Daily Archives: February 3, 2022

A series of new remarks by Donald J. Trump about the aftermath of the 2020 election and new disclosures about his actions in trying to forestall its result including discussing the use of the national security apparatus to seize voting machines have stripped away any pretense that the events of Jan. 6, 2021, were anything but the culmination of the former presidents single-minded pursuit of retaining power.

Mr. Trump said on Sunday that Mike Pence could have overturned the election, acknowledging for the first time that the aim of the pressure campaign he focused on his vice president had simply been to change the elections result, not just to buy time to root out supposed fraud, as he had long insisted. Those efforts ended at the Capitol with a violent riot of Trump supporters demanding that Mr. Pence block the Electoral College vote.

Over the weekend, Mr. Trump also dangled, for the first time, that he could issue pardons to anyone facing charges for participating in the Jan. 6 attack if he is elected president again the latest example of a yearslong flirtation with political violence.

And, ignoring what happened the last time he encouraged a mass demonstration, Mr. Trump urged his supporters to gather in the biggest protests we have ever had if prosecutors in New York and Atlanta moved further against him. The prosecutor examining Mr. Trumps efforts to overturn the election in Georgia immediately asked the F.B.I. to conduct a risk assessment of her buildings security.

The events of Jan. 6 played out so publicly and so brutally the instigating speech by Mr. Trump, the flag-waving march to the Capitol, the violent clashes with the police, the defiling of the seat of democracy and have since been so extensively re-examined that at times it can seem as if there were little more to be discovered about what led up to that day.

Then, The New York Times reported this week that Mr. Trump himself had directed his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to ask the Department of Homeland Security whether it could legally seize voting machines in three key swing states. Mr. Trump also raised, in an Oval Office meeting with Attorney General William P. Barr, the possibility of the Justice Departments seizing the machines.

Both ideas quickly fizzled.

But historians say the episodes and Mr. Trumps new comments acknowledging his determination to stay in power and his effective embrace of the Jan. 6 rioters at the Capitol, who he said must be treated fairly have newly underscored the fragility of the nations democratic systems.

Jeffrey Engel, director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University, said voters were understandably desensitized, if not numb, after a year in which Mr. Trump methodically sought to undermine faith in the electoral process.

I actually think the American public is dramatically underplaying how significant and dangerous this is, he said, because we cannot process the basic truth of what we are learning about President Trumps efforts which is weve never had a president before who fundamentally placed his own personal interests above the nations.

Already, Mr. Trump is gearing up for a potential third run for the White House, announcing on Monday that his political accounts had banked $122 million a show of financial force as some polls show his support softening among Republicans.

In the year since he left office, he has systematically tried to remove those who were obstacles to him in 2020 and its aftermath: seeking to drive out of office the Republicans who voted to impeach him on charges of inciting the riot, recruiting challengers to Republican officials who certified the 2020 vote, and backing new candidates to serve as election administrators and legislators in key states.

Mr. Trump has made clear he is not necessarily seeking more Republican officials. He wants more election-denying Republican officials.

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump appeared in a new television ad attacking Gov. Brian Kemp, Republican of Georgia, with whom he has feuded for refusing to overturn the result there. He also hosted a fund-raiser at Mar-a-Lago for Joe Kent, a Republican in Washington who is challenging one of the House Republicans who voted to impeach him.

And on Wednesday, Tudor Dixon, a Republican candidate for governor of Michigan, where Mr. Trump lost and sought to undermine the results, is holding a Mar-a-Lago fund-raiser of her own.

Meanwhile, congressional investigators with the Democratic-led Jan. 6 commission are busily examining what took place inside the White House in the weeks and months leading up to that day, interviewing senior administration officials and issuing subpoenas. A central focus of their inquiry is the attempt by Mr. Trumps legal team and advisers to persuade him to use his presidential powers to deploy national security agencies to seize voting machines.

It has been known for months that some advisers, including the lawyer Sidney Powell and Mr. Trumps former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, pitched Mr. Trump in December 2020 on using the military to seize the machines in order to check the validity of their tallies. But new accounts suggest that Mr. Trump was more receptive to this even taking steps to act on some ideas than previously understood.

Donald Trumps a constitutional wrecking ball, said Representative Jake Auchincloss, a freshman Democrat from Massachusetts, who saw the mob overrun his workplace in his first days on Capitol Hill. To borrow a term from the financial markets, thats priced in. So his revelations and his rhetoric are important. They are a clear and present threat to our democracy. But theyre also priced in.

The real question is for congressional Republicans, Mr. Auchincloss said: They know as well as we do what threat he poses to our constitutional order. Are they going to stand up to him?

Mr. Trumps discussion of pardons and of Mr. Pences potential to overturn the election, as well as his encouragement of another mass rally against law-enforcement officials were met mostly with a shrug among Capitol Hill Republicans.

Im just glad that there were people in the right places and that the system worked I mean, obviously, people who had positions of responsibility held their ground even when being asked to do things that they knew they shouldnt do, said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, who has occasionally clashed with Mr. Trump. Things may have been bent a little bit, but they didnt break.

Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, said that at the end of the day, as contentious as Jan. 6 was, as confrontational as that whole process was, the process worked.

A rare voice of dissent was Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of the few outspoken Republican critics of Mr. Trump and the top Republican on the Jan. 6 committee.

He has acknowledged he was trying to overturn the election, Ms. Cheney wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. He is making clear he would do this all again if given the chance.

