The Tea Party: How President Trump Defessed the Bounds on Voting Fraud and Reelection, and a Tea Party Leader in North Carolina

Exasperated, Mr. Rice put down the iPad. Listen to what he says. This is what I was running against!” He described gasps of disbelief when he told the crowd at the country club that Mr. Trump had lost the election. It was painful.

In July, he lost this primary after receiving less than a quarter of the vote. He had won the general election with 62 percent.

In an interview, Mr. Meijer, who had also voted to impeach and lost his primary, said he was surprised Republicans had not suffered a backlash from voters over the objections and the Jan. 6 riot. He argued that the leftward-tilt of the Biden administration had pushed voters back toward Mr. Trump, citing executive orders that stretched the authority of the White House to impose vaccine mandates, an eviction moratorium and the cancellation of student debt.

“These massive uses of executive power,” he said, “make people feel like, if you are not with us pushing on the brake pedal, then you are de facto helping the Democratic majority push on the gas.”

Mr. Budd of North Carolina signaled support for Mr. Trump’s fraud claims in the weeks after the election by introducing the Combat Voter Fraud Act. He warmed up a Trump rally this spring by pointing out that Democrats could not win elections on a left-wing agenda. (A spokesman for Mr. Budd said he had started pushing for tighter voter registration requirements long before the 2020 election, noting the experience of a major election fraud scandal in his state in 2018.)

Mr. Mullin was the only Republican Senate candidate who introduced a bill to expunge Mr. Trump’s second impeachment. The Democrats were faulted for failing to note the voting anomalies in the 2020 election, or for not understanding why the Republicans doubted that Mr. Trump had won re-election. The resolution co-sponsored by more than 30 lawmakers did not advance but it had a lot of favor with the former president. Mr. Mullin received an official endorsement from Mr. Trump in July.

Mr. Mullin spent that Saturday campaigning among fellow cattlemen at the annual conference in Norman, Okla. He was applauded by another attendee for taking a stance against the electoral college count knowing that he would be ridiculed for buying into conspiracy theories. Mr. Reimer had questions about the vote and he manages a beef ranch.

The campaign gave out fliers declaring that “no one in Congress has worked harder to SAVE AMERICA” and proclaiming Mr. Mullin “TRUMP-TOUGH.” The top of the priority list was “Secure our elections”, a new refrain from the party.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/politics/republican-election-objectors.html

The Capitol Attack on the U.S. Capitol Revisited: A Report on the Sessions of the Apparent Death of President Donald J. Trump

Reporting was contributed by Amudalat Ajasa, Michael H. Keller, Aimee Ortiz, Rachel Shorey and Julie Tate. The producer is Sean Catangui and the producer is Hang Do Thi Truong.

The Times drew on data from various sources to analyze the 139 objectors, including from the A-Mark Foundation, Ballotpedia, CQ, The Cook Political Report, Daily Kos, L2 and LegiStorm. The data analysis was written by Andrew Beveridge and Susan Weber.

The hearing comes just weeks before the elections which will determine control of Congress, as time isRunning out for the panel to complete its work, and an extensive report on its findings. Should Republicans win the House majority, they would be certain to shut down the Congress’ official accounting in January of next year for the largest attack on the Capitol in centuries.

When we consider what Mr. Trump did during the attack on the Capitol, it’s clear that he lied a lot about the importance of elections to ensure the peaceful transfer of power. But Americans shouldn’t lose sight of how this behavior indicts the former president, and not just the former president but the Republican members of Congress whom he knew would go along with his big lie.

This could be an academic thing. There is a possibility that the issue could drag on for months and become useless if a Republican House majority were to sweep away the January 6 committee.

The committee is bound to ask questions from the man who set this all in motion. Every American is entitled to the answers, so that we can act to protect our republic.

Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who chairs the select committee, said that Trump is at the center of the story. So we want to hear from him.”

The committee didn’t have any time left. The committee is expected to be dissolved as the Republicans take control of the House. So the legal ball will now be in the Justice Department’s court, while the political one rests with the voters.

Congressional Hearings of the Insurrection at Fort McNair, Virginia: Portraits of Horrible Violence and Attempts by Trump to Become the President of the United States

The committee aired footage from Fort McNair, the Army base in the DC area that congressional leaders took refuge at during the insurrection.

In its highly produced hearings, the committee – with its seven Democrats and two Republicans who split with their own party to take part – painted scenes of horrific violence and intense efforts by Trump to steal Joe Biden’s presidency.

Pelosi was also showed talking on the phone to then-Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia about sending reinforcements to the Capitol. Other footage showed Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaking to acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen.

Schumer was shown dressing down an acting Attorney General. During their heated phone call, Schumer implored Rosen to intervene directly with Trump, and tell Trump to call off the mob. During the call, Pelosi told Rosen that the pro-Trump rioters were “breaking the law… at the instigation of the President of the United States.”

“I think the events at the Capitol, however they occurred, were shocking and it was something that, as I mentioned in my statement, that I could not put aside,” said Chao, one of the former members of Trump’s Cabinet whose recorded testimony lawmakers aired on Thursday.

