Category Archives: Donald Trump

For many, Tuesday night was an evening of contrasts. There was a calm, measured attorney general assuring the public that the Department of Justice will hold accountable anyone found criminally responsible for the events of Jan. 6, 2021, or for attempting to overturn the 2020 election. When NBC News Lester Holt asked Merrick Garland whether that approach might even apply to former President Donald Trump even if Trump were to announce hes running for president again Garland repeated the refrain that no one is above the law.

Garland remained expressionless while never showing his hand, the consummate poker player.

Garland, likely aware that his every word and movement would be scrutinized for clues, remained expressionless while never showing his hand, the consummate poker player. Later that same night, The Washington Post reported, to much fanfare, that it has seen some of the cards Garland is holding and it sure looks like the Department of Justice is investigating Trump.

While Tuesday night may have been confounding to some, for me, it was an example of how things are supposed to work. Prosecutors and media outlets play different roles and move at different speeds as both seek to ferret out the truth.

Its been so long since we had a by-the-book attorney general that many Americans still dont quite understand if theyre supposed to be encouraged or disappointed by what they heard from Garland Tuesday evening. Since Trump left office, many have demanded swift justice for the man they hold responsible for assaulting our democracy. The pressure on Garland to move faster, say something, arrest somebody, anybody, close to Trump intensified when some members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol began expressing their own frustration with him. But Garland wasnt going to cave to public pressure. Thats not how a healthy Justice Department is supposed to do things. The department is supposed to follow the facts and the law not the op-ed pages.

The many people demanding immediate action from Garland can be forgiven if theyve forgotten how justice and the rule of law are supposed to be executed. After all, those people saw one of Trumps attorneys general, William Barr, shamelessly jump in front of the release of the Mueller Special Counsel Report with his own press conference that included a fabrication-filled four-page summary. They saw that same attorney general appoint special counsel John Durham to try to destroy the original investigation into Russian interference with Trumps campaign even after the DOJs own inspector general determined the case was properly predicated. And, they saw that same lackey attorney general mislead the public about the perceived perils of mail-in balloting.

Now, we have a Justice Department thats back to methodically focusing on facts. We have an attorney general who wont call a press conference to tell us his opinion about investigative findings or even to tell us that an investigation exists. That may be frustrating for some people, especially those who believed that if there were an investigation, that we would have already seen leaks indicating an investigation. Thats OK. Thats how the Justice Department is supposed to work its not supposed to leak.

People demanding immediate action from Garland can be forgiven if theyve forgotten how justice and the rule of law are supposed to be executed.

Garlands careful approach contrasted with the crashing wave of reporting that soon drowned out his quiet comments. The reporting began Tuesday night with The Washington Posts news that the DOJ had called at least two high-ranking aides to Vice President Mike Pence into a grand jury and questioned them for hours about Trumps actions related to the alternate electors scheme. That report was quickly followed by reporting from NBC News that essentially corroborated the DOJs interest in Trump. The New York Times weighed in with further confirmation. The far-right, including an editor at large at Breitbart News, immediately cried foul about The Washington Posts scoop and claimed that someone at Justice must be leaking. Yet, that report made no mention of DOJ sources. To me it sounded much more like the information came from either the grand jury witnesses or people close to them.

The media doing its job pursuing the facts and sometimes loudly reporting the news with breaking news banners is just as essential as the Justice Department quietly and methodically doing its job. This may seem like a confounding contrast, even a conflict. But thats how things are supposed to be. Its all part of a healthy democracy.

Garland previously responded to questions about the perception that the Justice Department is moving too slowly in its investigation of Jan. 6 by saying, We have to get this right. So far, he is.

Frank Figliuzzi is an MSNBC columnist anda national security contributor for NBC News and MSNBC. He was the assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, where he served 25 years as a special agent and directed all espionage investigations across the government. He is the author of "The FBI Way: Inside the Bureau's Code of Excellence."

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Merrick Garland dropping hints about Donald Trump would be out of line - MSNBC

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Opinion: Donald Trump is an evil man | Letters to the Editor | postregister.com - Post Register

Well, I made it. I am 100 years old today. I wake up every morning grateful to be alive.

Reaching my own personal centennial is cause for a bit of reflection on my first century and on what the next century will bring for the people and country I love. To be honest, Im a bit worried that I may be in better shape than our democracy is.

I was deeply troubled by the attack on Congress on Jan. 6, 2021 by supporters of former President Donald Trump attempting to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. Those concerns have only grown with every revelation about just how far Mr. Trump was willing to go to stay in office after being rejected by voters and about his ongoing efforts to install loyalists in positions with the power to sway future elections.

