Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Bad news for Trump now that the 'courts have wised up' to his game: legal analyst



Appearing on MSNBC on Saturday morning, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner admitted that he was stunned by how rapidly Donald Trump's legal maneuvers are receiving consideration as they move up the appeals chain and claimed it appears judges at various levels are expediting the cases to the former president's detriment.

Speaking with MSNBC host Tiffany Cross, Kirschner pointed out Trump's attempt to keep the National Archives from turning over his files and documents to the House Jan 6th committee is moving faster than expected with the former president losing every step of the way.

"What I am heartened by, is people got dispirited when they saw that the appellate court issued a stay. they temporarily blocked the documents from going from the National Archives to the House select committee after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan delivered that well-reasoned strong opinion saying Donald Trump doesn't have executive privilege," he explained. "It's Joe Biden's privilege to use and he has declined to use it. Then everybody sort of was deflated because the appellate court has come in and temporarily blocked it."

"I take a different view," he elaborated. "First of all the judge decided the issue at light speed within weeks. Now what has the appellate court done? They've set an extremely fast track, oral arguments on November 30th, two weeks down the road. This harkens back to the Nixon days. in 1974 when the subpoena was issued for Nixon's tapes."

"There can be timely litigation through the courts if the courts are determined to engage in timely litigation," he continued. "It seems like both in the way both Judge Chutkan resolved it and the expedited track that the appellate court placed this litigation, it seems maybe the courts have wised up and maybe the courts are done letting nefarious litigants like Donald Trump weaponize the court delay to run out the clock. Because Donald Trump rarely has a meritorious lawsuit to bring. He is always trying to weaponize the delay and it looks like his luck may run out."

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

'Isn't it time for the AG to target Trump?' CNN's Jim Acosta calls on Merrick Garland to indict former president

CNN's Jim Acosta called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to prosecute former president Donald Trump for inciting the Captiol insurrection and other violence on Saturday.

Noting that "we are living in an era of political violence," Acosta said the question isn't whether the situation will get worse, but whether we'll do anything about it."

He played a threatening voicemail received by GOP Congressman Fred Upton after voting in favor of a bipartisan infrastructure package, and pointed to the anime cartoon posted by Republican Congressman Paul Gosar of him killing Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

"The truth is, we have seen this movie before," Acosta said, noting that Trump supporters have been posting violent memes on social media and making threats for years.

"How many times does this need to happen before we all agree on what it is — incitement? And the reason why it keeps happening is that there has been zero accountability for those who do the inciting. Zero. The end result is an incentive structure for political threats and violence in this country," Acosta said, noting that GOP leaders like Kevin McCarthy have made clear they don't plan to do anything about it."

Nearly 11 months after the Capitol insurrection, the House's investigation has been stymied by Trump officials who've refused to cooperate, Acosta said. However, the indictment of Trump adviser Steve Bannon on Friday could be a sign that the stonewalling is coming to an end.

"But it may take more, a lot more, than a couple of orange jumpsuits to jump-start this investigation," he said, before playing audio of Trump defending Capitol rioters who called for Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged, in an interview with ABC News' Jon Karl.

"What's amazing is that Trump basically tweeted all of this back on Jan. 6," Acosta said. "As dishonest as Trump can be, he can be remarkably candid, which begs the question: Isn't it time for the attorney general to target Trump? Ask him what he was doing pressuring those election officials and his own vice president to overturn the election results. You know he wants to talk. You know he wants to be put on the stand."

"If our system of justice cannot stop the likes of Trump from attacking our democracy through threats and intimidation like a mob boss, or even using outright violence, what's to stop it from happening again?" Acosta said. "This democracy is only as strong as the people willing to protect it, and if we don't protect it, we'll be letting it happen again. What's worse, storming the Capitol or letting them get away with it? Let's go Department of Justice, we've been waiting on you."

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

So Criminal Donald is recorded on tape committing felony election fraud and his sycophants come back with the same old "witch hunt" dismissal. Absolutely pathetic!     

Georgia DA mulling rarely used special grand jury for Trump investigation

ATLANTA — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is likely to impanel a special grand jury to support her probe of former President Donald Trump, a move that could aid prosecutors in what’s expected to be a complicated and drawn-out investigative process.

A person with direct knowledge of the discussions confirmed the development to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, saying the move could be imminent.

Some legal observers viewed the news, first reported by The New York Times, as a sign that the probe is entering a new phase.

“My interpretation is that she’s gotten as far as she can interviewing witnesses and dealing with people who are cooperating by producing documents voluntarily,” former Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter said of Willis. “She needs the muscle. She needs the subpoena power.”

