Category Archives: Donald Trump

Dolly Parton said in an interview on NBC News Today that she twice turned down receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Donald Trump, but the reasons were not political.

I couldnt accept it because my husband was ill, and then they asked me again about it, and I wouldnt travel because of the Covid, Parton said.

Barack Obama has said that he wishes he awarded Parton with the honor, and said that he would recommend that President Joe Biden offer the award to her. But Parton said that now if I take it I will feel like I am doing politics, so I am not sure.

Parton donated $1 million to fund coronavirus research at Vanderbilt University, and the money was used to help develop the Moderna vaccine. She also has donated to literacy programs via Dolly Partons Imagination Library.

Trump awarded the Medal of Freedom to figures such as Tiger Woods, Rush Limbaugh and. posthumously, to Elvis Presley. After the siege on the Capitol, one intended recipient, New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, declined to accept the honor.

The Medal of Freedom was established by President John F. Kennedy and is regarded as the highest civilian honor, along with the Congressional Gold Medal.

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Dolly Parton Says That She Twice Turned Down Medal Of Freedom From Donald Trump, But Not For Political Reasons - Deadline

Re Opposing views on whether Joe Biden should pardon Donald Trump (Jan 20): As a Republican, I accept that Joe Biden is our president. Biden says he is going to unite us as a nation. I want him to succeed just as I did for past presidents. Trump lost the election. He had every right to challenge up until Jan. 6 just as others did before him.

Why is it that those on the left wanted to impeach Trump for a second time? He did not incite by his speech and the radicals had an organized goal planned. How does a second impeachment of a now-private citizen Trump unite us as a nation today?

What a colossal waste of time for the American people and President Biden. Biden should take a stand, carpe diem and just say no.

Derrick HaunValley Center

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The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters.

Perhaps the ultimate oxymoron can be summarized by glancing at the San Diego Union-Tribune headlines of Jan. 23, Senate agrees to begin impeachment trial Feb. 9 and Jan. 24, How does a nation heal?.

Daniel CollinsSan Diego

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Opinion: Punishing Donald Trump wont bring nation together - The San Diego Union-Tribune

President Joe Biden has vowed to revitalize America's traditional alliances and put multilateralism at the heart of his foreign policy over the next four years. His predecessor Donald Trump, he said, left America's global reputation "in tatters" and part of his job will be to clean up the mess.

NATO was a favored Trump punching bag. The Cold War-era alliance had been a pillar of the American-led international system since its founding and a bulwark against first the Soviet Union and later Russia, as well as global terrorism.

But Trump repeatedly undermined the bloc and even threatened to withdraw the U.S. from it. During his time in office, the former president repeatedly attacked allies and dismissed the bloc's foundational principleArticle 5, the commitment to collective defense.

The pugnacious former president also highlighted long-term American critiques of NATO, however, legitimate grievances that will not disappear just because he has left office.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who served as NATO secretary-general from 2009 to 2014 and worked with Biden when he was vice president to Barack Obama, said the alliance was "absolutely" relieved that the era of Trump is over.

"Trump is the worst president that the U.S. has ever had," he told Newsweek.

"The election of Biden and his demonstration of a clear global leadership will make the world a safer place," Rasmussen said.

The bloc will also be looking back on Trump's term to consider the lessons learned. His NATO legacy is somewhat contradictoryhe was dismissive of the organisation and undermined its political cohesion, but under his watch the U.S. led the way in rising military spending by alliance members and strengthening its defenses, particularly along the Russian border.

"Militarily, I think NATO has become stronger during the Trump term," Rasmussen said, noting the rapid reaction force deployed to eastern Europe and the former president's constant pressure on allies to increase military spending to 2 percent of GDP, a target agreed in 2014 with a 2024 deadline.

"He has used harsh rhetoric to push allies to actually fulfil their commitment," Rasmussen said. How much credit Trump deserves is up for debate, but several leaders including NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg have been happy enough to praise the president.

Alexander Vershbow, former NATO deputy secretary-general, gave much of the credit to the team around him. "Trump clearly took every opportunity to bully allies and even threaten to pull out of NATO," Vershbow told Newsweek.

"But it's one of those many cases where the administration somehow managed to keep the overall policy on track, despite the president's clear lack of commitment to the alliance or to the values of the alliance."

Figures including James Mattis, Trump's first secretary of defense, were known as the "adults" in the early years of his administration, for a time curtailing his worst instincts and largely maintaining long-held foreign affairs conventions; among them membership of NATO.

"Trump's bark was worse than his bite," Verhsbow said. Nonetheless, the feeling at NATO headquarters now is "certainly relief," he added, with Biden's victory interpreted as a "reaffirmation" of the values on which the alliance is built.

Trump's real damage came on the political front. He clashed with the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Turkey and the U.K. during his time in office, often opining on the domestic policies of other allied nations. His grievances dominated NATO meetings and calculations, with always unsure of how far he was willing to go.

"Politically, NATO has been weakened significantly," Rasmussen said, noting in particular Trump's hesitation about committing to Article 5. Trump's suggestion that the U.S. might not heed the call to defend nations such as Montenegro struck at the heart of the alliance, even though the president eventually walked back his comments.

This was even more distasteful to allied nations because the only time Article 5 has been invoked was in support of the U.S. after the 9/11 attacks.

Trump might be gone for now, but he is the product of a deeper seam of American nationalism, isolationism and chauvinism. Even if he does not run again in 2024, someone like him could. Trump has shown that "America First" wins votes and a younger, more politically adept figure could use his playbook to chart a course to the White House.

"Trump was a symptom of a deeply rooted feeling in the U.S. and it's not a new sentiment," Rasmussen said. A nationalist president in office fosters that isolationist sentiment. "That's why it was so important to get rid of President Trump," Rasmussen said. "It's crucial to get a person like Biden, who is strongly committed to not only the transatlantic race, but also global American leadership."