I dont take the threat of authoritarianism lightly. As a young man, I dropped out of college when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and joined the U.S. Army Air Forces. I flew more than 50 missions in a B-17 bomber to defeat fascism consuming Europe. I am a flag-waving believer in truth, justice and the American way, and I dont understand how so many people who call themselves patriots can support efforts to undermine our democracy and our Constitution. It is alarming.

At the same time, I have been moved by the courage of the handful of conservative Republican lawmakers, lawyers and former White House staffers who resisted Mr. Trumps bullying. They give me hope that Americans can find unexpected common ground with friends and family whose politics differ but who are not willing to sacrifice core democratic principles.

Encouraging that kind of conversation was a goal of mine when we began broadcasting All in the Family in 1971. The kinds of topics Archie Bunker and his family argued about issues that were dividing Americans from one another, such as racism, feminism, homosexuality, the Vietnam War and Watergate were certainly being talked about in homes and families. They just werent being acknowledged on television.

For all his faults, Archie loved his country and he loved his family, even when they called him out on his ignorance and bigotries. If Archie had been around 50 years later, he probably would have watched Fox News. He probably would have been a Trump voter. But I think that the sight of the American flag being used to attack Capitol Police would have sickened him. I hope that the resolve shown by Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, and their commitment to exposing the truth, would have won his respect.

It is remarkable to consider that television the medium for which I am most well-known did not even exist when I was born, in 1922. The internet came along decades later, and then social media. We have seen that each of these technologies can be put to destructive use spreading lies, sowing hatred and creating the conditions for authoritarianism to take root. But that is not the whole story. Innovative technologies create new ways for us to express ourselves, and, I hope, will allow humanity to learn more about itself and better understand one anothers ideas, failures and achievements. These technologies have also been used to create connection, community and platforms for the kind of ideological sparring that might have drawn Archie to a keyboard. I can only imagine the creative and constructive possibilities that technological innovation might offer us in solving some of our most intractable problems.

I often feel disheartened by the direction that our politics, courts and culture are taking. But I do not lose faith in our country or its future. I remind myself how far we have come. I think of the brilliantly creative people I have had the pleasure to work with in entertainment and politics, and at People for the American Way, a progressive group I co-founded to defend our freedoms and build a country in which all people benefit from the blessings of liberty. Those encounters renew my belief that Americans will find ways to build solidarity on behalf of our values, our country and our fragile planet.

Those closest to me know that I try to stay forward-focused. Two of my favorite words are over and next. Its an attitude that has served me well through a long life of ups and downs, along with a deeply felt appreciation for the absurdity of the human condition.

Reaching this birthday with my health and wits mostly intact is a privilege. Approaching it with loving family, friends and creative collaborators to share my days has filled me with a gratitude I can hardly express.

This is our century, dear reader, yours and mine. Let us encourage one another with visions of a shared future. And let us bring all the grit and openheartedness and creative spirit we can muster to gather together and build that future.

Norman Lear produced All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons and Good Times, among other groundbreaking television shows. He is a member of the Television Academy Hall of Fame and a recipient of the National Medal of Arts and Kennedy Center Honors. An activist and philanthropist, he co-founded and serves on the board of the advocacy organization People for the American Way.

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Opinion | Norman Lear: What Archie Bunker Would Have Thought of Donald Trump and Jan. 6 - The New York Times

One, a 74-year-old widow, voted Republican for her late husband. She now realizes that was not the thing to do, her lawyer said.

State investigators also found no merit to Trumps claims that thousands of underage teenagers and others who were not registered to vote had cast ballots.

The FBI also investigated Trumps false claims of fraud at State Farm Arena, where he told Raffensperger maybe 18,000 fake ballots had been brought out of what looked to be suitcases or trunksbut they werent in voter boxes.

BJay Pak, Trumps U.S. Attorney based in Atlanta, told the Jan. 6th committee in sworn testimony that his office and the FBI interviewed State Farm witnesses themselves and concluded that there was nothing to substantiate anything Trump was claiming about fraud there. Also, the suitcases Trump talked about were, in fact, ballot boxes.

Bobby Christine, Paks replacement as U.S. Attorney after Pak resigned under pressure from Trump, agreed and closed the State Farm investigation, telling his staff of the allegations on a phone call, Theres just nothing to them. Theres no there there.

More false claims spun off more state investigations. In one, the head of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation told the Georgia Republican Party that there was never enough evidence presented to pursue Trumps allegations of ballot harvesting.

