator Mastriano, who… is leading the charge in Pennsylvania.” Mastriano was reportedly Trump’s “point person” for organizing a fake slate of electors for Pennsylvania to submit to the Electoral College.

Mastriano’s appearance is brief, but he delivers a rapid-fire prayer, dense with violent imagery. Mastriano repeatedly refers to dark stories from the Old Testament. “God, you’re calling forth modern day Esthers and Gideons,” he says. Both biblical figures represent human actors being called to divine purposes.

In the story of Esther, a Persian king decreed that Jews should be slaughtered, but Esther’s last minute appeal to the ruler not only convinces him to save her people, but to empower them to attack their own enemies. The story of Gideon, meanwhile, is that of a holy warrior, directed by an angel, who, though impossibly outnumbered, lays siege to the encampment of an usurping power in Israel, driving out the enemy. Gideon’s army ultimately delivers to him the heads of the enemy king’s sons as prizes.

The full video of the call was provided to Rolling Stone by Bruce Wilson, an independent researcher who has chronicled the rising influence of NAR in American politics for more than a decade. Wilson’s writings have been cited in academic literature on NAR. Wilson downloaded a copy of the video before it was deleted in the aftermath of the insurrection at the Capitol.

The video undermines claims by Mastriano seeking to distance himself from religious extremism. In a May 2021 profile in the New Yorker, Mastriano denied working directly with the New Apostolic Reformation and rejected the very notion of Christian Nationalism: “Is this a term you fabricated?” he asked the reporter. “What does it mean, and where have I indicated that I am a Christian Nationalist?”

Wilson finds Mastriano’s denials risible. “If Mastriano wasn’t a NAR true believer, why was he there praying before them, and taking on the heroic mantle of Gideon?” he asks. “He didn’t just wander in off the street, he was invited.” Noting the pine-tree flag adopted by Christian Nationalists in the background, Wilson adds that Mastriano’s prayer was pitched perfectly to a NAR audience: “He speaks their vernacular so well, it’s hard to imagine he’s not all in.”

The full video of the 2021 NAR call runs nearly two hours. Garlow introduces the call by asking any reporters on the line to “kindly step off the call” because it is “not for you.” He adds: “I see this like a church service — a private prayer meeting.” But the call is not at all like a church service. Although there is ample prayer, the call features one guest who exhaustively details conspiracy theories and misinformation about election fraud.

Religious leaders on the call make plain that they view Trump’s return to office as divinely ordained. Abby Abildness is a prominent NAR pastor in Pennsylvania who is close with Mastriano, even interviewing him in his Harrisburg office. “We look for the victory that you have proclaimed Lord,” Abildness says, “that there would be another term for Pence and for Trump to continue the righteous values that they have opened the door for in this nation.”

James Goll, a NAR “prophet” on the call, can be heard leading the assembly in a cacophonous prayer over their senators asking that they join Missouri’s Josh Hawley in the plan to object to the counting of the votes of the Electoral College. “We say that the Spirit of God is at move,” Goll intones. “And we release the word over senators.” Noting that he is in Tennessee, Goll attempts to whip the vote of his own senator through prayer: “I declare over Marsha Blackburn, I say, rise up, be a spokeswoman, join the Senator from Missouri…. You are you are an Esther, and you’re called to rise up and be a righteous voice that will also say, ‘I will not allow this on my watch.’”

An overtly political component of the call featured an appearance by Steve Cortes, who was at the time a senior member of the Trump campaign. Cortes used his time to encourage the assembled crowd to turn up the heat on their elected officials. “It is still important for us to pressure them to make them feel the weight of the America First movement, of the deplorables,” he says, adding darkly: “to make them feel our wrath, quite frankly.”

These days, as he runs for statewide office, Mastriano continues his special relationship with Trump. The former president held a rally on behalf of Pennsylvania’s GOP candidates, including Mastriano, on Sept 3 in Wilkes-Barre. Trump regaled the audience with war stories from his last days in office, recalling how Mastriano had visited with him in the White House as he clawed to hold on to the presidency. Trump praised Mastriano for joining him in the fight against “a lot of really sick, bad people.”

