House Select Committee on 1/6

[LFC]

Trump was involved in the scheme to send fake electors to aid his coup. Well, duh.

Trump Campaign Coordinated Fake Electors Scheme, Jan. 6 Panel Says

In another sweeping round of subpoenas on Tuesday, the House Jan. 6 Committee accused the Trump campaign of being directly involved in the plot to convince state Republicans to gather fake Trump electors as part of a broader attempt to undo Biden’s win.

• Two Trump campaign officials were subpoenaed: Director of Election Day Operations Michael Roman and his deputy, Gary Brown.

• Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward was also among those to get slapped with a subpoena yesterday.
      ○ Fun fact: She’s now selling a book titled “Justified: The Story of America’s Audit,” in which she apparently tries to explain why the sham election audit commissioned by Arizona Senate Republicans was justified despite it finding no evidence of fraud whatsoever

[goldenvalley]

This WaPo article has quotes of texts to Mark Meadows from before, during, and after 1/6.   Texts sent in moment really convey the thought and emotions of the time.  All I can say about Trump is he was told exactly what was going on and his subsequent inaction and actions make it abundantly clear that he was in full support of it all.  And as to his apologists...those who voted against impeachment and those who urge us to "move on"... I say throw them all out office for aiding and abetting after the fact.  They didn't help plan or execute it at the time, but they are allowing the ongoing BS that perpetuates it.  

[andydp]

One more "who knew and when did they know it ?"

Journalist Reveals 'Chilling' Text GOP Lawmaker Sent White House Before Jan. 6 Riot

A Republican member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus who had advanced knowledge of former President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 plans reportedly sent an alarming message to the White House in the days before the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“If POTUS allows this to occur… we’re driving a stake in the heart of the federal republic,” the unnamed lawmaker wrote to then-chief of staff Mark Meadows on Jan. 1 or Jan. 2, according to The Washington Post.

www.huffpost.com/entry/chilling-white-house-jan-6-message_n_620df692e4b0685128b1eeba?fbclid=IwAR1g13nzh5zbai9Ujm7JzUeT--d0Eum_uzuE4ySSNpYEPUwYhP1HkW5t7aU

The question now is "what exactly is "this" that was in the message ?

[pnwguy]

Feb 17, 2022 18:01:58 GMT andydp said:

The question now is "what exactly is "this" that was in the message ?

Pick one:

1).    Execution of Mike Pence.  In a nod to Mike's piety, he was to be crucified, along with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer on either side, instead of the gallows.
2).    Mass arrest of all congressional Democrats
3).    Martial law in D.C. with tanks patrolling the White House
4).    Declaring the 2020 presidential election unconstitutional by the MAGA SCOTUS justices
5).    Using a Sharpie to write in "President For Life" on the copy of the US Constitution at the National Archives

[goldenvalley]

Feb 17, 2022 19:28:36 GMT pnwguy said:

Feb 17, 2022 18:01:58 GMT andydp said:

The question now is "what exactly is "this" that was in the message ?

Pick one:

1).    Execution of Mike Pence.  In a nod to Mike's piety, he was to be crucified, along with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer on either side, instead of the gallows.
2).    Mass arrest of all congressional Democrats
3).    Martial law in D.C. with tanks patrolling the White House
4).    Declaring the 2020 presidential election unconstitutional by the MAGA SCOTUS justices
5).    Using a Sharpie to write in "President For Life" on the copy of the US Constitution at the National Archives

I would add
6).  Have Pence throw out all ballots from AZ, MI, and GA because he got two sets of ballots from them thus giving Trump electoral college win
7).  Have Pence count the fake electoral ballots from AZ, MI, and GA, Trump wins
8).  Unleash the kraken of Oath Keepers based on the Insurrection Law
9).  Send the rally group down to the Capitol to "protest"
10). Any combination of 2 or more of the above (or all)

[LFC]

Feb 17, 2022 18:01:58 GMT andydp said:

“If POTUS allows this to occur… we’re driving a stake in the heart of the federal republic,” the unnamed lawmaker wrote to then-chief of staff Mark Meadows on Jan. 1 or Jan. 2, according to The Washington Post.