The State Board of Elections agreed and voted unanimously in May to dismiss claims, including one from the movie, 2000 Mules.

Just because something looks compelling doesnt mean its accurate, said Matt Mashburn, the Republican chairman of the State Election Board.

Trumps lies about election fraud in Georgia are too numerous for one column. But I hope youll go back and read the AJCs years-plus worth of reporting on Trumps disproven claims of everything from ballot shredding, fake ballots, hacked voting machines, out-of-state voters, ballot harvesting. Different GOP groups and actors came forward with accusations but none ever produced evidence to back up their suspicions.

At the federal level, the Jan. 6th committee hearings have shown over and over that Trumps own staff and cabinet knew Trumps claims were baseless, too, and told him so.

There was Trumps Attorney General, Bill Barr, describing the many times he told the president and his outside lawyers the theories he was spreading about winning the election were nonsense.

I told them that it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time and that it was doing grave, grave disservice to the country, Barr testified.

Cassidy Hutchinson, one of the youngest aides in the White House, described her horror watching the Capitol violently overrun on Jan. 6 because of Trumps dishonesty.

It was unpatriotic. It was un-American, she said. We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie.

If it all seems like Im repeating myself, I am. I have written many times that the election was not stolen.

Professional federal and state investigations and more than 60 different court cases have proven thats the case.

And if youve lost track of the official tally by now, the 2020 election wasnt even close. Joe Biden won the White House by more than 7 million votes, 4.4% of the popular vote, and 74 electoral votes.

But true or not, Trumps lies about the election not only spawned the attack on the Capitol, they also led to death threats for election workers and elected officials across the country, including in Georgia.

Just as dangerous, theyve eroded peoples trust, not just in their own government, but in each other.

Mark Niesse reported this week that Republican activists are working to disqualify thousands of voter registrations theyve deemed to be suspicious.

Language in SB 202, the states election law overhaul passed as Trump continued to claim the Georgia election was stolen, empowered any individual citizen to challenge as many registrations of their neighbors as they like. Plenty of people are taking their opportunity to do just that.

Trumps claims were false, but the effect theyve had on the country has sadly been very real.

And yet, almost like clockwork on Friday night, the former president was back in Arizona on a rally stage lying about the 2020 election again.

The election was rigged and stolen and now our country is being systematically destroyed because of it, Trump said.

I ran twice, I won twice, and I did much better the second time than I did the firstand now, I may have to do it again.

The crowd roared for Trump when he said it. Incredibly, they still seemed to believe every word.

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OPINION: Donald Trump is back, and he's still lying about the last election - The Atlanta Journal Constitution

Donald Trump took aim at the Jan. 6 committee during a speech in Arizona Friday evening, painting the ongoing investigation into his actions on the day of the Capitol insurrection as a conspiratorial witch hunt designed to permanently blacklist him from politics.

If I announced that I was not going to run any longer for political office, the persecution of Donald Trump would immediately stop, he said. Theyre coming after me because Im standing up for you.

The former presidents appearance at the so-called Save America rally in Prescott Valley was intended to build support for a handful of Trump-endorsed candidates in Arizona including gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and senate candidate Blake Masters but rapidly devolved into the type of meandering, ego-stroking affair emblematic of the Trump presidency.

Taking the stage over an hour late, Trump delivered a rambling speech focused primarily on touting his self-proclaimed achievements while in office and perpetuating the unfounded narrative that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 election. The former president also zeroed in on the Biden administration and Democrats, pushing the popular conservative dog whistles du jour rising gas prices, border control, critical race theory, LGBT awareness in schools, voter fraud, and (amusingly) the war on Christmas. He also falsely claimed to have completed the border wall, a statement that was met by applause from the crowd.

It wasnt until nearly two hours had elapsed before Trump finally mentioned the Jan. 6 proceedings. Where does it stop? Where does it end? he said of the committees investigation. Never forget: Everything this corrupt establishment is doing to me is all about preserving their power and control over the American people, for whatever reason. They want to damage me in any form so I can no longer represent you.

At one point, Masters joined Trump at the podium, stating the former president literally saved this country a curious claim considering the committees latest findings showed Trump willingly and deliberately refused to take any action during the siege of the Capitol, despite repeated pleas from White House staff and other officials.

Trump then railed against his former deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, one of the committees witnesses, accusing her of being an attention-seeking hypocrite. I watched this hoax last night where this young lady said, Oh, Im so heartbroken,' he said, referring to Matthews appearance during the July 22 primetime hearing. But, three weeks after January 6th, she wrote us a letter saying, Oh, I loved working for the President. Hes so great.'