When it was his turn at the podium, Mastriano launched into a fit of projection. He called his Democratic opponent “too dangerous too extreme and too radical for Pennsylvania.” The Republican then again invoked the words of Todd Beamer, the 9/11 resister — turning them into a dark political slogan: “Pennsylvania,” Mastriano said, “‘Let’s roll!’”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/doug-mastriano-donald-trump-christian-right-1234589455/

[Rick Plant]

MAGA freak Lauren Boebert wants to rule America based on her far right exrremist evangelical religion. She is already on the record stating she is "tired of separation of church and state junk". Americans have a reason to be worried about losing our democracy with this deranged MAGA cult trying to take over our government. This is coming from a woman who is a high school dropout and was arrested several times in the last few years. She isn't the only MAGA who is using extreme religion to take away rights of Americans. MAGA Republicans share her views by taking away women's rights and banning books they don't like. This isn't freedom, this is religious Christian Nationalist fascism.     


GOP Rep. Boebert tells churchgoers to ‘rise up’ at far-right Christian conference

Truth and Liberty event hosted by pro-Trump preacher Andrew Wommack’s Woodland Park bible college



In a raucous speech at a Christian conference in Woodland Park on Friday, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert called for conservative churchgoers to put “God back at the center of our country” and defeat “the enemy” that she said is destroying it from within.

“God is on our side. The blood has been applied,” Boebert told the crowd at Charis Bible College in an hour-long speech that quoted heavily from scripture. “We are going straight into victory. You are all more than conquerers through God, through Christ who strengthens you every step of the way.”

Boebert and other speakers addressed a three-day conference held by the Truth and Liberty Coalition, a nonprofit started by Charis founder and far-right preacher Andrew Wommack, which aims to erase boundaries between religion and politics. “We see a Church unengaged in the public square because we have been conditioned to believe there is a disconnect between the secular and sacred,” the group’s website says. “There is not.”

In an earlier political conference held at Charis in April, Wommack urged attendees to “take over Woodland Park” and “take back Colorado” from what he called a “demon-possessed” government, The Gazette reported. His views have frequently been characterized as belonging to the dominionist movement, which seeks to place government under control of the Christian church and its interpretation of biblical law.

Though his organization rejects the label, affirming that it supports “preserving America’s constitutional republic of government,” Wommack frequently emphasizes the need for Christians to reclaim the “Seven Mountains” of influence, a key tenet of dominionist theology.

“We are the kings. We are the ones who rule,” Wommack said in a speech to the conference Thursday. “And when we don’t vote, then we allow those with different values — we increase their power. It’s Christians that have allowed this nation to go the way that it is.”

"We know that we are in the last of the last days ... It’s not a time to get upset about it. It’s a time to know that you were called to be a part of these last days. You get to have a role in ushering in the second coming of Jesus." - MAGA Rep. Lauren Boebert

Endorsing baseless conspiracy theories alleging widespread election fraud, Wommack added, “If we got enough Christians to stand up and vote, we’d overwhelm all of their algorithms, and we’d beat their cheating.”

Over three days, speakers at the Truth and Liberty conference celebrated the Supreme Court’s rollback of abortion rights and called for Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case establishing a right to same-sex marriage, to be overturned next. They denounced a long list of evils that included “wokeness,” cancel culture and Black Lives Matter, peppering their speeches with transphobic abuse and conspiracy theories about a “one world government.” One speaker referenced the Georgia Guidestones, an obscure public monument that far-right extremists alleged was satanic in origin and was destroyed in a bombing in July.

Boebert told the crowd that the country had been founded by men “fluent in the word of God,” calling for a “revival” that restores conservative Christian values in government.

“We need God back at the center of our country,” she said. “It’s time for us to position ourselves, and rise up, and take our place in Christ, and influence this nation as we were called to do.”

‘The last of the last days’

A first-term congresswoman from Silt, Boebert unseated veteran Rep. Scott Tipton in the 3rd Congressional District’s 2020 Republican primary and has gone on to become one of the most prominent voices on the GOP’s far-right wing. She helped lead attempts by former President Donald Trump’s supporters to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and tweeted “Today is 1776” on the morning of the Jan. 6 assault by pro-Trump rioters on the U.S. Capitol.

On Friday, she reserved some of her harshest words for the public health measures that restricted church attendance during the COVID-19 pandemic, which she called an “attack on our faith,” and she veered into apocalyptic rhetoric about “the end” drawing near.

“We know that we are in the last of the last days,” Boebert said. “It’s not a time to get upset about it. It’s a time to know that you were called to be a part of these last days. You get to have a role in ushering in the second coming of Jesus.”

Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado Springs also addressed the conference via a short prerecorded video focusing on the U.S. relationship with Israel, both of which, he said, have a “miraculous origin based on a belief in scripture.”