“And at a particular point, the events were such that it was impossible for me to continue, given my personal values and my philosophy. I came as an immigrant to this country. I believe in the country that I live in. I believe in the power being transferred in a peaceful way. I believe in democracy. She said that she made the decision on her own.

Candidate Cassidy Hutchinson: What Mark Meadows said after the White House emailed him about the defeat of the November 11 primary election

Cassidy Hutchinson, the former top aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, provided new testimony to the committee relaying anecdotes of Trump acknowledging he had lost the election.

“I remember looking at Mark, and I said ‘Mark, he can’t possibly think we’re going to pull this off. That call was crazy. He shook his head when he looked at me. And he’s like, ‘No, Cass, you know, he knows it’s over. He knows he lost. But we’re going to keep trying,’” Hutchinson told the committee.

Hutchinson also said that she witnessed a conversation between Meadows and Trump where he was furious the Supreme Court had rejected a lawsuit seeking to overturn the election result.

“The President said … something to the effect of, ‘I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Go and figure it out. We need to figure it out. I don’t want people to know that we lost,’” Hutchinson said.

The Secret Service Committee on Elections: Three Months After the Appetite Hearing and New Evidence for Donald Trump’s Plan to Win the Vote

In roughly three months since the last January 6 committee hearing, the panel has obtained more than 1 million records from the Secret Service, and the panel revealed some of what they learned during Thursday’s hearing.

On January 6, one Secret Service agent texted at 12:36 p.m., according to the committee, “With so many weapons found so far; you wonder how many are unknown. Could be sporty after dark.”

The committee shared a message from an adviser to Mark Meadows, that read, “I got the base fired up”, and then sent a link to a website with violent comments.

The congressman said that he had heard that the Secret service had received online threats against the vice president, including one that said he would be dead if he did not act.

The committee also revealed new evidence Thursday that Trump had devised a plan, well before any votes were counted, to declare victory no matter what the election results were.

The committee presented a memo to Short on Thursday that it claimed was obtained from the National Archives.

“It is essential that the Vice President not be perceived by the public as having decided questions concerning disputed electoral votes prior to the full development of all relevant facts,” the memo reads.

In a text message presented by the panel, Mr. Fitton said that he had discussed the idea with Mr. Trump.

The committee spoke to Thomas in the month of November but her testimony wasnt included in the last hearing before the election.

But her absence was notable considering the panel did use testimony from several other high-profile witnesses who had been interviewed since the committee’s most recent hearing earlier this summer.

No, we won, f*** you!” he told Fitton on the epsacking of the U.S. president

Times reporters cover politics. Our journalists are able to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. It also includes raising money for a political candidate or election cause, as well as marches or rallies in support of a movement.

“The ballots counted by the Election Day deadline show the American people have bestowed on me the great honor of re-election to president of the United States — the deadline by which voters in states across the country must choose a president,” Tom Fitton, a right-wing activist who heads the group Judicial Watch, suggested Mr. Trump say in a statement, effectively discounting lawfully cast early and absentee votes.

The chairman of the committee said in his opening remarks that the panel had been made “formal committee business meeting”, which meant that they could vote on further investigative actions.

Trump responded to the vote on his Truth Social platform, calling the committee a “total bust” and criticizing it for waiting until now to ask him to testify.

Video clips of Roger Stone, a long time associate of the president, were shared by the panel. Trump pardoned Stone less than a month before he left office.

“I really do suspect it will still be up in the air,” Stone said. The key thing is to claim victory when that happens. Nine-tenths of the law is possession. No, we won, f*** you.”

Speaker’s Reply to Comment on ‘Consistency of Congress and the First Premeditary Election” by Steve Bannon

The committee also played audio from another Trump adviser, Steve Bannon, who refused to testify before the committee and is awaiting sentencing for contempt of Congress. In the audio, Bannon describes a premediated plan to declare the election invalid.

President Trump conceded the reality of his loss after the election. He admitted that Joe Biden was going to take over as President when he claimed he had won. pic.twitter.com/urgTGKVD3y

Despite publicly declaring he won, Trump privately admitted he lost the election. The president privately acknowledged his loss as he was crafting a campaign to overturn the election according to testimony from White House officials.

“I popped into the Oval just to give the president the headlines and see how he was doing” was the comment from Trump. He looked at the TV, and said, ‘Can you believe I lost to this man?’

The professor mentioned that he was a professor and then Mr. Eastman talked about the importance of the RNC to the campaign in case of legal challenges that could change the election result.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and the Associated Senators During a White House Dec. 6 Reaction to the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

On January 6th, there were tips by the Secret Service. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said on Dec. 26, a Secret Service field office shared a tip that had been received by the FBI. The source said the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group, planned to march into D.C. with weapons.

The crowd that arrived on Jan. 6 was heavily armed, and many wouldn’t enter the Ellipse because they would have to go through magneto meters, a fact that Trump was aware of.

“Do you believe this?” Speaker Pelosi can be seen telling Clyburn that members on the House floor were wearing tear gas masks.

