Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

‘Cult followers’ of Trump embrace Putinism as ‘Red Square Republicans’ fall in line: conservative



Republicans are becoming increasingly pro-Putin under a disguise of isolationism, conservative Max Boot wrote for The Washington Post on Tuesday.

"A Pew Research Center poll found that 75 percent of Americans support strict economic sanctions on Russia and 71 percent support sending weapons to Ukraine," he wrote. "That brings us to the bad news: Isolationism — or is it Putinism? — remains disturbingly resilient within Republican ranks. In the Pew poll, more than twice as many Republicans as Democrats said that the United States is providing too much aid to Ukraine."

Boot noted that opposition to aiding Ukraine is the position of some of the biggest names in the GOP, even as Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) supports Ukraine.

"Roughly a quarter of House Republicans and a fifth of Senate Republicans share that view," he explained. "Some of the influential voices opposing aid to Ukraine include former president Donald Trump, Fox 'News' host Tucker Carlson, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Heritage Action for America (the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation), and FreedomWorks (the Koch-supported advocacy organization)."

Boot drew a parallel between a previous era of isolationism in America.

"It’s hard to take the nationalists’ arguments at face value," he wrote. "Many of the original “America Firsters” in 1940 and 1941 were actually pro-Nazi. Likewise, many of today’s MAGA militants are actually pro-Putin. They favor a hard line against leftist dictatorships such as those in Cuba, Venezuela and China, while advocating de facto appeasement of Russia’s right-wing dictatorship."

He noted the group of "Red Square Republicans" who visited Russia on America's Independence Day in 2018, which included Sens. Steve Daines (R-MT), John Hoeven (R-ND), Ron Johnson (R-WI), John Neely Kennedy (R-LA), Jerry Moran (R-KS.), John Thune (R-SD), along with Reps. Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) and Richard C. Shelby (R-AL).

"The attraction of Putin’s Russia for many on the right is the same as Viktor Orban’s Hungary (site of the recent Conservative Political Action Conference). They consider right-wing autocracies — with regressive policies on immigration, multiculturalism, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights and other culture war issues — as models for the United States to emulate," he explained. "Beyond shared beliefs, the MAGA affinity for Putinism is rooted in sordid self-interest: The Kremlin helped Trump win office in 2016 and is likely to aid him again if he runs in 2024. The GOP has become a cult of personality, and the cult leader not only admires Putin but enjoys a mutually beneficial relationship with him. So the cult followers fall into line."

Read the full analysis here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/24/republican-gop-pro-russia-pro-putin-ukraine-war-isolationism/

[Rick Plant]

Mark Meadows may be trying to cover up ‘quite incriminating’ Trump statements



Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows may be trying to cover up incriminating evidence about Donald Trump's state of mind during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

On Wednesday, The New York Times reported the Jan. 6 Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol has heard that Trump approved of then-Vice President Mike Pence being hung by Trump supporters for not overturning the 2020 presidential election, which was won by Democrat Joe Biden.

"Shortly after hundreds of rioters at the Capitol started chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” on Jan. 6, 2021, the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, left the dining room off the Oval Office, walked into his own office and told colleagues that President Donald J. Trump was complaining that the vice president was being whisked to safety," the newspaper reported. "Mr. Meadows, according to an account provided to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, then told the colleagues that Mr. Trump had said something to the effect of, maybe Mr. Pence should be hanged."

In a new analysis published by The Washington Post, Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman explain why the comment matters.

"These new details, according to the Times, were provided to the Jan. 6 committee by witnesses to Meadows’s recounting of it. Remember, Meadows himself is not cooperating with the committee; this suggests that what he may be covering up is quite incriminating," they explained. "Again, we don’t know whether Trump was joking. But the larger context of that day’s events is key: The rioters focused on Pence because Trump told them that Pence was the reason the election was being allegedly stolen from Trump."

Trump's comments could show Trump saw the rioters as a weapon he could wield.

"In this context, Trump’s comment about Pence hanging — and Trump’s apparent irritation that Pence was being whisked to safety — reinforce the likelihood that he actively wanted Pence to feel vulnerable to the mob’s pressure. This can be true even if Trump didn’t literally want or envision Pence’s hanging," they explained. "If so, this means that even as the mob was going on an appallingly destructive rampage that would ultimately lead to deaths and injuries, Trump came to see this as useful to his cause. That would be an extraordinary dereliction of duty at best."

Read the full analysis: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/25/trump-joke-hang-mike-pence/

[Rick Plant]

Trump to address NRA convention in Texas — only days after school shooting massacre



Donald Trump is scheduled to address the National Rifle Association (NRA) national meeting in Houston only days after a school shooting massacre in Uvalde, Texas.

On Tuesday, a gunman killed 14 children and a teacher in Robb Elementary School. Police reportedly killed the suspect, an 18-year-old man.

The shooting occurred only ten days after the mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.

On Friday, Trump is scheduled to address the NRA's annual meeting for the 6th time, posting a video of Trump discussing his "love" for the organization.

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1528900395279519744

[Rick Plant]

Wisconsin Republican quits election commission in disgust over Trump's election lies

On Wednesday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Molly Beck reported that Dean Knudson, a Republican member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, is resigning his position.

Knudson, who was appointed by Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, was set to hold office until 2024. However, he has frequently clashed with fellow Republican officials, including Vos himself, for their efforts to legitimize former President Donald Trump's conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

"My core values are to practice service above self and to display personal integrity. And to me that integrity demands acknowledging the truth even when the truth is painful. In this case, the painful truth is that President Trump lost the election in 2020," said Knudson in a statement. "My message to Republicans today is simple: If you're a candidate, focus on the issues that affect Wisconsin families and their pocketbooks. It's time to pivot away from conspiracy theories to kitchen table issues."