He also attacked the credibility of Cassidy Hutchinson, the aide to former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows whose bombshell testimony before the committee gave damning insight into the inner workings of the Trump administration in the days leading up to Jan. 6. I mean, Im the President of the United States. Can you imagine this made up story? he said while recounting the now-infamous incident where he allegedly lunged at a Secret Service agent. Its total fiction.

Trump appeared most enraged not by the investigation itself, but by the unflattering anecdotes shared during hearings that revealed his penchant for childish temper tantrums. They have me throwing food. I dont throw food in the White House. I dont throw food anywhere. I eat the food, which is a problem, he said, referring to a segment of Hutchinsons testimony during which she revealed Trump staffers witnessed the president throwing a plate of food at the wall in a fit of rage. I have too much respect for the White House.

The beleaguered ex-president spent the rest of the speech emphasizing his self-imposed martyrdom I had a very good and luxurious life before entering the wonderful world of politics, he said peddling sexism and transphobia, and declaring war against the education system. Its time to finally and completely smash the lefts corrupt education cartel, he said. Our children are captives to unhinged, Marxist educators. Where do they come from?

Yet, for all the talk of protecting children from liberal boogeymen, Trump failed to mention the massacre of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas let alone any of the recent mass shootings that have taken place across the country this summer. (He did, however, tout the Arizona candidates commitment to protecting the Second Amendment.)

The House committee will resume hearings in September after a brief recess and, as members of the committee have previously suggested, the investigation is far from over. We are receiving new information every single day, Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) said during a recent appearance on CNN. You will definitely be hearing from the committee again.

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Donald Trump Blasts Jan. 6 Committee 'Persecution' at Arizona Rally ...

In each of the public hearings held by the House select committee investigating Jan. 6, a few standout moments have captured the public's attention. Thursday's prime-time hearing was no different, with a clip of Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley immediately taking over social media.

While previous hearingsexplored the rioters, Trump's speech at the Ellipse preceding the riot, and other aspects of his actions after the November 2020 election, the eighth hearing held this summer focused on the 187 minutes of then-President Donald Trump's inaction while rioters descended on the Capitol. Committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney said there could be more hearings this fall.

Twitter users quickly set the clip of Hawley running to a variety of soundtracks but there were a few other moments in the committee's hearing that also made a mark.

A White House employee told President Trump about the riot "as soon as he returned" to the Oval Office from his speech at the Ellipse, said Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria but no records exist of what happened for much of that afternoon. Luria said the Presidential Daily Diary was silent; the chief White House photographer was told "no photographs" and the official White House call logs don't show Trump "receiving or placing a call" until almost 7 p.m.

Luria said Trump went to a private dining room next to the Oval Office and stayed there from 1:25 p.m. until after 4 p.m. Witnesses told the committee that Trump sat at the head of the table, facing a television hanging on the wall.

"We know from the employee that the TV was tuned to Fox News all afternoon," Luria said, adding that other witnesses confirmed Trump was in the dining room with the TV on during that time.

The committee's 3D graphic of the West Wing highlighted the location of the dining room, complete with footage from Fox News on the TV.

After the riot began, Vice President Mike Pence retreated from the Senate chamber to his office in the Capitol. His security detail debated their next move, heard during the hearing as the committee played recordings of their radio transmissions. But that wasn't all that was happening.

Members of Pence's detail, in fear for their own lives, began making calls to family members to say goodbye, said an anonymous security official in recorded testimony.

"The members of the VP detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives," the anonymous official testified. "There were a lot of there was a lot of yelling, a lot of I don't know a lot of very personal calls over the radio," the person testified. "So it was disturbing. I don't like talking about it, but there were calls to say good-bye to family members and so forth. It was getting for whatever the reason was on the ground, the VP detail thought that this was about to get very ugly."

The committee shared never-before-seen raw footage of Trump on Jan. 7 recording a video message condemning the violence on Jan. 6. In it, he argues with his daughter Ivanka, who helps him edit his remarks in real-time, and slams the podium and refuses to say parts of the speech.

"I would like to begin by addressing the heinous attack yesterday, and to those who broke the law, you will pay," Trump said in the footage. "You do not represent our movement, you do not represent our country, and if you broke the law can't say that. I already said you will pay "

"But this election is now over. Congress has certified the results," he continued, before stopping to argue with parts of the prepared text. "I don't want to say the election's over. I just want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the election's over."