“The truth was, as reckless as the president’s tweet was, I really didn’t have time for it. The Capitol was overrun by rioters, Vice President Mike Pence wrote. I was told that some of them were yelling for Mike Pence to be hanged. The president had decided to be part of the problem. I was determined to be part of the solution. I got back to work.

Mick Mulvaney supports GOP Rep’s account of McCarthy’s call to Trump. The congressman from Washington shared details of a discussion between McCarthy and Trump in which the leader asked the president to stop his supporters from gathering.

Kevin, the president said that these people might be more angry about this than you are. Maybe they’re a little more upset.

Trump was a central player. The hearing went into more details on then-President Trump’s state of mind after he lost the election and continued to pursue avenues to overturn the election results.

Trump tried to take away the will of the American people in choosing their president and replaced it with his will to stay in power, said Thompson. “He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on Jan. 6.”

A federal judge noted that Trump was told by email “that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and in public.” And he “signed a verification swearing under oath that the incorporated, inaccurate numbers ‘are true and correct’ or ‘believed to be true and correct’ to the best of his knowledge and belief.”

The Case of January 6: No One-Off Day of Chaos for the Second Presidency of the United States — A Comment on CNN’s Julian Zelizer

She said that our nation couldn’t only punish the people who invaded the Capitol. “We are trying to excuse or justify the conduct of the former president, which is detrimental to the foundation of our Republic.”

Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is an author and editor of a number of books, including his forthcoming work,Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest lies andlegends about our Past (Basic Books). Follow him on Twitter @julianzelizer. The views expressed in this commentary are of his own. CNN has more opinion on it.

There was never before shown footage of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and other legislative leader scrambling to get more police and the national guard to repel the protesters on Capitol Hill.

In public hearings during the past four months, the bipartisan panel attempted to reveal the full context of what happened that day and who was responsible.

The campaign to overturn the 2020 election is very different from the one that ended President Richard Nixon’s Presidency in 1974, because it happened in broad daylight.

In order to fill out the story, the committee gave shocking evidence and details as to how the events of those months were more dangerous than we thought.

The committee demonstrated that January 6 was not a one-off day of chaos like the one before it. It was premeditated.

The Trump/Hutchinson/Steal campaign to overturn the 2020 election: a comprehensive analysis of the case of January 6, 2021

On the day of the “Stop the Steal” rally, January 6, 2021, Trump knew that the protesters were armed and dangerous but did nothing to stop them. He wanted to go to Capitol Hill, but he was stopped by a Secret Service agent. The former president even lunged at a Secret Service agent and tried to steer the wheel of the car when he was told he couldn’t go, according to former aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

Orchestration wasn’t a part of the campaign to overturn the 2020 election. The former president and key advisers in the administration deliberately pushed to overcome electoral defeat. “Possession is nine tenths of the law,” Roger Stone said, “We won. F–k you.

The rhetoric of a rigged election would be used to frame the operation, sowing doubt in his supporters about the validity of Biden’s victory and creating a basis for leaning on state officials. Trump’s team constantly discussed and deliberated over how to achieve their goal.

Trump and his lawyers were trying to see if any state officials would do their bidding. After receiving a call in November 2020 from Giuliani and Trump to have the state legislature convene and possibly invalidate the results of his state, the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives was worried. John Eastman, the president’s lawyer, pressured his aides to reject the results of the election after he had written a road map to steal it.

The committee found that Trump stoked the violence with incendiary tweets and that the White House was purposely slow in responding to the insurrection at the US Capitol.

Continuum: January 6 was just one piece of a much larger story. Although the panel is called the January 6 committee, it would be more accurate to call it a committee to investigate the campaign to overturn the 2020 election. Between November 2020 and January 2021, the reframing is essential.

The Final Hearing of President Donald J. Cheney: The 2020 Demographic and Election Denialism Scenario for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives

To convey his state of mind, committee members made clear that Trump was not “duped” or “irrational,” as Cheney said Thursday. He knew exactly what he was doing. After the Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit backed by the former president in December 2020, Trump, who the Secret Service said was “pissed,” was heard saying he didn’t “want people to know we lost.”

When the mob attacked the Capitol, Cheney added, Trump engaged in “shameful” behavior by sitting and watching the violence on television. His actions, Cheney said, were “unlawful” and “an utter moral failure” and a “clear dereliction of duty.” When he agreed to stop supporting him, he used language that justified what his supporters had done, according to Elaine Luria.

The committee made it clear in Thursday’s key hearing that the danger is not over in 2 years. There is a danger to the electoral system and democratic institutions that will come through in our final hearing. This is not ancient history; this is a continuing threat. That continued threat exists on many levels. The rhetoric of election denialism has taken hold among many of Republican candidates in the 2022 midterm elections.

Republicans who subscribe to this agenda are also running for several key offices, ranging from gubernatorial positions to secretaries of state in key states such as Pennsylvania and Arizona, all of whom will play a key role in overseeing future elections. And, finally, the former president remains the top contender for the Republican nomination in 2024.