"The U.S. is the only superpower with a global reach," Rasmussen added. "And some of them may not like it, but it is the destiny of the U.S. to bear the burden of being the world's policeman."

Biden's election alone won't solve most of the problems facing NATO. During Obama's term, the U.S. pushed allies to fulfil the military spending requirements agreed in 2014. Biden will be no different, though he will do so with more tact than Trump. "The Europeans shouldn't think that they are off the hook," Rasmussen said.

Now could be the time for the Europeans to make a goodwill gesture on burden sharing, Rasmussen said. "NATO allies have learned a lesson ... it's clear to everybody that if we are to ensure continued American engagement in Europe, the Europeans carry their fair share of the burden."

Internal disagreements and external challenges also remain. Turkey's slide into authoritarianism and foreign adventurism is a big problem for the alliance. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has shown he is willing to blow up NATO decision-making to protect his own ambitions, and Turkish activities in Syria, Libya and the eastern Mediterranean are all bringing Ankara into conflict with other NATO nations.

The Trump administration was unable to stop Turkey purchasing the S-400 anti-aircraft system from Russia, a deal that U.S. leaders said could threaten NATO's collective defense and risk the security of the F-35 stealth fighter program, in which Turkey was a partner.

Trump allowed Erdogan to operate largely unmolestedhis critics allege this was partly because of his own financial interests in Turkey. But the strongman leader will know he is now facing a different kind of president. "Erdogan realises that he has lost his friend in the White House, and that Biden will take a tough stance on Turkey," Rasmussen said.

Erdogan's authoritarianism represents a "backing away from NATO's common values," according to Vershbow. Conservative movements in other nations including Hungary and Poland also threaten the globalist, liberal founding ethos of the alliance, something Biden wants to protect.

In addition, disagreements between member states can threaten NATO business. "The alliance is going to have to find some ways to discipline its own members to keep bilateral issues out of alliance business," Vershbow said.

Germany's Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline with Russia will remain unpopular in Washington. The White House said last week that Biden considers it a "bad deal for Europe" and his administration will review restrictions on the project put in place by Trump.

Externally, NATO must continue battling international terrorism, cyber-threats and current and future pandemics. The rise of China could also give the alliance a new competitor, one already using its mammoth economic clout to build footholds in NATO nations.

Biden has signalled that he will take a tough line on China if required, but signals from Europe indicate a softer approach. Last month the European Union signed a major investment deal with Beijing; not the kind of pushback on China the new president has promised.

"Now the Chinese have achieved a diplomatic victory," Rasmussen said. "I think they wanted to split Europe and the U.S."

All these issues will bring internal disagreements, but Biden and his team are likely to use a softer touch than their predecessors. Allies are glad that one unstable element is out of the mix butVershbow said"there's trepidation that the U.S. may actually put them on spot to do more."

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As NATO Reflects on Donald Trump, Joe Biden Can't Solve Old Problems - Newsweek

Former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party entered this year having stockpiled more than $175 million from fundraising in November and December based on his false claims of voter fraud, spending only a tiny fraction on lawyers and bills for his effort to overturn the presidential election, according to new campaign finance reports filed Sunday night.

The picture that emerges in the new Federal Election Commission reports is of Trump mounting a furious public relations effort to spread the lie and keep generating money from it, rather than making a sustained legal push to try to support his conspiracy theories.

His campaigns single biggest expense in December was a nearly $5 million media buy paid to the firm that bought his television advertisements. His second-largest payment, $4.4 million, was for online advertising. And the Republican National Committee pocketed millions of dollars in donations collecting 25 cents for every dollar Trump raised online in the final weeks of the year as it spent relatively little on legal costs.

All told, Trumps campaign spent only $10 million on legal costs about one-fifth of what it spent on advertising and fundraising, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission filings from Nov. 4 through the end of the year.

During that period, Trumps conspiracy-fueled accusations that votes had been miscounted or misappropriated repeatedly fell flat in the courts. Joe Biden was elected president by voters on Nov. 3, confirmed by the Electoral College on Dec. 14 and ratified by Congress on Jan. 6 the same day that Trump incited a mob that stormed the Capitol.

But while Trumps efforts to delegitimize the election did not keep him in power, they did spur millions in contributions from loyal supporters and provided both him and the party with an enormous infusion of cash.

The Republican National Committee ended the year with more than $80 million in the bank after the fundraising blitz, and Trump had $31 million in the new political action committee he formed in November for his post-presidential political ventures.

That accounts for just some of their haul. The party and the former president had roughly $63 million more in two shared accounts waiting to be distributed between them, with Trumps PAC entitled to 75% of the money raised in December, giving him an estimated $70 million PAC war chest.

Most of the money appears to have come online and from smaller contributors, with relatively few five- and six-figure checks, especially once the calendar turned to December. One $100,000 check in early December came from Elaine J. Wold, a major Republican donor in Florida.

Though his race was over, Trumps voracious online fundraising from Nov. 24 through the end of the year even outpaced that of the two Republican senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who were competing in the Georgia runoff elections that would determine control of the chamber.

During those 39 days, Trump and his shared committees with the RNC raised $80 million online; Loeffler and Perdue combined for closer to $75 million. Both lost.

Trump did incur some legal costs from more than a dozen law firms.

He paid $1.6 million to Kasowitz Benson Torres, more than $500,000 to Jones Day and about $600,000 to Dechert. The law firm of Kurt Hilbert, who was on Trumps phone call pressuring the Republican secretary of state in Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, to find votes to overturn the election outcome, was paid more than $480,000. A $3 million payment went to the Wisconsin election commission to pay for a recount.