Nonprofit status

Boebert was preceded on stage by far-right political commentator Eric Metaxas, a prominent election denier who is among the defendants named in a defamation lawsuit filed last year by a former employee of Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems.

Metaxas repeatedly likened conservatives in the present-day United States to the victims of Nazi Germany, saying that “precisely what happened in Germany” is “happening here now, because of the silence of many, if not most, Christian leaders.” Echoing the conference’s theme, he called the notion that churches shouldn’t be political “a lie from the pit of hell.”

Under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, churches are automatically considered 501(c)(3) organizations, a designation that bars them from political activity. The Truth and Liberty Coalition is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which allows it to engage in some political advocacy, as long as such activity isn’t its “primary purpose,” and it doesn’t directly contribute to or coordinate with candidates for office. Conference organizers clarified that Boebert, who is running for reelection in November, appeared at the conference “in her official capacity.”

Metaxas, however, urged Christian churches to follow through on political activism regardless of the consequences.

“If I say this candidate is the one you should elect because he will help these things, and I mention the name Donald Trump … the idea that Christians shouldn’t be allowed to say that is insanity,” he said.

“We have participated in our own silence,” Metaxas continued. “Somehow we’ve said, well, I don’t want to lose my 501(c)(3) status — folks, better that we would never have 501(c)(3) status than that it would muzzle us from speaking the truth of God.”

https://coloradonewsline.com/2022/09/10/boebert-rise-up-far-right-christian-conference/



'Trump’s deranged outrage style' is history as Truth Social becomes a 'slow-cooking financial disaster': analyst



In his column for Politico, analyst Jack Shafer predicted Donald Trump's Truth Social will go down as "one of the biggest social media flops of the decade" and the former president has no one to blame but himself.

According to the columnist, the warning signs were there for all to see after Trump's launched a blog in 2021 that lasted a mere 29 days before collapsing due to its inability to draw an audience.

As Schafer pointed out, the former president had attracted 89 million followers on Twitter before the platform banned him over, as the social media company put it: the "Risk Of further incitement of violence" after the Jan. 6 insurrection.

After he was banned across the board by Facebook and other platforms, the former president announced plans to create his own internet soapbox from which to spout his complaints and attacks as well as for his followers to congregate and share their thoughts.

What has followed has been technical difficulties, financial woes and a general disinterest by conservatives as only 3.9 million have signed up.

That led Shafer to ask rhetorically, "Where did the magic go? Why have Trump’s followers forsaken him? Is Truth Social doomed?"

"During his first campaign and presidency, even a garden-variety Trump tweet could convulse newsrooms. But that was a function of his front-runner status and later his place in the Oval Office. He drew an enormous audience not because he was Donald Trump tweeting but because he was the tweeting president. The power of the office endowed his tweets with muscle that could move financial markets, bury political careers, inspire death threats against his enemies and make the press snap to attention," he wrote. "But exiled to Mar-a-Lago and denied his social media accounts rendered him just another celebrity squeaking noises from a tiny soapbox. When his profile shrank, he became easier to ignore."

Add to that, he wrote, Trump's act has grown "stale."

"Blame it on the network effect. If you already have a Twitter account, it takes just a millisecond to click and add another person’s feed to your account. But downloading a new app just to follow a single somebody takes mental energy, especially if there aren’t many other accounts on the app you wish to follow," he explained before offering, "Trump out of office proved to be as boring as Trump in office was disruptive."

"There’s also evidence that Trump has simply exhausted the Trump meme he invented. Trump’s deranged outrage style once contained real entertainment value — which explains why moderates and liberals followed him on Twitter even if they wouldn’t vote for him," he continued. "But in his post-presidency and especially in the weeks following the Mar-a-Lago search and investigation, the show has gone stale."

Sticking the knife in and twisting it, the analyst suggested, "He’s become a carnival geek biting the heads off of snakes, which can be a fabulous show the first couple of times you see it, but after that, meh. Could today’s Trump devise enough fresh outrage to produce even a brief TikTok?"

Read More Here https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/09/10/truth-social-flop-says-about-trump-00055977

[Rick Plant]

MAGA Republicans are a danger to our democracy and their violent rhetoric is endangering the lives of our law enforcement all because they are trying to protect Criminal Donald from his treason.


'Sickening and reckless' Lindsey Graham and Kevin McCarthy slammed for latest attacks on law enforcement



In interviews with the Guardian, former Department of Justice officials singled out Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for their continuing attacks on the FBI and the DOJ as they attempt to protect Donald Trump who is under investigation.

