Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Trump is 'afraid of being indicted and he has an army': Reporter debates when the next big Jan. 6 will happen

FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress in 2020 that it was once white supremacists and racially motivated groups who were responsible for the majority of violence, but that has changed to be anti-government groups.

Last week, Collins tweeted a series of strange incidents involving QAnon-linked acts of violence. In one case, a QAnon Trump supporter in a rainbow wig stormed into a Dairy Queen with a loaded gun. A father shot and killed his wife and injured his daughter, after his other daughter said that he was spiraling out of control due to QAnon.

"Rebecca Lanis says her father had never been physically violent, but his behavior started spiraling about two years ago after former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election," the local WDBJ7 News report said, citing the man's daughter.

"People are wondering when it's going to happen, when the next big January 6th thing is going to happen," said Collins. "And we have this rolling wave of violence in this country by people who are obsessed with bringing back the previous time. That can mean whatever they want. It can mean the '90s. It can mean the '50s, something much further back than that. But they think they are losing control of the culture, of their own power in society, and Donald Trump is giving them a way to get it back."

Citing the man who killed his wife, Collins explained that the family said he already had some mental health issues, but after Trump, he became violent.

Trump "knows what this is," said Collins. "This is a guy who's losing control of the idea that he can be democratically elected again, but he still has an army, and he's afraid of being indicted. So put two and two together here."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

'Whatever happened to Trump’s claim the FBI planted the documents?': asks ex-Democratic senator

As Donald Trump heads to court to meet his requested special master on Tuesday, he was being asked for anything proving that he declassified any of the stolen government documents.

The court filings never allege that Trump declassified any of the documents, but it's something that he'd been saying on his social media sites and in radio and television interviews. It had become such a part of the narrative, that Judge Aileen Cannon put the unsubstantiated information in her own ruling.

"The Court does not find it appropriate to accept the Government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion," Cannon wrote last week in her filing.

It's setting Tuesday up for a doozy of a court battle, where Trump isn't expected to appear.

Now that the scandal has reached the six-week mark, former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) is reminiscing about the early days of the social media rants, the rabid press releases and quick excuses from ill-informed Republican loyalists.

"Whatever happened to the defense the FBI came in and planted them?" McCaskill asked about the Trump excuses. The Fox networks spent almost a whole day suggesting the boxes could have been planted. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said that no one is certain that the FBI wouldn't "put things in the boxes to entrap him."

"What the FBI is probably doing is planting evidence," said Fox host Jesse Watters said in his Aug. 9 show. Two days later, Watters was saying, it wasn't so much planting evidence as Trump wanted to take home some reminders of his time in the Oval Office like a paperweight from North Korea, or a little bobblehead of the MBS.

Trump claimed by that point, that he didn't have any documents anymore. The National Archives asked for them back and he gave them back.

It was only one of the things that Trump said over the course of the week as he searched for something that would explain the reason he had classified documents from the government in his desk drawers and boxes in his closet.

The excuse then became "they're just news clippings" that some papers may have gotten mixed in with.

In one statement, Trump claimed that people bring their work home all the time. Trump had lost his job by the time he was bringing those documents back to Florida. That same statement also claimed that he'd declassified the documents, which he'd previously said the FBI planted.

After that, they alleged that the FBI was "raiding" Mar-a-Lago because they were part of some wild operation targeting Trump. His MAGA supporters proclaimed: "If they can do this to a former president, imagine what they can do to you."

Then the excuse became that it was President Baack Obama's fault because he stole 33,000 government documents for his presidential library. The National Archives came out with a statement explaining that they actually run the Obama archives of documents, as they do with all presidential libraries. None of those documents are classified.

An aide then said that because Trump thought he'd won the presidency and that he'd be able to stay in office that he never really packed anything. So, he simply threw some things in boxes with 40 boxes of paperwork and file folders saying "CLASSIFIED" or "TOP SECRET" in big red letters. It's hard to believe that Trump was in the White House residence bubble-wrapping things and shoving his clothes in a black trash bag.

The next excuse from Trump is that he's entitled to the documents because they were his.

“They're mine,” three of Trump's advisers told the New York Times that he said repeatedly.

The next excuse became that he needed them to write his book. Trump has already self-published his book, which are pages of photos with post-it notes he has written on and about the photos. The National Archives also disputed this claim because presidents have access to the archives for up to 12 years and Trump could have used that access any time to work on his book. He just never turned over the documents to begin with so they could be cataloged.