Special grand juries are rarely used but could be a valuable tool for Willis as she takes the unprecedented step of investigating the conduct of a former president while he was in office.

Her probe, launched in February, is centered on the Jan. 2 phone call Trump placed to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he urged the Republican to “find” the votes to reverse Joe Biden’s win in Georgia last November. The veteran prosecutor previously told Gov. Brian Kemp, Raffensperger and other state officials that her office would be probing potential violations of Georgia law prohibiting criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, intentional interference with the performance of election duties, conspiracy and racketeering, among others.

The investigation could also include Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who promoted lies about election fraud in a state legislative hearing; and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who was accused by Raffensperger of urging him to toss mail-in ballots in certain counties. Both men have denied wrongdoing.

The main benefits a special grand jury would provide are continuity and focus, former prosecutors said.

A regular Fulton County grand jury is seated for two months. Jurors typically hear hundreds of felony cases before their service ends.

But a special grand jury, which typically has 16 to 23 members, is focused on a single case and remains active for as long as prosecutors need. That could be beneficial given how complicated the issue of investigating a former president is.

Prosecutors will be able to save time not having to send out new jury summons or present the case from scratch every two months to get new jurors up to speed, according to veteran prosecutors.

"In complex matters it helps to not have to reacclimate a new set of grand jurors,” said Gwendolyn Keyes Fleming, previously a DeKalb County District Attorney. She co-authored a Brookings Institution report earlier this fall that analyzed all available public evidence and concluded that Trump’s conduct leaves him at “substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes.”

Like a regular grand jury, special grand juries can subpoena witnesses, compel the production of documents, inspect and enter into certain offices for the purposes of the investigation. But they can’t issue indictments. In order to secure one, prosecutors would need to present evidence to a regularly impaneled grand jury.

The DA’s office, a superior court chief judge or local elected official can request a special grand jury. The request must be approved by a majority of the county’s superior court judges.

Melissa Redmon, a former Fulton County deputy District Attorney, noted the backlog of 11,000 criminal cases that Fulton’s two other grand juries are currently working their way through.

“Especially when you think about the backlog created by COVID… the main advantage of having a special grand jury is that they could be focused on just this investigation,” said Redmon, an assistant clinical professor at the University of Georgia’s law school.

Should the case move ahead, many legal observers are expecting Trump to fight every request made by prosecutors, which could drag out the investigative process for months.

“The defense is going to try to stonewall this at every turn, so she needs people there on a continuous, on-call basis,” Porter said of Willis. During his tenure as Gwinnett District Attorney, Porter was at the center of a case that tested the power of special grand juries in 2012 that involved former county Commissioner Kevin Kenerly, who was accused of accepting or agreeing to accept $1 million in bribes from a developer and charged with two counts of failing to disclose a financial interest in properties he voted to rezone.

A spokesman for the Fulton DA’s office declined to comment on the prospect of a special grand jury or provide details about the status of the probe.

“All relevant information, whether gathered by our office, another investigative body or made public by witnesses themselves, is part of the ongoing investigation,” spokesman Jeff DiSantis said.

Willis’ office has interviewed at least four of Raffensperger’s closest aides, though not Raffensperger, who recently detailed his phone call with Trump in his new book and would presumably be a star witness in the criminal case if it were to move forward.

Prosecutors are also in touch with the congressional committee probing the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol to share documents that could be useful to the state investigation.

Trump’s advisers have dismissed the investigation as a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

When pressed about the probe during a recent interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Willis stayed mum about her plans.

“That’s just an ongoing investigation,” she said. “That’s all I got for you.”

https://www.rawstory.com/da-in-georgia-mulling-rarely-used-special-grand-jury-for-trump-probe/

[Rick Plant]

Trump's Jan. 6 lawsuit could backfire bigly — as House cites judge's ruling in tax-return case
https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-2655547308/

[Rick Plant]

All of these treasonous traitors need to rot in prison for their attempted coup. Patriots don't steal elections from the American people.

Memo from Trump attorney outlined how Pence could overturn election, says new book
ABC News' Jonathan Karl covers the story in his new book on Trump's presidency

In a memo not made public until now, then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows emailed to Vice President Mike Pence's top aide, on New Year's Eve, a detailed plan for undoing President Joe Biden's election victory, ABC News' Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl reports.

The memo, written by former President Donald Trump's campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis, is reported for the first time in Karl's upcoming book, "Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show" -- demonstrating how Pence was under even more pressure than previously known to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Ellis, in the memo, outlined a multi-step strategy: On Jan. 6, the day Congress was to certify the 2020 election results, Pence was to send back the electoral votes from six battleground states that Trump falsely claimed he had won.