One major Republican donor, C. Boyden Gray, who contributed more than $2 million to Republicans in the 2020 cycle, also provided legal consulting for Trump, earning $114,000.

The man who made so many public appearances on behalf of Trump as his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, reported no payments by the former presidents campaign. His firm was reimbursed for $63,423 in travel in mid-December.

An associate of Giulianis had asked that he be paid $20,000 a day for his work for Trump, which Giuliani initially denied. He later acknowledged the request to The New York Times, but he has continued to publicly deny making money for his work, including in a radio appearance Sunday.

I havent made a penny on it, Giuliani said.

The Trump campaign also spent $20,130 in mid-December for what were described as travel reimbursements to the Kerik Group, led by former New York Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik, whom Trump pardoned last year for his 2010 conviction on eight felonies. Kerik is a close ally of Giulianis.

The Trump operation continued to spend on fundraising, pouring millions more into a secretive limited liability company, American Made Media Consultants, for online and text-message advertising. Family members of Trump and Vice President Mike Pence once served on the board of that company, which had more than $700 million in spending flow through it during the 2020 campaign.

One of Trumps shared committees with the Republican National Committee spent $237,000 on books through a company, Reagan Investments, that has also done work for a PAC controlled by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. The Trump campaign offered signed copies of Cruzs book last fall to donors who gave $75 or more.

And, as they have since the beginning of his candidacy in 2015, Trumps campaign accounts patronized his businesses in the postelection period.

The Trump Victory committee paid $34,000 to the Trump Hotel Collection in its final 2020 filing. The same committee also paid a Trump-owned limited liability company that operates a private plane, DT Endeavor, $39,200 on Nov. 24.

Another Trump campaign committee paid $75,000 in rent to the Trump Tower building in December.

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As Trump raked in cash denying his loss, little went to actual legal fight - WION

Claire Booth Luce, the renowned 20th century politician and playwright, was fond of lecturing many of the presidents she knew -- from Herbert Hoover to Ronald Reagan -- that history would remember them in one sentence.

"History has no time for more than one sentence, and it is always a sentence with an active verb," she said. Then she would illustrate, "Lincoln, he freed the slaves and saved the union," before challenging them: "What will your sentence be?"

Barely out of office a week and still a political force, Donald Trump's place in history, let alone his sentence, is bound to be debated for years to come.

In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo, rioters loyal to President Donald Trump storm the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

Under any circumstances, it takes a generation or more for historians to sort out a presidency with any degree of objectivity. The distance of years -- as passions recede, presidential records are declassified and evaluated and perspective is offered -- allows more reasoned and detached judgment to take hold.

Harry Truman, now widely considered one of the United States' top 10 presidents, left office with a paltry public approval rating of 32%. Likewise, Lyndon Johnson's legacy was shrouded by the failed war in Vietnam before history shined its light on his mammoth domestic accomplishments, including the fruition of landmark civil rights legislation. And Reagan, a year after leaving the presidency, was grouped in the bottom quintile of all U.S. presidents in a decennial poll among historians before ascending like a rocket in future rankings. That said, it doesn't look good for the 45th president.

Trump would like to be remembered for his handling of the economy, including instituting a massive tax cut for corporations and the country's wealthiest citizens and lifting regulations that had held many corporations back. Or by the number of conservative judges he appointed to the bench, including, by sheer luck of attrition, three justices on the Supreme Court. Or, by his telling, the fact that America is respected in the world again. He'd like to be remembered for advancing prison reform and negotiating renewed relations between Israel and several Arab nations.

Supporters of US President Donald Trump protest inside the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021.

But while Trump has been a master at controlling the narrative in his time, history runs its own course.

Especially in cursory evaluations, presidents are measured by the most consequential aspects of their tenure in office, those that align with the major issues and concerns of their times. Presidents facing major crises, for instance, are invariably judged by how they rose to the challenge of resolving them.

Character also comes into play. How did a president's disposition reflect in his leadership in those pivotal times? Franklin Roosevelt, for instance, gets high marks not only for innovatively devising solutions to combat the ills of the Great Depression, but for his ebullient spirit in rallying a ravaged nation. Neither of this bodes well for Donald J. Trump.

Given the patterns of history, it is likely that Trump will be remembered primarily for the central crises of his administration. The first is the COVID-19 pandemic, the worst health calamity to befall the nation in over a century. While Trump can't be blamed for creating the pandemic, he will be held to account for allowing it to spread unchecked with no coherent plan in place as he played it down for fear of it putting a damper on a roaring economy, ignoring science and insisting that the virus would magically go away.

How many of the now over 400,000 Americans who perished from COVID-19 during Trump's watch would have been spared if he had accepted responsibility and implemented policies and procedures toward its mitigation? It was his colossal mishandling of the pandemic more than anything that led to Trump's reelection loss to Joe Biden by over 7 million votes.

But even more so, Trump will be remembered for the other crisis of his administration, one very much of his own doing: baselessly challenging the integrity of a presidential election that led to the seditious siege on the Capitol on Jan. 6. The commander-in-chief stirred up a mob to take down the federal government as lawmakers convened to certify the election in an attempt to overturn the will of the people and, antithetically, "take back our country," resulting in the deaths of five people including a police officer who was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher. The attempted coup is a black mark that even the Teflon Trump can't dodge.

President Donald Trump waves as he arrives at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Fla., Jan. 20, 2021.

Both tragedies are reflective of the former president's deficient character. Divisive by nature, Trump came into the presidency an angry insurgent, and that's how he governed. Sowing the seeds of doubt, discord, and ultimately destruction, he trampled on democratic norms; exacted revenge and spat vitriol in the bulk of his 34,000 Tweets; and told a whopping 30,573 lies, according to The Washington Post. In many ways, Trump seemed downright anti-American.

Most notably, after mildly rebuking Nazis and racists who clashed violently with other demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the summer of 2017, he insisted that there "were very fine people on both sides," and a year later at a summit in Helsinki, appeared to take the word of Russian president Vladimir Putin above his own intelligence agencies over charges of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. But still, who could have imagined what would happen on Jan. 6, 2021?

When he spoke to the nation in his inaugural address after being sworn in to office, Trump, promulgating a policy of "America first," promised "this American carnage stops right here and stops right now." But Trump failed throughout his presidency to put America first, reliably putting himself first instead, unable to live up to the majesty of the office he occupied. And it is this month's carnage at the Capitol, delivered at his own incitement, for which he will be most be associated.

Regardless of whether he gets convicted by the Senate in his impeachment trial next month, Trump, now tainted as the only president to be impeached twice by the House of Representatives, will almost certainly be condemned by history's verdict on that score.

President Joe Biden delivers remarks on racial equity, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Jan. 26, 2021.

However, despite all of Trump's pernicious machinations, our fragile system of government held over the will of one man. More Americans than in the history of our country cast their ballots last November, over 60 courts dismissed Trump's baseless claims of voter fraud, election officials refused to give in to Trump's pressure to reject the election results, and, just after the failed coup, amid shattered windows and battered doors, lawmakers reconvened in the Capitol to certify the election. When Joe Biden took the helm as the 46th president last week, three words stuck out more than any in his own inauguration address: "Democracy has prevailed."

What might Trump's sentence in history be? Trump, he divided the nation and fought democracy -- and democracy won.

Mark Updegrove is a presidential historian, ABC News contributor and the author of four books, including "The Last Republicans: Inside the Extraordinary Relationship Between George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush" and "Indomitable Will: LBJ in the Presidency."

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Donald Trump and the verdict of history: ANALYSIS - ABC News

For years, CarltonF.W. Larson, a treason scholar and law professor at the University of California, Davis, has swatted away loose treason accusations by both Donald Trump and his critics. Though the term is popularly used to describe all kinds of political betrayals, the Constitution defines treason as one of two distinct, specific acts: levying War against the United States or adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. Colluding with Russia, a foreign adversary but not an enemy, is not treason, nor is bribing Ukraine to investigate a political rival. Ordering the military to abandon Kurdish allies in Syria, effectively strengthening ISIS, is not treason, eitherthough that is getting warmer. During Trumps Presidency, Larson told me, his colleagues teased him by asking, Is it treason yet? He always said no. But the insurrection of January 6th changed his answer, at least with regard to Trumps followers who attacked the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congresss certification of the election. Its very clear that would have been seen as levying war, he said.

Both of Trumps impeachments, in 2019 and 2021, were for high crimes and misdemeanors, but the Constitution also names treason as an offense for which a President can be impeached. Individuals, including a former President, may also be criminally punished for treason, perhaps the highest offense in our legal system, carrying the possibility of the death penalty. Fearing abuse of treason charges, the Framers gave treason a narrow definition and made it extremely difficult to prove.

The Treason Clause dictates that a conviction can rest only on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. Partly as a result, there have been around forty treason prosecutions. No American has been executed for treason against the U.S., although Hipolito Salazar (a Mexican who officials thought was American) was federally executed for treason during the Mexican-American War, and some states have executed people for treason, including the abolitionist John Brown.

Larson wrote in his book On Treason: A Citizens Guide to the Law, from 2020, that the Framers had a very specific image in mindmen gathering with guns, forming an army, and marching on the seat of government. Few events in American history, if any, have matched that description as clearly as the insurrection of January 6th, which, court documents suggest, was planned by milita members who may have intended to capture elected officials. The American most associated with treason was one who did not levy war but rather gave aid and comfort to the enemy: Benedict Arnold. He at first fought heroically in the Revolutionary War but then attempted to aid the British; he fled to the enemy when his betrayal was discovered, and so was never punished. Treason prosecutions for levying war were brought against some individuals who took part in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, in which armed men burned down a tax collectors house, and the Fries Rebellion of 1799, in which armed men stormed a prison and forced the release of tax resisters. Both resulted in conviction followed by pardon. The Jefferson Administration prosecuted the former Vice-President Aaron Burr, in 1807, for allegedly conspiring with a group of armed men to overthrow the U.S. government in New Orleans, but he was acquitted. In connection with that planned rebellion, the Supreme Court held that a mere conspiracy to levy war does not count as actually levying war. Another treason case resulted from the Christiana Riot, in which dozens of men fought the return of slaves to their owners as required by the Fugitive Slave Act. Supreme Court Justice Robert Grier, presiding at trial (as Justices did in those days), held that levying war had to involve an intent to overthrow the government or hinder the execution of law.

Southern secessionists who waged war against the United States were treasonous under any reading of the Treason Clauses levying war standard. Jefferson Davis, the former U.S. senator turned President of the Confederacy, was indicted for treason in 1866. Before trial, however, Chief Justice Salmon Chase made clear his view that the Fourteenth Amendment, which had been ratified a few months earlier, precluded any other treason penalties for Confederates. Section 3 of the amendment bars from holding public office anyone who took an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection against or gave aid or comfort to the enemies of the United States. Because of the Chief Justices interpretation, President Andrew Johnson gave up on the prosecution of Davis and granted amnesty to all former Confederates if they swore an oath to defend the Constitution and the Union.

In the past century, federal treason prosecutions generally have been aid and comfort cases. After the Second World War, a Japanese-American woman named Iva Toguri DAquino, better known as Tokyo Rose, was convicted of treason for broadcasting anti-American propaganda on Radio Tokyo; she was pardoned in 1977, after witnesses recanted. The poet Ezra Pound was famously prosecuted for Fascist propaganda broadcasts on Italian radio; the case was dropped in 1958, when he was found incompetent to stand trial. During the Cold War, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted and executed for conspiracy to commit espionage, not treason; the Soviet Union was not technically an enemy. After a half century of no federal treason cases, the indictment of the Al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn, in 2006, was the first to concern giving aid and comfort to an enemy that was not a nation. Had Gadahn ever been tried, the defense might have argued that a terrorist group such as Al Qaeda isnt an enemy as envisioned in the Treason Clause, though a federal district court assumed, in 2013, that it was. Gadahn was killed in Pakistan in 2015, by a C.I.A. drone strike.

Since the Capitol insurrection, there has been little talk of treason charges. Carlton Larson suggested that this was because everybody now tends to think of treason as mostly aiding foreign enemies. In his book On Treason, he even states that levying war is arguably archaic, of interest only to historians, and that, in the twenty-first century, armed rebellions to overthrow the government are simply not going to happen. But, to the Framers, such an insurrection was a paradigmatic case of treason. The founding-era Chief Justice John Marshall held in the treason trial of Aaron Burr that levying war entails the employment of actual force by a warlike assemblage, carrying the appearance of force, and in a situation to practice hostility. If some of those who attacked the Capitol assembled in order to incapacitate Congressperhaps even by kidnapping or killing lawmakersthen their actions could be construed as an attempt to overthrow the government, and federal prosecutors could plausibly consider treason charges. As Larson put it, At some point, you have to say, if thats not levying war against the United States, then what on earth is?

Last Tuesday, Mitch McConnell, who is now the Senate Minority Leader, said that the attackers tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like, offering a narrower purpose than government overthrow. Investigators examining the emerging evidence on the scope of the plot might disagree. Federal law also makes it a separate felony for anyone who owes allegiance to the U.S. and knows of the commission of any treason to conceal it or not tell authorities. That vastly widens the net of those who could potentially be charged, including friends, acquaintances, and co-workers of the attackers. (Since the attack, many such individuals have, in fact, come forward to give information to law enforcement.)

The Treason Clauses strict evidentiary rule of two witnesses to the act makes it exceedingly difficult to convict anyone of treason, even with so much conduct captured on video. But a treason case against Trump himself might conceivably be built, if prosecutors could establish that he knew in advance that his supporters planned to violently assault the Capitol, rather than peacefully protest; that he intended his speech urging them to fight harder to spur them to attack Congress imminently; and that he purposely didnt do anything to stop the insurrection while it was unfoldingor, worse, intentionally contributed to a security failure that led to the breach. Then Trump would have engaged in treason along with supporters who attempted, in his name, to overthrow the U.S. government. At a minimum, it appears that Trump, along with top government officials, was aware that his followers were planning acts of violence. Trump did, however, say, in the midst of his incendiary speech, I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.

Short of treason, a related federal law prohibiting rebellion or insurrection states that a person who incites any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, has committed a serious felony and is disqualified from holding federal office. This description is similar to the current article of impeachment against Trump: for inciting violence against the Government of the United States. If two-thirds of senators vote to convict Trump, a majority of the Senate could then vote to bar him from future federal office. But a Senate conviction requires the votes of at least seventeen Republicans and, so far, looks unlikely. A federal criminal conviction for inciting rebellion or insurrection may offer an alternative route to disqualifying Trump from holding office.

For the time being, the government has indicted more than a hundred and fifty people for crimes related to the insurrection, including unlawful entry, disorderly conduct, theft, destruction of property, firearms offenses, assault on police, conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, obstruction of justice, and even curfew violation. Ongoing investigations will likely produce more indictments. In addition to potential homicide and terrorism charges, prosecutors have pledged to pursue the charge of seditious conspiracy. That crime overlaps with but covers more than treason; federal law defines it as any conspiracy to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States.

While federal prosecutors could charge some of the leaders of the riot with treason, seditious conspiracy would be far easier to prove. It is clear that the rioters goal was, at a minimum, to delay Congresss legally mandated counting of electoral votes. Prosecutors would need to prove that two or more people had agreed to undertake the seditious conduct, but, with respect to the rioters who were explicit about their aims and cordinated their actions, the evidence may well be sufficient, particularly given the violent result. More evidence might even enable charges against individuals who conspired to attack the Capitol but didnt take part in the events. Some of those individuals might be elected officials. Representative Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat of New Jersey, has alleged that unnamed members of Congress had groups coming through the Capitol that I saw on January 5th, a reconnaissance for the next day. Soon afterward, the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the Capitol Police opened investigations into what roles members might have played in the siege.

If evidence were to emerge that members of Congress intentionally aided or incited the attack, they may face criminal consequences. Its more likely, however, that Republicans who amplified Trumps election-fraud lies will be sanctioned by their colleagues. Seven Democratic senators have filed an ethics complaint against the Republican Senators Ted Cruz, of Texas, and Josh Hawley, of Missouri, who led the effort to overturn the election in Congress. Representative Cori Bush, a Democrat of Missouri, has introduced a House resolution to investigate and potentially expel members of Congress who challenged states electoral votes. Bush said, in a tweet, that they incited this domestic terror attack through their attempts to overturn the election. Mitch McConnell may agree. He has pointedly acknowledged that the mob was provoked by the President and other powerful people, implying that fellow-lawmakers might bear responsibility. But, whatever moral condemnation or political remedy is appropriate, criminal charges cannot be brought against congresspeople such as Hawley and Cruz solely for using a legal process to challenge electoral votes in Congress. It is unlikely that any Republican politician thought theyd succeed in overturning the election, and it may be hard to distinguish their moves in Congress, at least legally, from a few Democrats challenges to states electoral votes in 2001, 2005, and 2017.