According to Beck, Knudson's resignation could throw a monkey wrench into the state commission's scheduled vote to elect a new chairman today. Under commission selection rules, the new chair will have to be another Republican. The only other Republican member currently eligible to be chair is Bob Spindell, who signed on as a fake elector to the pro-Trump "alternate" slate falsely alleging that the former president won the state.

Knudson has urged the commission to instead wait until he is replaced to hold the vote.

Wisconsin lawmakers have furiously sought to lend credence to Trump's conspiracy theories, most notably hiring former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to conduct an audit of the election. Gableman came back with a report arguing the state should "decertify" its results, a proposal that is legally impossible and has drawn scorn from even some GOP lawmakers.

https://www.rawstory.com/wisconsin-voting/

[Rick Plant]

DOJ probe of fake elector conspiracy focusing on Trump's inner circle: CNN



Donald Trump's inner circle is the focus of an investigation by the Department of Justice into the fraudulent electors that were submitted to Congress by Republicans in multiple states.

"Justice Department prosecutors have subpoenaed information about some of former President Donald Trump's lawyers and closest advisers as part of their criminal investigation into efforts to put forward fake slates of electors in the 2020 election, a source familiar with the investigation told CNN. The subpoena asks a witness connected to a slate of "alternate" electors for Trump in a state that Joe Biden won to provide to a federal grand jury any communications with government employees, with the Trump campaign and with some of the most prominent people around Trump in 2020, according to the source familiar with the probe," CNN reported Wednesday.

Earlier on Wednesday, The New York Times reported the focus was on lawyers, including Giuliani, Eastman, Jenna Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro.

The CNN list also includes advisor Boris Epshteyn and Giuliani sidekick Bernard Kerik along with rump lawyers Joe diGenova, Victoria Toensin.

"The subpoena, the source said, specifically asks about the signing or mailing of certificates of elector votes for Trump in 2020," CNN reported. "Legal experts have said that the Republican electors who sent the fake certificates or anyone who facilitated the plot could be vulnerable to prosecution, including for providing false voting documents to the federal government."

Nobody has yet been charged for the alternate electors.

"In March, a federal judge in California ruled in a civil case that Mr. Eastman had most likely conspired with Mr. Trump to obstruct Congress and defraud the United States by helping to devise and promote the alternate elector scheme, and by presenting plans to Mr. Pence suggesting that he could exercise his discretion over which slates of electors to accept or reject at the Jan. 6 congressional certification of votes," The Times reported. "The scheme, which involved holding meetings and drafting emails and memos, was 'a coup in search of a legal theory,' wrote the judge, David O. Carter of the Central District of California."

Read more here: 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/25/politics/justice-department-fake-elector-plot-trump-lawyers-advisers/index.html

[Rick Plant]

DOJ's investigation into fake electors focuses on Trump lawyers: report



The Department of Justice is ramping up its investigation into the creation of alternate slates of pro-Trump electors seeking to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 election victory, The New York Times reports.

The investigation is particularly focusing on a team of lawyers who worked for former President Donald Trump.

"A federal grand jury in Washington has started issuing subpoenas in recent weeks to people linked to the alternate elector plan, requesting information about several lawyers including Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and one of his chief legal advisers, John Eastman, one of the people said," the Times reports.

Also sought by the subpoenas are pro-Trump lawyers like Jenna Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro.

As the Times points out, election officials in seven key swing states offered formal lists of pro-Trump electors to the Electoral College claiming that the states would lean in favor of Trump when their claims of mass voter fraud were accepted.

Submitting false statements to a federal agency or agent is a federal crime.

Trump's unceasing and unfounded claims that the November 2020 presidential vote was "stolen" by Democrat Joe Biden have seeped into the political bloodstream.

Seventy-eight percent of the Republicans surveyed by CNN-SSRS said they do not believe Biden legitimately won the presidency, a figure in line with the findings of other opinion polls.

"It's a new phenomenon in American elections," said Edward Foley, a constitutional law professor at The Ohio State University.

"There have been fights over hanging chads -- like Bush vs Gore in 2000 -- and there have been recounts for as long as there have been elections in America," Foley said.

"But the 'Big Lie' is a new thing. It's disconnected from reality and it's kind of a social pathology."

AFP

[Rick Plant]

NYT’s Maggie Haberman reacts to 'stunning' testimony that Trump approved of ‘Hang Mike Pence’ chants



The House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots has heard testimony the former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows told aides that former President Donald Trump approved of his supporters calling for the hanging of then-Vice President Mike Pence.

Appearing on CNN Thursday, Haberman said that the testimony lines up well with what Trump was saying publicly about Pence even as rioters stormed the Capitol and chanted for him to be hung.

"We know at the time that Trump was venting to aides that Pence was not doing what he wanted, which was, you know, exerting a power that Pence had told Trump he didn't have to interfere in the certification of the Electoral College vote in Congress that day," she said. "And Trump tweeted at 2:24 p.m. that day that he was angry at Pence... he was denouncing pence for not doing this. It's not hugely surprising... that Trump said that and yet it is still pretty stunning."

As the rioters were storming the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, Trump initially resisted calls to tell the rioters to stand down, and he sent out a tweet criticizing Pence for not rejecting certified election results just minutes after the then-vice president was shown on live television being rushed off the floor of the United States Senate.

"Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify," Trump wrote at 2:24 p.m. on January 6th, 2021. "USA demands the truth!"

Watch the video of Haberman below: