Dear Attorney General Merrick Garland: What more does your Department of Justice need to send some FBI agents to arrest the “Orange Julius” Caesar in exile in Mar-a-Lago for seditious conspiracy and incitement of violent insurrection? What are you wiaitng for?
Over the weekend Donald Trump admitted to his coup plot in writing, promised that he would pardon the Trump mob for their violent seditious insurrection on January 6, and incited violent insurrection again by calling upon his red cap thugs in his private militia of domestic terrorists to violently defend him against prosecution by the New York Attorney General and Manhattan D.A., the Fulton County, Georgia D.A., the House Select January 6 Committee, and presumably the Department of Justice if it ever actually moves to enforce the law. Trump represents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States.
Trump boasting in his latest statement: the goal was to overturn the election—after touting at his rally that he’ll pardon Jan 6 insurrectionists. Every Republican candidate & official should go on record with their answer: Do you support sedition & pardoning domestic terrorists?
— Olivia of Troye (@OliviaTroye) January 31, 2022
Mother Jones reports, Trump Says Pence Should Have “Overturned the Election”:
Donald Trump had a busy weekend. At a rally on Saturday, he declared he might pardon the January 6 insurrections because they have been treated “so unfairly.” On Sunday, a day later, he issued a public statement suggesting that former Vice President Mike Pence should have “overturned” the election during the electoral vote counting ceremony.
Kind of a curious statement to make while DOJ is investigating the exact same plot to overturn the election that Trump is publicly promoting here https://t.co/IU7PsUdlTj
— Jeremy Duda (@jeremyduda) January 31, 2022
The latter statement was perhaps Trump’s most explicit admission so far that he had attempted to pressure Pence to throw out legitimately cast votes on the false pretext that massive voter fraud had swung the election to Joe Biden. In his statement, Trump attacked a bipartisan effort to reform the Electoral Count Act, the vague law governing the the counting of electoral votes. Trump and his associates had sought to exploit ambiguities in the act to seize power.
“If the Vice President (Mike Pence) had ‘absolutely no right’ to change the Presidential Election results in the Senate, despite fraud and many other irregularities, how come the Democrats and RINO Republicans, like Wacky Susan Collins, are desperately trying to pass legislation that will not allow the Vice President to change the results of the election?” Trump wrote. “Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away. Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!”
Trump’s statements echoed a strategy outlined in a widely ridiculed “coup memo” written by conservative lawyer John Eastman, which argued that Pence had the authority to toss out legitimate electoral votes and decide the election in his running mate’s favor. During discussions with Pence and Eastman in the oval office, Trump had reportedly urged his running mate to “listen to John.” Pence concluded that he did not have the authority to do so, and on the day of the electoral vote count, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol—some chanting “hang Mike Pence.”
Salon reports, Jan. 6 committee seizes on Trump’s “admission”: He wanted Pence to “overturn” election:
Members of the House committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot called out former President Donald Trump’s “admission” that he wanted Vice President Mike Pence to “overturn” his election loss.
Trump cited the recent bipartisan push to reform the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to claim that he was correct that Pence had the power to “change the outcome” of the election. The admittedly confusing law, which governs the certification of electoral votes, makes clear that the vice president’s role is purely ceremonial but Trump allies circulated a memo by right-wing lawyer John Eastman claiming that Pence had the power to unilaterally reject certain electoral votes on Jan. 6. A bipartisan group of senators is working on a bill that would clarify the law in an effort to deter similar efforts in the future.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., rejected Trump’s claim in an interview with CNN.
“We’re taking a look at the Electoral Count Act because it’s an old statute and … some of our colleagues in the House had tried to exploit ambiguities in it,” she said. “But I frankly think the role of the vice president will probably remain unchanged.”
Lofgren pointed out the irony of Trump’s claim, noting that if he believes the vice president can “choose the next president” then Vice President Kamala Harris would be free to reject electoral votes from Republican states in January 2025.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., one of the two Republicans on the Jan. 6 panel, called out the silence in his own party over Trump’s “admission.”