Long before the Capitol riot, Mr. Trump spoke approvingly of political violence among his supporters.

In 2015, he said of a protester at one of his rallies, Maybe he should have been roughed up. In 2016, he floated the idea of paying the legal fees of supporters who turned violent.

While president, he said on Twitter, When the looting starts, the shooting starts, in a warning to demonstrators after the police killing of George Floyd. And in the first 2020 presidential debate, Mr. Trump famously declined to condemn white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys for their role in creating violence.

Stand back and stand by, Mr. Trump had urged the Proud Boys. Members of the far-fight group cheered for what they took as encouragement from the commander in chief.

He is using his supporters as his own kind of militia, said Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University. Mr. Trump, he said, was essentially telling his followers to be ready because this could end up being the new civil war.

He is just wanting to have people angry and ready to take up arms if need be, Mr. Brinkley added. And that feeds into the fantasy-scape of every militia group in the country.

The district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., Fani T. Willis, took Mr. Trumps rally comments seriously, she wrote to the F.B.I., because his statements were undoubtedly watched by millions. She added that she had already taken extra security precautions because of people unhappy with our commitment to fulfill our duties.

Ms. Willis vowed to press ahead: My staff and I will not be influenced or intimidated by anyone.

Oren Segal, vice president of the Center on Extremism at the Anti-Defamation League, said that far-right groups had reacted eagerly and sometimes threateningly to similar calls by Mr. Trump in the past.

In April 2020, for example, Mr. Trump tweeted Liberate Michigan! a reference to early coronavirus restrictions put in place in the state. Within a month, heavily-armed protesters gathered at the statehouse in Lansing to denounce the governors stay-at-home order.

Extremists, in Trumps case, found a champion for their cause in the highest office, Mr. Segal said, because Mr. Trump mirrored their sense of grievance, anger and rage. He sounds like them, he added. Thats why they react.

Alan Feuer and Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.

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Trumps Words, and Deeds, Reveal Depths of His Drive to Retain Power - The New York Times

Theres a lot going on here. Lets start with the fact that its really quite something to watch Trump, an abject racist, accuse three Black prosecutors of racism against him. But mostly, Trumps fevered performance suggests that hes completely terrified of the consequences that might be coming for him. If you havent been keeping up with the various developments across all of the investigations into the ex-president, as a reminder, Letitia James has been looking into alleged wrongdoing by the Trump Organization for more than two years, and earlier this month, said in a court filing that her office had found significant evidence of fraud committed by the family business. Announcing legal action against them, James said in a statement that Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump have all been closely involved in the transactions in question, so we wont tolerate their attempts to evade testifying in this investigation, a turn of events that the ex-president flipped out over, suggesting that his children should be off limits despite the fact that they are in their 40s and have both been senior executives at the Trump Organization, including during the time being examined by James.

As for Trumps claims during the rally in regards to Jamess investigation, it may not surprise you to learn theyre extremely Trumpian in that theyre total bullshit. For example, when he speaks of the millions of pages of documents the Trump Organization has turned over, he conveniently leaves out the fact that, per James, the company has not made anything approaching a complete production of documents for Mr. Trump, including the handwritten notes the famously email and computer-averse Trump used to communicate with employees. When he talks about it supposedly being improper for James to have campaigned on holding him accountable, he does not mention that approximately 63% of his 2016 campaign was about locking Hillary Clinton up (the other 37% arguably being about racism and making Mexico pay for the wall).

Meanwhile, in an incredible tell that Trump is soiling himself over what might come out of Jamess investigation, he already appears to be offering himself an out by suggesting that he relied on other people, namely, major law firms and accounting firms and other professionals. (Incidentally, this preemptive deflection of blame is reminiscent of the statement Trumps lawyer gave to The New York Times after it uncovered evidence of outright fraud by the then president and his siblings, in which his attorney said: There was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone. The facts upon which theTimesbases its false allegations are extremely inaccurate. President Trump had virtually no involvement whatsoever with these matters. The affairs were handled by other Trump family members who were not experts themselves and therefore relied entirely upon the aforementioned licensed professionals to ensure full compliance with the law. In other words, there was no fraud or tax evasion, but just in case there actually was, Donald Trump is completely innocent and the licensed professionals he paid and/or his siblings are to blame.)

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Trump Lashes Out at Prosecutors Like a Man Who Knows Hes About to Be Held Accountable for the First Time in His Life - Vanity Fair

To the Editor:

Re Trump Sought Ways to Seize Vote Machines (front page, Feb. 1):

New accounts that show that former President Donald Trump was directly involved in plans to use security agencies, including the military, to seize control of voting machines in swing states some six weeks after Election Day confirm how perilously close the nation came to a burgeoning autocracy.

Were it not for some of Mr. Trumps trusted advisers, including the clownish, conspiracy-theory-peddling Rudy Giuliani, Americans might have witnessed armed military personnel rolling into their communities, crushing democracy along the way.

That Rudy Giuliani might have been a voice of reason during this moment is in itself a weird and chilling commentary on just how fragile our electoral system is.

Cody LyonBrooklyn

To the Editor:

Re Trump Suggests He May Pardon Jan. 6 Rioters if He Has Another Term (news article, Jan. 31):

If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere because our country and our elections are corrupt. So spoke Donald Trump at a recent rally.

Mr. Trumps strategy to prevent his indictment is to threaten riots. Indeed, with many millions of cultlike true believers, his indictment surely would cause mass civil unrest and perhaps civil war, especially given that many of his most ardent supporters are well armed.

