Category Archives: Donald Trump

The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is closely focused on phone calls and conversations among Donald Trumps children and top aides captured by a documentary film-maker weeks before the 2020 election, say sources familiar with the matter.

The calls among Trumps children and top aides took place at an invitation-only event at the Trump International hotel in Washington that took place the night of the first presidential debate on 29 September 2020, the sources said.

The select committee is interested in the calls, the sources said, since the footage is understood to show the former presidents children, including Donald Jr and Eric Trump, privately discussing strategies about the election at a crucial time in the presidential campaign.

House investigators first learned about the event, hosted by the Trump campaign, and the existence of the footage through British film-maker Alex Holder, who testified about what he and his crew recorded during a two-hour interview last week, the sources said.

The film-maker testified that he had recorded around seven hours of one-to-one interviews with Trump, then-vice president Mike Pence, Trumps adult children and Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner, the sources said, as well as around 110 hours of footage from the campaign.

But one part of Holders testimony that particularly piqued the interest of the members of the select committee and chief investigative counsel Tim Heaphy was when he disclosed that he had managed to record discussions at the 29 September event.

The select committee is closely focused on the footage of the event in addition to the content of the one-on-one interviews with Trump and Ivanka because the discussions about strategies mirror similar conversations at that time by top Trump advisors.

On the night of the first presidential debate, Trumps top former strategist Steve Bannon said in an interview with The Circus on Showtime that the outcome of the election would be decided at the state level and eventually at the congressional certification on January 6.

Theyre going to try and overturn this election with uncertified votes, Bannon said. Asked how he expects the election to end, Bannon said: Right before noon on the 20th, in a vote in the House, Trump will win the presidency.

The select committee believes that ideas such as Bannons were communicated to advisers to Donald Jr and his fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle, even before the 2020 election had taken place, the sources said leading House investigators to want to review the Trump hotel footage.

What appears to interest the panel is whether Trump and his children had planned to somehow stop the certification of the election on January 6 a potential violation of federal law and to force a contingent election if Trump lost as early as September.

The event was not open to the public, Holder is said to have testified, and the documentary film-maker was waved into the Trump hotel by Eric Trump. At some point after Holder caught the calls on tape, he is said to have been asked to leave by Donald Jr.

Among the conversations captured on film was Eric Trump on the phone to an unidentified person saying, according to one source familiar: Hopefully youre voting in Florida as opposed to the other state youve mentioned.

The phone call a clip of which was reviewed by the Guardian was one of several by some of the people closest to Trump that Holder memorialized in his film, titled Unprecedented, which is due to be released in a three-part series later this year on Discovery+.

Holder also testified to the select committee, the sources said, about the content of the interviews. Holder interviewed Trump in early December 2020 at the White House, and then twice a few months after the Capitol attack both at Mar-a-Lago and his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey.

The select committee found Holders testimony and material more explosive than they had expected, the sources said. Holder, for instance, showed the panel a discrepancy between Ivanka Trumps testimony to the panel and Holders camera.

In her interview in December 2020, the New York Times earlier reported, Ivanka said her father should continue to fight until every legal remedy is exhausted because people were questioning the sanctity of our elections.

That interview was recorded nine days after former attorney general William Barr told Trump there was no evidence of election fraud. But in her interview with the select committee, Ivanka said she had accepted what Barr had said.

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January 6 committee focuses on phone calls among Trumps children and aides - The Guardian US

WASHINGTON As the Justice Department expands its criminal investigation into the efforts to keep President Donald J. Trump in office after his 2020 election loss, the critical job of pulling together some of its disparate strands has been given to an aggressive, if little-known, federal prosecutor named Thomas P. Windom.

Since late last year, when he was detailed to the U.S. attorneys office in Washington, Mr. Windom, 44, has emerged as a key leader in one of the most complex, consequential and sensitive inquiries to have been taken on by the Justice Department in recent memory, and one that has kicked into higher gear over the past week with a raft of new subpoenas and other steps.

It is Mr. Windom, working under the close supervision of Attorney General Merrick B. Garlands top aides, who is executing the departments time-tested, if slow-moving, strategy of working from the periphery of the events inward, according to interviews with defense lawyers, department officials and the recipients of subpoenas.

He has been leading investigators who have been methodically seeking information, for example, about the roles played by some of Mr. Trumps top advisers, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and John Eastman, with a mandate to go as high up the chain of command as the evidence warrants.

That element of the inquiry is focused in large part on the so-called fake electors scheme, in which allies of Mr. Trump assembled slates of purported electors pledged to Mr. Trump in swing states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.

In recent weeks, the focus has shifted from collecting emails and texts from would-be electors in Georgia, Arizona and Michigan to the lawyers who sought to overturn Mr. Bidens victory, and pro-Trump political figures like the head of Arizonas Republican Party, Kelli Ward.

Mr. Windom has also overseen grand jury appearances like the one on Friday by Ali Alexander, a prominent Stop the Steal organizer who testified for nearly three hours. And Mr. Windom, in conjunction with Matthew M. Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, has been pushing the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack to turn over transcripts of its interviews with hundreds of witnesses in the case spurred on by an increasingly impatient Lisa O. Monaco, Mr. Garlands top deputy, according to people familiar with the matter.

The raid last week on the home of Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who played a key role in Mr. Trumps effort to pressure the department to pursue and back his baseless claims of widespread election fraud, was initiated separately by the departments independent inspector general, since Mr. Clark had been an employee at the time of the actions under scrutiny. So was the apparently related seizure last week of a cellphone from Mr. Eastman, who has been linked by the House committee to Mr. Clarks push to help Mr. Trump remain in office.