The committee showed a famous photograph of Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, raising his fist toward Trump's supporters gathered outside the Capitol early in the day on Jan. 6.

That gesture stuck with an unnamed Capitol Police officer, Luria said. It riled up the crowd, the officer told the committee, "And it bothered her greatly because he was doing it in a safe space, protected by the officers and the barriers," Luria said of the officer.

But it was Hawley's later flight from the Capitol after the mob entered illustrated with a clip from security footage of him running across a hallway, then replayed in slow motion before a different clip showed him running down the stairs that became one of the most talked-about moments of the night. Later clips shared on Twitter showed people in attendance at the committee hearing reacting with laughter.

The committee also revealed texts from Trump campaign officials Tim Murtagh, Trump's director of communications, and one of his deputies, Matthew Wolking, criticizing the president's treatment of the death of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died on Jan. 7, 2021 after being injured in the riot.

"Also shitty not to have even acknowledged the death of the Capitol Police officer," Murtagh wrote to Wolking.

Wolking responded, "That is enraging to me. Everything he said about supporting law enforcement was a lie."

Murtagh replied, "You know what this is, of course. If he acknowledged the dead cop, he'd be implicitly faulting the mob. And he won't do that, because they're his people. And he would also be close to acknowledging that what he lit at the rally got out of control. No way he acknowledges something that could ultimately be called his fault. No way."

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Josh Hawley video, Trump's outtakes and Secret Service farewells: Top ...

Then-President Donald Trump is seen on the screen above the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection on Thursday in outtakes from his Jan. 7, 2021, video in which he refused to say he had lost the election. Win McNamee/Getty Images hide caption

Then-President Donald Trump is seen on the screen above the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection on Thursday in outtakes from his Jan. 7, 2021, video in which he refused to say he had lost the election.

Even before Liz Cheney made her announcement this week, another autumn of Donald Trump dominating the political scene seemed inevitable.

But now, it's official.

Cheney, the vice chair of the House Select Committee Investigating the January 6 Attack on the Capitol, made a great deal of news in the panel's public hearing Thursday night not least by revealing the hearings would resume after the August recess.

"See you all in September," the Wyoming Republican said.

Truth is, even if the committee had wrapped this week, the former president would still be looming over the fall landscape like a rising harvest moon.

The House committee has had much to do with that, serving up the cream of its evidence in eight hearings that might have been episodes in a streaming TV series. The season-ender Thursday night was a three-hour special and arguably its most dramatic to date.

Mixing live testimony and riveting videotape, the panel took us back to the 187 minutes of Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump, then still president, refused to do anything to halt the invasion.

Even as the protesters became rioters, breaching the closed Capitol and shouting "Hang Mike Pence," and even as Pence's Secret Service detail feared for their lives, Trump sat in a dining room off the Oval Office. He watched the mayhem while phoning senators he thought might still help him overturn the results of the election he had lost.

We also saw the president struggling to tape a video the next day, complaining: "I don't want to say the election's over."

So the panel's Season Two will drop in a matter of weeks. But even if the hearings were over and done, the consequences would only be beginning.

There would still need to be a final report and a decision on making a criminal referral. That would leave the question of indicting the former president in the hands of the Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland (who might also indict based on Justice's own investigation).

The latest polling indicates more than half the country is paying at least some attention to the January 6 panel's prosecutorial presentations. And while relatively few Americans expected to see Trump indicted before the hearings began (and 6 in 10 still don't), half the country now says he should be. That's the key takeaway from the latest NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist poll this week.

If Trump is indicted, the process of his arraignment, pleading, pretrial motions and trial will be as big a news story as a presidential election. And it may drag on nearly as long, or seem to.

If he is not indicted, Trump will declare himself exonerated and treat the entire episode as a triumph. Wags have suggested he might even propose making Jan. 6th a holiday. But short of that, he could call what happened "legitimate political discourse" the phrase actually used this spring by the Trump-dominated Republican National Committee.

Trump claimed exoneration when he was twice impeached by the House but not convicted by two-thirds of the Senate. That was also his reaction to the report from independent counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe in 2019.

Mueller had been assigned by the Justice Department in 2017 to look into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He found plenty, but said the evidence of direct involvement by Trump's campaign was not sufficient to indict.

As for other crimes, such as obstruction of justice, Mueller cited a Justice Department opinion that the president could not be indicted while in office.

Trump promptly labeled the troubling Mueller report a "total exoneration" because it found no "collusion" a term Mueller had never used. It is not hard to imagine Trump doing something similar if none of the current Jan. 6 probes results in his being indicted for a crime.