Even if Congress doesnt censure or expel any of its members, the Senate declines to convict Trump, and federal prosecutors decline to bring charges against any of them, Trump and lawmakers who tried to overturn the election could still be held accountable through Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the same provision that was intended to prevent former Confederates from holding office. If Trump and the officials tried to run for office again, a lawsuit could claim that they engaged in insurrection or rebellion within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, and, if the evidence bears it out, some could be disqualified from holding office. But, apart from any of these remotely possible legal remedies, Republicans who helped foment the attack are facing political repercussions: in the weeks since the riot, Hawley has had a fund-raiser and a book contract cancelled, and Missouris two biggest newspapers have called for his resignation. But, alas, in our divided country, Republican officials who denounced the insurrection or voted to impeach Trump may also face the ire of many Republican voters.

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Did Donald Trump and His Supporters Commit Treason? - The New Yorker

Former US president Donald Trump was nurtured as a Russian asset for decades, starting in 1980, a new book claims, with Moscow actively encouraging the businessman to enter politics many years before he won the presidency and supporting him through numerous failed business ventures as it built a deep relationship with the mogul.

He was an asset, former KGB spy Yuri Shvets, who worked for the KGB in Washington DC for years in the 1980s, told journalist Craig Unger in the new book American Kompromat.

Ungers book is based on interviews with numerous sources, including Soviet defectors and ex-CIA agents. In it he makes the assertion that Trumps relationship to Russia as president one in which he appeared repeatedly averse to criticize Moscow and often took actions seen as desirable to leader Vladimir Putin was directly tied to his cultivation by Russia over long years.

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The book says Russian officials repeatedly helped Trump get through dire financial straits over the years, providing him with laundered money to support his businesses.

Trump was the perfect target in a lot of ways: His vanity, narcissism made him a natural target to recruit. He was cultivated over a 40-year period, right up through his election, Shvets told the Guardian.

Shvets said Trump first came to the attention of Soviet officials in 1977 when he married his first wife Ivana Zelnickova, a Czech model.

Former President Ronald Reagan shaking hands with President Donald Trump and Ivana Trump during the State Visit of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia at the state dinner in the Blue Room, 1985 (White House/ Ronald Reagan Presidential Library)

When Trump opened the Grand Hyatt New York hotel in 1980, he bought hundreds of televisions from a Russian immigrant who was a KGB spotter and who highlighted him as a potential asset, being an up-and-coming businessman.

And when Trump visited Moscow in 1987, he was unknowingly in contact with KGB agents who launched a charm offensive on the real estate developer, Shvets said.

They had collected a lot of information on his personality so they knew who he was personally. The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery, Shvets said.

They played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality and believed this is the guy who should be the president of the United States one day: It is people like him who could change the world.

In this March 1988, file photo, Donald Trump stands next to one of his three Sikorsky helicopters at New York Port Authoritys West 30 Street Heliport (AP Photo/Wilbur Funches, File)

Shortly after his return, Trump first mulled running for president, and put out major ads touting the same talking points he would wield in 2016, criticizing US support of NATO and suggesting America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves.

In Russia, the KGB celebrated, Shvets said.

It was unprecedented. I am pretty well familiar with KGB active measures starting in the early 70s and 80s, and then afterwards with Russia active measures, and I havent heard anything like that or anything similar until Trump became the president of this country because it was just silly. It was hard to believe that somebody would publish it under his name and that it will impress real serious people in the West but it did and, finally, this guy became the president.

Shvets, stressed, however, that it was not this grand, ingenious plan that were going to develop this guy and 40 years later hell be president. At the time it started, which was around 1980, the Russians were trying to recruit like crazy and going after dozens and dozens of people.

Donald Trump, right, waits with his brother Robert for the start of a Casino Control Commission meeting in Atlantic City, N.J., March 29, 1990 (AP Photo)

US authorities have long said Russia meddled in the 2016 election to get Trump elected. His campaigns ties to Russia were investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The probe concludedthat Russia interfered in the election through hacking and a covert social media campaign and that the Trump campaign embraced the help and expected to benefit from it. But Mueller did not charge any Trump associates with conspiring with Russians.

But Trumps attitude toward Russia throughout his presidency often raised eyebrows. He appeared loath to criticize Moscow on multiple occasions and repeatedly and openly cozied up to Putin.

The president sometimes described Russia as a misunderstood potential friend, a valued World War II ally led by a wily president who actually may share American values, like the importance of patriotism, family and religion.

Trump was roundly criticized by both Democrats and Republicans in 2018 after he refused to challenge Putin over interference in American elections, accepting his word over the pronouncements of US intelligence officials.

US President Donald Trump (L) and Russias President Vladimir Putin shake hands before attending a joint press conference after a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, on July 16, 2018. (AFP Photo/Yuri Kadobnov)

In 2018 a senior Justice Department lawyer reportedly said a former British spy told him Russian intelligence believed it had Trump over a barrel.

Yet despite Trumps rhetoric, his administration also plowed ahead with some of the most significant actions against Russia by any recent administration: Dozens of Russian diplomats were expelled, diplomatic missions closed, arms control treaties the Russians sought to preserve were abandoned and weapons were sold to Russian foe Ukraine.

AP contributed to this report.

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KGB groomed Trump as an asset for 40 years, former Russian spy says - The Times of Israel

With security heightened in Washington and capitals around the country, the possibility of political violence weighs on many peoples minds. Underpinning the question of possible violence is an even broader question: Will Donald TrumpDonald Trump'QAnon Shaman' willing to testify in impeachment trial, lawyer says Boebert clashes with Parkland survivor on Twitter: 'Give your keyboard a rest, child' Overnight Defense: FEMA asks Pentagon to help with vaccinations |US says Taliban has 'not met their commitments' |Army investigating Fort Hood chaplain MORE voters accept Joe Biden as the president?