And one might well ask: Which side would the police and members or ex-members of the military be on? Many of them are ardent Trumpists. Would any prosecutor be willing to risk this?

Mr. Trumps strategy is clear, and those of us who want to rescue our country from this would-be autocrat need a clear strategy, too. And that, unfortunately, cannot include the liberal fantasy of Mr. Trump in the dock or jail. Trump and Trumpism must be defeated at the ballot box. Its the only way.

Gerald Lee VogelGermantown, Md.

To the Editor:

If Donald Trump runs for re-election as president, it would take me a ream of printer paper and 8-point type to list the reasons for not voting for him. And I am a registered Republican.

But now a new reason has arisen that takes its place at the top of the list. On Saturday, at a rally in Texas, Mr. Trump said that if he is re-elected as president, he would consider pardoning those prosecuted for what they did at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Somehow Mr. Trump feels that the people being charged with crimes are being treated unfairly.

I was at home on Jan. 6 and spent most of the day watching news coverage. It took our former president almost three hours to ask the crowd to disperse and go home, telling them, Go home, we love you, youre very special. Several of his aides, including his daughter Ivanka, as well as legislators and conservative media reporters, begged him earlier to ask the rioters to disperse and go home. That did no good.

It boggles my mind that anyone who watched even part of what happened on Jan. 6 and saw Mr. Trumps reaction to it could in any way support or vote for him. I certainly cannot. Mr. Trump may have thought the people who overtook the Capitol deserved our love and were very special. I did not.

Gerald S. TanenbaumCharleston, S.C.

To the Editor:

Re Trumps Aim: Keep Power at All Costs, by Shane Goldmacher (news analysis, front page, Feb. 2):

The prospect of Donald Trumps bid for another term as president has the media in a tizzy. The same media that allowed Mr. Trump to control the narrative during the 2016 presidential campaign may be overcompensating for its past failures by sounding the alarm bell with headlines predicting the demise of freedom as we know it. With Mr. Trumps unfitness for office well documented and his waning ability to use the media as a conduit to deceit, why such angst?

Have you forgotten how soundly Mr. Trump was defeated just 15 months ago? President Biden received the most votes ever cast for a U.S. presidential candidate and won by a margin of more than seven million votes.

The media can rest assured in the knowledge that the electorate is democracys safe harbor.

Jane LarkinTampa, Fla.

To the Editor:

Re National Debt Breaks Record at $30 Trillion (front page, Feb. 2):

Well, the national debt wouldnt be so high if big money corporations and individuals were paying its fair share of taxes.

To the Editor:

Re The Case for Writing Longhand (Inside The Times, Jan. 21):

As a retired teacher, I found that your article brought back many memories. I am from the time when the nuns converted left-handers like me into writing right-handed by some encouragement and some strapping.

Most of the first two decades of my teaching career, the 1980s and 90s, saw all of the student work handwritten and most of my notes and tests handwritten and then copied; I loved the smell of a mimeograph machine early in the morning.

The next two decades saw the increase in typing and the decrease in handwriting skills, including my own. There was a time when many people were illiterate, but now they are illegible.

Many students were surprised to know that if examiners couldnt read your answers they couldnt give them marks, and they wouldnt spend time trying to translate the scribbles into words.

Its time to bring back pen licenses that confirm that young children can write neatly enough to now use a pen, and make sure the kids deserve them.

Dennis FitzgeraldMelbourne, Australia

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Opinion | Donald Trump and the Peril to Democracy - The New York Times

Throughout his time in the White House, Donald Trump collected a number of exceedingly reliable footstools. There was Attorney General William Barr, who basically served as the former presidents personal lawyer. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who regularly shredded his dignity on the guys behalf. Mike Pence, other than that one time. And, of course, the vast majority of the Republican Party, which lived in constant fear of getting on the wrong side of the then president.

One member of the GOP who consistently stood out from the bunch in his fealty to 45 was Senator Lindsey Graham. Afterdeclaringin June 2016 that he wouldnt support Trumps bid for office,referringto the then Republican candidate as a jackass, a kook, a race-baiting bigot, and the most flawed nominee in the history of the Republican Party, Graham subsequently became one of Trumps most ardent and obsequious fans.

When Democrats were getting ready to impeach the guy the first time around, over his attempt to extort another country for his personal gain, Grahamtoldreporters the whole thing should be disposed of very quickly by the Senate. When people brought up the fact that Trump regularly slandered Grahams friend John McCaineven after McCain was dead, the senator from South Carolina said he was willing to overlook the attacks because when we play golf, its fun. Two months after a literal insurrection, GrahamtoldAxios: Donald Trump was my friend before the riot and Im trying to keep a relationship with him after the riot. I still consider him a friend. Pressed on the fact that hed already been reelected for another six years, so politically, he didnt have to keep this relationship going, Graham doubled down, telling reporterJonathan Swanit would be too easy to simply dump the guy, before claiming, in a highly worrisome way, that while there was a dark side to the man who incited a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, there was also some magic there.