Where is Meadows reply of "Well, duh! That's exactly the point."

[LFC]

More information has been coming out of the committee. Unfortunately Merrick Garland is not yet proving himself to be a man up to the task in these perilous times for American democracy. I'm starting to believe that he's in over his head at the DOJ, wanting to believe that we live in earlier, more sane times rather than the times we're in.

Where Is DOJ?

In an important new court filing last evening, the House Jan. 6 committee alleged that President Trump committed crimes in pressuring Vice President Pence to overturn the result of the 2020 election.

Trump’s criminal culpability, according to the committee, includes: (i) obstruction of an official proceeding, (ii) conspiracy to defraud the U.S., and (iii) common law fraud.

Why now? Some context:

• The committee is trying to obtain documents (mainly emails) from John Eastman, the lawyer who advised Trump on the scheme to get Pence to refuse to count electoral votes when Congress convened on Jan. 6.

• Eastman filed suit in federal court in California, asserting attorney-client privilege and work-product privilege in refusing to comply with the committee subpoena.

• One of the committee’s arguments (it has many) is that if you’re using the attorney-client relationship to commit crimes, the attorney-client privilege evaporates. To support that argument, the committee had to lay out which crimes it alleges were committed. It did so in last night’s filing.

To be clear, the alleged crimin’ by Trump and Eastman were not the centerpiece of the Jan. 6 committee’s filing, but it’s an explosive argument and the most newsworthy.

More than a year after the near-coup, with no public sign that the Justice Department is investigating the higher-ups in the conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election, the Jan. 6 committee is laying down an important marker for judging the performance of Attorney General Merrick Garland. Is he up to it?

[LFC]

Navarro is betting on delay and SCOTUS protection.

Navarro Blows Off Jan. 6 Panel Hearing

Former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro didn’t show up for his scheduled deposition with the House Jan. 6 committee yesterday, claiming that he is an Executive Privileged Boi who won’t let the committee “bully” him with its subpoena, no sir!

• Navarro claimed that Biden’s refusal to grant him executive privilege is “illegitimate” and has “exposed the weak underbelly” of the committee’s investigation.

• He’s very confident that “that unconstitutional dog won’t hunt at the Supreme Court,” which has already shot down two of Trump’s attempts to block the committee’s investigation.

• Navarro plotted a coup that totally wasn’t a coup with Steve Bannon on Jan. 6.

[LFC]

Another opinion that Garland is in over his head. This is bad. If the DOJ isn't investigating this with the urgency it certainly deserves then Garland will be a major reason that democracy in America died.

What’s still a surprise, even a shock, is that the Justice Department remains AWOL on the broader conspiracy. There’s a school of thought that DOJ is going low and slow, steadily building a case in under-the-radar ways. I remain skeptical. The balance of the evidence available publicly doesn’t suggest an aggressive DOJ effort to reach to the top of the conspiracy.

The absence of public activity is telling. If DOJ were investigating the case at the pace and with the thoroughness of the Jan. 6 committee, you’d expect to see it running into the kind of legal arguments the committee is now contesting with Eastman and other witnesses and targets. You’d also expect shrieking from those witnesses and targets directed at DOJ about overreach, and playing politics, etc. We’re not seeing any of that.

Merrick Garland was a superb jurist and would have made a fine Supreme Court justice. But he lacks the political savvy to be a wartime consigliere. And so here we are. I’ve never hoped to be as wrong about anything as I hope I am wrong about this.

[LFC]

Adam Schiff basically tells Garland to grow a pair. The evidence is strong, there's yet more to be investigated, and there's no excuse for foot dragging other than some misguided idea from days gone by of how this should be handled.

Days after the Jan. 6 Select Committee alleged that former President Trump and his allies “engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who serves on the panel, urged the Justice Department to investigate Trump’s efforts to push the Big Lie of a “stolen” 2020 presidential election.

Last week, lawyers for the Jan. 6 Select Committee alleged in a court filing that the former president and key allies engaged in criminal acts in trying to pressure former Vice President Pence to overturn the results of the 2020 election. According to the committee, Trump’s criminal culpability includes: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and common law fraud.