But even without the legal drama, there are other reasons Trump will be as prevalent as pumpkins this fall in fact, thousands of reasons.

Trump himself will not be on the ballot, but all 435 seats in the House and 35 seats in the Senate will be. There will also be scores of statewide offices and thousands of state legislative seats to be determined around the country. Trump has been active in the primaries in dozens of states, endorsing some Republicans and not others, hailing some as heroes and ripping others as RINOs.

With his signature high volume and profile, Trump will largely define the autumn ambience. Trump and Trumpism will connect all these separate contests, much as they have in the last three election cycles (2016, 2018 and 2020) and as they could do again in 2024. That would be the fifth federal cycle in a row to be certifiably Trumpified.

Trump has said he has made his decision regarding another presidential campaign and is now deciding when to announce it. But it is possible the atmosphere around the panel's first eight hearings could alter the former president's timetable. If he were to announce early, before the midterms, would that change the calculus for Garland?

Earlier this week, the attorney general referred to a legal memo associated with his predecessor, William Barr, regarding the "political sensitivities" of investigating candidates at certain times. But later in the week, Garland made a clear statement that "no one is above the law."

Either way, Trump's real or potential criminal exposure is not the focus GOP strategists would prefer for the 2022 midterms, which by all that's normal should be about the current president. That would be President Joe Biden, currently suffering from a case of COVID, historically low approval ratings and historically high gas prices.

It is a longstanding presumption that midterm elections are referenda on the president and the party holding the White House. That is partly because the "out" party has less to defend and everything to attack. But there have been exceptions.

In 2002, President George W. Bush managed to turn the midterms into a test of Democrats' willingness to green light his "war on terror," including what became a war in Iraq (and a new Department of Homeland Security where staff would not have their usual employee rights).

In 1998, President Bill Clinton made the midterms a test of public sentiment on his own pending impeachment. House Republicans who counted on a big win that November got a modest setback instead.

Right now, Trump is threatening to change the subject from Biden's travails to his own grievances about 2020.

By one accounting, more than 120 Republicans who have actively promoted Trump's fictions about the 2020 election have already won their primaries for offices that would give them a say in conducting the elections in 2024 and thereafter.

They include Dan Cox, a hardcore conservative state legislator who won the gubernatorial primary in Maryland last week. Cox is a 2020 election denier endorsed by Trump. He defeated a woman who ran with the blessing of the state's current Republican governor, Larry Hogan, a longtime Trump antagonist who has talked of running for president himself.

Another prominent example is State Sen. Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, who won that state's GOP nomination for governor. Mastriano was prominent on an "alternative slate" of Trump electors who tried to be counted in the Electoral College. He has made his role in that episode a part of his campaign.

Meanwhile, Trump has continued to harass election officials around the country about the 2020 results.

This past week, he called the Republican speaker of the Assembly in Wisconsin to demand the legislature there "decertify" the 2020 election. Trump had heard the Wisconsin State Supreme Court had outlawed some of the drop-off boxes for absentee ballots in this fall's coming election and assumed, or asserted, that meant all the drop-box votes from 2020 would be thrown out.

Trump will have plenty of help keeping the pot boiling this fall. There will be more hearings, and Cheney promised there will be still more revelations because "doors have opened, new subpoenas have been issued and the dam has begun to break."

Moreover, the stream of literature that continues to highlight the worst aspects of Trump's effect on the American body politic shows little sign of abating. Next up is Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, whose book due in August will argue the last 25 years of Republican Party politics set the stage for Trump and Jan. 6.

Waiting on deck are some other heavy hitters who have been assessing the Trump phenomenon. They include the formidable team of Peter Baker (New York Times) and Susan Glasser (The New Yorker), whose book is due in September, and the Times' Maggie Haberman, the reporter perhaps best known for her long-running contact with Trump through his career.

What more can these books tell us? We will await their appearance. But beyond adding to the pile of Trump tomes, they will be expected to add to the pyre that will be burning through the fall.

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As Jan. 6 panel pauses, the U.S. faces a fourth fall of Trump (with a fifth in view) - NPR

They rallied on Friday in a bunting-clad arena wearing Still my president T-shirts, offering wild conspiracies about the last election and certainty that Trump would win the next one.

For them, Pence and every vestige of the old, establishment wing of the GOP is in the past.

He was a good guy, one attendee said.

I dont have an opinion on [Pence], said another, who was eager to persuade Trump to head up a liquidation of the federal government if elected.

Leaving the rally with her 11-year-old grandson and stopping for a T-shirt that was too big for him, but that he said he could tuck in Georgianna Bruso said she didnt even know Pence was in the state.

