Lindsey Graham’s latest defense of Donald Trump is a racist attack on Kamala Harris

Posted on by Mark Sumner

As Donald Trump’s second impeachment approaches, Lindsey Graham has made a series of extremely odd threats. On Tuesday, he suggested that should Democrats call a single witness, Republicans would call in the FBI to give a full accounting of how white supremacist groups had planned for weeks to carry out violent acts on Jan. 6. The reason that Graham thinks that this is a threat which should concern Democrats is because Fox News and other right-wing sources have been working hard to convince their viewers that the entire impeachment is just about things Trump said at the “Stop the Steal” rally just before the assault on the Capitol. So if anyone was doing pre-planning for the insurrection, that lets Trump off the hook. Except that’s not at all what the impeachment documents actually say. 

It’s not clear if someone actually made that point to Graham, but when he was questioned about the impeachment on Wednesday, Donald Trump’s most loyal senator was ready to voice an even more obscure response—one that involves a long-running, and racist, Republican lie. If Democrats call even a single witness to discuss events on Jan. 6, Graham promised that Republicans would turn the table and … use the impeachment trial to attack Vice President Kamala Harris.

How would anything happening on Jan. 6 relate badly on the vice president? It wouldn’t. But the statements, which Graham made—where else?—while speaking with Sean Hannity on Fox News don’t actually have anything to do with the assault on the Capitol or Trump’s impeachment. As Yahoo News makes clear, Graham is really speaking to an existing Republican theme claiming that Democrats have encouraged violence by Black Lives Matter protesters.

"If you're going to pursue this, and you wanna start calling witnesses, and you want to drag this thing out, it would be fair to have Kamala Harris' tape play where she bailed people out of jail,” said Graham. “What more could you do to incite future violence, than to pay the bail of the people who broke up the shops and beat up the cops. How's that not inciting future violence? Be careful what you wish for my Democratic colleagues, be careful what you wish for."

The thing about the “Kamala Harris’ tape” is that it would be very difficult to play. Because there is no tape. Instead, there appears to be nothing behind this by a single tweet from  Harris in which she encouraged contributions to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which helps to address inequities in America’s often crushing cash bail system. Harris’ tweet was made on June 1, placing it less than a week after Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis Police, and at a time when over a hundred nonviolent protesters had been arrested. 

The claim that Harris was encouraging violence became a recurring theme on the right. In August, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton tweeted that Harris “helped violent rioters in Minnesota get out of jail to do more damage.” Donald Trump recycled that information the next day, except that Trump—as he does so often—expanded on the lie to make it not just about Harris, but “thirteen members of Biden’s campaign staff” as well as “his running mate, Kamala” bailing “rioters” and “looters” out of jail.

Now, almost six months later, Graham is reviving this claim against Harris as if it represents some sort of defense of Trump. It’s a mirror of how Republicans have been reacting to criticism of QAnon Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene by waggling fingers at Rep. Ilhan Omar. In both cases, Republicans are trying to equate racism, anti-Semitism, and white supremacist violence with Black Americans asking for justice. 

As The Washington Post pointed out back in September, this whole line of attack isn’t just racist, it’s also simply wrong. Of the 170 arrested in connection with the protests between Floyd’s murder and the date of Harris’ tweet, 167 were released without bail or with only a small fee. About a third were arrested without charges. Minnesota Freedom Fund definitely benefited from the attention, and their contributions went way up. But it seems that none of the money actually went to bail out anyone charged with either rioting or looting. Some of the money collected did later go toward people charged with serious crimes, even murder. But that’s an indictment of the cash bail system, and the massive inequality it generates in the justice system. It’s not a mark against Kamala Harris.

In any case, what Graham is proposing is the kind of testimony that would not be allowed in any court. It’s pointing a false finger of blame at someone else in a completely different situation. It’s a third grade idea of justice where “she did it too” is supposed to be an excuse for doing something wrong.

On top of all that, Graham’s finger pointing at Harris is deeply racist. Not only is it built on false racist claims about protesters in Minnesota, it’s absolutely no coincidence that Graham was signaling toward Harris and not other people who have been vocal about the need to abolish the cash bail system—including President Biden.

Unable to defend Greene, Republicans have resorted to attacking Omar or Maxine Waters, as Republican leader Kevin McCarthy did in his statement on Tuesday evening. Unable to defend Trump, Graham instead lodged a completely false claim at Kamala Harris. 

Those targets are not a coincidence.

Trump’s impeachment response includes Trump making outrageous claim of victory

Posted on (Updated by Mark Sumner

On Tuesday, Donald Trump’s legal team made their official response to the article of impeachment delivered by House impeachment managers. Though it might easily have been misdirected since that response is actually written to the “Unites States Senate.” This follows earlier filings by Trump’s legal team to the “United States Districct Court,” the “Northern Distrcoit of Georgia,” and the “Eastern Distrct of Michigan.”

But while the opening words of Trump’s reply may generate a chuckle or an eye roll, it’s really the last section of that response that’s the most laughable. And the most infuriating. Because after providing three replies in which the argument focuses on the question of whether it is considered constitutional to impeach an executive once they’re out of office, the last answer that Trump provides goes directly back to square one by claiming that he never did anything wrong in the first place and that: “Insufficient evidence exists upon which a reasonable jurist could conclude that the 45th president’s statements were accurate or not, and he therefore denies that they were false.”

That’s right. A month after he drove a mob into a murderous rage, Trump isn’t just denying he incited their assault on the Capitol. He’s denying he lied.

In the early hours of Nov. 4, as it was becoming clear to everyone that Joe Biden was going to collect far more than the 270 electoral votes necessary to secure victory, Trump stepped in front of the cameras to complain.  In that appearance, Trump said: “We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.”

That’s a lie. Had Trump constrained himself to no more than such generalized statements, he might still have generated a sense of righteous anger and disappointment among his supporters, but it’s unlikely that would have created the kind rage that led to Jan. 6. However, Trump didn’t hold himself to the just a generic claim of victory.

By Nov. 7, shortly after the Associated Press called the election for Biden, Trump was back on the air to make a statement that leveled the first of many specific charges. “The Biden campaign ... wants ballots counted even if they are fraudulent, manufactured, or cast by ineligible or deceased voters.” All of those charges would persist right up until Jan. 6, with Trump’s team eventually assigning numbers to each category—8,000 dead voters, 14,000 out-of-state voters, 10,000 late ballots—without ever explaining where they obtained these values.

Over the course of the following months, Trump added more specific charges. He claimed that there were fraudulent drop boxes in Wisconsin. That votes of Arizona Republicans had been thrown out. That boxes full of votes had been smuggled into Philadelphia. 

Trump was still making both his general claims and these very specific charges right up to the final “Stop the Steal” speech on the morning of Jan. 6. “... this year they rigged an election, they rigged it like they have never rigged an election before, and by the way, last night, they didn't do a bad job either, if you notice ... We will stop the steal! ... We won it by a landslide. This was no close election. ... There were over 205,000 more ballots counted in Pennsylvania. Now think of this, you had 205,000 more ballots than you had voters ... So in Pennsylvania, you had 205,000 more votes than you had voters, and it’s — the number is actually much greater than that now ... In Wisconsin, corrupt Democrat-run cities deployed more than 500 illegal unmanned, unsecured drop boxes, which collected a minimum of 91,000 unlawful votes. ... They have these lockboxes. And you know, they pick them up and they disappear for two days. People would say where’s that box? They’d disappeared. Nobody even knew where the hell it was. In addition, more than 170,000 absentee votes were counted in Wisconsin without a valid absentee ballot application. So they had a vote, but they had no application and that’s illegal in Wisconsin. Meaning, those votes were blatantly done in opposition to state law and they came 100 percent from Democrat areas such as Milwaukee and Madison. 100 percent.”

Would a “reasonable jurist” know these statements were lies? Of course they would. That’s easy to see since every single time these arguments went before a judge they were uniformly rejected. Not all of the Trump team’s 62 lawsuits came down to statements of fact. Some were tossed with statements that explicitly called out the lack of any real evidence behind Trump’s claims.

“One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption. That has not happened.” — U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Brann

There were months in which Trump’s team might have fleshed out their claims. Months in which they might have explained the source of all those numbers. They didn’t do that. Instead they added claims about a dead Venezuelan dictator and servers hidden in Germany. Dominion Voting Systems is suing Rudy Giuliani for $1.3 billion for running a “viral disinformation campaign.” Trump repeated all those same allegations in his rallies, right up to the end.

When Trump’s attorneys claim that a “rational jurist” could not know that Trump’s claims are false, what they actually mean is an ignorant jurist.  Someone who had been subjected to all these false claims and allowed to view none of the actual information. Like a Fox News viewer. Because a rational, informed juror would definitely be able to tell that Trump’s statements were not just lies, but lies created expressly for the purpose of generating confusion over facts that are otherwise very cut and dry.

But what be most surprising is that Trump isn’t just saying that someone making these statements might have been believed before Jan. 6, he’s still refusing to admit that they are false. This explicit inclusion in his reply makes everything Trump has said before and after Jan. 6 fair game. House impeachment managers should be much happier about that than Trump’s legal team.

Trump’s legal team is trying to coordinate with Senate Republicans, but Trump is in the way

Posted on by Mark Sumner

Though it may seem as if bad lawyers are an infinite commodity, Donald Trump has spent years testing that theory. Trump’s line of personal attorneys have had a tendency to head off on “extended vacations,” often while handing authorities information that creates a challenge for Trump’s next attorney. In the process of contesting the election alone, Trump sifted the nation to come up with a legal team that was eventually headed by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell after such legal powerhouses as Corey Lewandowski and Pam Bondi had fallen by the wayside.

The problem with being a Trump attorney isn’t just being forced to defend indefensible positions; it’s having to do so in the way that pleases Trump. That sometimes means not staging a defense in the way what’s most likely to lead to acquittal, and instead doubling down on why Trump was perfectly entitled to commit a crime in the first place. And did it perfectly.

In the case of Trump’s second impeachment, Trump is running through whole sets of attorneys, and he still doesn’t seem to have found one who will do what he wants: use the impeachment trial as another opportunity to encourage violence.

Shortly after the impeachment in the House, Bloomberg reported that Trump was “struggling” to find a team of lawyers to manage his defense before the Senate. Trump’s entire first impeachment defense team, including Jay Sekulow and former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, turned down the opportunity for a repeat performance. Even the time limit on Trump’s long-running arrangement with Pam Bondi seems to have expired; she also opted out.

Potential attorneys are likely to be feeling better these days, now that Senate Republicans have made it clear that when they gave Trump a free pass the first time, they really meant it. With 45 Republicans voting that it’s pointless to move forward with the impeachment, and Republicans threatening to drag the Senate into a months-long recounting of post-election events if a single witness is called, it seems as if the legal team of Nobody, Absent, and Nothing could stage an adequate defense.

The problem is that Trump isn’t happy to just sit there, collect another free pass, and move on. Instead, Trump has been insisting to his attorneys that he wants to use the impeachment trial to put on “evidence” of supposed election fraud.

In other words: Trump wants to use his impeachment trial not to defend himself against charges of inciting a murderous, seditious mob, but to explain why that mob was in the right when it smashed into the Capitol on a hunt for hostages.

That insistence is part of what has made it so difficult for Trump to secure a legal crew. Trump got so upset over the reluctance of his legal team to join in the sedition attempt that he parted ways with five members of his legal team last week. However, The New York Times did show Trump picking up two new attorneys to head his impeachment team: former Pennsylvania District Attorney Bruce Castor, and David Schoen. Schoen was most recently in the public eye as the lead attorney for Roger Stone in his defense against multiple charges related to the Mueller investigation. That would be Stone’s losing case, requiring Trump to get out his pardon pen.

But, as the Times is now reporting, just because Trump has new attorneys doesn’t mean that those attorneys are going to follow him off a cliff. Instead the team is arguing that they should conduct his defense on the lines that the trial itself is unconstitutional.

This claim is also false, but it has serious advantages in getting the results Trump, his legal team, and Senate Republicans want. First, it prevents Republicans from having to conduct a trial on whether Trump engaged in incitement while Trump is actively engaged in more incitement. Second, it lets the Republicans lean back into technical arguments they’ve already made about the legality of impeachment post-term. It’s an argument that lets Republicans vote to acquit Trump while still maintaining that they’re just darn horrified about the insurgency thing.

Which is, of course, the whole reason that Republicans launched the claim that impeaching Trump after they purposely allowed the clock to run out is unconstitutional. It’s certainly not because any of them feel there’s a real constitutional issue, and they know their position breaks with past Senate precedent. It’s a position designed to let them have it both ways: They can claim to be against what Trump did without ever going on record against Trump.

And the only thing that could get in their way … is Trump.

Republican threat over calling witnesses reveals fundamental misunderstanding of Trump’s impeachment

Posted on by Mark Sumner

Lindsey Graham, who is, just as evidence that we have not yet exited the worst timeline, still the chair of Senate judiciary committee, went on Fox News Monday evening to deliver a threat. Should House impeachment managers attempt to call a single witness during Trump’s trial before the Senate, Republican senators are going to want witnesses of their own. Which could make this trial last just ages.

But this time around Graham isn’t threatening to call witnesses about such non sequiturs as what Hunter Biden did in Ukraine. Instead the threat is much stranger. If Democrats call even a single witness, it will “open up Pandora’s Box,” according to Graham. Because Republicans will “want the FBI to come in and tell us about how people actually pre-planned this attack.” It’s a threat that’s not only not a threat, it’s one that shows that Graham hasn’t actually read the impeachment documents.

The reason that Graham, and other Republicans, are putting forward “calling in the FBI” as a threat is because of a very simple theme they’ve been repeating since before Trump was actually impeached, again, in the House. If the impeachment is all about Trump inciting the mob that marched on the Capitol, murdered a police officer, and ultimately caused more American deaths than Benghazi while erecting a gallows on the lawn; then the fact that many of those insurgents came prepared for sedition means it’s not Trump’s fault.

Not only is that argument completely foolish on its face, it ignores what’s actually in the impeachment. The supporting materials submitted to the Senate make it explicitly clear that there is more to Trump’s impeachment than a single morning or a single speech. 

In the months leading up to January 6, 2021 President Trump engaged in a course of conduct designed to encourage and provoke his supporters to gather in Washington, D.C. and obstruct the process of the electoral votes that would confirm his defeat. That conduct spanned months and included frivolous and harassing lawsuits, direct threats to state and local officials, and false public statements to his supporters, all in an effort to incite his supporters into believing it was their patriotic duty to attack Congress and prevent the peaceful transition of power. 

The incitement over which Trump was impeached took place not just on the morning of Jan. 6, but in the preceding months. During those months, Trump repeatedly lied about the outcome of the election, fed a rising tide of rage among his supporters with claims he knew were false, told white supremacist militias to “stand by,” and called on his forces to gather on the day when electoral votes were counted for a “wild” event.

As the impeachment makes clear, Trump acted to “undermine confidence in the results of the election, spread dangerous disinformation, and stoke false and wild conspiracy theories.” The whole body of that action is the reason for Trump’s impeachment and the subject of his trial before the Senate. Trump specifically and repeatedly pointed out Mike Pence and members of Congress as targets for the hatred of the supporters he had inflamed with a stream of continuous lies.

So why does Graham think calling the FBI to speak to how the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and others came prepared to storm the Capitol and seek congressional hostages is somehow a threat to the Democratic case? That’s because from the very beginning Republicans—and especially Republicans appearing on Fox and other right-wing media—have been repeating a claim that the impeachment is all about Trump inciting the march on the Capitol in his speech at the “Stop the Steal” rally that morning. According to the framing they’ve been selling Fox viewers, if Trump didn’t expressly tell people to invade the Capitol that morning, he wasn’t really responsible. And if any of the treasonous mob came prepared to violence, it’s proof that the insurgency was not Trump’s fault.

Unfortunately for Graham and others, this reading of the impeachment is as fantastical as the lies Trump told leading up to Jan. 6. The impeachment makes it clear that Trump worked for months to build anger and hatred among his supporters though repeated lies about the election. Trump supporters began planning violence against election supervisors in both Nevada and in Pennsylvania within hours of Trump standing up in the early hours of Nov. 4 to falsely claim victory. Trump encouraged that violence in every statement, every rally, every tweet between the election and Jan. 6. Trump didn’t even disown the invaders while they were inside the Capitol, stepping out to say “we love you” and calling them “very special.”

If Lindsey Graham thinks that calling the FBI is some kind of threat … call them. Call in the agents that have been imbedded with the Proud Boys and Ohio Militia. Call in the agents that have been warning of the increased threat of white supremacist violence, only to have their warnings swatted down. Call them all. If what it takes to purge Trump from the system is pouring out all the poison in public, let’s do that.

It shouldn’t be required. As Graham says in his interview on Fox, he “knows what happened that day.” It should be more than enough to convict Trump and remove the possibility that he will ever again hold public office. But if it’s not … witnesses, sir. Let us have the witnesses.

McConnell is terrified of Trump, but why isn’t he worried about a center-right Republican revolt?

Posted on by Mark Sumner

When Mitch McConnell gave a hint that—following that little thing where violent Trump supporters engaged in a deadly insurgency where they pushed aside police and went roaming the halls of Congress for congressional hostages—it might possibly, maybe, be okay to, just this once, hold Donald Trump accountable for inciting sedition, the response was simple. Trump broke out a few Patriot Party pins, hinting that he and his remaining followers might just slink away to some place where they were free to stage all the insurrections they liked without the pesky threat of someone wiggling The Finger of Concern. That was all it took to snap McConnell and crew back into line. Only five Republicans in the Senate were even willing to allow that impeaching Trump is constitutional, a question that is about as controversial as “is the sky blue?”

The ease with which Trump’s threat to shave some fraction of the party’s voters away generated boot-clicks (and licks), raises the question: Why doesn’t someone else do this? It’s possible to debate whether “sane conservative party” is an oxymoron, but back before the election—and even before the previous election—there were plenty of Republicans who claimed they were ready to pull up stakes and start a new party to save the old Grand Old.

So why haven’t they?

Here’s conservative author Tom Nichols writing in The Atlantic back in September 2020.

I was a Republican for most of my adult life.

[…]

I understand the attachment to that GOP, even among those who have sworn to defeat Donald Trump, but the time for sentimentality is over. That party is long gone. Today the Republicans are the party of “American carnage” and Russian collusion, of scams, plots, and weapons-grade contempt for the rule of law. The only decent, sensible, and conservative position is to vote against this Republican Party at every level, and bring the sad final days of a once-great political institution to an end. Then build the party back up again—from scratch.

Instead, argues Nichols, sensible conservatives should allow the GOP to crash and burn, so that it can be resurrected or replaced by a new “center-right party.”

A month later, conservative pundit Max Boot pulled out one of history’s most famous misquotes to make his point.

“We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” That famous, if probably apocryphal, quote from the Vietnam War describes how I feel about the Republican Party. We have to destroy the party in order to save it. 

As a lifelong Republican until Nov. 9, 2016 — and as a foreign policy adviser to three Republican presidential candidates—it gives me no joy to write those words. It’s true that the party had long-standing problems—conspiracy-mongering, racism, hostility toward science—that Donald Trump was able to exploit. But he has also exacerbated all of those maladies, just as he made the coronavirus outbreak much worse than it needed to be.

Instead, says Boot, America needs a … sane center-right party. 

Then in December, well after the election, when it was clear Trump was going to keep clawing away at the party no matter what, the Never Trumpers’ never Trump Evan McMullin popped up in The New York Times to keep on pounding that drum. 

So what’s next for Republicans who reject their party’s attempts to incinerate the Constitution in the service of one man’s authoritarian power grabs? Where is our home now?

The answer is that we must further develop an intellectual and political home, for now, outside of any party. From there, we can continue working with other Americans to defeat Mr. Trump’s heirs, help offer unifying leadership to the country and, if the Republican Party continues on its current path, launch a party to challenge it directly.

These are far from the only voices to raise the idea of walking away from the Republican Party of Trump and taking their ball elsewhere. Though in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s election Republicans were still talking about just waiting him out then dragging the party back to center, everyone acknowledges that this is no longer possible. The Republican Party isn’t just a party led by Trump, it’s a party about Trump. With ideas and a foundation that goes no deeper than Trump’s.

And why not? It may be easy to see that under Trump Republicans managed to lose the House, then the White House, then the Senate. What’s less clear is how thoroughly they’ve cleansed their institutional memory. Of Republicans now serving in the House, 85% have never served under a Republican president who was not Donald Trump. He is all that they know.

That may explain why most congressional Republicans are so quick to roll over when Trump snaps his fingers. It doesn’t explain why no one has followed through on the plan that conservatives have been talking up since before Trump took office. A whole cadre of Republicans from Jeff Flake to Justin Amash left the GOP—and their positions in Congress—after getting crossways with Trump. None of them has been out there on the hustings ringing the bell for the New Center-Right Party of Traditional Republican Dreams.