As the DOJ pursues possible Espionage Act and obstruction charges against the former president after he was caught holding sensitive government documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort -- necessitating a search by FBI agents armed with a warrant -- the two senior Republicans, as well as Trump, have ramped up attacking government agents for doing their jobs.

That has some former DOJ officials fuming.

According to the Guardian's Peter Stone, "The unrelenting attacks by Trump and loyalists such as McCarthy, senator Lindsey Graham, Steve Bannon and false conspiracy theorist Alex Jones against law enforcement have continued despite strong evidence that Trump kept hundreds of classified documents illegally," adding, "Former law enforcement officials and scholars warn that using such conspiratorial rhetoric impugning the motives and actions of the justice department and the FBI runs the risk of inciting threats of violence and actual attacks, fears that have already been proven warranted."

Former DOJ Inspector General Michael Bromwich launched a broadside against the attacks and singled out both Graham and McCarthy.

“I have been dealing with law enforcement and the criminal justice system for close to 40 years. I have never seen the type or virulence of attacks being made every day against the FBI, DoJ lawyers, and judges,” he stated.

Adding that it is "dangerous and unacceptable," he continued, "It’s one thing for professional rabble rousers, liars, and nihilists – such as Bannon and Jones – to attack law enforcement and DoJ in the way that they have since the search; it’s quite another for so-called respectable political figures such as McCarthy and Graham to do so. Their recent actions and words reflect that theirs is a politics detached from facts and principle.”

Former U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg concurred, telling the Guardian, “The attacks on federal law enforcement are sickening and reckless.”

As the Guardian's Stone wrote, "Graham provoked heavy criticism for making the suggestion in a Fox News interview that the FBI raid and investigation would lead to 'riots in the street', if charges were filed against Trump," former federal prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig also called out the South Carolina lawmaker by lumping him in with the indicted Steve Bannon.

"The risk is that predictions of violence can easily become threats of violence bordering on extortion,” he told the Guardian. “Explicitly calling for violence against the government can, in context, become criminal. When Trump loyalists like Bannon and Graham seem to cross that line, they are risking criminal prosecution.”

AFP



Trump’s increasing tirade against FBI and DoJ endangering lives of officials

The ex-president’s cries of a witch hunt by law enforcement, echoed by his allies, have imperiled officers’ physical safety



Donald Trump’s non-stop drive to paint the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago to recover classified documents as a political witch hunt is drawing rebukes from ex-justice department and FBI officials who warn such attacks can spur violence and pose a real threat to the physical safety of law enforcement.

But the concerns have not deterred Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and other Trump allies from making inflammatory remarks echoing the former US president.

The unrelenting attacks by Trump and loyalists such as McCarthy, senator Lindsey Graham, Steve Bannon and false conspiracy theorist Alex Jones against law enforcement have continued despite strong evidence that Trump kept hundreds of classified documents illegally.

Before the 8 August raid, Trump and his attorneys stonewalled FBI and US National Archives requests for the return of all classified documents and did not fully comply with a grand jury subpoena in a criminal probe of Trump’s hoarding of government documents.

The FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and club recovered 33 boxes with over 100 classified documents, adding to the 200 classified records Trump had earlier returned in response to multiple federal requests.

Trump’s high decibel attacks on law enforcement officials for trying to recover large quantities of classified documents including some that reportedly had foreign nuclear secrets was palpable in Pennsylvania recently when Trump at a political rally branded the FBI and justice department “political monsters” and labelled president Joe Biden “an enemy of the state”.

The day before in Pennsylvania, to coincide with a major Biden speech about threats to democracy posed by Trump and some of his allies, McCarthy mimicked Trump’s high decibel attacks on the court-approved FBI raid by calling it an “assault on democracy”.

Former law enforcement officials and scholars warn that using such conspiratorial rhetoric impugning the motives and actions of justice department and the FBI runs the risk of inciting threats of violence and actual attacks, fears that have already been proven warranted.

Consider Trump supporter Ricky Shiffer, who posted angry messages about the Mar-a-Lago raid on Trump Social, and then on 12 August armed himself with an assault rifle and attacked an FBI office in Cincinnati. After fleeing the scene he was hunted down and killed by police.

In another sign of potential violence, federal judge Bruce Reinhart in Florida, who had approved the FBI warrant to search Mar-a-Lago, reportedly received death threats after his name was cited in press accounts.