But Mr. Windom has been involved in almost all the departments other key decisions regarding the wide-ranging inquiry into Mr. Trumps multilayered effort to remain in office, officials said.

For all of this activity, Mr. Windom remains largely unknown even within the Justice Department, outside of two high-profile cases he successfully brought against white supremacists when he worked out of the departments office in Washingtons Maryland suburbs.

Mr. Windoms bosses appear to be intent on preserving his obscurity: The departments top brass and its press team did not announce his shift to the case from a supervisory role in the U.S. attorneys office in Maryland late last year, and they still refuse to discuss his appointment, even in private.

That might not be a bad thing for Mr. Windom, the latest federal official assigned to investigate the former president and his inner circle, a hazardous job that turned many of his predecessors into targets of the right, forcing some to exit public service with deflated reputations and inflated legal bills.

Dont underestimate how every single aspect of your life will be picked over, looked at, investigated, examined you, your family, everything, said Peter Strzok, who was the lead agent on the F.B.I.s investigation into Mr. Trumps ties to Russia until it was discovered he had sent text messages disparaging Mr. Trump.

You think: Im doing the right thing and that will protect you, added Mr. Strzok, who is still bombarded with threats and online attacks more than three years after being fired. I didnt appreciate that there were going to be people out there whose sole goal is to totally destroy you.

Any investigator scrutinizing Mr. Trump, former prosecutors said, is liable to be marked as an enemy, regardless of the nature of their inquiry. They were out to destroy Trump, and they were members of our, you know, Central Intelligence or our F.B.I., Doug Jensen, 42, a QAnon follower from Iowa who stormed the Capitol, said in an interview with federal authorities, reflecting the views of many right-wing conspiracy theorists about Mr. Strzok and other investigators.

Mr. Windom is overseeing at least two key parts of the Justice Departments sprawling investigation of the Capitol attack, according to grand jury subpoenas obtained by The New York Times and interviews with current and former prosecutors and defense attorneys.

June 28, 2022, 8:20 p.m. ET

One prong of the inquiry is focused on a wide array of speakers, organizers, security guards and so-called V.I.P.s who took part in Mr. Trumps rally at the Ellipse near the White House on Jan. 6. which directly preceded the storming of the Capitol. According to subpoenas, this part of the investigation is also seeking information on any members of the executive or legislative branch who helped to plan or execute the rally, or who tried to obstruct the certification of the election that was taking place inside the Capitol that day a broad net that could include top Trump aides and the former presidents allies in Congress.

Mr. Windoms second objective mirroring one focus of the Jan. 6 committee is a widening investigation into the group of lawyers close to Mr. Trump who helped to devise and promote the plan to create alternate slates of electors. Subpoenas related to this part of the inquiry have sought information about Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Eastman as well as state officials connected to the fake-elector scheme.

One of the witnesses he subpoenaed is Patrick Gartland, a small business coach active in Georgia Republican politics, who turned aside efforts by Trump supporters to recruit him as a Trump elector in late 2020.

On May 5, Mr. Gartland, who was grieving the recent death of his wife, answered his front door to find two F.B.I. agents, who handed him an eight-page subpoena, signed by Mr. Windom. The subpoena, which he shared with The New York Times, asked him to provide emails, other correspondence or any document purporting to to be a certificate certifying elector votes in favor of Donald J. Trump and Michael R. Pence.

Mr. Windoms subpoena sought information about all of Mr. Gartlands interactions and appended a list of 29 names, which represents a road map, of sorts, to his wider investigation in Georgia and beyond.

It included Mr. Giuliani; Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner; Boris Epshteyn, a former Trump White House aide; other staff members and outside legal advisers to Mr. Trump, including Mr. Eastman, Ms. Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro; and a handful of Georgia Republicans whose names were listed on potential elector slates.

At least three of the people listed on the subpoena to Mr. Gartland including David Shafer, the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and Brad Carver, another party official were served similar documents by Mr. Windoms team last week, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

At least seven others not on the list among them Thomas Lane, an official who worked on behalf of Mr. Trumps campaign in Arizona, and Shawn Flynn, a Trump campaign aide in Michigan also received subpoenas, they said.

Mr. Windom, a Harvard alumnus who graduated from the University of Virginias law school in 2005, comes from a well-connected political family in Alabama. His father, Stephen R. Windom, served as the states lieutenant governor from 1999 to 2003, after switching from the Democratic to the Republican Party.

The elder Mr. Windom, who retired from politics after a failed bid to become governor, was known for his earthy sense of humor: In 1999, he admitted to urinating in a jug while presiding over the State Senate chamber during a round-the-clock session, fearful that Democrats would replace him as presiding officer if he took a bathroom break.

His son has a similarly irreverent side, reflected in humor columns he wrote for student publications when he was younger.

In one of them, a brief essay for The Harvard Crimson that ran on Presidents Day in 1998, he professed to be uninterested in the front-page presidential investigation of that era, and oblivious to current events.

I know little about President Clintons current sex scandal or our countrys troubles with Iraq, and I really do not care that much, Mr. Windom wrote. I place much more importance on what I am doing this weekend, why I have not asked that girl out yet or when I am going to have time to exercise tomorrow.