These are important questions, as false claims about voter fraud began months ago from the political right and increased after election day. A few memorable examples include false claims that voting machines had switched votes to Biden, that large numbers of Trump ballots were destroyed, and that Republic election officials were unfairly restricted from observing polling stations. Despite these claims, no evidence was found for systemic election fraud and all legal challenges have been rejected by the courts.

Thus, these claims are false and constitute misinformation. In a recent study, we investigated the extent to which voters believe these false claims about election fraud - and whether they support political violence. We conducted a survey on Nov. 10, three days after the election was called in favor of Biden. We surveyed 617 Trump voters and 1,036 Biden voters, ensuring that participants were in proportion to the national distribution on age, gender, ethnicity, and region.

We asked questions to determine the extent that voters believe in the false claims of voter fraud and the election outcome as well as the possible consequences of these beliefs. What would lead Trump voters to accept Biden as the president? And -- most concerning given the recent events at the national Capitol building what would they do if Biden is inaugurated and Trump does not concede?

We found that false beliefs about election fraud and a Trump victory were widespread among Trump voters. More than 77 percent of Trump voters believe that fraud is common in U.S. elections despite no evidence to support this claim and more than 65 percent believe that Trump won the 2020 election. Only 22 percent of Trump voters believed Bidens win to be legitimate at the time of the survey.

However, another 21 percent said they would view Biden as the legitimate president if Trump lost his court challenges and/or conceded the election. Another 6 percent would be convinced by Trump losing his legal challenges but not by him conceding, and another 11 percent would be convinced by Trump conceding but not by him losing his legal challenges. But 40 percent of Trump voters said they would continue to view Biden as illegitimate regardless.

As for political unrest, very few voters on either side expressed high levels of political spite or support of violence. The majority of Trump voters, 88 percent, said they would not protest Bidens inauguration. Hopefully, this means that mass violence among Trump supporters is unlikely. However, it only takes a few individuals with a willingness to engage in violence to have a large negative impact.

We also took a look at what characteristics correlate with holding false beliefs about the election and voter fraud among voters. What is it that makes someone more likely to believe in false claims? We found that Trump voters with more knowledge of basic facts about American politics and more engagement with election news were more likely to hold false beliefs. However, it is important to note that knowledge and engagement with election news is quite different from cognitive reflection, which is a measure of the ability and disposition to think analytically. People with higher analytical thinking skills were associated with a reduced belief that Trump won among Trump and Biden voters.

Our survey is a mixture of good and bad news. The bad news is that 40 percent of Trump voters say they will continue to view Biden as illegitimate. With numbers that high, it is difficult to see how the political divisiveness in our country will improve any time soon. However, the good news is that the majority of voters support a peaceful transition of power and do not support violence.

David Rand is the Erwin Schell professor and a professor for management science and cognitive science for the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology. Gordon Pennycook is a professor for behavioral science with Hill School of Business at University of Regina.

Excerpt from:

The truth about Donald Trump voters and violence in politics | TheHill - The Hill

It was mostly unforeseen, the sudden sense of exultation and exhalation mingleda surging heart matched by a good, deep breaththat the Inauguration produced in so many. Even Bernie Sanders felt it, telling Seth Meyers that he wept with pleasure, in his now famous full-granddad getup, at the installation of the new President. Everyone suddenly burst out singing, the British Great War poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote about another memorable day of transition, Armistice Day, in 1918, and people burst out singing on this occasion, too, from Lady Gaga and J. Lo during the ceremony, masks cautiously off and spirits high, to Bruce Springsteen being so entirely, gravelly Bruce at night. That feeling of release made some a little reluctant to go back into evaluating the immediate past; having awoken from a bad dream, youre disinclined to want to spend too much time remembering all its elements. The sense of a new beginning is, of course, being exploited by the Trumpite rightlets move on, shall we, and just pretend that that violent insurrection thing didnt happenbut, even among those purer of heart and purpose, there is a properly sensed virtue in forgetting.

But it still seems worth making an inventory of our own anticipations and predictionsto open an inquiry into what those on the liberal side of the argument got right and what they got wrong about the fate of democracy over the course of the past four years. Like a lot of others, I got loud about what liberalism was and ought to be. I even wrote a book, intended as a kind of letter to my daughter, about what seemed to me its enduring values; not those of neo-liberalism, as its sometimes called, meaning the ideology of fanatic free-marketers, or of classic liberalism, which also often means the ideology of fanatic free-marketers, but a defense of the liberal humanist traditionwhich, to be sure, scoffers think is another name for the ideology of fanatic free-marketers, but isnt. That tradition descends as much from Montaigne as from Montesquieu, rooted in a view of human fallibility as much as in any faith in bicameral legislatures and checks and balances. Since the mid-nineteenth century, it has been a movement that, uniquely, sees a desire for egalitarian reform and a push for personal liberty as two faces of the same force; a movement for an ever-broadening sphere of personal freedom to love whom we like and to say what we think, and for an ever-larger insistence on erasing the differences between people and giving the same rights to all sexes and colors and kinds.

The first lesson, and vindication, for those of that liberal turn of mind is the continuing demonstration of the superiority, both moral and pragmatic, of pluralism to purism. That truth has been demonstrated twice by that improbable liberal hero Joe Biden, first in the Democratic primaries and then in the general election. There was an extended moment, in 2018 and 2019, when a dominant belief on the left was that the only way to counter the extreme narrowness of Trumpism was with an equally pointed alternative. Bernie Sanders, whose values and programsMedicare for All, breaking up the banks, a Green New Dealhave long appeared admirable to many, still seemed to rest his campaign on a belief that one could win the Democratic nomination without a majority, as long as the minority was sufficiently motivated and committed, and as long as the rest of the field remained fragmented.