Donald Trump may not be able to get an accused pedophile elected in Alabama, or boost an inside trader back to office in Georgia. But he has demonstrated repeatedly that he can raise the temperature of his supporters high enough to knock good candidates out of Republican primaries. And there’s no doubt that Trump means it when he says he lives for revenge. Whether it’s Mitt Romney or Liz Cheney, every single Republican who supported Trump’s impeachment (#1 or #2) is certain to get meet a frothing Trump supporter in their next primary.

So why don’t they beat Trump at his own game? Why aren’t Romney and Murkowski parked in McConnell’s office letting him know that, unless he encourages the party to wake up and smell reality, they’re going to start a new party? Bring in Flake. Bring in Amash. Enlist the pens of all those pundits and the pocketbooks of the Lincoln Project. Put up a New Republican Party candidate for every House and Senate seat.

After all, their threat is just as good as Trump’s. They don’t have to be able to win. They don’t even have to be able to swing a majority of Republicans with them. In a lot of districts they’d need to persuade just 10%, or 5%, or 2% of Republicans to join them to make sure the GOP loses a slot. And that’s what all those pundits and former officeholders and real red Republicans have been saying—the party needs to get a few shots until it wakes up and comes back to itself.

So again, why aren’t they doing it? The biggest reason is … they don’t really mean it. Or at least they don’t mean it enough to put in more work that writing a guest column.

Donald Trump and his white supremacist militias planned assault on Capitol long before Jan. 6

Posted on by Mark Sumner

Jan. 6 may have been the culmination of Donald Trump’s efforts to overthrow a U.S. election, but it certainly was not the beginning. Even before the 2016 election, Trump began telling his supporters that American elections were corrupt. He repeated and amplified claims of voting by “dead people,” lied about Democratic officials bringing in “boxes of ballots,” and—especially after he lost the popular vote by more than 3 million—made enormous false claims about voting by “illegal immigrants.”

Trump never backed away from his lies about the 2016 election. Neither did his spokespeople in the White House, at Fox News, or across the rest of the right-wing media. By the time of the 2020 election, Trump had more than doubled down on claims that any election that failed to show him as a victor was a false election. He assailed mail-in ballots. He revived old conspiracy theories about voting machines. He ignored legitimate warnings from security officials about Russian attempts to interfere in the election and instead pushed false concerns about other nations working to help Democrats. He created a situation in the mind of his supporters where anything other than a landslide victory was “proof” that of a fraudulent election.

Before dawn on the day after the election, Donald Trump stepped in front of cameras to claim that he had won. Then both Trump and a collection of white nationalist militias set out to make that happen by destroying democracy.

That Trump would actually lose the election was certainly no surprise to anyone paying attention. Trump supporters may have turned out in greater numbers than pollsters expected, but the revulsion that four years of his chaotic reign generated brought those opposed to Trump out in numbers great enough to swamp that support. Joe Biden didn’t just reverse Trump’s surprise victories in Rust Belt states, he flipped states like Arizona and Georgia. The election results were a clear signal of how Trump’s actions to even more closely marry Republicans to overt racism, xenophobia, and isolationism had damaged the party far more than many realized. 

Trump certainly wasn’t surprised by the results on Election Day. He had not only already salted the earth with claims of election fraud, he immediately called on his supporters to interfere with the proper counting of votes in places ranging from Philadelphia to Detroit to Las Vegas. Trump immediately dispatched multiple legal teams to begin filing lawsuits in defense of his claims. And he immediately began calling officials at every level in an effort to secure their cooperation in defeating democracy.

Like Trump, members of the white supremacist militia movement were not surprised by the outcome. After years of receiving signals from Trump that it was okay to “get rough” and being told to “stand by,” these groups were more than prepared to respond to Trump’s loss at the polls.

As The Washington Post reports, indictments unsealed on Wednesday show that members of the Oath Keepers—a group that recruits heavily among the military and law enforcement—were already recruiting for assault on the Capitol by Nov. 9, just six days after the election. They didn’t just reach out to existing members of their organization; a group of (now arrested) Ohio members planned a “basic training” camp to prepare new members to fight in overturning the election. And while the stories of “antifa busses” that have constantly circulated on the right are entirely fiction, the white supremacist militia group was definitely planning to bring “at least one full bus 40+ people coming from N.C.” along with massive amounts of weaponry. The plans even included describing how weapons would be brought in advance using a truck so that in case the bus was stopped, the militia members would be able to continue to Washington.

Some Republicans have—bizarrely—suggested that the fact that the insurgency on Jan. 6 involved advanced planning somehow absolves Trump of the charges in his impeachment. After all, his speech that morning could hardly have incited the mob to break out the tiki torches if they came to Washington prepared to execute … executions.

The problem with that argument is everything. First of all, the impeachment documents make it clear that the problem was greater than just Trump’s words at a single “Stop the Steal” rally. A timeline of events just since Election Day makes it clear that Trump’s incitement began well before the morning of the insurgency. Trump was very deliberate in everything he did leading up to that day, including the signals he sent to groups like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other white supremacist militias. 

Events on Jan. 6 were not a spontaneous uprising. That’s exactly the point. They were the result of actions Trump took—not just on that day, not just since Election Day, but over a period of years—to activate a white supremacist base, reassure them of support, and encourage them to take violent action. Militia members arrested after participating in the insurgency sent messages in advance with statements such as, “If Trump activates the Insurrection Act, I’d hate to miss it.” They didn’t do that out of thin air. They did it because Trump supporters from Michael Flynn to Mike Lindell were openly encouraging Trump to take this action and they were still being invited to speak at Trump events.

Trump didn’t cross the Rubicon on Jan. 6. He waded through that stream day by day over a period of years. 

In the immediate wake of the insurgency, Republicans seemed aghast to find the barbarians weren’t just at the gates, but inside the building. Calls to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment didn’t just come from Democrats. The idea that impeachment might clear the two-thirds hurdle in the Senate were taken seriously.

But all it took was the merest glimmer of disapproval from Trump to bring Republicans back in line. He didn’t even have to step off the golf course to have Tucker Carlson declaring that the Rubicon was barely a creek after all or to get the weakest spine in Congress to blame the whole insurgency on Nancy Pelosi. Republican leaders had every opportunity over the last three weeks to finally pry their party away from Trump, and to do so in a way that might have left both them, and the nation, stronger. Instead, they fainted at the first mention of the dreaded “third party.”

As with every other Trump outrage, Republicans voiced momentary outrage. Then they backed away just long enough to catch the next hand signal from Trump and from Fox. Reassured, they then stepped forward again to pretend—as they always do—that whatever Trump did was no big deal, not worth raising a fuss about, and after all didn’t Hillary Clinton once something something email? Now we’re at the point where they’re declaring that the real outrage isn’t that armed insurgents broke into the Capitol, spread blood and excrement along the walls, ransacked congressional offices, and went looking for hostages to send to the gallows waiting outside. The real outrage is that anyone is raising a fuss. The next step is the one where Republicans demand an official Trump Bridge to commemorate that patriotic Rubicon crossing. And a Jan. 6 federal holiday for celebrating his triumph.