Appearing on CBS, Schiff said that the committee believes “there’s a good faith basis” to conclude that Trump “may have violated any number of federal laws.”

Schiff then implored the Justice Department to take action against Trump’s Big Lie efforts — particularly, the former president’s infamous call with Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger (R) to “find” nonexistent votes.

“I do think that the Justice Department ought to be looking at these issues and ought to be investigating in particular —just to give one very graphic example — the former president on the phone with the secretary of state in Georgia demanding that he find 11,780 votes that didn’t exist, but the precise number he would need to overtake President Biden,” Schiff said.

“I think if anyone else had engaged in that conversation, they would be under investigation and it should be no different for the former president,” Schiff continued.

Schiff said that although the DOJ is “diligently pursuing” Capitol insurrectionists, it has yet to examine “multiple lines” of efforts to overturn the election results that “may have violated the law.”

[jackd]

Much as I respect Adam Schiff, I've got to note that 1) He probably doesn't know what the DOJ has done or is doing, and 2) if he thinks there's a strong enough case to prosecute (as an ex prosecutor), he should lay out what statutes are involved and what the evidence is. It is not incumbent on Garland to explain why he isn't prosecuting in response to these generalities.

[LFC]

Mar 7, 2022 16:41:16 GMT jackd said:

Much as I respect Adam Schiff, I've got to note that 1) He probably doesn't know what the DOJ has done or is doing, and 2) if he thinks there's a strong enough case to prosecute (as an ex prosecutor), he should lay out what statutes are involved and what the evidence is. It is not incumbent on Garland to explain why he isn't prosecuting in response to these generalities.

I'd be a bit stunned if none of this has been referred to the DOJ and that Schiff is just spouting words to the media and Garland. And if the House Committee is referring info to the DOJ I'd expect some sort of feedback on what the DOJ is doing.

[jackd]

I'm sure that the committee's evidence is available to DOJ. Schiff seems to be trying to pressure Garland into prosecuting. Most of the legal analyses of the committee's publicly released information hasn't supported prosecution based on that information. There may be more. I'm just saying that if Schiff expects the DOJ to prosecute (or, more likely, investigate, which it may already be doing) he should be much more specific about the alleged strength of the case. Prosecution of an ex president, particularly one with Trump's populist following, had better have a better than even chance of succeeding. Otherwise, it's creating a martyr and rallying his troops. "If you shoot at a king, you'd better kill him!"

ETA: Bear in mind that all it takes is one pro-Trump juror to prevent a conviction and the odds of keeping some pro-Trump jurors off a jury are not good.

[LFC]

Mar 7, 2022 17:26:03 GMT jackd said:

I'm sure that the committee's evidence is available to DOJ. Schiff seems to be trying to pressure Garland into prosecuting.

On a side note imagine if this was a Republican House Committee on Whatever Fake Charges We Can Come Up With and Bill Barr's DOJ. Can you imagine the number of toxic, baseless leaks? We saw it in Republican House "investigations" into Bill Clinton, Ken Star's "investigation" (with Brett Kavanaugh), and the House "investigations" into Hillary Clinton. All produced nothing ... but political gold. It's their tried and true formula.

[goldenvalley]

Mar 7, 2022 17:26:03 GMT jackd said:

I'm sure that the committee's evidence is available to DOJ. Schiff seems to be trying to pressure Garland into prosecuting. Most of the legal analyses of the committee's publicly released information hasn't supported prosecution based on that information. There may be more. I'm just saying that if Schiff expects the DOJ to prosecute (or, more likely, investigate, which it may already be doing) he should be much more specific about the alleged strength of the case. Prosecution of an ex president, particularly one with Trump's populist following, had better have a better than even chance of succeeding. Otherwise, it's creating a martyr and rallying his troops. "If you shoot at a king, you'd better kill him!"

ETA: Bear in mind that all it takes is one pro-Trump juror to prevent a conviction and the odds of keeping some pro-Trump jurors off a jury are not good.