Mr. Windoms later career beginning with his clerkship with Edith Brown Clement, a conservative judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans belied that flippancy. From the start, even as a clerk, he adopted the mind-set of an aggressive prosecutor, writing a law journal article proposing a moderate loosening of a criminal defendants Miranda rights.

Tom was always the go-to guy in the department for the big, important national security cases in and around the Beltway, said Jamie McCall, a former federal prosecutor who worked with Mr. Windom to bring down a white supremacist group known as The Base out of the U.S. attorneys office in Greenbelt, Md., in 2019.

Mr. Windoms exhaustive work on two particular cases brought him to the attention of Mr. Garlands team. One was the trial of The Base in 2020, in which he creatively leveraged federal sentencing guidelines to secure uncommonly lengthy prison terms for the group of white supremacists. The other was the case one year before of Christopher Hasson, a former Coast Guard lieutenant who had plotted to kill Democratic politicians.

But his blunt, uncompromising approach has, at times, chafed his courtroom opponents.

During Mr. Hassons post-trial hearing, Mr. Windom persuaded a federal judge to give Mr. Hasson a stiff 13-year sentence beyond what would typically be given to a defendant pleading guilty to drug and weapons charges as punishment for the violence he had intended to inflict.

During the hearing, Mr. Windom attacked a witness for the defense who argued for leniency; Mr. Hassons court-appointed lawyer at the time who is now the Justice Departments senior pardons attorney said Mr. Windoms behavior was one of the most alarming things that I have heard in my practice in federal court.

Mirriam Seddiq, a criminal defense lawyer in Maryland who opposed Mr. Windom in two fraud cases, said he was a personable but inflexible adversary who sought sentences that, in her view, were unduly harsh and punitive. But Ms. Seddiq said she thought he was well suited to his new job.

If you are going to be a bastard, be a bastard in defense of democracy, she said in an interview.

Adam Goldman and Kitty Bennett contributed reporting.

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The Man Helping Drive the Investigation Into Trumps Push to Keep Power - The New York Times

And it has delivered. The testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, the aide to Donald Trumps chief of staff Mark Meadows, was bombshell after bombshell.

It showed that Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani knew the Jan. 6 rally would lead to violence at the Capitol. Giuliani crowed about it four days before the rally. Trump knew the crowd was carrying weapons, but wanted security removed so more of those armed rubes could crowd around the stage and adore him.

In a scene right out of a movie, Trump tried to wrest control of the steering wheel in his limo so he could join the armed, jacked-up mob marching toward the Capitol.

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Given what the House committee has established, based almost entirely on the testimony of Republicans such as Hutchinson, how can Trump and Giuliani and others in that administration avoid criminal charges at this point?

But then, given what theyve gotten away with so far, why would they worry?

On Sunday, the erstwhile presidents erstwhile lawyer Rudy Giuliani was holding court in a supermarket on Staten Island, campaigning for his son, who is running for governor in New York, when a supermarket employee named Daniel Gill walked up, slapped Giuliani on the back, and said, Whats up, scumbag?

Now, the back slap was uncalled for, the language unnecessarily profane. Gill apparently was upset with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and held Giuliani somewhat responsible for working for an administration that has cemented a conservative bloc on the court.

But what followed, in a country where justice isnt blind so much as its arbitrary, was revealing. Giuliani insisted Gill be arrested and the NYPD duly charged him with assault with intent to cause physical injury, harassment in the second degree, and menacing in the third degree. Gills lawyers said he was held in custody for more than 24 hours.

Giuliani went on Curtis Sliwas radio show and said the back slap felt like somebody shot me.

He could have killed me, Giuliani said.

A video of the incident shows something considerably less serious than that. But thats beside the point.

The point is, some guy making minimum wage at a supermarket in New York is facing the full weight of the law for giving Rudy Giuliani a slap on the back and calling him a name while to date, Giuliani has not faced any consequences for participating in a conspiracy to overthrow a presidential election and ruining the lives of a couple of election workers in Georgia.

At the Jan. 6 committee hearing last week, Georgia election worker Shaye Moss testified that she and her mother were subjected to death threats and widespread harassment after Donald Trump and Giuliani falsely accused them of costing Trump the presidential election by engaging in a plot to count phony ballots for Joe Biden.

Mosss mother, Ruby Freeman, said shes afraid to go to the supermarket. I doubt Rudy is despite his near-death experience at the ShopRite on Staten Island.

Gills lawyers at the Legal Aid Society say one of Giulianis entourage followed and threatened Gill after the confrontation, poking him forcefully in the chest, telling him he was going to be locked up. The chest poke was approximately the same as the back slap, unwanted but did not cause physical injury. One gets charged, the other gets bupkis.

Daniel Gill was wrong. He shouldnt have put his hands on Rudy Giuliani. But hes being held accountable for his actions.

When will Rudy Giuliani be held accountable for his? When will Donald Trump?

If this country didnt have double standards, it wouldnt have any standards at all.

Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at kevin.cullen@globe.com.

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Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and the standard double standard - The Boston Globe

A video showing supporters of former President Donald Trump calling on the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 ruling that legalized same-sex marriage in the United States has gone viral on social media.

The comments came after Justice Clarence Thomas said in a concurring opinion to the court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last week that the court has "a duty to 'correct the error' established" in rulings like Obergefell.

In the video, Jason Selvig, a member of the comedy duo the Good Liars, speaks to a man and woman wearing Trump apparel. It is not clear where the video was taken but the caption states that Selvig spoke to the pair over the weekend. The footage has so far been viewed over 400,000 times and shows Selvig trying to find out their opinions on the historic overturning of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that secured the right to abortion in the United States.