“I have been dealing with law enforcement and the criminal justice system for close to 40 years. I have never seen the type or virulence of attacks being made every day against the FBI, DoJ lawyers, and judges,” former justice department inspector general Michael Bromwich told the Guardian. “It’s a chorus led by Trump but that includes elected officials at every level. It is dangerous and unacceptable.”

Bromwich added: “It’s one thing for professional rabble rousers, liars, and nihilists – such as Bannon and Jones – to attack law enforcement and DoJ in the way that they have since the search; it’s quite another for so-called respectable political figures such as McCarthy and Graham to do so. Their recent actions and words reflect that theirs is a politics detached from facts and principle.”

Similarly, Chuck Rosenberg, a former US attorney for the sastern district of Virginia and ex-chief of staff to former FBI director James Comey, told the Guardian: “The attacks on federal law enforcement are sickening and reckless.”

To historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who has studied authoritarian leaders and wrote the book Strongmen, Trump’s attacks on the FBI and justice department and his retention of classified documents are consistent with his “authoritarian” leadership style

“It’s very typical of authoritarians to claim that they’re the victims and that there are witch hunts against them,” Ben-Ghiat told the Guardian.

Trump’s furious assaults on law enforcement also targeted the National Archives and Records Administration, causing a notable uptick in threats against the agency, according to sources quoted by the Washington Post.

“No NARA official involved in negotiating the return of presidential records from Mar-a-Lago would have acted with any motive other than to ensure the safe return of all of the presidential records back into the custody of the government,” said Jason R Baron, the former director of litigation at the US National Archives. “It is unfortunate that some would impugn the motives of NARA staff in simply doing their job.”

The frenzied attacks on law enforcement began almost immediately after the raid and included some especially rabid Trump supporters.

Former White House adviser Bannon, who has been convicted on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House January 6 panel, made unsupported claims to conspiracy monger Jones on Infowars that the FBI planted evidence against Trump during the Mar-a-Lago raid, and that the “deep state” is planning to kill Trump.

“I do not think it’s beyond this administrative state and their deep state apparatus to actually try to work on the assassination of President Trump,” said Bannon, who on 8 September was charged by New York prosecutors with fraud, money laundering and conspiracy involving his role in a private fundraising scheme to fund constructing the US-Mexico border wall.

Right before he left office, Trump pardoned Bannon who had been indicted on similar federal charges involving fraud and the border wall.

Graham provoked heavy criticism for making the suggestion in a Fox News interview that the FBI raid and investigation would lead to “riots in the street”, if charges were filed against Trump.

After critics noted Graham’s comments could fuel violence, Graham doubled down a week later saying he was just trying to “state the obvious”.

In a twist, some veteran justice department prosecutors point out that predictions of violence can potentially be criminal.

"The risk is that predictions of violence can easily become threats of violence bordering on extortion,” former justice department prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig told the Guardian. “Explicitly calling for violence against the government can, in context, become criminal. When Trump loyalists like Bannon and Graham seem to cross that line, they are risking criminal prosecution.”

On another front, even some former close allies of Trump say that his shifting and hard edged attacks on law enforcement look desperate and don’t pass the smell test.

William Barr, Trump’s former attorney general who formerly was a close ally, told Fox News on 2 September he didn’t see any reason why classified documents were at Mar-a-Lago once Trump left office.

“People say this was unprecedented,” Barr told Fox News “But it’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club, okay?”

To historian Ben-Ghiat, the fact that “Trump had those classified documents and they were mixed in with golf balls and family photos is very typical of authoritarian type leaders who don’t recognize any divides between public and private. Everything is theirs to trade, to sell and to use as leverage.”

For Bromwich, the attacks on law enforcement by Trump and his ardent allies is unprecedented and very dangerous.

“For those of us who have spent time with federal law enforcement personnel, the idea that they are members of the deep state or doing the bidding of the radical left is ridiculous. In my experience, the majority are conservative and Republican. Whatever their politics, they don’t let their political views affect their work.”

“The search of Mar-a-Lago was indeed unprecedented. It was preceded by an unprecedented and colossal theft of government property by the former president.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/11/trump-mar-a-lago-witch-hunt-fbi-doj-safety

[Rick Plant]

Investigators plan to put Trump lawyers in front of a grand jury and then make them flip: DC insider



During an interview on MSNBC early Sunday morning, New Yorker Executive Editor David Rohde said his sources claim the DOJ investigators plan to put a pair of Donald Trump's lawyers before a grand jury and give them the choice of turning on the former president or risk perjuring themselves.