Sadly, conspiracy requires an agreement of the alleged conspirators.  The question is a hard one to prove beyond a reasonable doubt especially when one of the alleged conspirators seems to sit back and let people around him do things they believe might make him happy.  According to that guy Cohen who worked for Trump that's the way Trump operates.  He makes vague comments without telling anyone directly what he wants to do and then they run with it.  Gives him plausible deniability and makes it hard to prove the case.  

For example this guy Eastman comes up with a theory of law that would allow Trump to overthrow the election, others try to run with it. While Trump might talk about it and he clearly wants the election to be overturned, he's not sending any memos saying "make it so."  

[Bact PhD]

Mar 7, 2022 17:42:58 GMT goldenvalley said:

Mar 7, 2022 17:26:03 GMT jackd said:

I'm sure that the committee's evidence is available to DOJ. Schiff seems to be trying to pressure Garland into prosecuting. Most of the legal analyses of the committee's publicly released information hasn't supported prosecution based on that information. There may be more. I'm just saying that if Schiff expects the DOJ to prosecute (or, more likely, investigate, which it may already be doing) he should be much more specific about the alleged strength of the case. Prosecution of an ex president, particularly one with Trump's populist following, had better have a better than even chance of succeeding. Otherwise, it's creating a martyr and rallying his troops. "If you shoot at a king, you'd better kill him!"

ETA: Bear in mind that all it takes is one pro-Trump juror to prevent a conviction and the odds of keeping some pro-Trump jurors off a jury are not good.

Sadly, conspiracy requires an agreement of the alleged conspirators.  The question is a hard one to prove beyond a reasonable doubt especially when one of the alleged conspirators seems to sit back and let people around him do things they believe might make him happy.  According to that guy Cohen who worked for Trump that's the way Trump operates.  He makes vague comments without telling anyone directly what he wants to do and then they run with it.  Gives him plausible deniability and makes it hard to prove the case.  

For example this guy Eastman comes up with a theory of law that would allow Trump to overthrow the election, others try to run with it. While Trump might talk about it and he clearly wants the election to be overturned, he's not sending any memos saying "make it so."  

…meaning enough plausible deniability to make a conspiracy conviction unlikely at best?

[goldenvalley]

Mar 7, 2022 19:57:51 GMT Bact PhD said:

…meaning enough plausible deniability to make a conspiracy conviction unlikely at best?

I'm afraid the answer might be yes...like the criminal case in NYC, different intent needed but same issue.

[jackd]

Exactly.

[AnBr]

Mar 7, 2022 17:39:48 GMT LFC said:

Mar 7, 2022 17:26:03 GMT jackd said:

I'm sure that the committee's evidence is available to DOJ. Schiff seems to be trying to pressure Garland into prosecuting.

On a side note imagine if this was a Republican House Committee on Whatever Fake Charges We Can Come Up With and Bill Barr's DOJ. Can you imagine the number of toxic, baseless leaks? We saw it in Republican House "investigations" into Bill Clinton, Ken Star's "investigation" (with Brett Kavanaugh), and the House "investigations" into Hillary Clinton. All produced nothing ... but political gold. It's their tried and true formula.

[LFC]

Stephen Miller, Trump's favorite white supremacist, is trying to block the committee's subpoena of his phone records. One thing we found out is that, amusingly, he's still on mommy and daddy's phone plan.

Former Trump aide Stephen Miller has sued the House Committee investigating the Capitol riot in an effort to keep his phone records out of the committee’s hands. Miller filed the suit under both his name and Carron Drive Apartments LP, the business that registered the T-Mobile family plan used by Miller’s parents and their kids. He argued the committee’s request for phone records from Nov. 1, 2020, through Jan. 31, 2021, was overly broad and would capture irrelevant, private information like communications he had with medical staff when his wife suffered complications before and after she gave birth in November 2020. Information obtained through the subpoena could end up in the hands of “persons who are interested in merely making partisan points or harassing Mr. Miller,” he argued.

What's the matter, Stephen? What's the problem if you've got nothing to hide? (Oh, that's right. That "logic" doesn't pertain to white people. My mistake.)