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In short, Graham has more than proved his servility to Trump over the last six years, and should probably be inducted into some kind of Hall of Fame for bootlicking hacks, or given a key to Mar-a-Lago. Unfortunately, Graham forgot the cardinal rule of serving at the pleasure of Trump, which is that one must vigorously and without fail agree with every single thing the guy does and says, at all times, forever and always. Instead, God help him, the Republican lawmaker expressed an independent thought, and this happened:

Yes, Trump dubbed Graham, a lifelong Republican, a Republican in Name Only, in an interview with Newsmax that aired Tuesday night. That may not sound so bad to some people, but as Trump made clear in 2020, its among the worst things he can think to accuse someone of. (Do you know what RINO is? heaskeda crowd in Arizona. A RINO may be the lowest form of human life.) Why is Graham, in Trumps eyes, a RINO? Because Graham had claimed it was inappropriate for Trump to say over the weekend that he might pardon some of the January 6 rioters if reelected in 2024, a move that effectively would allow Trump supporters to get away with waging a violent insurrection.

Lindsey Graham doesnt know what the hell hes talking about if he says that, Trump added to NewsmaxsRob Schmitt.

Which is not a very nice thing to say about someone whos basically had his head lodged inside your ass for over half a decade now! Though if we know Lindsey, and we think we do, itll all be water under the bridge by the end of the month. Last week, the South Carolina senatorsaidin an interview with Foxs Brian Kilmeade that hed spent the whole weekend with Trump and suggested that the ex-president apparently has total control over the Republican Party. He will be the nominee in 2024 if he wants it. Stay tuned, Graham said, adding: From my point of view, theres nobody thats going to beat Donald Trump if he wants to run.

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Lindsey Graham Spent Six Years With His Head Up Trumps Ass for Nothing - Vanity Fair

Former President Donald Trump will headline the annual Conservative Political Action Conference due to take place in Orlando later this month.

The 45th president made the announcement in a video posted by Matt Schlapp, the head of the American Conservative Union, on his Twitter account.

Ill be attending CPAC again this year in Orlando, Florida, Trump said. I will see you soon. Going to be a fantastic crowd lets have fun.

Trump, who has been a regular at CPAC since his first appearance in 2011, said he urged Schlapp and the organizers to get a bigger ballroom this year.

Last year it was packed and there were thousands of people outside, and they said were going to get a real big one,' he said.

Other scheduled speakers at CPAC include Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

The annual gathering could function as an early preview of a potential 2024 Republican presidential primary between DeSantis and Trump.

Neither has announced a formal intention to run, but DeSantis is widely expected to throw his hat in the ring and Trump has teased a political comeback as he holds campaign-style rallies around the country.

The two Florida Republicans have also been indirectly critical of each other in public.

DeSantis became a GOP star during the COVID-19 pandemic by playing up his opposition to lockdowns as well as mask and vaccine mandates, selling the Sunshine State as freedoms vanguard.

In an interview on the Ruthless podcast last month, the Florida governor said he regrets not having been much louder in opposition when then-President Trump called for widespread lockdowns in the early days of the pandemic.

I never thought in February, early March [2020], that [coronavirus] would lead to locking down the country, he said on the podcast. I just didnt. I didnt think that was on the radar.

Trump, meanwhile, recently blasted politicians who refuse to admit whether they got a coronavirus booster shot as gutless, in what many see as a veiled attack against DeSantis, who wont divulge that information.

I watched a couple politicians be interviewed and one of the questions was, Did you get a booster? Because they had the vaccine, and theyre answering like in other words, the answer is yes but they dont want to say it, because theyre gutless, Trump told One America News Network.

A recent poll of Florida voters by Suffolk University/USA Today shows that Trump would defeat DeSantis by 47 percent to 40 percent in a 2024 primary race in the Sunshine state.

The 2022 edition of CPAC is scheduled to take place Feb. 24-27.

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Trump, DeSantis confirmed to speak at CPAC in Orlando later this month - New York Post

The BDN Editorial Board operates independently from the newsroom, and does not set policies or contribute to reporting or editing aticles elsewhere in the newspaper or onbangordailynews.com.

Almost exactly one year ago, former President Donald Trumps legal team bumbled its way through his impeachment trial defense. A record numberof senators from his own party voted to convict him, but not enough to reach the two-thirds threshold. He was acquitted.

As part of that underwhelming but ultimately successful defense, Trumps lawyers sought to distance him from the rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol.

You will not hear any member of the team representing former President Trump say anything but in the strongest possible way denounce the violence of the rioters and those that breached the Capitol, Trump attorney Bruce Castor said in his opening remarksto senators.

Someone might want to remind Trump about that.

Rather than continually denounce that violence, the former president has repeatedly downplayedand even appeared to excuse it. He has doubled down on his disprovenclaims of election fraud, and insistedthat in actuality the Big Lie was the Election itself. He has indicated that he in fact wanted former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the resultsof that election.

And now, hes talking about potentially pardoning Jan. 6 rioters should he run for president again and win.

Another thing well do, and so many people have been asking me about it, if I run and if I win, we will treat those people from Jan. 6 fairly, Trump said during a rally on Saturday. We will treat them fairly. And if it requires pardons we will give them pardons. Because they are being treated so unfairly.

There has been some deserved, if tepid, pushback from fellow Republicans. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called Trumps pardon suggestion inappropriate. Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who voted to impeach Trumpa year ago, told ABC Newsthis weekend that he should not have made the pledge about pardons.

Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota,however,had a somewhat different response to the former presidents comments. Many other Republicans in Congresshavent said much, if anything, in response to Trumps remarks about pardons and overturning the election.

The obsession with the former president is becoming obnoxious to me, Cramer said Monday when asked about Trump and the pardons, as reported by HuffPost.