When the next violent assault goes even further, expect Republicans to be momentarily scandalized. But only momentarily.

GOP willing to overlook murder of police and desecration of Capitol to show their love for Trump

Posted on by Mark Sumner

Conservative Republicans have tried to dismantle labor unions as long as there have been labor unions. On the other hand, Republicans also long ago made their bet as the “party of law and order,” a position that has glorified every aspect of policing. That combination meant that of all unions, police unions have flourished not just with Republican blessings, but bolstered by racism, anti-immigrant policies, and disdain for public service that defines the GOP. As a result, when police unions make the news, it’s often because they’re defending officers in the shooting of an unarmed Black person, or defending the use of violence against peaceful protesters.

But that’s not the case with a statement that came out from the Capitol Police union on Wednesday. The union isn’t concerned about protecting the actions of some “rogue cop.” They’re outraged over what they see as a betrayal by leadership—at the Capitol police, and in the Pentagon. Testimony by the acting chief of the Capitol Police before the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, made it clear that leadership knew days in advance that Jan. 6 “would not be like any of the previous protests.” They knew that armed militia groups were coming. They knew white supremacist groups were answering Donald Trump’s call. They knew violence was likely and that Congress was the target.

They knew all that. They just failed to react in a way that would protect lawmakers, or police.

The statement makes it clear that the events of Jan. 6 took a huge toll on the Capitol police. “We have one officer who lost his life as a direct result of the insurrection. Another officer tragically took his own life. Between USCP and our colleagues at the Metropolitan Police Department, we have almost 140 officers injured. I have officers who were not issued helmets prior to the attack who have sustained brain injuries. One officer with two cracked ribs and two smashed spinal discs. One officer is going to lose his eye, and another was stabbed with a metal fence stake.” (On Wednesday, a member of the Metro D.C. Police who fought against insurgents on Jan. 6 also took his own life.)

Understandably, the fury of the union is directed mainly at their own leadership, including former Chief Steven Sund, acting Chief Yogananda Pittman, and Assistant Chief Chad Thomas all of whom it says were aware by Jan. 4 that Trump’s invitation for a “wild” event two days later was likely to result in mass violence. Even so, only 170 police were issued with riot gear and police were not given the chemical weapons or flash bangs that were used against peaceful protesters during Black Lives Matter protests over the summer.

Despite Pittman’s lengthy closed-door testimony on Wednesday, there continues to be confusion about events leading up to the insurgency in which police were overwhelmed by thousands of violent Trump supporters who forced their way into the Capitol. Sund had previously claimed, and Pittman testified, that police leadership requested permission from the police board to alert the National Guard. However, the only member of that board who has not resigned, Architect of the Capitol Brett Blanton, issued his own statement on Wednesday indicating that he was unaware of any such request and that there was no meeting of the police board on the date Pittman indicated. 

There are still dozens of unanswered questions about exactly why police failed to prepare for an event they knew was going to bring thousands of violent, armed extremists to Washington D.C. That’s not just true of actions by the Capitol Police. There are still no answers from Pentagon officials who both restricted the authority of the local guard commander and dithered for hours even as insurgents were hunting hostages in the halls of Congress.

And there’s the biggest question of all: Why was any of this necessary? Why did it take pleas from Washington’s mayor, from the police, and from National Guard leadership to get things moving? Why did the reports of the National Guard being authorized, when they finally came, include only the word that they had been supported by Mike Pence? 

The biggest unanswered question of Jan. 6 is what did Donald Trump do? The House has already impeached Trump for his actions in inciting the seditionists who marched on the Capitol, murdered a police officer, smashed their way into the building, and waged a war on democracy that included deploying pipe bombs and chemical spray. But why, when the images of this insurgency were being broadcast to the White House, did Trump not immediately order the military to provide support to the besieged police? 

Yes, police actions appear to have been confused. Yes, Pentagon officials appear to have weighed the “optics” of sending in forces in a way that’s completely inappropriate. Yes, the complex mess of D.C.’s unique status generated additional steps that made everything move more slowly. None of that should have mattered. Because the moment insurgents broke through the first police line, Donald Trump should have been on the phone to order more support for the badly outnumbered officers at the Capitol. 

He didn’t. He didn’t because, by all accounts, Trump was busy watching in approval. Trump took the time to step out of the White House and tell the people beating down police with thin blue line flags, "We love you, you’re very special.” He did not take the time to provide support to the police.

And that’s the man that the Republican Party didn’t just crown as its leader, it’s the man they are still defending. Still following. Still supporting. The party of law and order is now the party that is willing to “move on” from cop killers and seditionists. To move on from the greatest crime ever committed by any American official. Benghazi was worth no less than 33 hearings, even though none of those hearings ever surfaced a crime. Now, despite the seriousness of the event, Republicans just want to … let it go.

Not because they don’t realize the scale of that crime. But because they still worship that criminal.

There’s one thing that can both help ensure that protecting the nation’s capital isn’t hampered by shifting rules, and break the logjam in the Senate: Sign up to support D. C. statehood.

Timeline of the events leading up to Jan. 6 insurgency shows Trump engaged in multiple coup attempts

Posted on by Mark Sumner

As the second impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump gets underway, House managers will be presenting a case that extends beyond the brief impeachment article to include a number of items that extend beyond the speech Trump delivered on the day of the Capitol invasion. The documents filed along with the impeachment legislation document a number of instances in which Trump paved the way for the insurrection by inflaming crowds over the election and encouraging violence.

But Trump was engaged in multiple other activities that extend beyond those covered in the impeachment documents, but are intimately related to events on Jan. 6. That includes efforts to pressure local officials into illegally altering votes, replacing officials in military and intelligence positions that might have pushed back against violence, and engaging in an effort to throw out the acting attorney general and use the Department of Justice to disrupt the final count of the electoral vote.

Over the weekend, I made a first draft of a timeline showing events leading up to the insurgency on January 6. This version has been updated to include more dates, more events, and many more reasons while Trump should be convicted.

Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results can be broken down into five broad categories:

⚪ Timeline event for purposes of clarification 🔵 Legal challenges on both state and federal level 🟢 Recounts, signature challenges, etc. 🟡 Efforts to suborn perjury from state officials or coerce state legislators 🟠 Reverse coup using government to defy election results 🔴 Overt calls to violence

In this timeline, the legal challenges are given very light treatment. Most of the 62 lawsuits filed by Trump’s legal team—teams, actually—were aimed at overturning the vote in one of six states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The only lawsuit that Trump’s team won out of this whole collection was a ruling on how long voters had to “cure” mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania … which ultimately had no effect on the results in that state. So only a few “highlights” of these challenges are provided in this far-from-complete timeline. In this update, I have included a few events from Trump’s legal team, because they served the same purpose as that Jan. 6 rally—inflaming conspiracy theories, and encouraging Trump supporters to overturn the election through any means.