Pence was, indeed, there having come to the state to support Karrin Taylor Robson, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor against the Trump-endorsed Kari Lake, who still insists, falsely, that Trump won the election in 2020.

But even the setting of the stop underscored how tilted this proxy-battle would be.

The former vice president appeared with Robson in Maricopa County, where Trump supporters conducted an audit of the last election that was derided by honest observers as a farce.

Its the largest county in Arizona, the state where Ron Watkins, a celebrity in the QAnon conspiracy world suspected of being Q, is running for Congress.

Earlier this week, the state Republican Party censured Arizonas Republican state House speaker, Rusty Bowers, for testifying to the Jan. 6 committee about Trumps efforts to overturn the election. Walt Blackman, a Republican state lawmaker running for Congress, recently made headlines for his suggestion that abortion is tied to efforts to exterminate Black people.

In parts of Arizona, said Chuck Coughlin, a veteran Republican strategist based in Phoenix, you can say some crazy shit and still be viable.

Or win a statewide party primary.

To Trumps supporters, it doesnt matter how much damage was inflicted on the state party during his tenure. Republicans lost two Senate seats and a presidential race for the first time since 1996.

It was the prospect that he would run again that they were cheering when they arrived. And it wouldnt change Trumps supporters minds about him if his preferred candidate for governor, Lake, loses to Pences choice in the primary on Aug. 2.

Some said they wouldnt believe it if she did. Lake herself has suggested she might not accept the results of her election a line derived from the Trump playbook.

In the run-up to Trumps rally with Lake, Stan Barnes, a former state lawmaker and longtime Republican consultant, described the Trump and Pence appearances in Arizona as like some sort of celestial planet lineup that you witness every millennium Thats what it feels like on the ground in Arizona.

What was happening, he added, was a slow-motion, real-time tearing of the fabric in the Republican Party thats there for us to see. We have Donald Trump doing his thing with his candidate The voters in the Republican Party in Arizona may not be aware of this yet, but theyre not just choosing a candidate to represent the party in the general election. Theyre choosing the actual direction of the party.

But when asked if Trump could come out a loser either way, Barnes said, No, I dont think so.

Robson, the wealthy real estate developer and former member of the states board of regents, has refused to say that the 2020 election was stolen. But in a nod to Trump, she has said she doesnt think the election was fair. She has drawn closer to Lake, the early frontrunner in the primary, not by criticizing her for falsehoods about the 2020 election a centerpiece of Lakes campaign but by depicting her as an inauthentic conservative.

On Friday, she criticized Lake for donating to Barack Obama, while Pence, appearing alongside her, said, Arizona Republicans dont need a governor that supported Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

For the most consequential schism in the GOP between its pro-Trump and pro-democracy wings that isnt much of a litmus test.

Has it been a full-throated defense of the election that was run in the state of Arizona in 2020? asked Bill Gates, a Republican Maricopa County supervisor. No, thats not what shes done. I think shes thrown some red meat to folks, but she has purposefully not gone all in and off the deep end.

Even that, he said, is important, because I think the majority of candidates in our party have.

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Trump and Pence squared off in the desert. It was one-sided. - POLITICO

The protest places yet another unfavorable spotlight on what has become a source of sharp criticism for Trump. His and his familys ties to the Saudis and his association with LIV has come against the backdrop of a renewed push for the U.S. to more fully distance itself from the country over its human rights record. President Joe Biden himself faced recent criticism for visiting Saudi Arabia after vowing to make the nation a pariah.

Trump appears to understand the sensitivity too. Eagleson, whose father, John Bruce Eagleson died in the South Tower on Sept. 11, said a representative for Trump personally called him yesterday in response to a letter his group sent relaying its deep pain and anger over the decision to host two different inaugural LIV golf events.

The aide, according to Eagleson, said Trump had read their letter, and told Eagleson 9/11 is really near and dear to him and its so important to him he is going to remember everyone who signed the letter and he personally told this individual to reach out.

But, Eagleson said, it was of little to no value.

My response is, if it was so important to him why did he tell you to call me, why didnt he call himself? he added. [The aide] just kept repeating the same talking points, one being that the contract is binding and there is no way out of it. And when I pressed on when [the contract] was signed, she said she didnt know and just continued to say that the President was flattered with the letter, which was a weird thing to say, since it was not a very flattering letter. It called him a hypocrite essentially.