Its sort of interesting, but considering what were dealing with here every day, its low priority, Cramer said while suggesting reporters should focus on President Joe Bidens administration and the economy.

Sort of interesting is an interesting choice of words. We think a different word is more appropriate: alarming.We and lawmakers should be able to discuss Bidens shortc omingswithout losing perspective about just how dangerousTrumps actions were and continue to be.

Recent polling indicatesthat Trump unfortunately remains the Republican frontrunner should he seek election again. Two years ago, we might have expected someone to become politically irrelevant after fueling, failing to quelland striking a celebratory toneabout a violent attack on Americas elected representatives. Maybe that was a naive assumption on our part.

While Trumps lawyers tried to distance him from rioters in the presentation to senators a year ago, their client has now done the opposite. If more Republicans could agree on a basic level that this is bad, then maybe we wouldnt have to keep pointing it out.

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We'll stop talking about Donald Trump when he stops saying alarming things - Bangor Daily News

To anyone who was watching the events of January 6 unfold live on television, one thing was quite clear: Donald Trump was excited and proud about the violence he incited.

As the timeline of his actions that day shows, he was so wound up tweeting invective at Congress and his vice president, Mike Pence, that he barely slept the night before. Once the riot was underway, Trump spent hours resisting the pressure to call off his dogs, instead tweeting more invective and ass-covering calls to "stay peaceful" that the crowd knew not to take seriously. He was also reportedly gleefully entranced by the footage of the insurrection. After three hours of rioting, he finally told the crowd to "go home" but only after it was clear that the riot wasn't going to overturn the election.

The blood was still being mopped off the floors when the great GOP gaslighting began. Republicans fell in line behind this narrative that the riot was not incited by Trump, but that it was an entirely self-directed action of a few thousand kooks and that it was only a wild coincidence it started after Trump's incendiary speech. Trump has always clearly chafed at the expectation that he go along with this narrative, wanted to instead publicly gloat about this demonstration of the power he has over people. Now, a year after the riot, Trump appears to be done with pretending to disapprove of the riot. He's circling back to his initial instinct, which was to celebrate it as the glorious MAGA revolution he always wanted it to be.

RELATED:Donald Trump's having an awful week and it's only Wednesday

This was most obvious in Trump's promise over the weekend to consider pardoning the January 6 rioters if he regains the White House in 2024. Politico soon reported that this was hardly some new urge of Trump's. He spent the two weeks between the riot and Joe Biden's inauguration asking advisors if he could issue a blanket pardon for everyone involved. He was waved off the idea, because it conflicted with the GOP's strategy of denying Trump's role. Trump, forever the coward,went along with the demands, even though it meant not getting to take the credit for the mayhem he unleashed. But, by making this promise of pardons to a cheering crowd of thousands of supporters he is sending a strong signal that he's done pretending to feel anything but beaming pride over inciting an insurrection.

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Which isn't to say that Trump is no longer torn between wanting to celebrate the insurrection openly and worried about the legal jeopardy that might flow from that stance.

Over the weekend, he released an unhinged statement in which he outright said that he had wanted to "overturn" the election. But when members of the January 6 committee pointed out that was tantamount to a confession, Trump tried to walk it back with another statementabout how he meant to say he just wanted to send "back the votes for recertification or approval."

RELATED:Donald Trump's lackeys failed him and saved democracy

The pardon promise also could create legal problems for Trump. As January 6 committee member Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told MSNBC Wednesday night, the rally speech is "very important evidence as to his intent" that Trump desired and condoned the violence. No doubt Trump's lawyers are advising him of the same danger. And yet, he can't or won't stop trying to publicly recast the insurrectionists as heroes. In a Newsmax interview this week, Trump falsely insisted "nobody died on Jan. 6" except Ashli Babbitt, who he described as "one young, fine woman." Making a martyr of Babbitt, who was shot because she was trying to lead a charge to run down fleeing members of Congress, is central to the pro-insurrection narrative.

Trump may feel hemmed in by legal concerns, but his political instincts clearly tell him that recasting the Capitol insurrection as a glorious revolution is the right move. Certainly, the cheers he got for promising pardons underscores that the base is with him. But many other Republican leaders aren't so sure, and really want to stick with the B.S. story that the riot was just a random thing that happened and Trump had nothing to do with it. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been surprisingly outspoken about this,telling reporters that the riot was "an effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power" and insisting that people who participated should be punished.Even Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex. who is always trying to be on the vanguard of right-wing nuttery has been queasy about celebrating the riot itself, preferring to hide behind conspiracy theories blaming the violence on the FBI instead.

But Trump's instinct to simply come out in favor of the storming of the Capitol sadly makes a lot of sense, politically, if not legally. The current GOP position, which amounts to disapproving of the rioters while supporting their larger anti-democratic aims, is incoherent. The vast majority of Republicans, both voters and leaders, have decided to embrace the Big Lie, largely because it creates the pretext to pass a bunch of laws and seize electoral offices in such a way that the next coup, in 2024, is successful. Trying to be for the Big Lie, but against the violence that flows from it, is too delicate a needle to thread. It's easier and simpler to stand for the whole kaboodle the Big Lie, the insurrection, the ongoing coup. And Trump understands better than anyone that "easy" and "simple" are huge advantages in political messaging.

