Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Building the “Big Lie”: Inside the Creation of Trump’s Stolen Election Myth
https://www.propublica.org/article/big-lie-trump-stolen-election-inside-creation

[Rick Plant]

Trump's former White House physician facing House ethics probe



Trump White House Physician turned far-right MAGA Republican Congressman Ronny Jackson may have unlawfully used thousands of dollars in campaign funds to buy memberships at a private Texas dinner club, a non-partisan federal watchdog office revealed Monday, Forbes reported.

The non-partisan Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), a ten-member board that is not comprised of members of Congress (and not to be confused with the House Committee on Congressional Ethics), issued a report stating:

“Rep. Ronny Jackson’s campaign committee, Texans for Ronny Jackson, reported campaign disbursements that may not be legitimate and verifiable campaign expenditures attributable to bona fide campaign or political purposes. If Rep. Jackson converted campaign funds from Texans for Ronny Jackson to personal use, or if Rep. Jackson’s campaign committee expended funds that were not attributable to bona fide campaign or political purposes, then Rep. Jackson may have violated House rules, standards of conduct, and federal law.”

The House Committee on Ethics in a statement said it “will review the matter.”



https://ethics.house.gov/press-releases/statement-chairman-and-ranking-member-committee-ethics-regarding-representative-ronny

[Rick Plant]

Manhattan DA urges judge to proceed with case against Trump Org and its CFO, says they stole more in taxpayer dollars than most New Yorkers earn in a year



The Manhattan district attorney’s fraud case against Donald Trump’s family real estate business and its long-serving bookkeeper should move forward, prosecutors urged a judge in lengthy court filing Monday.

The filing comes in answer to a February motion by the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, to have felony charges against them dismissed. Both have pleaded not guilty to a June 2021 indictment alleging they dodged income tax on more than $1.7 million over 15 years and other financial crimes.

“This case, at its core, is ordinary,” wrote Assistant District Attorney Solomon Shinerock. “It arises from the fact that Allen Weisselberg violated the basic imperative that all New Yorkers faithfully report and pay tax on their income.”

Weisselberg’s lawyers have argued charges against him stem from evidence provided by Trump’s convicted former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who has an ax to grind because of Weisselberg’s testimony against him in a 2018 federal probe.

But the 129-page filing by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office says state prosecutors had never “seen or been briefed on the contents of Weisselberg’s testimony” against Cohen to the feds.

Regardless, Cohen wasn’t the source of information used to bring charges against Weisselberg, the filing stated.

“Indeed, the claim that (Cohen) sparked this Investigation as part of a vendetta resulting from Weisselberg’s immunized testimony is incorrect,” the filing states. “And, regardless of (Cohen’s) feelings towards Weisselberg ... the Investigation that led to this Indictment, and the information used to obtain that Indictment, are the result of sources completely independent of (Cohen).”

Shinerock also insisted New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat conducting a parallel civil investigation into the Trump Organization, didn’t influence the DA bringing a case against the CFO. He said neither office was aware the other was investigating Weisselberg in early 2021.

The filing notes it was an article published in Bloomberg on Nov. 2, 2020 about Weisselberg’s alleged off-the-books benefits that set off the criminal investigation.

Weisselberg’s ex-daughter-in-law Jennifer Weisselberg previously told The News about living in a rent-free corporate apartment overlooking Central Park on the Trump Org’s dime with her ex-husband, Barry Weisselberg, who managed Trump’s Wollman ice-rink, and their children from 2005 to 2011. She said her former father-in-law funded virtually every aspect of the family’s lives with Trump Org money, including Columbia Grammar and Prep school tuition, sleepaway camp fees and rental cars.

Shinerock wrote the compensation Weisselberg personally directed his employees to pay toward his personal expenses was significant.

The so-called fringe benefits “amounted to more than most New Yorkers can expect to earn in a given year: rent, utilities, and garage expenses at a luxury apartment building in Manhattan, private school tuition for multiple family members, leases for luxury cars for both Weisselberg and his spouse, large amounts of unreported cash, and ad hoc expenses such as electronics and furniture,” reads the filing.

The Trump Organization and Weisselberg “carefully recorded the value of these items and subtracted them from the amount they reported to tax authorities,” the filing states.

Weisselberg and the Trump Organization lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/ny-manhattan-da-opposition-omnibus-weisselberg-trump-org-jennifer-cohen-20220523-mjykw5kxrrejtfl3txjq3huueq-story.html

[Rick Plant]

Tough night for Donnie as he lost all 3 elections in Georgia. His "endorsements" mean nothing as Republican voters completely ignored him and voted for the candidates he hates because they refused to steal Georgia for him in 2020.

Trump's Georgia grudgefest flops as Republican voters also re-nominate attorney general



Donald Trump suffered a humiliating loss in Georgia as he sought to punish state Republicans who did not go along with his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Trump lost the high-profile gubernatorial race as Gov. Brian Kemp defeated former Sen. David Perdue. It was the third week in a row a Trump-endorsed candidate lost a gubernatorial race.

That was not the only race Trump lost on Tuesday.

"Georgia’s Republican attorney general has defeated a GOP primary challenger who entered the race with the backing of former President Donald Trump. Unofficial election returns show Attorney General Chris Carr winning the Republican nomination over John Gordon, who largely campaigned on Trump’s baseless allegations of widespread election fraud," the Associated Press reported Tuesday evening.

NBC News also projected that Carr won the race.

Trump called Carr the “Do Nothing” attorney general when he endorsed Gordon.

"As everyone in the Great State of Georgia is aware, Carr did absolutely nothing to stop the 2020 Presidential Election Fraud which, as facts have shown, and are showing, was rampant. He spent more time hunting those people who fought for the truth than he did those who cheated in the Election. Chris Carr was a disaster every step of the way. He wasn’t looking for Election Integrity, but rather, an easy way out," Trump argued.

Trump promised Gordon would "never let you down!"

Read more here:

https://news.yahoo.com/georgia-gov-kemp-defeats-trump-backed-challenger-former-sen-perdue-in-gop-primary-004712220.html

[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/