During her opening remarks on Thursday, Cheney made this point clear when she asked why Americans should assume that “those institutions won’t falter next time” if the wrong people were in positions of power the next time around. The story of January 6 turned out to be a string of officials, many of whom were Republicans, who refused to go along with the scheme. She reminded the nation that the institutions only hold when people of good faith are willing to stand up for what is right.

Whatever its immediate impact on Trump, the 2024 presidential race and the Justice Department, the culmination of the committee’s work marks a pivot in history when Americans faced a choice whether to confront an unprecedented effort by an aberrant commander in chief to overrule the voice of the people and the chain of peaceful transfers of power from one president to the next.

The Case for Donald J. Eastman: The Case For Trump’s 2020 Election and His alleged Political Persequences in the White House

Even though Trump’s lawyers had told him it was false, he signed a document declaring that the information in the Georgia lawsuit was true, according to a federal judge.

The committee has been seeking for months to get access to Mr. Eastman’s emails which they say show he is an architect of the plans to subvert the 2020 election. Repeatedly, the panel has argued that a “crime-fraud exception” pierces the typical attorney-client privilege that often protects communications between lawyers and clients.

Since his political career has been so unexpected, it is unsurprising that his political reemergence is posing new questions with the potential to further challenge and damage the country’s political institutions.

At a point when he is on a collision course with the Biden administration, Trump dropped his clearest hint yet of a new White House run.

Trump never really went away after losing reelection in 2020, but a dizzying catalog of confrontations is vaulting him back into the center of US politics. It is believed that it will deepen the divide in the nation. And Trump’s return to the spotlight probably means next month’s midterm elections and the early stages of the 2024 presidential race will be rocked by his characteristic chaos.

It’s clear from those controversy that a presidential campaign based on the claims of political persecution by the ex-President could create more upheaval than his four years in office.

While the policies of both Democrats and Republicans regarding the economy, abortion and foreign policy are different, there is always a chance that the coming political period will mainly focus on the past of the ex- President.

A panel is debating whether to give the Department of Justice criminal referrals of Trump and people around him because of their actions on January 6. The most significant areas of criminal liability for the ex- President, are in the hands of the Attorney General and Georgia prosecutors, and they are investigating attempts by Trump and his allies to overthrow the 2020 election.

Pro-Trump Candidates Are Harmful and Shouldn’t Forget to be Left Behind: A Counterexample at the Trump Organization

In Arizona, one of the former President’s favorites for the governor’s seat, has been raising doubts about the election system. “I’m afraid that it probably is not going to be completely fair,” Lake told AZTV7 on Sunday.

One of the most powerful pro-Trump Republicans, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the party’s number three leader in the House, told the New York Post last week that impeachment of Biden was “on the table.” South Carolina GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, however, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” Sunday she did not want to see tit-for-tat impeachment proceedings after Trump was twice impeached. She was against the process being weaponized. But when asked whether Biden had committed impeachable offenses, she said: “That is something that would have to be investigated.”

An already pro-Trump Republican presence in Washington is likely to expand after the midterms. Many Trump-endorsed candidates are running on a platform of fraud, raising questions if they will accept results if they lose their races in two weeks.

On another politically sensitive front, the Trump Organization’s criminal tax fraud and grandy larceny trial begins in Manhattan on Monday. The ex- President hasn’t been charged but the trial could impact his business empire and Prompt fresh claims of persecution for political reasons that could inject yet another contentious element into election season. The New York Attorney General has filed a $250 million civil suit against Donald Trump and his children for running tax and insurance fraud schemes that enriched themselves for years.

Democrats are attempting to get Trump back in the spotlight. President Joe Biden equated MAGA followers with “semi-fascism” and some campaigns have tried to scare critical suburban voters by warning pro-Trump candidates are a danger to democracy.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/24/politics/donald-trump-circus-analysis/index.html

So Help Me God: The Story of a Man Who Spent Too Many Days Fighting Joe Biden, with an Ex-President who Was Inflated

It is likely that the party in power in Congress will feel bad news if voters go to the polls in protest of inflation and gasoline prices.

The ex- President told supporters at a Texas rally on Saturday that he would probably have to do it again.

Cheney told NBC that it might take multiple days, and that it would be done with a level of rigor and discipline that it deserves.

This isn’t going to be his first debate against Joe Biden, and the circus and the food fight that happened is not going to happen. This is a far too serious set of issues.”

The prospect of video testimony over an intense period of days or hours is likely to be unappealing to the former President because it would be harder for him to dictate the terms of the exchanges and control how his testimony might be used.

If there is evidence a crime was committed, Garland would face a dilemma over whether the national interest lay in implementing the law to its full extent or whether the consequences of prosecuting a former commander in chief in a fractious political atmosphere could tear the country apart.

A decision to charge an ex-president running for a non-consecutive second White House term would undoubtedly cause a firestorm. But sparing him from accountability if there’s evidence of a crime would send a damaging signal to future presidents with strongman instincts.

The VP said that he told Trump that he was angry and that what he’d seen on that day had angered him.