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Plus, as Heather "Digby" Parton has been arguing at Salon, Trump is clearly worried that the walls are closing inand that it will be impossible to successfully hide the evidencethat he was both attempting to overturn the election and that he deliberately called on a violent mob in order to make that happen. This is a fairly standard Trump strategy when he realizes he can't cover up a crime. Instead, he simply owns it, says it was a good thing, and dares anyone to do anything about it. So far, that's worked beautifully for him, and the continued inability of Attorney General Merrick Garland to arrest Trump for one of his many public crimes suggests it will continue to work for Trump.

The only question is how long it will take for the rest of the GOP to fall in line?

They also have a pattern when it comes to Trump's crimes, from his admitted sexual assault to his efforts to steal the election: First, there is resistance and disapproval, but soon they give in and either excuse or, in most cases, outright defend Trump's behavior. There's growing political pressure within the Republican ranks to go along with the "January 6 was good, actually" narrative. A proposal to formally kick Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois out of the party has 50 Republican House co-sponsors already. It's not because these two support free and fair elections, as they are fully on board with the voter suppression efforts going on at the state level. It's just that they sit on the January 6 committee and are appalled with the violence of the riot that has put them at odds with their party. Kicking them out amounts to a symbolic vote of confidence for the the insurrection itself.

For most Republicans, it would probably be easier to "move on" from the insurrection, which is to say talk about anything else while quietly supporting legislative efforts to make the next coup stick. But Trump isn't going to let them. As long as the January 6 committee and media keeps pushing out evidence of how deeply involved Trump was and how extensive the coup efforts were, Trump is going to keep circling back to the idea that every action he took, no matter how violent or criminal, was justified and noble. As long as he does that, Republicans are going to be forced to choose between pandering to the Trump base and trying to distance themselves from the violence that turns off moderate voters. But we always know how this story ends. Republicans always cave to Trump. And so it will be when it comes to the story of whether the riot was bad or good. It's just a matter of time.

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Donald Trump is done pretending. He is now openly celebrating the Capitol riot - Salon

Fifteen days after Election Day in 2020, James R. Troupis, a lawyer for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin, received a memo setting out what became the rationale for an audacious strategy: to put in place alternate slates of electors in states where President Donald J. Trump was trying to overturn his loss.

The memo, from another lawyer named Kenneth Chesebro, may not have been the first time that lawyers and allies of Mr. Trump had weighed the possibility of naming their own electors in the hopes that they might eventually succeed in flipping the outcome in battleground states through recounts and lawsuits baselessly asserting widespread fraud.

But the Nov. 18 memo and another three weeks later are among the earliest known efforts to put on paper proposals for preparing alternate electors. They helped to shape a crucial strategy that Mr. Trump would embrace with profound consequences for himself and the nation.

The memos show how just over two weeks after Election Day, Mr. Trumps campaign was seeking to buy itself more time to undo the results. At the heart of the strategy was the idea that their real deadline was not Dec. 14, when official electors would be chosen to reflect the outcome in each state, but Jan. 6, when Congress would meet to certify the results.

And in that focus on Jan. 6 lay the seeds of what became a pressure campaign on Vice President Mike Pence to accept the validity of a challenge to the outcome and to block Congress from finalizing Joseph R. Biden Jr.s victory a campaign that would also lead to a violent assault on the Capitol by Trump supporters and an extraordinary rupture in American politics.

It may seem odd that the electors pledged to Trump and Pence might meet and cast their votes on Dec. 14 even if, at that juncture, the Trump-Pence ticket is behind in the vote count, and no certificate of election has been issued in favor of Trump and Pence, the Nov. 18 memo said. However, a fair reading of the federal statutes suggests that this is a reasonable course of action.

Both federal prosecutors and the House committee investigating the events of Jan. 6 have recently confirmed that they are examining the effort to submit alternate slates of electors to the Electoral College. On Friday, congressional investigators issued subpoenas to 14 people who claimed to be official Trump electors in states that were actually won by Mr. Biden.

The two memos, obtained by The New York Times, were used by Mr. Trumps top lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and others like John Eastman as they developed a strategy intended to exploit ambiguities in the Electoral Count Act, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The memos were initially meant to address Mr. Trumps challenge to the outcome in Wisconsin, but they ultimately became part of a broader conversation by members of Mr. Trumps legal team as the president looked toward Jan. 6 and began to exert pressure on Mr. Pence to hold up certification of the Electoral College count.

Neither Mr. Troupis nor Mr. Chesebro responded to requests for comment about the memos. Even before they were written, legislative leaders in Arizona and Wisconsin sought advice from their own lawyers about whether they had the power to alter slates of electors after the election took place and were effectively told they did not, according to new documents obtained by American Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group.

Mr. Trump has long embraced the scheme. Just this past weekend, he issued a statement reiterating that he was justified in using the process in Congress on Jan. 6 to challenge the outcome and asserting that Mr. Pence could have overturned the election.

The plan to employ alternate electors was one of Mr. Trumps most expansive efforts to stave off defeat, beginning even before some states had finished counting ballots and culminating in the pressure placed on Mr. Pence when he presided over the joint congressional session on Jan. 6. At various times, the scheme involved state lawmakers, White House aides and lawyers like Mr. Chesebro and Mr. Troupis.

In the weeks after the election, Mr. Troupis oversaw the Trump campaigns recount effort in Wisconsin, which ultimately showed that Mr. Biden had won by more than 20,000 votes. In early December 2020, Mr. Troupis filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Trump campaign that sought to invalidate the use of absentee ballots in Milwaukee and Dane Counties, which both have large numbers of Black voters.