After the woman said she was against abortion, Selvig asked: "There's been some talk with some people saying we need to protect life, sperm is the seed of life. Would you be in favor of all males who are not married getting vasectomies?"

The man responded "no" to the question, while the woman said: "to each their own."

The video then skipped to when Selvig highlighted Thomas' comments about Obergefell v. Hodges. Selvig asked in the video: "Clarence Thomas, said yesterday, maybe we should take a look at the same-sex marriage ruling. Is that something you think we should look at as well?"

The pair said they did not believe that same-sex couples should be able to get married. Selvig then confirmed whether they would like to see this decision reversed, and the pair agreed. When asked why the female Trump supporter said: "[It is] just how I was brought up and how I believe...It is to each their own, but everyone should have respect in their own biblical sense."

"So, to each their own, but you don't want gay people getting married, and you don't want women choosing what to do with their body?" Selvig said, to which the woman replied "right."

Newsweek reached out to the Good Liars for comment.

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Donald Trump Supporters Call on Gay Marriage to Be Overturned Next - Newsweek

Musician Jack White blasted former President Donald Trump on Friday, blaming him directly for the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

In a lengthy Instagram post, White called Trump an "unchecked egomaniac" who took the US down "the worst, regressive path to the point of an insurrection in our capital building threatening the lives of the vice president and congress members, and in turn made our govt. an embarrassment to the entire world."

He also lashed out at Trump for appointing three conservative justices to the Supreme Court during his single-term presidency.

"The two party system by proxy puts this clown in a position to pick THREE conservative supreme court justices, THREE," White wrote. "And now these three judges, completely disinterested and unaffected by what the actual majority wants and needs, have just taken the country back to the 1970's to start all over again fighting for women's rights."

White's remarks come after the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The ruling was feared since May when Politico published a leaked draft opinion in which Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito called the decision "egregiously wrong from the start."

Abortion, however, remained legal in the United States until the court handed down the final verdict. But the draft itself was enough to put reproductive rights activists and doctors who perform abortions on edge.

By overturning Roe, the Supreme Court has put the question of the legality of abortion in the hands of individual state legislatures and has essentially made it illegal in at least 22 states to obtain an abortion. There are expected to be added restrictions in several others.

"Well trump, you took the country backwards 50 years," White said. "I hope your dad is smiling and waving down on you from heaven, while his other hand holds a record of all the abortions you secretly paid for behind closed doors."

Others have also credited Trump directly for Roe v. Wade's demise, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

"Thank you President Trump," Greene said. "God bless you. This got overturned today because of your great work as president, and we want him back."

White with his remarks joins a slew of other prominent individuals who've blasted the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

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Jack White blames Donald Trump for the overturn of Roe v. Wade - Business Insider

Time for some real talk. There are a lot of Republicans with doubts about President Trump running again in 2024, and you hear it often when conservatives gather together. They worry that him going Grover Cleveland could spoil a sure thing, but thats not necessarily so. Whether you love Donald Trump, or whether you doubt him if you hate him, shut up and go back to the Bulwark offices with the other losers you need to look hard at the facts. Were not progressives who let our feelz control us, and we must ruthlessly assess our own potential courses of action when it comes to replacing that desiccated old pervert masquerading as our president. We must look at his downside, but also his upside and he has one. The fact is that Donald Trump 2024 has a reasonable chance to beat anyone the Democrats launch at him hell, in 16 he defied the conventional wisdom to crush Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit, the Smartest Woman Ever Was, and there are a lot of reasons why he might well pummel whatever pea-brained nimrod the Dems deploy against him in 2024.

Lets look where all smart tacticians will look first at logistics. Trump has money, oodles of it, and his supporters now have two campaigns worth of experience instead of the none they had in 2016. He also has his own social media outlet, as well as friendly conservative media, and Twitter may even be under free speech advocate Elon Musk by then. They cant shut him up again.

Then there is the opposition. He faces a clown for an opponent Grandpa Badfinger is the only guy dumb enough to forget how to ride a bike and some polls already showTrump beating Biden in a head-to-(empty)-head race two-plus years out. None of those who will be seeking to shiv the Crusty-in-Chief and send him off to Sunny Acres so they can grab the Dem nom is a bigger threat. Kackling Kamala? Supply chain chump Pete Buttigieg? Maybe AOC will run voters will love her. Perhaps Hillary will step into the ring to get humiliated yet again. All of them are potentially beatable by DJT in 2024.

But there is more. Critically, a lot of people really dig Donald Trump. And its not because he somehow bedazzled them with his magical power to make the Jesus Gun People fall in love with him that the ruling caste seems to think he wields. As I write in my forthcoming book,Well Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America: Could Trump save us again? His vision for this country is simple and correct, all about making America great again and putting America first. Just compare the Democrat vision of empty shelves and bank accounts with Trumps vision of America prosperous, proud and strong, instead of one dropping abandoned allies off of C-17s.

Thats what people love about him, and its not just the people with DJT tatts and red hats. Even conservatives who have doubts about Trump going for Round 3 tend to respect him and his achievements. Trump brought a whole bunch of people into the Republican Party who had been repelled by stiffs like Mitt Romney and blunderers like George W. Bush guys who incidentally never had a job that involved them sweating and certainly looked like they despised anyone who had.

