Charging Trump
They’ve been trying to convict Trump of something for a long long time. So far, no dice. But the thrust of the January 6th hearings was to lay the ground for conviction of a crime later on through the court system. Failing that, the secondary goal was to discredit him so that he either will not run in 2024 or if he does he will do poorly.
It the same technique that was successful with Netanyahu in Israel in 2021, although he appears to be making a comeback because the charges were so obviously bogus when the trial played out.
This is what they’re brewing for Trump:
The move by the Justice Department to bring two top aides to former Vice President Mike Pence in front of a federal grand jury is the most aggressive public step taken yet by prosecutors investigating the plots to subvert the 2020 election.
It signals that the Department’s probe has reached inside former President Donald Trump’s White House and that investigators are looking at conduct directly related to Trump’s and his closest allies’ efforts to overturn his election defeat…
The questions to Jacob and Short included a focus on the fake elector scheme and the role of Trump lawyers John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, the source said…
The House committee has described the fake electoral plot, in which Trump supporters would be fraudulently put forward as substitutes for the legitimate Biden electors, as part of the broader push to have Pence interrupt the certification of Biden’s win.
Interesting that this all is being labeled as criminal. But the left is no stranger to related devices – such as calls for Trump electors to defect to Hillary – which I wrote about in 2016, after Trump won.
And then there was the election of 1876, which you can read about here.
One of the approaches to convicting Trump has to do with what the left has labeled the “fake electors” plot by Trump and company. I had written about the event back in December of 2020, when it occurred, and there was nothing fake or secret about it. In that post, I quoted this:
While the Democratic electors in the states of Pennsylvania and Georgia are casting their votes for Joe Biden, slates of Republican electors in those states cast votes for President Trump just in case legal challenges succeed.
There’s also word that Michigan may be doing it as well. Michigan GOP Electors were prevented from getting into the state house to vote. But they can vote anywhere.
So what that means is that they are trying to ensure that ultimately they have enough votes on record.
It also offers Congress and the state legislatures an alternate slate of electors in the contested states.
Here’s how “politifact” later described (January of 2022) what happened back then:
But on the same day — Dec. 14, 2020 — something unusual happened: In several battleground states where Joe Biden had defeated President Donald Trump, representatives of the losing side decided that they, too, would gather as purported electors to sign certificates falsely attesting to a Trump win and submit them for approval by Congress.
Months later, American Oversight, a watchdog group that seeks to hold Trump accountable through public records requests, published the phony certificates calling them “part of the failed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.”
This was no small caper by a few disappointed Trump loyalists.
The fake electoral certificates were signed by Republican state lawmakers and party officials in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico, states accounting for a combined 84 electoral votes. And like the violent insurrectionists who came to the Capitol on Jan. 6 with knives, bats and other weapons, the fake electors sought to overturn a democratic election through extralegal means. They did so in a coordinated effort, mostly out in the open, and through official channels.
Note how the contingency of court approval is described:
The certificates in Pennsylvania and New Mexico hedged by tweaking the language suggesting that they would be the electors if it was later determined they were the electors — for instance, through a final court order…
“It was not freelancing. It was a coordinated effort,” said Norman Eisen, who was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first Donald Trump impeachment and co-authored a report for Brookings about Trump’s effort to overturn the results in Georgia. “These appear to be false documents that were submitted to the federal government. They were handed in to the National Archives as the genuine articles are supposed to be.”
And everyone knew what they were and what they were intended to be.
See this for what’s happening now:
According to the Washington Examiner, questions are being asked about what Trump said in meetings around the time, including what he may have told others to do in regards to stopping the certification of the election results. One specific line of inquiry entails the so-called “false electors” scheme members of the press have been going nuts over.
This Washington Examiner story adds:
The investigation aims to uncover what the former president told his attorneys and senior officials to do as part of their bid to change the 2020 election outcome, and there are two other paths that could lead to additional scrutiny of Trump, the sources said.
One centers on seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct a government proceeding, similar to charges levied against individuals who were arrested for storming the Capitol. Another involves charging Trump with fraud in connection to the false electors plot or his efforts to pressure the DOJ to overturn the results of the election.
At RedState, “bonchie” adds:
None of the “false electors” ever cast a vote for anything, they didn’t interfere with the election, and the original electors cast their votes for Joe Biden. If that’s what the DOJ is probing, good luck proving a “seditious conspiracy” without any actual attempt at sedition on the record. Besides, how can something be a conspiracy when the plans were public knowledge at the time?
My response is that (a) they will take the actual facts and use them to allege something more nefarious, and this effort will include threats to the former Trump associates they want testifying a certain way; and (b) if they want to charge Trump, they will do so in DC and they will get the verdict they want no matter if the charges are incredibly flimsy.
After the Flynn case (and even before that), anything is possible. The only real question is whether they will actually try to do it, or whether they will be afraid of backlash and/or think a trial is not necessary because they think they have better means to accomplish their ends.
In an example of the alternative “because they think they have better means to accomplish their ends.” I offer:
Andrew Morgan, The Federalist: Democrats Are Dangerously Close To Changing Laws So Our President Is Elected By Popular Vote
https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/28/democrats-are-dangerously-close-to-changing-laws-so-our-president-is-elected-by-popular-vote/
A trial in the DC courts would be a forgone conclusion. Dems are treading dangerously close to a full blowen Dictatorship by them. Things will get very ugly. Will we survive as a Country? Not so sure now.
Nasty, vicious fascists delight in playing nasty, vicious fascist games.