The comments are part of the vivid ending of Pence’s new memoir, “So Help Me God.” It will be released as Trump prepares to launch his presidential campaign in Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday.

Pence has also hinted at his own potential 2024 run, recently telling ABC News he thinks “we’ll have better choices in the future” than Trump. But in his memoir, he largely defends Trump – touting the former president’s achievements, downplaying controversies and excusing Trump’s personal vendettas, including against the late Arizona Sen. John McCain.

The book gives the congressman who has not testified before the committee the opportunity to comment on his exchanges with Trump.

While he acknowledges the reality of electoral vote count, he does not refer to Joe Biden as having won the 2020 race fairly or the Trump campaign’s strategy of fighting swing state results in court. He discusses his campaign for two Republican senators in Georgia, where the Texas challenge to electoral votes was turned into an applause line.

He described watching Trump claim in an early Wednesday morning speech that the election process had been “a fraud on the American public” and said the days that followed the election were “a little like the twilight zone,” as Trump’s team challenged states’ results.

VP wrote that he asked the President if there were fraud or irregularities. It is a question of congress, and who decides.

“I said, ‘You’ve got a good team at the White House,’ to which he grumbled, ‘No, I don’t,’” Pence wrote. “If the president had chosen to listen to those good men and not the gaggle of outside lawyers who took over the election challenges from the campaign, things would have been very different.”

The president implied that I lacked courage by saying it probably was just courage. “I paused before replying and, facing him from my seat in front of the Resolute Desk, said firmly, ‘Mr. President, I have courage, and you know that.’”

When Putin wrapped up his comments about restarting nuclear nonproliferation negotiations, Pence said he told the Russian leader: “Mr. President, we know what happened in 2016, and it can’t happen again.”

The FBI is investigating claims of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, but Pence does not think the investigation should be about the Trump campaign and their dealings with Russia.

“I always had the impression that the president felt that acknowledging Russian meddling would somehow cheapen our victory,” he wrote. I think Trump should have called out Russia for its bad behavior since our intelligence services knew what Putin had been up to. I had no problem calling Russia out.”

The former vice president said that while the Olympics began, “the North Korean government was making back-channel overtures to me about having a meeting.”

He said there was a large reception and dinner for the two hundred national leaders in attendance, and that Moon arranged for a group photograph to be taken at the beginning of the banquet. Pence and former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe intentionally arrived late to the banquet and did not participate in the group photo.

Pence delves into his role in the Trump administration’s battle against the coronavirus pandemic, and details the relationship between Trump and Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert.

I was happy that Fauci was there. He was a reassuring person andMitch McConnell advised me that Fauci would be a good member of the team, because of his stature.

“Trump is from Queens, Fauci from Brooklyn, and Fauci was not put off by Trump’s New York brashness. He had grown up around it. He is a New Yorker as well.

“They were both sharp-elbowed men who punched back hard when attacked. They would eventually have become friends, even if McCain wasn’t alive.

He made it clear that he still hates McCain for returning to the Senate floor to vote against the Trump administration efforts to repeal theAffordable Care Act.

“Then he walked out of the office, onto the Senate floor, caught the eye of the Senate clerk, gave a thumbs-down, walked over to his desk, and sat down,” Pence wrote. An audible gasp occurred. It was not possible to repeal and replace the law. The Trump administration was knocked back in its heels by the other side. Trump was irate. I was, too.”

Immediately after McCain voted down repeal of the Patient Protection and Improve Act, Paul block the fiscal-year spending for the Departments of Defense, Energy, and State, which was christened the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act. “Trump was delighted. McCain was incensed. He actually said, ‘It is unfortunate that one senator chose to block consideration of a bill our nation needs right now.’ It takes one to know one.

Investigating the 2020 Capitol Insurrection with the DoJ: Donald Trump and the House of Representatives in Arizona vs. the DOJ

Multiple federal and state investigations are ongoing regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, his handling of sensitive government documents and his family business.

Trump and his company deny any wrongdoing in any of the matters they’ve been accused of. Trump has also won dismissals of two lawsuits this week in cases brought by his niece and his former attorney.

There is a question about whether Trump mishandled classified material at Mar-a-Lago. The documents from the White House may have been illegally mishandled when they were brought to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. A grand jury in Washington is listening to witnesses about how Trump handled the documents. The National Archives has previously said that at least 15 boxes of White House records were recovered from Mar-a-Lago.

The January 6 committee will probably ask the Department of Justice to prosecute President Donald Trump for his role in the US Capitol insurrection.

A Capitol Police officer told how she had slipped on spilled blood during the melee caused when the ex-president’s mob smashed its way into the Capitol. A mother and daughter who worked as election workers in Georgia described how they faced racist threats after Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, accused them of vote stealing. Rusty Bowers, the outgoing Republican speaker of the Arizona state House, testified that Trump’s calls for him to meddle with the election were “foreign to my very being.”

Often, it was Republicans – some who were with Trump in the West Wing on January 6 – who courageously testified about his assault on the Constitution, including Cassidy Hutchinson. The ex-aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows recalled, “It was unpatriotic. It wasn’t American. We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie.”