At a hearing in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, one justice, Rebecca Dallet, noted that Mr. Troupis had not sought to invalidate votes in Wisconsins 70 other counties but had focused only on the most nonwhite, urban parts of the state. Another justice, Jill Karofsky, echoed that sentiment, telling Mr. Troupis that his lawsuit smacks of racism.

In late December, Mr. Chesebro joined Mr. Troupis in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the question of whether competing slates of electors in Wisconsin and six other contested states could be considered on Jan. 6. The high court denied their request.

The language and suggestions in the memos from Mr. Chesebro to Mr. Troupis closely echo tactics and talking points that were eventually adopted by Mr. Trumps top lawyers.

The November memo, for example, called Jan. 6 the hard deadline for settling the results of the election and advised that the Trump campaign had nearly two months for judicial proceedings to challenge the outcome. It also suggested that Trump-friendly electors in Wisconsin needed to meet in Madison, the state capital, on Dec. 14, 2020, the day the Electoral College would be voting.

The second memo was dated Dec. 9, 2020, and expanded on the plan. It set forth an analysis of how to legally authorize alternate electors in six key swing states, including Wisconsin. It noted that the scheme was unproblematic in Arizona and Wisconsin, slightly problematic in Michigan, somewhat dicey in Georgia and Pennsylvania, and very problematic in Nevada.

Representative Pete Aguilar, Democrat of California and a member of the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, said the panel was examining the origins of the plans to put forward alternate electors. The panel already has in its possession memos that were written by Mr. Eastman and another Trump lawyer, Jenna Ellis, in late December 2020 and early January 2021; those memos laid out steps for Congress to take to cast aside Mr. Bidens electors in key swing states.

We know this was a coordinated effort on behalf of the former president and those around him to overturn a free and fair election, Mr. Aguilar said. We continue to learn new and more details. Its incredibly troubling to know the lengths they went to support these efforts in multiple states.

Mr. Aguilar said that he and others on the panel believed the plan to use the electors was connected to other aspects of Mr. Trumps effort to remain in power, such as proposals to seize voting machines and to put intense pressure on Mr. Pence to throw out legitimate electoral votes.

We need to know the depth of that plan, and we need to know the different ways in which they sought to operationalize their theory, he said.

Read more from the original source:

Memos Show Roots of Trumps Focus on Jan. 6 and Alternate Electors - The New York Times

Meeting then-Israeli president Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem in May 2017, Donald Trump stunned advisers by criticising the then-prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for being unwilling to seek peace while Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, was desperate for a deal.

The comment knocked everyone off their chairs, David Friedman, Trumps ambassador to Israel, writes in a new book.

Although the meeting was private and off the record, we all envisioned a headline tomorrow that Trump had praised Abbas and criticised Netanyahu the worst possible dynamic for the presidents popularity or for the prospects of the peace process.

Fortunately, and incredibly, the event wasnt leaked.

Friedman now describes the incident, and how he says he changed Trumps mind, in Sledgehammer: How Breaking with the Past Brought Peace to the Middle East, a memoir which will be published next week by Broadside Books, a conservative imprint of HarperCollins. The Guardian obtained a copy.

Trumps bankruptcy lawyer was a hugely controversial choice for ambassador. As well as being a hardline pro-settler rightwinger, during the 2016 campaign he called Barack Obama an antisemite and J Street, a liberal US Jewish group, worse than kapos, Jewish prisoners who worked as guards in Nazi concentration camps.

He was confirmed as ambassador by a 52-46 Senate vote. US ambassadors to Israel are usually confirmed unanimously.

In his book, he says the worse than kapos remark was not a political or policy mistake but a tactical one, as it gave ammunition to critics in the Senate.

Describing four murder boards, sessions in which nominees are grilled over potential problems, he says he first said he used the controversial phrase because I felt that J Street had betrayed the Jewish people.

That, he writes, caused a firestorm of reaction and he was told he could not speak that way. His settled-on answer was: In the heat of a political campaign I allowed my rhetoric to get the best of me. I regret these comments and assure you that if confirmed, my remarks will be measured and diplomatic.

Describing his confirmation process, Friedman reproduces private conversations with Democratic senators including Kirsten Gillibrand of New York (a bad joke), Cory Booker of New Jersey (delightful in person, only, Friedman writes, to turn on him in hearings), and Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader.

Friedman says he had donated to Schumer and the two New Yorkers spoke amicably before Friedman made a pitch for his vote, which he said would send a strong message of bipartisanship on Israel, which you have advocated on numerous occasions.

Schumer, he says, smiled and answered: Im not giving Trump the win. Sorry.

Friedman also recounts an angry meeting with Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, who he accuses of siding with terrorists over one of Americas strongest allies.

But his description of the meeting between Trump and Rivlin and how Friedman says he turned his president round makes for more surprising reading, not least in how it appears to show how eager Trump was for a deal.

Friedman describes how during Trumps next meeting, with Netanyahu, he manoeuvred all present into viewing a two-minute collection of Abbass speeches that I thought was worth watching.

The tape contained two minutes of Abbas honouring terrorists, extolling violence, and vowing never to accept anything less than Israels total defeat.

After the tape ended, Friedman writes, the president said, Wow, is that the same guy I met in Washington last month? He seemed like such a sweet, peaceful guy.

The tape had clearly made an impact.