According to the editor, investigators are focusing on attorney and former OAN host Christina Bobb and attorney Evan Corcoran, both of whom they hope to put on the spot over their part in obstructing the DOJ from getting back sensitive documents the former president was keeping at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

As the Washington Post reported, the evidence laid out by the DOJ suggests they could "build a legal case that Trump attorneys Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb obstructed the government’s investigation, allegedly telling FBI agents and prosecutors that they had handed over all classified documents when in fact many remained in Trump’s possession."

As Rohde pointed out, that could be trouble for both Trump and the attorneys.

"It is a really serious thing to bring a case, most importantly because you do not want to prosecute Donald Trump and have him acquitted at trial," he told host Ali Velshi. "My sense is that they are just going to, as one person told me, investigate the heck out of this case: Mar-a-Lago and January six."

"These prosecutors are very good at this, the FBI is very good at it. And they're going to try to flip witnesses," he continued. "The key thing that you are talking about is the jeopardy that his lawyers in the Mar-a-Lago case face. I think they're gonna put them before the grand jury, Corcoran and Bobb, and get them to answer questions under oath."

"They will either implicate Donald Trump, saying 'Donald Trump told me all the classified documents have been turned over' when they had not," he continued. "And if they lie, they will have implicated themselves in a crime."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Trump's lawyers double down in their response to the gov't's motion to exempt classified documents from Florida Judge Aileen Cannon's order while on appeal to the 11th Circuit. Apparently, the Republican party no longer believes in protecting our nation's most important secrets.

[Rick Plant]

‘It’s pretty disturbing’: Videos show Trump aides taking suspicious boxes to other golf properties

Online videos have prompted new calls to search Donald Trump's other properties for classified materials, but investigators may not have enough evidence yet to obtain a warrant.

The FBI searched Mar-a-Lago last month and seized boxes of top-secret documents, and videos that circulated over the weekend raised suspicions that other materials may have been carted to other properties owned by the former president.

However, NBC News correspondent Ken Dilanian told "Morning Joe" that's not enough to trigger a search.

"Obviously, we don't know the inner workings of this investigation, but what's required is more than just a theory that some evidence might be at a place," Dilanian said. "They need actual hard evidence and in the case of this Mar-a-Lago search, they had witnesses who were telling them that not only was there classified information there, but that they were misled, they were lied to essentially by the Trump side, and that's all blacked out in the affidavit, but we're aware that it exists, and they used that to go to a judge and say, 'Judge, we need to do a search.'"

"A search is a very intrusive thing," he continued. "You're trampling someone's Fourth Amendment rights for good reason. You have evidence of a crime at this location. Absent that, like, for example, there's a social media theory going around. There's some video of Trump aides loading boxes on to a private jet heading for Bedminster, and I have to say, I mean, when I first saw that on Twitter over the weekend, I thought, oh, another conspiracy theory."

"The more you look at it, the more it's pretty disturbing," Dilanian added. "The banker boxes are the same kinds of boxes that the classified documents were found in. Absent any other kinds of evidence, they would need witnesses telling them, yes, there were classified documents in the boxes and they were taken to Bedminster. They're not just going to do it based on a video or a theory."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Phones taken by Justice Department as they roll out 40 subpoenas of Trump allies involved in fake electors scheme



The New York Times reported Monday afternoon that at least 40 subpoenas have been filed for allies of former President Donald Trump over the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election using the fake electors.

At least two of Trump's top advisers had their phones taken by the FBI, sources told the Times. Boris Epshteyn, a Russian-American Republican political strategist who served as a strategic adviser to Trump's 2020 campaign was one of those who had to surrender his phone. The other was Mike Roman an opposition researcher who worked for Trump from 2017 to 2018. He went on to work on the campaign, and became the person who handed off the envelope of fake electors to be given to Vice President Mike Pence.

The Times described it as an indication that the Justice Department's case is escalating after slow movement for the past several months.

Dan Scavino, Trump’s former social media director is also among those who got a subpoena from the case.

Former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik was another subpoenaed. He was on the team with Rudy Giuliani and helping with the so-called "war room" on Jan. 6 at the Willard Hotel.

Some of the information, the Times explained, was asking about activities around the Save America PAC, which has been the main source of funding for Trump since leaving office.

Read the full report here