Even though it delivered a road map to justice, the panel has no power to try Trump, and its decisions are not binding on the Justice Department. The DOJ has its own investigation that requires a higher bar than the political maneuvering of the committee. There is little case law precedent for the charges concerned. And while both Attorney General Merrick Garland and the House committee have long argued that every American should be subject to equal justice, the gravity of indicting an ex-president and current White House candidate who has already used violence as a political tool means the department’s dilemma is among the most fateful in American history.

The person tried to push state officials to find votes that didn’t exist. The chair of the House Intelligence Committee said on Sunday that someone had tried to interfere with a joint session and even inciting a mob to attack the Capitol. “If that’s not criminal, then I don’t know what it is.

Now, that doesn’t mean Trump will be charged. The committee has no say in what the Justice Department does. Jack Smith is currently running the Justice Department’s investigation of Trump.

The act of sending criminal referrals to the DOJ may lead to the perception that separate investigations have been politicized after January 6.

Will an impression that Trump is being hounded by any referrals nearly two years after he left office help rally Republicans to his misfiring 2024 campaign?

And do Americans as a whole, at a time of national strain amid high inflation and the aftermath of a once-in-a-century pandemic, really care about events that rattled US democracy nearly two years ago?

Investigating 2020 Midterm Election Fraud: Why is Trump’s Error Untrue? The Innocent Witnesses in Reply to Cheney

Committee members, including Republican Vice Chair Liz Cheney who lost her office in Wyoming over her determination to hold Trump to account, argue that it’s giving them a strong impression that they want to fatally damage his future political hopes.

Still, Americans rejected many of Trump’s midterm candidates in swing state races who had amplified his false claims of 2020 election fraud, suggesting some desire to protect American democracy.

The committee has been doing a massive investigation. Huge amounts of evidence, a huge amount of witnesses being identified,” former federal prosecutor Shan Wu told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “CNN Newsroom” on Saturday.

I believe the detail that accompanies the referrals themselves and the report is what will help the DOJ. DOJ has been kind of late to this party and they are playing catch-up but that detail could be very helpful to them and will put a lot of pressure on them as well.”

Future generations can judge the determination of the panel members, especially the two Republicans, and the bravery of witnesses who told the truth, if nothing else.

The Illinois Republican said democracy is being challenged by authoritarianism and that it is a world where a lie is Trump’s truth.

“If we, America’s elected leaders, do not search within ourselves for a way out, I fear that this great experiment will fall into the ash heap of history.”

“Our justice system is not a system of justice where ringleaders get away with murder, and foot soldiers are sent to jail for less than stellar service,” said Jamie Raskin, one of the committee members announcing the referrals.

The issue of accountability gets to the core of Raskin’s comment about foot soldiers – since many of those who were in the mob that trashed the Capitol have been convicted and jailed already. And since winning the White House in 2016, Trump repeatedly avoided paying political and legal prices as the ultimate example of a “ringleader” who skips past judgment. RobertMueller uncovered a lot of information that shows Trump didn’t do anything wrong in the Russia investigation, but he didn’t make a finding about whether the president committed crimes. Most Republicans in the Senate found a reason not to convict Trump even after he was impeached again.

Specifically, the panel said Trump should be charged with giving aid or comfort to an insurrection, obstructing an official proceeding, defrauding the US and making false statements. The committee argued that the central cause of the January 6th incident was former President Donald Trump. … None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him.”

Section 1512 (c) (2) of Title 18 of the US code makes obstruction of an official proceeding a crime, according to the committee. It seems that Trump went after the voters in order to stop the mob from attacking Congress, based on what the panel presented.

The DOJ’s investigation into the insurrection at the Grand Unified House of Deputies and the Senate Select Committee on Investigations by a former deputy FBI director

The DOJ’s investigation into the events surrounding the insurrection was going to have to be weighed against the evidence that was presented to the committee room on Monday afternoon.

The former deputy FBI director said on CNN on Monday that the Justice Department needs to go much further on every single one of the people who was touched by the committee.

According to CNN legal analyst Elie Honig, the lawyers for Trump are allowed to go through every word of it. They are going to look for any inconsistencies to attack the potential witnesses against them in court. That is what defense lawyers do.”

One particular complication for the Justice Department is that the nature of the insurrection and the involvement of a former president makes this an unprecedented case. A good defense team could seek to puncture a prosecution by reframing Trump’s true intent and muddying the question of what he honestly believed about whether or not there was fraud in the 2020 election. They could say that he was exercising his freedom of speech by telling people to fight like hell. Jack Smith and Garland had to decide if they wanted to prosecute after looking at the likelihood of a conviction and considering the thrust of Trump’s defense.

It is unlikely the most serious referral would ever come up against a First Amendment defense, according to Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general.

“The Department would have to prove that the president’s comments were directed at inciting imminent lawless action. They had to show he intended for a mob to engage in violent activity. That would be a hurdle to prosecuting him under that charge,” Rosenstein said.