But the inflamed flamed out. Biden, despite his uninspiring social-media presence and his generally antediluvian vibe, shifted, like his party, to the left, yet managed to pull together a broad coalition to win the nomination, and then did it again against Donald Trump. The pluralism of that coalition stretched from its base, among African-American women, to those suburban white women who turned on Trump, to disaffected McCain Republicans, in Arizona, to Latinoswho, warningly, in some areas voted less Democratic than in the past, but still voted Democratic. (And not to forget those neocon Never Trumpers who seem to have played a small but significant role in turning key votes in key places.) It was a classic liberal coalition: many different kinds with a single shared goal. Sanders, by the way, is, in a manner, still insufficiently celebrated as a hero of that coalition: with Biden, he co-led unity task forces, to keep his followers in the fold; never flinched in his support; and refused to play the diva-ish part that many in his train might have wanted, even whenas when Biden occasionally scorned the socialists he had beatenhe must have had to bite his arm to stay silent. This solidarity, to use the old-fashioned lefty phrase, was rooted both in his obvious affection for Biden and in his ability to grasp a set of priorities: winning the nomination for his own causes would have been terrific; defeating Trump for the countrys cause was essential.

The second, complementary idea vindicated by Bidens election is that whats often deprecated as centrism is simply a radicalism of the real. Biden arrives as a conciliator and a healer, a family man of faith unafraid to speak of faith. But, after four years of chaos and the catastrophe of the pandemic, he also has presented the most progressive platform of any President in American history since F.D.R. He can be both at once, because he lives, like most people, a life replenished by a plurality of identities. His victory was made possible by monthsyears, reallyof unglamorous work by activists in registering voters and overcoming disincentives and building a base capable of action. Anyone who was on the phone with those who were on the phone with people in Georgia and Michigan and the other key states knows how hard they worked, not at the macro level of ideological certainty but at the micro level of pragmatic persuasion. It was, as liberal triumphs always are, achieved by thinking of the world in terms of many individual parts, not a single ideological whole.

The election was a vindication of the view that the strength of liberal democracy lies only in the strength of liberal institutions, those intermediate repositories of social trust without which mere elections mean nothing. One saw their strength most movingly, perhaps, with the resistance of those Georgia Republican electoral officials to Trumps outrageous interference. Their integrity was not manifest in a set of melodramatic gestures of the kind that J.F.K. wrote about in his once famous (and partly ghostwritten) book Profiles in Courage. It manifested itself in a set of commitments to established, democratic, bureaucratic procedures: stick to these rules, because these rules are fair, even if your side is losingthats as much the sound of freedom as any clarion call.

What did liberals miss and get wrong? Above all, perhaps, the single most important thing: that no matter how hard you try to properly gauge the power of the irrational in human affairs, you can never estimate it adequately. What stirred the insurrectionist mob to storm the Capitol was primarily Trumps lies, but also, in some cases, theories and beliefs that were not only difficult to credit but difficult even to narrate. The QAnon theory of the world isnt just alarmingly incoherent but completely implausible, and yet it motivates some to be willing to kill and be killed. It is always hard for the liberal imagination to imagine fanaticism adequately, and that is one of its failures. Liberalism persists in the insistence that extreme irrationalities of nationalism and ethnic tribalism can be placated by this economic policy or that new bill. They cant. Such grievances are an independent and self-regenerating force in human affairs as powerful as any other that can be combatted but never entirely cured.

Yet, perhaps most important, what liberals got very right very early was to see how wrong Trump was. Many saw in 2016 what culminated in January of 2021: that Trump was an implacable enemy of democracy itself; that if Trump came to power America would never fully recover. And, indeed, the damage done may be even more grievous than we can yet understand, much less accept. The moral accountancy of the Trump years has hardly begun, and a failure of the new Administration to do its work could lead to the revival of Trumpism, if not of Trump himself, in a form more ferocious than the form just passed. But, for the moment, we breathe, and sing, and hope.

See the article here:

What Liberalism Can Learn from What It Took to Defeat Donald Trump - The New Yorker

The Daytona Beach News-Journal

Biden signs orders undoing 'damage Trump has done'

President Joe Biden is taking his first steps to reverse Trump administration health care policies. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Biden said he was signing two executive orders to "undo the damage Trump has done" to health care. (Jan. 28)

AP

The left is doing everything in its power to erase former President Trump and his 75 million or more supporters. This is very reminiscent of Mary Shelly's epic tale of Frankenstein, only in this case the creation is not going to just fade away.

Donald J. Trump is the natural result of the lefts highly politically correct, anti-white, anti-male, and anti-America rhetoric. It turns out that if you demonize the people you disagree with, paint them as racists and oppressors, and tell them that their successes are a result of some unearned privilege, they will create a counterrevolution.

More: Is there a way to reconcile accountability and civility with social media and free speech?

More: Healing the nation's political divide might mean turning back to home

President Trump is the consequence of divisive behavior and rhetoric, and the identity politics that progressives brought into the political landscape. An unconstitutional impeachment procedure will not keep Trump from running again and no amount of cancel culture censoring, propaganda and bullying by the press, big tech companies or the corrupt swamp is going to stop this revolution, which the left created.

Many who voted for Joe Biden and are living on the edge, month to month, will be the least able to survive his socialist policies without sacrificing quality of life. Those who have been fawning over Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, thinking she is cool, those who are drinking the global warming and Green New Deal Kool-Aid, those who think they are going to raise their boats by lowering others through wealth redistribution and those who have hated the orange-haired mean man will suffer the most by embracing the same failed policies of the Obama regime.

Charles Michael Sitero,Ormond Beach

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How the left helped create Donald Trump and his divisive style of governing - Daytona Beach News-Journal