At some point in the process there was a comment that he would have given the documents back if they'd just asked. It wasn't long after Americans learned of the 18-month process that the Archives and the FBI went through trying to get them back by sending letters and talking to his aides. He was then subpoenaed, which went ignored and finally the search was executed.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

'Enough is enough': Legal expert explains how Judge Dearie bypassed the Trump judge’s poor rulings



National security lawyer Brad Moss said that up until this point, Donald Trump has lucked out of his hand-picked judge, Aileen Cannon, handing him wins in court.

Trump demanded a special master in the court, and even went so far as to ask for Judge Raymond Dearie. After the DOJ agreed to Dearie, Trump's legal team is refusing to cooperate ahead of the first meeting Tuesday afternoon.

It has been six weeks since the search warrant was executed at the former president's country club in Palm Beach, Florida.

"Part of the reason Judge Dearie is doing this is I'm sure he saw what order he was given from Judge Cannon. I'm sure he looked at the filing and said 'enough is enough, I'm not dancing around this,'" said Moss. "It's really simple. Either you've got the evidence or you don't."

He went on to say that he Trump will have to produce the affidavit that the documents were declassified to prove the documents could even be taken outside of the Oval Office, much less the White House.

It's the easiest way to prove that the documents aren't Trump's because there's no document proving it. The second battle that Trump's lawyers will have to fight to prove that Trump owned the documents, which will also be difficult since they were generated by the government for the government.

"You get what you pay for and you get what you can," said Moss. "And whatever competent qualified lawyer you'd expect to have in this situation when everyone else wants nothing to do with you."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

'He knew nothing about so many things': Trump White House staffers were 'startled' by his ignorance



While promoting their book "The Divider" on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Tuesday morning, journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser revealed anecdotes about Donald Trump's absolute ignorance about world affairs and even geography when he was president that stunned aides.

Speaking with co-host Jonathan Lemire, the two authors were asked about Trump's issues dealing with former leaders and they revealed a story about the former president offering to give away the West Bank.

"There is so much about his meetings with Putin in Helsinki, his efforts to walk out of NATO," host Lemire began. "This headline, which took my breath away when I read it over the weekend, that he nearly gave away the West Bank -- tell us how that could have happened."

"We decided to do this book after he left office because there was more to learn," Baker admitted. "One was the great anecdote where apparently Trump calls up [former Treasury Secretary] Steve Mnuchin at the Davos conference when he's meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan and put him on the phone, and said, 'Hey king, I've got a great deal for you, I'm going to give you the West Bank.' And anybody who understands Jordan where the Palestinian population is sort of a restive force in politics there and understands that was not anything King Abdullah wanted."

"He told an American friend, 'I nearly had a heart attack, I doubled over, I couldn't breathe,'" Baker continued. "It went to where Donald Trump's view of the world is very superficial and transactional -- and he is simply going to give the king something the king has no interest in having."

"It explains a lot about his foreign policy, which was very, very much built on the basis of someone who didn't spend a single day in office prior to becoming president and he had a lot to learn, " he elaborated. "He didn't know the difference between the Baltics and Balkans. One aide was saying he knew nothing about so many things, it was startling to them even after they spent time in his presence."

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[Rick Plant]

‘There will be violence’: John Dean predicts Trump will attempt ‘dictators’ play’ as the walls close in



Former Watergate figure John Dean warned there will be violence as Donald Trump finds himself in increasing legal peril.

Richard Nixon's former White House counsel, who was disbarred after his Watergate conviction, offered his analysis following Tuesday's hearing in a Brooklyn courtroom before Special Master Raymond Dearie.

"It seems Trump’s lawyers are trying to protect his lie that he declassified all the Mar A Largo documents," Dean wrote in a thread posted to Twitter. "GOP does not want him to declare until after 11/08 so he needs the lie. He feels (rightly) he won’t be indicted until after the midterms. After the midterms, he will declare!"

"As a POTUS candidate he is not only the center of attention but he can claim any indictment is a political act to keep him out of the Oval Office. Running for POTUS is his best defense from going to jail. Who knows, he might convince one or more jurors! If he wins…. No. He won’t," Dean predicted.

Dean went on to predict multiple indictments for the former president.

"Trump will be indicted in a RICO action in GA, and federally for Obstruction of Justice (at minimum) for his theft of classified information, plus Seditious Conspiracy and Conspiracy to Defraud (at minimum) for Jan 6th. In short, he should face three criminal cases before 2024," Dean wrote.

"He believes he can use the dictator's ploy of mounting riots if the government comes after him, and some of his followers will comply so there will be violence. But law enforcement, the National Guard and the US military will prevail. And Trump will earn added criminal charges," he further predicted. "Trump and GOP enablers are an evil that must be addressed for what it is doing to our nation. The way to deal with it is to stay informed for only fools want what Trump is offering."