Trump nearly singlehandedly turned the GOP into the party of the working man because, despite his flamboyance and his gold-plated bidets, he genuinely respected guys who built things, who drove things, and who fought wars. It wasnt fake he grew up on construction sites. The toffs and puffboys with their Ivy League degrees scoff at that notion, as if they would ever dirty their dainty paws working, but you cant fake that not for seven years. Working folks saw him and saw an (unlikely) ally, and that meant we Republicans suddenly had access to voters Miracle Whip Mitt could never attract. You look at the GOP stampede of Latinx voters who hate that stupid word with a passion and you have to understand that it would not be possible without Donald J. Trump.

But it is not just his personality that built that loyalty. It was his performance as president. Just look at the guys record, a record that rivaled even St. Ronnys. Trump presided over the first expansion of wealth for working people in decades, reversing the stagnation that saw the coastal blue elites growing richer and everyone else growing poorer. He cut taxes for small business, jump-starting economic growth. Gas prices were low, the stock market was high. Compare and contrast his economic record with that of this ridiculous dust puppet we are stuck with now. We didnt have to worry that there would be no baby food on the shelf when Trump was in office. Now you need to take out a mortgage at much higher rates than under Trump just to fill up your F-150. And just a couple years ago the stock market was booming, instead of failing like Brian Tater Stelter on Tinder.

In a few weeks, SCOTUS decisions tossing out Roe and upholding your right to keep and bear arms will vindicate Donald Trump yet again.

Trump began the process of rebuilding our military, wrecked after decades of fruitless wars, and most importantly, he did not get us into any new ones. That matters, because the people who like him tend to be the people who either have to actually fight those wars or send their sons and daughters to do it see if you can imagine a Cheney in uniform without laughing at the absurdity of a member of that clan actually personally participating in one of the myriad wars they love so much as anything other than a distant spectator. But it's not so funny when its your kid coming home in a box. And Trump got that when no one else in the GOP seemed to.

Oh, and Trump aided by some outstanding appointees like Ambassador Ric Grenell and National Security Advisor Robert OBrien brought peace not just to the intractable Kosovo conflict but to the Middle East. Remember how Mid-East violence was a staple on the nightly news for most of the last century? Trump fixed that when all the geniuses of the establishment couldnt. Now Israel and Saudi Arabia are working together, if you can wrap your heads around that, at least until President Numbskull screws that up too.

Trump put America first, not the interests of the ruling caste, and for that our alleged betters cannot forgive him. This brings us to the last reason Trump should run. We deserve a chance to have a real Trump presidency, and so do our enemies they need to pay. Their Russiagate lies and stupid impeachment onanism wrapped-up the administration for years when Trump should have been free to do even more than what he accomplished despite the establishments full-court press to disenfranchise his voters by neutralizing him. Moreover, the shameful 2020 election you do not have to believe that the outright fraud, which did exist (I saw it helping the legal effort in Las Vegas working alongside future Nevadasenator Adam Laxalt) with its unlawful legal hijinks and regime media interference (Trump is down 17 points in Wisconsin!) was fundamentally unfair. Trump personally deserves vindication from that unfair fiasco, but more importantly, the people who voted for him deserve vindication too. And the people who hate Trump deserve four more years of suffering under his reign of mean tweets.

Anyone who tells you that Trump cannot win is wrong. He can. He has powerful winds behind him, some of them of his making, some historical, and he has a fantastic record that contrasts starkly with the legacy of bungling of his successor. Trump has been blessed with incompetent opponents who have made everyone hate them. So, a win is not out of the question. Trump has real reasons to run, if he chooses.

But a win is not assured. Because he can realistically run does not necessarily mean he should. There is a case to be made that we Republicans need to thank him, hand him a gold watch, and move on. And thats why my Thursday column pending some breaking news or my attention being captured by some other politico-cultural squirrel will be The Case Against Donald Trump 2024.

Conservatives Must Stand Together and Fight. Join Townhall VIP.And Check Out This Week's Stream of Kurtiousness,Republicans Great Midterm Plan: Betraying Us.And my podcast,Unredacted.

Pre-order my next non-fiction book Well Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America, which talks a lot about 2024 and provides a detailed to-do list of progressive bashing for the next president, whoever he is. And dont forget my Kelly Turnbull series of conservative action novels. The latest is The Split, but get all these action-packed bestsellers, including People's Republic, Indian Country, Wildfire, Collapse, and Crisis!

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The Case for Donald Trump 2024

Elon Musk declined on Tuesday to say whether he'd back former President Trump in 2024.

What he's saying: "I think I'm undecided at this point about that election," Musk said during a remote interview with Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha.

Why it matters: Musk's deal to buy Twitter, and his criticism of Big Tech, have made him a favorite of Trump supporters. Musk said last month that he'd reverse Twitter's ban on Trump.

The backstory: Musk tweeted last month that he "gave money to & voted for Hillary & then voted for Biden. However, given unprovoked attacks by leading Democrats against me & a very cold shoulder to Tesla & SpaceX, I intend to vote Republican in November."

The big picture: Musk said in the interview today that a U.S. recession "is inevitable at some point. As to whether there is a recession in the near term, that is more likely than not."

Watch the interview.

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Elon Musk undecided if he will support Donald Trump in 2024 - Axios

Many sophisticated observers of the January 6 committee will judge its success by two key metrics: whether the panel refers former President Donald Trump for criminal investigation and, if so, whether Attorney General Merrick Garland actually proceeds. But committee members are doing another job at least as important as advising the Justice Department: They are giving an off-ramp to those who accepted Trumps insistence that the 2020 election was stolen out from under himand who might excuse or even support violence done in his name.