Friedman writes that he was rebuked by Rex Tillerson, Trumps first secretary of state, and HR McMaster, Trumps second national security adviser.

They thought it was a cheap propaganda trick, he writes. He told them, he writes, I work for the president, and nobody else I am going to make sure that he is well informed so that he gets Israel policy right.

Friedman emphasises his role in such policy, prominently including closeness to Netanyahu; support for Israeli settlers on Palestinian land; cutting aid to Palestinians; recognising Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and moving the US embassy there; and diplomacy that led to the Abraham Accords, the normalisation of Israeli relations with four Arab countries.

Aides to Trump, Steve Bannon notably among them, have often suffered from being seen to claim too much credit for his successes. Friedman is sure to repeatedly praise Trump, while bragging of how close to the boss he became.

Nonetheless, his description of Trumps private meeting with Rivlin behaviour Friedman says would have been embarrassing had it been leaked could prove embarrassing itself.

Trump has been repeatedly burned by books on his time in power, even those written by loyalists like Friedman.

In December, the Guardian was first to report that Mark Meadows, Trumps last chief of staff, described how the president tested positive for Covid-19 before his first debate with Joe Biden and how the result was covered up.

Read the original here:

Trump risked disaster with Abbas praise in key Israel meeting, ambassador says - The Guardian

Republican Rep. Tom Rice faces a number of primary challengers in his South Carolina district after his vote to impeach then-President Donald Trump for his actions surrounding the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. Rice stands by his vote. Victoria Hansen/South Carolina Public Radio hide caption

Republican Rep. Tom Rice faces a number of primary challengers in his South Carolina district after his vote to impeach then-President Donald Trump for his actions surrounding the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. Rice stands by his vote.

Former President Donald Trump has endorsed another GOP primary challenger in the upcoming midterm elections, as he tries to take down the small number of Republican House members who voted to impeach him following last year's attack on the Capitol.

"Congressman Tom Rice of South Carolina, the coward who abandoned his constituents by caving to Nancy Pelosi and the Radical Left, and who actually voted against me on Impeachment Hoax #2, must be thrown out of office ASAP," Trump wrote in a statement Tuesday.

But Rice is not backing down.

"If we are going to have a scenario where the president can try to intimidate Congress into doing what he wants, well shoot, we might as well have a monarchy," Rice said in an interview from his Myrtle Beach home.

The congressman, who represents the state's 7th District, had just returned from a chamber of commerce speaking engagement, where he was greeted by protesters angry about his impeachment vote.

Rice told those who attended the event he's proud of his accomplishments during his five terms in office. He was recently named ranking member of the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee. He says he helped Trump draft the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and voted with the former president more than 90% of the time.

But even those who know the congressman's voting record are upset about his vote to impeach. Immediately after, Rice was censured by the state's Republican Party.

Still, he stands by his belief that Trump was responsible for the Capitol violence.

He vividly remembers seeing beaten, bloody police while seeking safety from the House floor. Rice says the former president should have stopped the attack instead of watching it on television in the Oval Office, surrounded by Secret Service members.

"And I guess if the consequences are that the people think what happened is OK, then I guess, you know, I'm not that guy," Rice said.

South Carolina state Rep. Russell Fry (left), who's seen here in a 2021 photo, was endorsed Tuesday by former President Donald Trump in his primary challenge to Rep. Tom Rice. Jeffrey Collins/AP hide caption

South Carolina state Rep. Russell Fry (left), who's seen here in a 2021 photo, was endorsed Tuesday by former President Donald Trump in his primary challenge to Rep. Tom Rice.

The congressman faces a slew of challengers, including South Carolina state Rep. Russell Fry. The 37-year-old was just endorsed by Trump, who called Fry Tuesday.

"He said he's been following our work at the Statehouse, from election integrity to the heartbeat bill to the open carry bill we passed last year," Fry said.

Fry believes he better represents people in the 7th Congressional District because he listens to what they want unlike Rice.

"He hasn't done that and continued to kind of poke the voters in the eye and they're frustrated, and I get that because I'm frustrated too," Fry said.

Also frustrated is Jeanette Spurlock, a single mother of three who says the district doesn't need another politician. She's also mounting a primary challenge.

Spurlock is angry that Rice not only voted to impeach Trump, but also recently doubled down, saying he regrets not voting to certify the election for President Biden.

"My heart is just aching because I feel betrayed and a lot of people do feel betrayed," said Spurlock, who was making campaign T-shirts in her spare bedroom.

She has no plans to drop out. She, like several others, just wants to run against Rice.

"That is one of the vulnerabilities of Tom Rice. Nobody would have thought of doing that," said Jerry Rovner, the district's GOP chair. "I mean, Tom could have been in that seat forever."

Rovner believes the impeachment vote could cost Rice his job.

He expects the number of challengers to dwindle following the Trump endorsement and says an open primary, one that allows any voter to participate, may favor the congressman in the strongly Republican district.

"So, if there's not a viable candidate on the Democratic side, he's going to get a lot of votes because people are going to come in and vote in the primary," Rovner said.

Rice was among 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Capitol riot. Three of them have announced their departure from Congress.

But Rice feels he still has support in his South Carolina district.

"I will tell you that for every person that expresses disappointment, 10 people tell me thank you," he said. "Now, are those the people that are going to vote in the Republican primary? I don't know."

What Rice does know: His political future could come down to one vote.

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GOP Rep. Rice stands by his impeachment vote of Trump. It could cost him his job - NPR