In addition to the letter, 9/11 Justice has also requested a meeting with Trump ahead of the tournament to express their concerns and discuss Saudi Arabias role in the 9/11 attacks. The group is particularly focused on showing the public a clear connection between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Saudi government. They point to newly declassified documents related to the U.S. governments investigation of the attacks and suspected official Saudi support for the hijackers as providing clear evidence of the nations role that day. Fifteen of the 19 al Qaeda terrorists who hijacked planes on 9/11 were Saudi nationals.

The groups letter to Trump noted that he himself blamed Saudi Arabia for the attack during a 2016 interview on Fox News.

The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment.

The tournament that is set to kick off on Friday at Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster is LIVs second U.S event. The tour is backed by the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabias sovereign wealth fund that is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who U.S. intel has blamed for the gruesome death of a Washington Post columnist. It has not been without controversy since its inception. Critics of the LIV Invitational Series say it is an attempt by the Saudis to sports-wash their record on human rights.

And the golf series has split the golf community too, pitting the PGA against LIV, which is being led by golf legend Greg Norman. Pro golfers who have decided to join LIV reportedly accepting as much as $200 million in signing bonuses have been suspended from PGA Tour events, though are still permitted to participate in the four yearly major tournaments.

Trump responded to that ban on Truth Social, and encouraged pro golfers to go ahead and join LIV.

All of those golfers that remain loyal to the very disloyal PGA, in all of its different forms, will pay a big price when the inevitable MERGER with LIV comes, and you get nothing but a big thank you from PGA officials who are making Millions of Dollars a year, Trump said on his social media platform. If you dont take the money now, you will get nothing after the merger takes place, and only say how smart the original signees were.

Trumps decision to host the LIV series at two of his clubs (Doral in Miami will host the other) comes after the PGA decided days after the Jan. 6 riots on Capitol Hill to terminate an agreement to play the 2022 PGA Championship at Trump Bedminster.

Eagleson said 9/11 families have been beside ourselves over Trumps decision.

We cant imagine that the president, knowing what he knows and with his history on this, would host and facilitate the Saudi government have this tournament literally 50 miles from ground zero in a state where 750 were murdered, said Eagleson.

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Trump world reaches out to 9/11 families on eve of their LIV golf protest - POLITICO

But publicly, Trump lied.

He lied at the gathering of the worlds elite in Davos, Switzerland on January 22, saying, Its one person coming in from China. We have it under control. Its going to be just fine. He lied days later in Michigan, declaring that everythings going to be great and falsely claiming, We pretty much shut it down coming in from China. He later said the virus was going to have a very good ending for it. And with an eye toward Wall Street, he lied to the entrepreneurs in India, declaring as far as what were doing with the new virus, I think that were doing a great job.

But the markets fell again that day Trump spoke in New Delhi, creating their biggest two-day slide in four years, and things were about to get worse. None of Trumps magic words would prevent the Dow from losing 37 percent of its value from February to March, shocking the market when it dropped almost 3,000 points on March 16 its worst single-day plummet in history.

Those final days of February 2020 set the tone for the rest of Trumps terrible year. Joe Bidens turnaround on Super Tuesday in early March robbed him of his socialist foil, Bernie Sanders. Days later, Trumps shaky Oval Office address on the coronavirus did little to reassure a jittery nation. His blustery social media posts didnt move the needle either the virus, after all, didnt have a Twitter account. And in the coming months, the racial reckoning following the death of George Floyd would underscore just how out of touch Trump was with Black Americans.

Over the summer, the president who had equivocated about the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., found himself in a bunker under the executive mansion when a small fire ignited at nearby St. Johns Episcopal Church during protests in Lafayette Park. When the bunker move leaked to the press, Trump exploded with anger for fear that it made him look weak. He horrified much of the nation by using the military and federal police to clear nonviolent demonstrators from the park, posing for an awkward photo-op in front of the damaged church, bible in hand.

By October, Trumps lies about COVID caught up with him when he was hospitalized, ill with a potentially deadly disease after nearly a year of flouting the rules, believing that wearing a mask would, as he told aides, make him look like a pussy.

After he was discharged from Walter Reed, and with the lighting just so, Trump strode up the steps to the Truman Balcony. Though still highly contagious, he tore off his mask before stepping inside. Reporters on the lawn, though, noticed something odd: Trump immediately backtracked out to the balcony again before returning inside, as if recreating his entrance. And thats what he did: He was using the moment to film a video marking his so-called triumph over COVID.

Dont be afraid of COVID. Dont let it dominate your life, Trump said.

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The One Time Trump Couldn't Lie His Way Out of a Crisis - POLITICO