Democracies do not fail in a single moment; they gradually break down from within. The same can be said of violent movements. Since the Capitol riot, the United States has been waging what is essentially a counter-extremism effort against Trump and the forces that nearly toppled our democracy. Such movements grow by portraying themselves as successful and their leadership as exceptional. The committee hearings have shown Trump to be not only an insurrectionist and an inciter of violence, but also a desperate sore loser. Almost everyone around Trump was telling him that his public claims of election fraud were bullshit, as former Attorney General William Barr put it. The people who continue spreading that myth need to know that Trump is making a fool of them. The savviest of his advisers long ago headed for the exits, and the ones who havent are not to be believed.

Notably, most of the committees witnesses against the former president are or were members of Team Trump or the GOP. Look at them, the committee is sayingthere is a way out. Trump, according to Representative Liz Cheney, the committees Republican vice chair, was advised by an apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani. This description, based on the accounts of Trump-campaign figures, isnt idle gossip, but is meant to humiliate Trump, make him seem like a puppet of the unhinged and reckless. Run away from that guy! Trump is also betrayed by his daughter Ivanka, who in videotaped testimony looks deflated and pale as she sides with the forces telling Trump to stop his madness. The implication is clear: If his own daughter isnt with him, why should you be?

Read: The January 6 committees most damning revelation yet

The former presidents critics may rightly ask why neither she nor Barr spoke up in the moment. But longtime Trump skeptics arent the committees target audience. The message to his remaining supporters is: Trump has peaked. His best days are behind him. You wont be the first to take the off-ramp, but you dont want to be the last.

Instead of subscribing to Trumps stolen-election fantasies, Republicans can join Team Normal, the term used by the former campaign manager Bill Stepien to describe those who were not instigating violence. If these former Trump loyalists can reject the lies, the committee is effectively telling his current followers, then so can you. And by the way, there was no honor among Trumps abettors; the committee has evidence, one of its two Republican members has said, that GOP politicians who may have been involved with coordinating the January 6 effort had sought pardons, leaving everybody else exposed to prosecution.

According to evidence aired Thursday, John Eastmana Trump legal adviser who kept insisting that thenVice President Mike Pence had the power to alter the Electoral College votepresumptuously declared in an email after the riot, Ive decided that I should be on the pardon list, if that is still in the works. One of Trumps White House lawyers testified that hed told Eastman, Get a great effing criminal-defense lawyer. Youre gonna need it. The message to Trump supporters: With company like this, do you need any more reason to take an exit?

My background is in homeland security, and I have previously argued that counterterrorism holds lessons in how to isolate Trump and de-radicalize MAGA extremists. (Earlier this year, I was among hundreds of experts contacted by committee staffers who were seeking perspective about the events of January 6.) The committee and its investigators plainly understand the one way in which extremist groups gain a foothold politically: Their leaders present themselves as more reasonable and less violent than they really are. The committee is trying to deny Trump and his MAGA allies that option by reminding Americans that the threat of brute force was always the undercurrent behind Stop the Steal.

A single congressional committee cannot make Trumps most violent supporters better, kinder, more accepting of Americas diversity. But it can help separate the former president from elites, donors, and those who would support him simply because they dont like the alternative.

The committees case against Trump is relentless and personaland one apparently targeted at Americans who might have voted for the former president or been sympathetic to his ideas. As Cheney said, There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain. The committee and its investigators arent being nasty for its own sake.

Quinta Jurecic: The January 6 committee is not messing around

A fair question is how many of Trumps most enthusiastic supporters are actually seeing the committees work; some of Trump supporters preferred media platforms are largely ignoring the proceedings. But the hearings and the conversations they spawn appear on numerous national outlets and local news. Fox News at least covered them in the daytime. Republican elites and conservative influencers are paying attention. Commentators at The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post were not pleased with Trump after the first days proceedings; donors are expressing their annoyance; and some GOP members seem more vocal in treating Trump as a political liability for 2024. Asa Hutchinson, the Republican governor of Arkansas, has said that many in the GOP are looking for the off-ramp from Trumps election fiction. On the left, many of Trumps critics seem to yearn for a single blow of reckoning, but perhaps the threat he and his followers pose is best handled with a thousand cuts.

The most effective attempt to isolate Trump came at the end of the second hearing, when Representative Zoe Lofgren highlighted the Trump familys greed and opportunism in the days after the election. This narrative isnt particularly necessary for an indictment. Still, a committee staffer disclosed that, after losing the November 2020 election, Trump and his allies raised $250 million in pursuit of the lie but never set up the special fund that they had promised to dedicate to the cause. Some of the money went to paying Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.s fiance, $60,000 for a two-and-a-half-minute speech on January 6. Donors deserve better than what President Trump and his team did, Lofgren declared, lending a sympathetic ear to those who might be feeling a little duped. Perhaps she doesnt really believe it, but it works as a way of saying: Have you had enough yet?

The conservative commentator Ann Coulter appears to concur. Every time you think you have your arms fully around Trumps con, she wrote this week, you realize its unfathomably more cynical and far-reaching than you could have imagined. She added, Is there anyone in Trump World who isnt trying to fleece the Deplorables?