The memo said that Pence would give the states a deadline of "7pm eastern standard time on January 15th" to send back a new set of votes, according to Karl.

Then, Ellis wrote, if any state legislature missed that deadline, "no electoral votes can be opened and counted from that state."

Such a scenario would leave neither Biden nor Trump with a majority of votes, Ellis wrote, which would mean "Congress shall vote by state delegation" -- which, Ellis said, would in turn lead to Trump being declared the winner due to Republicans controlling the majority of state delegations with 26.

The day after Meadows sent Ellis' memo to Pence's aide, on Jan. 1, Trump aide John McEntee sent another memo to Pence's chief of staff, Marc Short, titled, "Jefferson used his position as VP to win."

Although McEntee's memo was historically incorrect, Karl says, his message was clear: Jefferson took advantage of his position, and Pence must do the same.

What followed during that first week of January was an effort by Trump, both personally and publicly, to push his vice president to take away Biden's victory.

"I hope Mike Pence comes through for us," Trump said at a roaring Georgia rally on Jan. 4, a day before Republicans would also lose their Senate majority. "I have to tell you I hope that our great vice president comes through for us. He's a great guy. Of course, if he doesn't come through, I won't like him quite as much."

At a March 18 sit-down interview with Trump for the upcoming book, Karl asked the former president about a report from The New York Times that on the morning of Jan. 6, Trump pressured Pence with a crude phone call, reportedly telling his vice president, "You can be a patriot or you can be a p****."

"I wouldn't dispute it," Trump said to Karl.

"Really?" Karl responded.

"I wouldn't dispute it," Trump repeated.

Later on the morning of Jan. 6, as Trump took the stage for his rally at the Ellipse prior to the Capitol attack, he publicly called on Pence to take action.

"If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election," Trump told the roaring crowd. "Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn't, that will be a sad day for our country."

Hours later, after rioters had attacked the Capitol and the building was being evacuated, rioters were heard shouting "Hang Mike Pence" as they left the complex. But Trump told Karl that he never contacted his vice president to check on his safety.

"No, I thought he was well-protected, and I had heard that he was in good shape," Trump told Karl. "No, because I had heard he was in very good shape."

Pressed about the chants, Trump told Karl that Pence made a mistake in certifying the vote.

MORE: McConnell says Trump 'provoked' Capitol assault, 'fed lies' to mob
"He could have -- well, the people were very angry," Trump said. "If you know a vote is fraudulent, right, how can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress? How can you do that?" Trump said.

Asked by Karl if, had Pence done as Trump wanted, Trump would still be in the White House, Trump replied, "I think we would have won -- yeah."

Trump also couldn't say if he would ever forgive Pence for certifying the election -- a rare act of dissent from an otherwise loyal vice president.

"I don't know," Trump said. "Because I picked him. I like him, I still like him, but I don't know that I can forgive him."

And asked by Karl if Pence was on his shortlist for vice president should Trump run again in 2024, Trump wouldn't say.

"He did the wrong thing," Trump said of Pence. "A very nice man. I like him a lot. I like his family so much. But ... it was a tragic mistake."

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/memo-trump-attorney-outlined-pence-overturn-election-book/story?id=81134003

[Rick Plant]

Mike Pence needs to 'man up' and go to war with 'sociopath' Trump: former GOP counsel

Appearing on MSNBC's "The Sunday Show" the former counsel to House GOP members expressed her disgust with former vice president Mike Pence for not declaring all-out war on Donald Trump for almost getting him killed on Jan 6th.

Reacting to a report that Trump challenged Pence in a phone call to either be a "p***y or a patriot" and keep him in office, attorney Sophia Nelson called out the former vice president who has an eye on running for president.

After host Jonathan Capehart showed her the clip from ABC News, Nelson said of Trump, "We know he likes the 'p' word, he's said it before. So, having been said, I'm not surprised at all. And I just think that we're in a sunken, dark place and we're getting lower and lower."

"Mike Pence is trying to walk this line where he is trying to not to be at war with Trump instead of manning up and calling him out and totally and resoundingly rejecting him and his vile language and his rejecting the Constitution being subverted. But I don't see that happening," she exclaimed. "I'm not surprised by this. Donald Trump is a sociopath, he is not a well person. No, I'm not a therapist, but I have some common sense and I can see and it's all about him and if it's not about him, then he does what he does. He turns on everybody and anybody, that's just who he is."

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

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

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

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

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

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

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

See the full discussion below:

[Rick Plant]

Republicans now openly embrace violent fascism

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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