The DOJ’s prosecutors are not likely to be swayed by the opinion of the select committee that the former president should be indicted. Still, the volume of testimony and other documents that have been amassed by the panel could be useful to the DOJ’s investigation, which is one reason prosecutors have been keen to get hold of its testimony and other materials for months.

It’s hard to see how Monday’s events will add to the DOJ’s pressure on investigating Trump. But at the same time, if Garland were to disregard multiple referrals, he would be certain to infuriate Democrats who already think the department has been slow to pursue Trump.

There is one thing for certain. The DOJ has just a few days to reach the goal. With the campaign season underway and the time it takes to mount a prosecution, Smith doesn’t have many years to wait. This may help explain signs that his investigative pace is cranking up, following the recent reappearance of two ex-White House counsels before the grand jury.

One way that the committee’s graphic depiction of Trump’s aberrant behavior could help Smith is by preparing the public – at least the portion that does not simply defend Trump whatever he does – for the grave possibility that a former president could go on trial. Attempted coups are, after all, more akin to fragile developing world democracies and dictatorships.

“No man who would behave that way at that moment in time can ever serve in any position of authority in our nation again. Wyoming Republican said that he was not fit for any office.

The Ethics Committee Against Donald J.C. Smith and the Clinton-Bushman Investigation of the 2016 Black-Hole Rejuvenation

That’s the state of American politics, with a divided populace and millions purposely not paying attention to the evidence presented by the committee, just two weeks ahead of the two-year anniversary of the riot.

“Accountability that can only be found in the criminal justice system,” committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. said. The work of the committee will assist the agencies and institutions that are responsible for ensuring justice under the law, and we know that information given to us will be used in their work.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith once Trump announced he was running for president again as a way to show independence from the investigation.

Adherence to the rules has been an example of a hostile style of US politics that was growing even before Trump came on the scene.

Whether anything happens to them, though, is unclear since Republicans will control the iteration of the ethics committee in the next Congress and McCarthy is in line to be the next speaker.

Those of you who have been covering Trump for a while know that and that was also stated by Hope Hicks, a former communications adviser in the Trump White House.

During Monday’s hearings, which we did for the first time, we learned that Trump’s friend and advisor, Hope Covey, had told him she was starting to worry that the false claims of fraud were damaging his legacy.

“He told me that if I lose, nobody will care about his legacy, because the only thing that matter is winning,” said Hicks.

“He was—he had—usually he had pretty clear eyes,” said Bill Stepien, the Trump 2020 campaign manager, according to written testimony released in a report by the committee. “He was pretty realistic with our view of the race, and we gave him where we thought the race was, and he understood that and I think he enjoyed it.”

Stepien added: “We’d have to, you know, relay the news that, yeah, that tip that someone told you about those votes or that fraud or, you know, nothing came of it. That would be our job as, you know, the truth telling squad and, you know, not — not a fun job to be, you know, much — it’s an easier job to be telling the president about, you know, wild allegations. It’s a harder job to be telling him on the back end that, yeah, that wasn’t true.”

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/20/1144303656/5-takeaways-from-the-final-jan-6-committee-hearing

Five Takeaways from the Final Jan 6 Committee-Hearing by a Candidate: Why Donald Trump Has Been Left Behind

The report states that during a late November phone call, one of Trump’s campaign lawyers said that he couldn’t find any evidence that the results of any key states would be changed.

These aren’t people who are aligned with Democrats or were “Never Trump” or “Trump Haters,” as the former president likes to say. In most of the testimony aired by the committee, the opposite is true.

Republicans have become entrenched in the country’s politics because of their political beliefs. So despite the primary evidence — with testimony from Republicans who were aligned with Trump — people have been watching selectively.

The committee recognizes that other news outlets and commentators have discouraged viewers from watching the hearings, as well as that millions of other Americans have not yet seen the evidence addressed by it.

There is evidence to suggest those who watched were moved. A poll done before the hearings found that just 42% of independents thought that Trump was to blame for what happened. After several hearings, the July survey found that the percentage blaming Trump spiked to 57%.

They do not have to act on the committee’s findings, though investigators are paying close attention to details. But don’t expect to hear much about the special counsel’s progress, as the DOJ tends to stay pretty quiet, if not wholly silent, on the details of ongoing investigations until they present them in court.

Voters are going to have to make a decision. Trump’s base will likely support him. Republicans have been least likely to pay attention to these hearings. In a multi-candidate primary, Trump remains the front-runner for the GOP nomination.

But he’s in legal trouble in multiple states, not just federally, and many of his preferred candidates — and election deniers — lost in swing states. Whether it’s the chaos that surrounds him, or the fact that his brand is not a winner in competitive states where Republicans need to win to take over the White House and Congress, Trump is threatening to U.S. democracy.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/20/1144303656/5-takeaways-from-the-final-jan-6-committee-hearing

The Report of the January 6 Insurrection Committee on the Crimes of President Donald J. Ronald Reagan, D.R.C. Rosen, and Ms. Cheney

And the members of this committee — some of whom won’t be returning to Congress because of the wrath, or potential wrath, of Trump’s base — certainly hope voters respond.