[LFC]

Here's an explanation for why Merrick Garland may be deciding to not charge Trump with the crimes he committed, no matter how much evidence there is.

Why Hasn’t Garland Indicted Trump? Ex-Prosecutor Has An Explanation

Michael Stern, a former federal prosecutor who worked at the Justice Department for 25 years, wrote a New York Daily News op-ed laying out the probable reasons why Attorney General Merrick Garland hasn’t indicted (or taken any serious action against) Trump despite, uh, everything.

• Short version: Garland and other DOJ officials fear that the ex-president would pounce on a criminal trial as a megaphone for advancing his lies about the 2020 election and fundraise off the whole affair for an almost certain 2024 bid. And above all, Garland knows Trump wouldn’t be convicted.

This country literally no longer has any capacity for holding higher up political criminals to account for their crimes. It has been destroyed by the Republican Party. You can expect that they will, however, use any power they can grasp to attack their political rivals with lies. All you have to do is look at the Clintons to see they've already gone there.

[LFC]

Ginni Thomas is guilty of sedition. Of course she pulled God(tm) into it. Bold Christianism and self-dealing mine.

Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, reportedly urged then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to pursue Big Lie efforts in a series of text messages in the weeks after the 2020 election, according to the Washington Post and CBS News.

According to the Post, the text messages it obtained between Thomas and Meadows were among the 2,320 that the former Trump official provided to the Jan. 6 Select Committee during his short-lived cooperation with the panel. The Post and CBS News reviewed 21 messages sent by Thomas and eight messages sent by Meadows.

The Post noted that it is unclear whether Thomas and Meadows exchanged additional messages between the 2020 election and President Biden’s inauguration beyond the 29 received by the committee. Meadows provided the 2,320 messages he exchanged with Thomas before he began stonewalling the panel last December, arguing executive privilege. According to the Post, members of the Jan. 6 Select committee and aides believe the messages the panel obtained may be just a portion of the exchanges between Meadows and Thomas.

Days after Joe Biden’s victory was projected by news organizations, Thomas reportedly texted Meadows: “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!…You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”

On Nov. 24. 2020, Meadows reportedly invoked God when describing Big Lie efforts in a message to Thomas.

“This is a fight of good versus evil,” Meadows reportedly wrote in a text message to Thomas. “Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it. Well at least my time in DC on it.”

[LFC]

[andydp]

Mar 25, 2022 13:58:49 GMT LFC said:

View Attachment

It simply amazes me these “smart people making the big bucks” wrote this stuff without thinking of their stuff being read at a letter date by someone other than a co conspirator.

[goldenvalley]

Mar 25, 2022 13:14:36 GMT LFC said:

Ginni Thomas is guilty of sedition. Of course she pulled God(tm) into it. Bold Christianism and self-dealing mine.

Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, reportedly urged then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to pursue Big Lie efforts in a series of text messages in the weeks after the 2020 election, according to the Washington Post and CBS News.

According to the Post, the text messages it obtained between Thomas and Meadows were among the 2,320 that the former Trump official provided to the Jan. 6 Select Committee during his short-lived cooperation with the panel. The Post and CBS News reviewed 21 messages sent by Thomas and eight messages sent by Meadows.

The Post noted that it is unclear whether Thomas and Meadows exchanged additional messages between the 2020 election and President Biden’s inauguration beyond the 29 received by the committee. Meadows provided the 2,320 messages he exchanged with Thomas before he began stonewalling the panel last December, arguing executive privilege. According to the Post, members of the Jan. 6 Select committee and aides believe the messages the panel obtained may be just a portion of the exchanges between Meadows and Thomas.

Days after Joe Biden’s victory was projected by news organizations, Thomas reportedly texted Meadows: “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!…You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”

On Nov. 24. 2020, Meadows reportedly invoked God when describing Big Lie efforts in a message to Thomas.

“This is a fight of good versus evil,” Meadows reportedly wrote in a text message to Thomas. “Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it. Well at least my time in DC on it.”

I guess it isn't evil to rent a place in North Carolina that you never walked through the door of so that you can vote in the state.