Read More Here: https://twitter.com/JohnWDean/status/1572361510600724482

[Rick Plant]

Biden's Approval Hits 11-Month High as Trump's Falls to One of His Lowest

President Joe Biden's approval rating is finally on an upswing, reaching an 11-month high just seven weeks before the midterm elections. At the same time, former President Donald Trump, who had held onto a favorable rating since leaving office, is seeing one of his lowest post-presidency marks.

An NBC poll released on Sunday found that 45 percent of registered voters approved of Biden's overall job—a figure up 3 points from last month and the highest since last October. The margin of error for the 1,000 registered voters who were surveyed is 3.1 percent. The NBC News survey was conducted on September 9 to September 13.

The economy had been recurrently ranked as the key voting issue for the majority of Americans in various polls this year, but Sunday's survey found that the top issue to be "threats to democracy," with 20 percent of voters picking it as their number one issue. Comparably, 18 percent of voters picked the cost of living, 16 percent chose jobs and the economy, and another 12 percent said immigration and border security.

While Biden's rating has gone up, Trump's has fallen to one of his lowest since he left the White House last year.

According to the poll, 54 percent of voters have a negative view of Trump and 34 percent of voters have a positive view. The rating is a slight tick down from last month when 36 percent of voters had a positive view of him. Sunday's approval is also the ex-president's lowest since last April, when 55 percent of voters had a negative view and 32 percent had a positive view.

Trump has been the subject of several investigations that have ramped up in recent months, including a federal probe investigating whether he mishandled presidential records after leaving office. The majority of voters, 56 percent, say they want the various probes to continue, while 41 percent say they should stop.

AFP

[Rick Plant]

Trump to Face Sexual Battery Suit Under New ‘Survivors’ Law

Donald Trump has faced a defamation suit from journalist E. Jean Carroll over her allegations that Trump raped her. Now she’s escalating the suit.



E. Jean Carroll, the journalist who claims she was raped by Donald Trump decades ago in a New York department store, is planning to sue him for sexual battery under the state’s new “survivors” law later this year—and her attorneys now want to question Trump under oath.

In an August letter to a New York federal judge that was just made public Tuesday, Carroll’s lawyer notified the court that severe legal action was on the horizon.

The issue was brought up in court filings related to Carroll’s current lawsuit against the former president. She sued Trump while he was still at the White House, claiming she was defamed when Trump said the journalist’s revelations in her memoir were lies, adding a piggish line about how “she's not my type.”

Although the underlying accusations deal with sexual assault claims against the real estate billionaire, the nature of the legal dispute wasn't primed to go after Trump for the actual alleged assault.

That’s changed.

Roberta A. Kaplan, the journalist’s lawyer, explained in her letter to the judge that Carroll is now preparing to file a separate lawsuit under New York’s Adult Survivors Act “on the earliest possible date,” which is Nov. 24.

Kaplan also explained that Trump—as he has done in nearly every court case of late—is refusing to turn over court-mandated evidence.

Trump “remains unwilling to produce any documents in discovery,” not “a single document,” Kaplan wrote.

That's why, she said, Trump should be dragged into a room for a deposition that will question him under oath—an embarrassing exercise that could elicit damning information from the former president. And given that it's a civil case, any question Trump refuses to answer can be interpreted in the worst light possible—even as an admission.

Kaplan’s letter was written to another Kaplan: U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who is overseeing the defamation case and had previously instructed both parties to share information with each other. (There is no known relation between the two.)

In a pithy response on Aug. 11, Trump lawyer Alina Habba accused Carroll’s lawyer of misleading the judge in the way she “repeatedly mischaracterizes the discovery efforts that have been undertaken by the parties to date.”

“Indeed, the letter contains numerous misstatements which are seemingly intended to make it appear as if [Trump] is not complying with his discovery obligations,” Habba wrote. “This is simply not the case.”

However, Habba’s letter revealed that—once again—Trump is hiding behind the presidential seal and waiving around expired credentials to keep evidence out of the public’s hands. Habba defended Trump’s use of “executive privilege” to prevent Carroll from obtaining some documents related to the way he verbally attacked her character while he was at the White House.

Carroll’s next lawsuit could have a dramatically different—and more serious—result than the current defamation case.

In the current legal fight, Trump managed to employ the Department of Justice to defend him, leaving taxpayers on the hook for what was clearly a personal battle. However, any lawsuit under New York’s rape survivor law would target him directly while he’s no longer in office.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-to-face-sexual-battery-suit-under-new-survivors-law-e-jean-carroll