The conclusions of the key findings were released by the House January 6 committee even if they don’t include all the details expected in the final report.

For anyone who continues to believe that the January 6, 2021, insurrection was exaggerated or was a haphazard, amateurish effort gone bad, the final report should throw cold water on those beliefs. The committee’s recommendations are historic.

With Mr. Rosen’s deputy, Richard Donoghue, also on the line, Mr. Trump launched into the same tired, disproved and discredited allegations he had propagated so often at rallies, during news conferences and on social media. Mr. Donoghue told him it was not true. Mr. Trump was displeased that the Justice Department would not affirm his baseless allegations and called on them to say that the election was corrupt.

Citing former President Ronald Reagan, a conservative icon, Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the panel’s two Republicans, argued that the “peaceful transfer of power” was a “miracle” of our system and only one President — Trump — had failed to abide by this process.

It is one of the worst scandals in presidential history. The abuses of power and violations of law that President Nixon committed, as well as the concerted effort to reverse his own election, are all related to a sitting President being part of the effort.

The committee concluded that Trump abused presidential power to threaten the very foundation of our democracy: elections. While the term “unprecedented” has been grossly overused, in this case the term works.

The “smoking gun” tape that allowed legislators to hear Nixon obstructing an investigation were enough in 1974 for politicians in both parties to say enough.

The discoveries that national security officials in the Reagan administration violated the Boland Amendment by sending money and arms to the Nicaraguan Contras caused Reagan’s approval ratings to plummet and put his legacy in jeopardy.

The President was only saved by the fact that the committee could not directly connect the illicit operation to him and by the fact that the administration mounted an effective public relations campaign to win back public support. Congressional Democrats, moreover, decided that they wouldn’t pursue impeachment.

Even Clinton’s scandal, which was over an issue far less relevant than what faced Nixon or Reagan, clearly contradicted his public statements and legal testimony about the subject after DNA evidence emerged of his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

There is a uncertainty about the impact of any congressional investigation. One of the factors that makes it difficult for Congress to shift political momentum is that intense political polarization overwhelms all other concerns.

Even 9/11 or the pandemic didn’t produce a serious political realignment. Even when the leader of a party is found to have committed egregious abuses of power, lysing is almost always triumphant.

The challenge stems from what social scientists refer to as a asymmetric polarized landscape. The Republican Party is more conservative than the Democrats are. Some of the extremists in the GOP are tactical, where party leaders have embraced a form of smash mouth partisanship with no boundaries as to what is permissible.

The chances that the relevant party will change its ways are very low. It’s worth remembering that Senate Republicans initially opposed the plan to set up a bipartisan commission and did not cooperate with the congressional committee that was created to investigate January 6.

The Republicans who did serve on the committee — Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — have been attacked, marginalized and essentially pushed out of the party. During the 2022 midterms, election denialism was a central campaign theme for the GOP rather than an issue candidates ran away from.

Jan. 6: The Time of the Watergate Reaction in the Media and the Establishment of a Majority Report on Iran-Contra

The kind of reaction that took place with Watergate does not fit in with the way our media works. There was a time when professional journalists coalesced around the facts presented by an investigation, but that is no longer the case.

Partisan media outlets such as Fox News ignore the weight of evidence. Show hosts are more than willing to give a spin on the news in order to satisfy their political desires.

There will be many stories coming in the coming weeks that will exaggerate and make up the committee’s findings with no basis in fact. The filter-less world of social media probably will offer ample opportunity to push disinformation that contradicts the harrowing stories found in the report.

In 1987, the congressional investigation of Iran-Contra did not need a minority report. Opponents of the committee have multiple ways to counteract the power that the official findings will have.

And some of the forces that will check the impact of the report stem from a broader national culture that seems incapable of staying focused on issues for long. The media is pushed from one issue to the other with the speed of TV commercials, due to our short attention span.

January 6 has become one of the many things that happened during our era despite the fact that Watergate was the most important story of the period between 1972 and 1974.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/20/opinions/historical-context-january-6-committee-report-zelizer/index.html

Does the January 6 report of the Attorney General Garland investigation show the fundamental problems of our democracy? An apology to Mr. Trump and his ill-equipped attorney general

Attorney General Garland is facing a difficult decision, since he is one of President Joe Bidens campaign opponents in the future. Jack Smith is a special counsel who will make recommendation on the investigations of Trump.

The question is whether this report will push Garland to take action instead of focusing on the concerns about dividing the electorate.

Given its expected dramatic findings, the January 6 report is certainly a stress test for the problematic state of our democracy. It isn’t likely to change the basic dynamics.

On Dec. 27, 2020, more than six weeks after losing re-election, an infuriated President Donald Trump telephoned his acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen. Mr. Trump’s former attorney general, Bill Barr, had announced his resignation less than two weeks earlier, after telling the president that the claims of election fraud Mr. Trump had been trumpeting were — as Mr. Barr later bluntly put it in testimony — “bullshit” and publicly affirming that there was no fraud on a scale that would affect the outcome of the election.