Timeline

🟡 Nov. 04—A mob of Trump supporters gathers outside the Maricopa County Elections Department offices in Phoenix, Arizona, claiming that Republican votes are not being counted because of “SharpieGate.” First “Stop the Steal” group forms on Facebook.

🔵 Nov. 05—Trump initiates a string of lawsuits, including sending Pam Bondi and Corey Lewandowski to Pennsylvania for threatened legal action.

🟡 Nov. 06—Trump campaign seeks volunteers to engage in election fraud in Pennsylvania by submitting late ballots.

🔵 Nov. 06—Trump lawsuit count in Pennsylvania alone reaches 16, as “garbage” suits proliferate in Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia.

🔴 Nov. 06—Armed QAnon fanatics are arrested outside Philadelphia election center as part of Trump-organized “Stop the Steal” rally.

🔴 Nov. 08—Rudy Giuliani leads the press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Claims that thousands of dead people voted in Philadelphia.  “Joe Frazier is still voting here—kind of hard, since he died five years ago.” Giuliani also lies about voting machines and election officials while claiming that Trump won the state.

🟠 Nov. 09—Trump replaces Secretary of Defense Mark Esper for failing to support Trump’s efforts to bring active duty military into Washington, D.C., during Black Lives Matter protests.

🟠 Nov. 10—Trump shuffles leadership at Pentagon, bringing loyalists to critical positions.

🟠 Nov. 10—William Barr authorizes U.S. attorneys to pursue false claims of election fraud, triggering resignation of DOJ’s Election Crimes Branch, Richard Pilger.

🟠 Nov. 10—Mike Pompeo declares there will be a ”smooth transition to a second Trump administration.”

🟡 Nov. 10—Trump pressures Georgia Senate candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue to support his claims of election fraud in that state, or be cut off from his support in their Senate runoffs.

🔴 Nov. 11—Experts warn that Trump’s lies about the election are sending followers “spiraling” toward violence; white supremacist groups boil in confusion.

🔵 Nov. 12—Trump campaign sues to stop vote count in Georgia counties with the highest numbers of Black voters.

🔵 Nov. 12—Trump lawsuits in Arizona founder, as lawyers withdraw and the Trump team asks a judge to seal the evidence.

🟠 Nov. 12—Trump continues shuffling chairs at Pentagon, moving former Devin Nunes aide Kash Patel into the position of chief of staff, and Michael Flynn protégé Ezra Cohen-Watnick into the role of undersecretary for intelligence.

🔴 Nov. 14—Trump stages “Million MAGA March” in Washington, D.C., including a “Stop the Steal” rally and thousands of white supremacist extremists descend upon the capital city in a preview of the  Jan. 6 insurgency. Violence erupts among MAGA marchers, as groups including Proud Boys, American Guard, and Oath Keepers instigate assaults … as Trump sent statements of encouragement.

🟡 Nov. 16—Lindsey Graham calls Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, asks him to throw out all absentee ballots.

🔵 Nov. 16—Trump’s legal team is forced to retract a major portion of Pennsylvania lawsuit after being caught in a lie.

🟠 Nov. 17—Trump fires Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency chief Christopher Krebs after Krebs declares that election was “most secure” in the nation’s history and denies there is any evidence of election fraud.

🟢 Nov. 17—Georgia conducts a hand recount of ballots, confirming Biden’s victory there.

🟢 Nov. 18—Trump demands recount of the two most Democratic counties in Wisconsin.

🔴 Nov. 18—Arizona secretary of state releases a statement in response to continued threats of violence.

🟡 Nov. 19—Trump calls members of thee Wayne County, Michigan Board of Canvassers in attempt to prevent certification of votes from Detroit.

🔵 Nov. 19—Sidney Powell calls for votes to be overturned in all states Biden won as Trump “exerts full power of his office” to reverse election.

🔴 Nov. 20—A Michigan militia plot to takeover state capital, execute governor, is revealed. Trump calls for MAGA revolt.

🟡 Nov 20—Trump summons Michigan Speaker of the House Lee Chatfield and state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey to the White House in an effort to persuade them to block certification of votes in Wayne County.

🔵 Nov. 25—Trump and Pennsylvania GOP leaders stage a “Gettysburg conference,” as Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis promote list of conspiracy theories to be incorporated into new lawsuit.

🟡 Nov. 30—Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp reminds Trump that election fraud is illegal after Trump posts series of tweets attempting to get Kemp to overturn election results.

🟢 Nov. 30—Wisconsin conducts a recount in only the two most heavily Democratic counties (the only counties where Trump would pay for it). Biden picks up 87 votes.

🟡 Nov. 30—Rudy Giuliani appears before the Arizona legislature, urging them to throw out election results and name a slate of Trump electors.

🟠 Dec. 02—Recently pardoned Michael Flynn takes out a full-page ad in The Washington Post calling on Trump to overturn civilian government and institute “limited martial law.”

🟡 Dec 05—Trump calls Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to demand that he hold a second election.

🟠 Dec. 05—Kash Patel blocks Pentagon and intelligence officials from sharing data with Biden’s team.

🟢 Dec. 07—Georgia conducts a machine recount and audit of votes.

🔴 Dec. 07—“Stop the Steal” protests funded by the Trump campaign continue to bring out armed extremists across the nation.

🔵 Dec. 08—The Supreme Court refuses to hear Trump’s Pennsylvania challenge.

🟠 Dec. 08—Republican leaders in Congress cooperate with Trump to block Joe Biden from access to information and funds needed for transition.

🔵 Dec. 09—Michigan Supreme Court rejects a request for a “special master” to take control of ballots and order a third-party recount in Detroit in narrow 4-3 decision.

🟡 Dec. 10—Trump threatens Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr after Carr defends integrity of Raffensperger.

🔵 Dec. 11—The Supreme Court rejects a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, that attempts to overturn the vote in four other states. That lawsuit was supported by other Republican attorneys general, and by 126 Republican members of the House.

🟠 Dec 11—Trump plans to insert Kash Patel as deputy to CIA Director Gina Haspel, and then fire Haspel, making Patel acting director. The plan falls apart when Haspel threatens to resign and reveal everything that’s been going on.

🔴 Dec. 12—Texas Republicans respond to failure of seditious suit with calls for secession.

🟡 Dec. 13—Trump once again claims that he won the election “overwhelmingly,” and says there was “massive fraud.” He claims that Democrats voted two, three, or four times, and declares that he will “never give up.”

🔴 Dec. 13—“Stop the Steal” rallies continue to be accompanied by violence across the country as Trump fanatics swear to never surrender.

🟠 Dec. 13—House Republicans sign onto plan to nullify election if the Electoral College votes for Biden.

⚪ Dec. 14—The Electoral College votes to deliver victory to Joe Biden.

🔴 Dec. 14—Michigan Republicans propose a plan to overturn electoral vote and send their own slate of electors to Congress, even it requires violence.

🔵 Dec. 14—Wisconsin Supreme Court tosses Trump’s lawsuit seeking to have 221,000 voters disenfranchised, in a narrow 4-3 decision.