The committee is building a historical record as well as a legal case against Trump and his aides. But it is also grappling with the threat posed by a violent movementa threat that weakens if enough of Trumps supporters quietly back away from him. Trump does not need to go to prison to be disgraced. If the former president ends up a rich, lonely man who can no longer fill a stadium, begging a dwindling number of radical adherents for attention while his children grift off his name, then America will have won.

The rest is here:

The January 6 Committee Is Giving Trumpers an Off-Ramp - The Atlantic

The searing testimony and growing evidence about Donald Trumps central role in a multi-pronged conspiracy to overturn Joe Bidens election in 2020 presented at the House January 6 committees first three hearings, has increased the odds that Trump will face criminal charges, say former DoJ prosecutors and officials.

The panels initial hearings provided a kind of legal roadmap about Trumps multi-faceted drives in tandem with some top lawyers and loyalists to thwart Biden from taking office, that should benefit justice department prosecutors in their sprawling investigations into the January 6 assault on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.

Ex-justice department lawyers say new revelations at the hearings increase the likelihood that Trump will be charged with crimes involving conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding or defrauding the United States, as he took desperate and seemingly illegal steps to undermine Bidens election.

Trump could also potentially face fraud charges over his role in an apparently extraordinary fundraising scam described by House panel members as the big rip-off that netted some $250m for an election defense fund that did not exist but funneled huge sums to Trumps Save America political action committee and Trump properties.

The panel hopes to hold six hearings on different parts of what its vice-chair, Liz Cheney, called Trumps sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the election.

Trump was told repeatedly, for instance, by top aides and cabinet officials including ex-attorney general Bill Barr that the election was not stolen, and that his fraud claims were completely bullshit and crazy stuff as Barr put it in a video of his scathing deposition. But Trump persisted in pushing baseless fraud claims with the backing of key allies including his ex-personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and lawyer John Eastman.

The January 6 committees investigation has developed substantial, compelling evidence that Trump committed crimes, including but not limited to conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruct official proceedings, Michael Bromwich, a former inspector general at the DoJ told the Guardian.

Donald Ayer, a former deputy attorney general in the George HW Bush administration, told the Guardian that the committee hearings have bolstered the need to seriously consider filing criminal charges against Trump.

The crux of any prosecution of Trump would hinge heavily on convincing a jury that Trump knew he lost the election and acted with criminal intent to overturn the valid election results. The hearings have focused heavily on testimony that Trump fully knew he had lost and went full steam ahead to concoct schemes to stay in power.

New revelations damaging to Trump emerged on Thursday when Greg Jacob, the ex-counsel to former vice-president Mike Pence, recounted in detail how Eastman and Trump waged a high-pressure drive, publicly and privately, even as the Capitol was under attack, to prod Pence to unlawfully block Bidens certification by Congress on January 6.

The Eastman pressure included a scheme to substitute pro-Trump fake electors from states that Biden won for electors rightfully pledged to Biden a scheme the DoJ has been investigating for months and that now involves a grand jury focused on Eastman, Giuliani and several other lawyers and operatives.

Eastman at one point acknowledged to Jacob that he knew his push to get Pence on January 6 to reject Bidens winning electoral college count would violate the Electoral Count Act, and that Trump, too, was told it would be illegal for Pence to block Bidens certification.

Paul Pelletier, a former acting chief of the DoJs fraud section, said: It is a target-rich environment, with many accessories both before and after the fact to be investigated.

But experts caution any decision to charge Trump will be up to the current attorney general, Merrick Garland, who has been careful not to discuss details of his departments January 6 investigations, which so far have led to charges against more than 800 individuals, including some Proud Boys and Oath Keepers charged with seditious conspiracy.

After the first two hearings, Garland told reporters, Im watching and I will be watching all the hearings, adding that DoJ prosecutors are doing likewise.

Garland remarked in reference to possibly investigating Trump: Were just going to follow the facts wherever they lead to hold all perpetrators who are criminally responsible for January 6 accountable, regardless of their level, their position, and regardless of whether they were present at the events on January 6.

But Garland has not yet tipped his hand if Trump himself is under investigation. Despite that reticence, justice department veterans say the wealth of testimony from one-time Trump insiders and new revelations at the House hearings should spur the department to investigate and charge Trump.

Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney for eastern Michigan, said the panels early evidence was strong, including video testimony of Trump insiders who told Trump that he was going to lose badly, and that with regard to claims of election fraud, there was no there there, as Trumps ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows acknowledged in one exchange made public at the hearings.

McQuade added that Barrs testimony was devastating for Trump. He and other Trump insiders who testified about their conversations with Trump established that Trump knew he had lost the election and continued to make public claims of fraud anyway. That knowledge can help establish the fraudulent intent necessary to prove criminal offenses against Trump.

In a novel legal twist that could emerge if Trump is charged, Bromwich said: Bizarrely, Trumps best defense to the mountain of evidence that proves these crimes seems to be that he was incapable of forming the criminal intent necessary to convict. That he was detached from reality, in Barrs words. But there is strong evidence that he is not crazy but instead is crazy like a fox.

How else to explain his attempts to pressure the Georgia secretary of state to find the votes necessary to change the result? Or his telling DoJ officials to simply declare the election corrupt and leave the rest to me and Republican House allies?

Bromwich added: All of this shows not someone incapable of forming criminal intent, but someone who understood what the facts were and was determined not to accept them. Because he couldnt stand to lose. That was far more important to him than honoring our institutions or the constitution.