It’s obvious to everyone what is going on. When Democrat voters continue to vote for these fascists, it means they approve of pushing the nation closer and closer to civil war.
I’ve long believed that the United States would slowly transition into some form of a peaceful separation, driven mostly by citizens moving from blue states to red and vice versa to more closely match political sensibilities. Economic alliances would be formed, and the role of the federal government would gradually shrink as the alliances matured. I’m now sadly much less certain that this will be accomplished slowly or peacefully. I pray it will, but current events seem to be leading to a different result. When I asked my Magic 8-Ball, it responded with “reply hazy try again”.
The main problem is that EVERYTHING is perceived by both sides in mirror image.
In “Looking-Glass” image.
In perversely perfect reverse.
Everything that the Right believes has been, and is being, amply demonstrated by the Left, the Left KNOWS has been, and is being, amply demonstrated by the Right.
Perfectly, perverse reverse.
I happen to believe that the Left is wickedly and dangerously delusional and is purposely perverting the Truth (and they not only have the means to do it, and the emotional desire to do it, but also the absolutely WILL to do it).
From my own side of the Looking Glass, the Left are truly “through the looking glass”.
AND VICE-VERSA.
From my own side of the Looking Glass (once again), the Left are down the rabbit hole
AND VICE-VERSA
…but I think it’s safe to say that WE ARE ALL, alas, living in…Weimar.
File under: Triumph of THE WILL.
It’s hard for me to think of something more likely to spark a second Civil War, either hot or cold, than a Biden DOJ trying to prosecute Trump with a GOP-controlled Congress backing him up.
Mike
This is what happens in a Banana Republic (the countries, not the store).
I was not unhappy that Hillary Clinton wasn’t locked up. That would have initiated an endless cycle of post-election prosecutions, as what the Democrats are doing now will.
We have people now who are convinced that “Saving Our Democracy” means searching frantically for a crime to convict Donald Trump of, and ignoring the corruption of the Clintons and Bidens and Pelosis.
It makes people very cynical about politics and the legal system.
they will take the actual facts and use them to allege something more nefarious, and this effort will include threats to the former Trump associates they want testifying a certain way; and (b) if they want to charge Trump, they will do so in DC and they will get the verdict they want no matter if the charges are incredibly flimsy.
They can “allege” whatever they want, but I’m still not understanding what the actual crime would be in all this. Would it be sedition? If so, what evidence would there be? As far as I can tell these so called “fake electors” committed no crime, nor did they plan to.
History reminder…
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/democrats-electoral-college-faithless-trump-231731
At least a half-dozen Democratic electors have signed onto an attempt to block Donald Trump from winning an Electoral College majority, an effort designed not only to deny Trump the presidency but also to undermine the legitimacy of the institution.
The presidential electors, mostly former Bernie Sanders supporters who hail from Washington state and Colorado, are now lobbying their Republican counterparts in other states to reject their oaths — and in some cases, state law — to vote against Trump when the Electoral College meets on Dec. 19.
}}} And then there was the election of 1876, which you can read about here.
The “Corrupt Bargain”.
}}} The main problem is that EVERYTHING is perceived by both sides in mirror image.
No, this effort to equate the actions and behaviors of the two is and has always been absolute bovine excreta…
The Left has been lying, manipulating and cheating for literal decades.
Yes, the Right has not always been on the up-and-up, but the degree of perfidy between the two is not even close to equivalent. It’s not only not in the same ballpark, it’s not even in the same league.
Moreover, the Right generally mostly manages to do well by this nation and the majority of its people. The Left pretty consistently manages to benefit a narrow band of people, while feeding crumbs to its Useful Idiots.
You still need The Left to keep The Right on the straight-and-narrow, but only because they need a serious opposition. But it is literally NEVER a good thing for this nation when the Left controls any more than ONE of the three main elected polities — the Senate, the House, or the Presidency.
It is rarely bad even when the GOP controls all three, PLUS the SCotUS.
MBunge…
You might already suspect this…but CWII…It’s already on, but only one side is shooting.
Charges that result in Trump’s inability to run in 2024 will result in a President De Santis. So the democrats may actually be aiming at politically, not an imprisoned Trump but a mortally wounded Trump.
Given the certainty of an ongoing devastated economy, that presupposes however that any democrat will be able to win an honest Presidential election in 2024.
If the left manages to steal a Presidential election again, we move a giant step closer to civil war. People don’t willingly play in a blatantly rigged game.
Fanaticism has no internal limit, which is why external limits being placed upon it are necessary.
“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites…in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves.
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” Edmund Burke
GB…The rupture of Israel between Solomon’s rule and the Divided Kingdom would also be an example of what you describe.
That “moral chains upon their appetites” business… don’t see much of that in 2022.
Seems obvious to me the Jan6 Kangaroo Court is if not coming up with crimes of DJT is trying to poison him in public opinion. Look at Sundowner’s speech the other day( not sure exactly when it wtook place but saw it) with lies to no end that DJT was hoping for a violent takeover of the government.
Or if they can manage a conviction before he is re-elected, yhis time with a majority and vengeance fueled House.
I generally like Desantis. But, if he is being promoted as an alternative choice, it is likely TPTB think they have him, or a family member, by the short hairs.
&^%$#$%^ ’em. It’s time to Starve the Beast. Tax Revolt – get the $$$$ out of their hands.
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The “Corrupt Bargain”.
I think that was 1824. Clay throwing his support to J.Q. Adams (over Jackson who had more EVs and popular vote, though not majorities), resulting in Adams winning in the House and rewarding Clay with the appointment as Secretary of State.