🟠 Dec. 15—Trump brings new acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to White House, insists he appoint special investigators for election fraud, and announce support of Trump’s lawsuits. Rosen refuses.

🟢 Dec. 17—Michigan conducts a hand recount of votes in Antrim County, in response to Sidney Powell’s “Kraken” lawsuit. Totals change by just a dozen votes.

🔴 Dec. 17—The Proud Boys stage attacks on Black churches in Washington, D.C., in connection with a “Stop the Steal” gathering.

🟠 Dec. 18—Senate Republicans stage a hearing to promote Trump’s claims of election fraud, including disinformation and testimony from witnesses who had already had their claims thrown out of court.

🟠 Dec. 18—Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell meet with Trump and urge him to move forward on Flynn’s plan to institute martial law and force a “do-over” election where Trump sets the rules. Trump considers bypassing DOJ to make Powell special prosecutor in charge of a sweeping elections investigation.

🔴 Dec. 19—“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” tweets Trump. “Be there, will be wild!”

🔴 Dec. 21—Trump supporters storm the Oregon Capitol, force their way past police, and enter the Capitol building.

🟡 Dec. 23—Trump calls Georgia’s lead elections investigator and insists that he “find the fraud” in a lengthy conversation where he complained about other officials. Trump declares that the investigator would be a “national hero” if he overturns Georgia’s vote.

🟡 Dec. 23—Trump calls Raffensperger “an enemy of the people” for refusing to overturn the election.

🟡 Dec. 29—Raffensperger announces that the investigator has found no sign of fraud.

🟠 Dec. 30—Sen. Josh Hawley announces he will join House Republicans in objecting to electoral votes, ensuring that counting ceremony will take hours longer than necessary, and inflaming the importance of Jan. 6.

🟠 Dec. 31—Trump abruptly departs his News Years events at Mar-a-Lago to make an early return to Washington, D.C. Likely related to plans being made with Clark.

🟠 Jan. 01—DOJ officials warn B.J. Pak, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, that Trump is “obsessing” about his office and may take actions to replace him.

🟠 Jan. 02—DOJ attorney Jeffrey Clark meets with Trump. The two develop a plan in which Trump will replace acting AG Rosen with Clark, and Clark will then move forward to inform Georgia legislators that the DOJ is investigating serious election fraud in the state; simultaneously, Clark will file suit in effort to prevent Congress from counting electoral votes on Jan 6.

🟡 Jan. 02—Trump calls Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, asks him to “find” votes. He also warns that U.S. attorney B.J. Pak is a “never-Trumper” who won’t support him. The recording surfaces the next day, after a member of the secretary of state’s office releases recording due to Trump’s continued complaints about Raffensperger following the call.

🟠 Jan. 03—The recording drops just hours before Rosen and Clark meet with Trump and White House attorney Pat Cipollone. With the tape causing problems, Cippollone convinces Trump not to execute Clark’s plan.

🔴 Jan. 04—Trump attends a “Stop the Steal” rally in Georgia. “Democrats are trying to steal the White House … They’re not taking this White House. We’re going to fight like hell, I’ll tell you right now.“

⚪ Jan. 04— Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund asks House and Senate sergeants at arms for permission to place the D.C. National Guard on alert. His request is denied.

🔴 Jan. 05— Trump tweets that, “Washington is being inundated with people who don’t want to see an election victory stolen by emboldened Radical Left Democrats. Our Country has had enough, they won’t take it anymore!”

🔴 Jan. 05—Lauren Boebert tweets “Remember these next 48 hours. These are some of the most important days in American history.” Multiple lawmakers report seeing Boebert provide tours to a “large group,” which Boebert denies.

🔴 Jan. 05—Multiple  groups of Trump supporters post messages on social media endorsing use of force the following day. “If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.”

⚪ Jan. 05—Georgia Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win both of the state’s Senate seats in runoff election, giving Democrats control of the Senate.

🔴 January 06

  • 7:30 AM—Lauren Boebert tweets “Today is 1776.”
  • 8:17 AM— Trump once again tweets lies about election fraud. "States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!"
  • 10:51 AM—Speaking at the “Stop the Steal” rally immediately before the insurgency, Rudy Giuliani repeats lies about the election being stolen, calls the electoral ballots “fraudulent” and claims that 10% of votes were changed by voting machines. "Let's have a trial by combat.”
  • 12:15 PM—In his speech before the crowd, Trump tells them “We are going to have to fight much harder.” Trump repeats lies about the election, calls opponents criminals, and repeatedly attacks Pence for being weak. Trump tells crowd that the election outcome is an “egregious assault on our democracy,” and promises he will walk to Capitol with them. “You have to show strength,” says Trump. 
  • 12:30 PM—Following Trump’s call to march on the Capitol, supporters stream away even though Trump is still speaking. 
  • 12:49 PM—Police are notified of explosive devices outside both DNC and RNC headquarters.
  • 12:53 PM—Trump supporters confront small group of police at first of four temporary barriers. After a few minutes of shouting at police, Trump supporters push the barrier out of the way, pushing it into police and trampling over the fallen barrier.
  • 1:00 PM—Mike Pence and senators walk into House Chamber. Nancy Pelosi gavels the session to order at 1:03.
  • 1:09 PM—Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund asks House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving and Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger to declare an emergency and call for deployment of the National Guard. Irving and Stenger promise to make the call. However, Stenger fails to forward the request.
  • 1:10 PM—Trump finishes his speech after repeating calls to march on the Capitol. The reminder of his crowd begins moving toward the the Capitol building. At about the same time, a group of militia pull out bear spray and force Capitol Police back as fences one the west side of the Capitol are breached.
  • 1:12 PM—Ted Cruz objects to the counting of electoral votes from Arizona. With that objection, House and Senate members move back to their own chambers for two hours of debate.
  • 1:13 PM—Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund requests immediate assistance from the D.C. National Guard.
  • 1:15 PM—Insurgents climb scaffolding in front of the Capitol.
  • 1:17 PM—Lauren Boebert tweets “We are locked in the House Chambers.”
  • 1:18 PM—Lauren Boebert tweets “The Speaker has been removed from the Chambers.”
  • 1:34 PM—Phone call between Pentagon leaders and Washington D. C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.
  • 1:49 PM—Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund makes direct call to D.C. National Guard commander William Walker.
  • 1:58 PM—Police remove a barrier on the east side of the Capitol following a brawl with insurgents and more use of pepper spray by militia.
  • 1:59 PM—Insurgents push to the top of the stairs and begin hammering on the doors and windows of the Capitol.
  • 2:10 PM—Insurgents on west side rush police on the steps and reach doors on that side. Metro D.C. police take up position in tunnel beneath House.
  • 2:11 PM—Insurgents enter Capitol.

🟡 Jan. 09— B.J. Pak resigns.

🔴 Jan. 15—MyPillow founder Mike Lindell visits White House with papers urging Trump to carry through with Flynn’s plan for martial law.

⚪ Jan. 20—Joe Biden inaugurated as 46th president of the United States.