Former federal prosecutor Michael Zeldin said Trump could face charges over what Cheney called the big rip-off, which centers on the allegation that Trump raised money from small-dollar donors after the election under false pretenses.

Zeldin said: Specifically, he asked for money to fight election fraud when, in fact, the money was used for other purposes. This type of conduct could violate the wire fraud statute.

Ayer cited the importance of a justice department regulation identifying factors to consider in deciding whether to charge, and noted three of particular relevance to Trump the nature and severity of the offence, the important deterrent effect of prosecutions, and the culpability of the individual being charged.

But it might not be all plain sailing.

Simmering tensions between the panel and the justice department have escalated over DoJ requests rebuffed so far to obtain 1,000 witness transcripts of committee interviews, which prosecutors say are needed for upcoming trials of Proud Boys and other cases. However, the New York Times has reported some witness transcripts could be shared next month.

Nonetheless, as Garland weighs whether to move forward with investigating and charging Trump, experts caution a prosecution of Trump would require enormous resources, given the unprecedented nature of such a high-stakes case, and the risks that a jury could end up acquitting Trump which might only enhance his appeal to the Republican base. Yet at the same time ,the stakes for the country of not aggressively investigating Trump are also extremely high.

No one should underestimate the gravity of deciding to criminally charge an ex-president, said former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut.

For Aftergut, though, charging Trump seems imperative.

Ultimately, the avalanche of documents and sworn testimony proving a multi-faceted criminal conspiracy to overturn the will of the people means one thing: if no one is above the law, even an ex-president who led that conspiracy must be indicted.

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Searing testimony increases odds of charges against Trump, experts say - The Guardian US

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June 22 (UPI) -- President Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon after the Watergate fiasco no doubt helped Jimmy Carter win the 1976 election. But Ford was right then and right now. A former president in the docket would have been devastating to the nation.

Today, that possibility would be catastrophic. But make no mistake: Donald Trump could face prosecution over Jan. 6. The charge could be far more serious than inciting a riot, which would be very difficult to prove in a court.

Trump's legal problem stems not from Democratic allegations but from his and former Vice President Mike Pence's lawyers; two judges; former Attorney General Bill Barr; and other witnesses who will testify in the remaining House select committee's televised hearings. And Trump's possible legal problems are not his alone. President Joe Biden could be swept in them as Gerald Ford was 48 years ago as to whether to prosecute or to pardon a former president.

How serious are the possible charges against the former president? U.S. District Judge David Carter, in a case involving former Trump attorney John Eastman, concluded Trump "more likely than not corruptly attempted to obstruct Congress." Retired Republican-appointed Court of Appeals Judge Michael Luttig declared in testimony that Trump was "a clear and present danger to democracy."

Trump deputy White House counsel Eric Herschmann strongly recommended to Eastman that he hire the "best criminal attorney" he can find. Barr testified he repeatedly warned Trump that believing the election was stolen was "nonsense." And the evidence so far, if proven correct, could make the case that Trump not only attempted to subvert government. By his actions, he meant to overthrow it.

This bombshell has been obscured by focus on Trump's role to incite the riot. Rioters testified how he "summoned them" to Washington to reverse the stolen election, by force if necessary. No doubt, Trump's actions certainly facilitated, if not provoked, the large crowds to assemble on the National Mall and march on the Capitol that fateful day. But can guilt be established beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law? Probably not.

As former prosecutor and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie observed, if a case is to be made against a president, it cannot be a "swing and a miss." It must have a 99.999% or higher probability of obtaining a guilty verdict. And any Department of Justice is well aware of that standard.

The most chilling possibility is a question. Given that Trump attempted a coup and had a plan to overturn the election and, in essence, overthrow the government illegally, does that amount to sedition? 18 U.S.C 2384 defines the crime of sedition as conspiring to "overthrow the government of the United States..." or opposing by force the "authority of the United States government...the execution of any law....."

The evidence is very strong. But the ramifications are staggering. The divisions in the nation are such that a large faction of Americans would fiercely protest a trial of a former president over an election they thought was won. Other forms of Jan. 6 levels of violence almost certainly would break out, probably country wide. A national state of emergency could be declared with horrendous consequences.

Hence, Biden could face impossible decisions, making Ford's pardon of Nixon seem trivial. First, how would Biden deal with the Justice Department if it embarked on a criminal investigation of Trump's conduct surrounding the events of Jan. 6? Second, how would Biden deal with an indictment were one forthcoming? And last, if a trial were to be held, would the White House be capable of preventing the proceedings from disintegrating into a national nightmare?

All this is speculative. However, as the leak of a Supreme Court draft memo on Roe vs. Wade has set the stage for a potential political explosion, trying a former president would elevate such a spectacle to thermonuclear proportions. What can be done?

Few people have realized how potentially dangerous the findings of this select committee could prove. Would Biden preempt them by offering Trump a pardon or the equivalent of a "plea bargain" by not prosecuting should the former president agree never to run for office? And could that be binding?

Is a nation wracked with COVID-19; massive inflation and soaring gas prices; a war in Ukraine that could escalate; and other ticking time bombs capable of withstanding perhaps the greatest political crisis since the Civil War? For certain, no one knows.

Harlan Ullman is senior adviser at Washington's Atlantic Council, the prime author of "shock and awe" and author of "The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD: How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Danger to a Divided Nation and the World at Large." Follow him @harlankullman.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

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If Donald Trump were convicted, Joe Biden would have to consider a pardon - UPI News