Trump’s second impeachment is about more than you think

Posted on by Mark Sumner

When the House acted swiftly to impeach Donald Trump for a second time on Jan. 13, the actual Articles of Impeachment were shockingly brief. With just five pages, the first of which is completely taken up with the names of sponsors who signed onto the resolution, the gist of the single article is that Trump repeatedly issued false statements that inflamed the crowd and incited insurgents on Jan. 6. The statements cited in the resolution include Trump’s oft-repeated claim that “we won this election, and we won it by a landslide” and more aggressive statements like “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Those statements, which Trump repeated at the rally he held shortly before the insurgents swarmed up the steps of the Capitol, may seem scant. And arguments over whether they are really incitement to violence may seem to allow Republicans a lot of wiggle room when it comes to their vote. 

But the article is not everything that House members will be bringing to the Senate when they come for Trump’s trial on Feb. 8.

In addition to the article itself, there are considerably more detailed supporting documents. These documents don’t just cite the statements that Trump made on the morning of the assault on the Capitol, they cover the whole period following the election and show how Trump laid the groundwork for violence. That means that things like the phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and tweets that Trump put out threatening any officials who got in his way, are fully covered. 

The document also details events on Jan. 6, including statements by Rudy Giuliani urging the crowd to have “have trial by combat,” and Donald Trump, Jr. warning Congress that “we’re coming for you.” And it points out how, when Trump got up to speak, he called out specific legislators as targets for the crowd’s hate before falsely telling them that he was going to walk up Pennsylvania Ave. with them.

The document is far from comprehensive. It doesn’t contain a full list of the 62 legal actions filed by Trump’s team. It doesn’t cover all the changes Trump made at the Pentagon following the election. It doesn’t discuss the scheme to sub in a Devin Nunes aide as head of the CIA. It doesn’t cover Michael Flynn’s plan to implement “partial martial law” or DOJ attorney Jeffrey Clark’s scheme to use the Justice Department to interfere in counting the electoral vote. 

But there is more than enough in the provided documents to show that the crowd that pushed through police to hunt hostages in the halls of Congress wasn’t just inflamed by a few offhand words Trump delivered on that Wednesday morning. The insurgency was the result of weeks of incitement and of planning by both Trump and other members of his team. It was neither spontaneous nor an accident. It was an attempted coup.

And members of a failed coup should expect to pay a price.

Trump plotted to toss the acting attorney general, insert a stooge, and block the electoral count

Posted on (Updated by Mark Sumner

Donald Trump driving a crowd into a violent attack on the Capitol may be the defining image that will remain in the minds of most Americans. But that assault on Jan. 6 wasn’t the only coup Trump planned. After his ridiculous legal ploys had all floundered; after his attempts to strong arm governors and secretaries of state had failed; after he had wined and dined state legislators in an attempt to prevent the certification of votes … Trump had another scheme.

The New York Times reports that Trump worked with Department of Justice lawyer Jeffrey Clark on a plan that would have removed acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, then Trump and Clark would use the DOJ to order Georgia legislators to reverse the outcome of the election in that state while blocking Congress from counting the Electoral College vote.

This plan was apparently only halted because of an accident of timing. And it shows once again how close Trump came to completely gutting American democracy.

It was absolutely clear that Trump was frustrated that former attorney general William Barr—who had done everything else to support Trump—refused to use the DOJ to support Trump's legal team in their baseless claims of election fraud. That doesn’t take speculation, because Trump said it openly. Barr refused to go along, telling reporters that the department had found no evidence of fraud. As a result, Barr stepped down in mid December and then Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen took on the acting AG role. 

As The New York Times reports, Trump immediately began to pressure Rosen to interfere in the few remaining steps before the Electoral College votes were counted. The day after Barr’s departure, Trump called Rosen to the White House. Trump pushed Rosen to announce that he was appointing special counsels to look into voter fraud, with one focusing on the unsupported claims—and outright lies—that Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell had been spreading about Dominion Voting Systems. And Trump called on Rosen to do what Barr had refused, file legal briefs in support of the lawsuits filed by Trump’s legal team.

When Rosen refused, Trump continued to press. He called Rosen repeatedly. He called him back to the White House and confronted him multiple times. Trump complained that the Justice Department was “not fighting hard enough for him” and pushed Rosen on why DOJ attorneys were not supporting the “evidence” being put forward by Giuliani and Powell.

But as Rosen continued to refuse, Trump went around him to work with Clark. According to the Times report, Clark told Trump that he agreed there had been fraud that affected the election results. Clark tried to pressure his bosses at the DOJ into holding a new conference to announce that it was “investigating serious accusations of election fraud.” But Rosen also refused to go along with Clark.

As Trump and Clark worked together, much of the attention was focused on Georgia, where Trump complained that the U.S. attorney in Atlanta, Byung Pak, was also not trying hard enough to defend Trump. In the conversation in which Trump attempted to threaten Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, he complained about Pak. DOJ officials warned Pak that Trump was “fixated” on forcing his office to go along with his plans.  That led to Pak’s resignation just a day before the Jan. 6 insurgency. 

As Trump was pushing on Raffensperger, Clark was continuing to try and force Rosen to act on Trump’s behalf. Clark drafted a letter falsely saying the DOJ was investigating voter fraud in Georgia and tried to get Rosen to send it to state legislators. Rosen again refused to go along with the scheme and on New Year’s Eve, Rosen and deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue met with Clark to tell him that his actions were wrong.

Rather than backing off, Clark went back to Trump. He met with Trump over the weekend, then came back to tell Rosen what they had decided. Trump and Clark concocted a plan in which Trump would replace Rosen with Clark. Clark would then use the DOJ in an effort to prevent Congress from counting the Electoral College results. Clark not only explained this plan to Rosen, but offered to allow Rosen to stay on as his deputy.

Rosen refused to go along and demanded a meeting with Trump. But what stopped Trump and Clark’s plan from moving forward was not some momentary lapse into reason or decency on Trump’s part. Instead, what happened was that, just as Rosen was preparing to meet with Trump, news broke that Raffensperger had recorded his conversation with Trump. Hearing Trump’s direct effort to force the Georgia secretary of state into “finding” votes, along with Trump’s threats over what would happen if Raffensperger failed to go along, apparently stiffened enough spines among the second tier officials at the DOJ that a whole group threatened to resign if Rosen was removed. The “Clark Plan” the group decided would “seriously harm the department, the government and the rule of law.”

That same evening, Rosen, Donoghue and Clark met at the White House with Trump, White House attorney Pat Cipollone, and other lawyers. Cippollone made it clear to Trump that pulling the trigger on the Clark Plan would not just generate chaos at the Justice Department, but result in a strong pushback from Congress, including investigations.

After nearly three hours of argument, Trump reluctantly backed away from firing Rosen and using the DOJ to smash open the election.

But it came that close. If the phone call with Georgia officials had not been released, if Rosen had not been able to rally the support of his deputies, if Trump had simply ignored Cippollone and ordered Clark to carry on … what would have happened next is anyone’s guess.

Is it too late to add additional charges to the impeachment?