“He could have overturned the election.” This is an admission, and a massively un-American statement. It is time for every Republican leader to pick a side… Trump or the Constitution, there is no middle on defending our nation anymore. pic.twitter.com/Bp3dfn7cBe
— Adam Kinzinger (@AdamKinzinger) January 31, 2022
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the vice-chair of the committee, linked Trump’s statement to his earlier comments at a weekend rally in Texas, where he suggested he may pardon Capitol rioters charged in the Jan. 6 attack if he is elected again, and called for possible protests against the various prosecutors investigating him.
Trump uses language he knows caused the Jan 6 violence; suggests he’d pardon the Jan 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy; threatens prosecutors; and admits he was attempting to overturn the election.
He’d do it all again if given the chance.
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) January 31, 2022
At his Saturday rally in Texas, Trump claimed that Capitol rioters jailed on charges related to the attack were being treated unfairly.
“If I run and if I win, we will treat those people from Jan. 6 fairly,” Trump said at the event in Conroe, Texas. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly.”
Numerous Republicans pushed back on the comments. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a close Trump ally, called the statement “inappropriate.”
“I don’t want to send any signal that it was OK to defile the Capitol. … I don’t want to do anything that would make this more likely in the future,” Graham told CBS News on Sunday. “It will make more violence more likely,” he added. “I want to deter people who did what on Jan. 6. And those who did it, I hope they go to jail and get the book thrown at them because they deserve it.”
During the Texas rally, the ex-president also attacked New York Attorney General Letitia James, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis, all of whom are Black, over their various investigations into his company’s business practices and his effort to overturn his loss in Georgia.
“If these radical, vicious, racist Black prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we have ever had … in Washington, D.C, in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere because our country and our elections are corrupt,” Trump said.
The statement prompted Willis, who is investigating Trump’s attempt to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss, to contact the FBI. Willis sent a letter to J.C. Hacker, FBI special agent in charge of the Atlanta field office, asking for security assistance after “security concerns were escalated this weekend” by Trump’s rhetoric, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“I am asking that you immediately conduct a risk assessment of the Fulton County Courthouse and Government Center, and that you provide protective resources to include intelligence and federal agents,” Willis wrote. “It is imperative that these resources are in place well in advance of the convening of the Special Purpose Grand Jury.”
A court last week granted Willis’ request to impanel a special grand jury to investigate Trump.
“We must work together to keep the public safe,” Willis wrote to the FBI, “and ensure that we do not have a tragedy in Atlanta similar to what happened at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
Huffington Post adds, Trump Calls On Massive Protests If Prosecutors Go After Him And Offers Pardons To Jan. 6ers:
Former President Donald Trump Saturday night called on his followers to stage massive protests in multiple cities should prosecutors act against him. He also said he would offer pardons to those charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol that he incited in a last-gasp attempt to remain in power.
“If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere, because our country and our elections are corrupt,” he said to a rally audience in Conroe, Texas, reading from teleprompters set up on either side of his lectern.
A few minutes later, he claimed his followers who stormed the Capitol, assaulting police as they entered, were not being treated “fairly” and that should he run for the White House again and win: “If it requires pardons, we will give them pardons.”
The 80-minute performance, while riddled with Trump’s familiar lies about having had his reelection “stolen” from him in November 2020, was notable for the numerous references to the various investigations into him.
“They’re trying to put me in jail,” he said. “These prosecutors are vicious, horrible people. They’re racists and they’re very sick. They’re mentally sick. [So much psychological projection here.] They’re going after me without any protection of my rights by the Supreme Court or most other courts.”
Trump apparently still believes that it is the job of his Supreme Court to obstruct any investigation by law enforcement into his unlawful actions.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James has been conducting a civil probe of his family business, while the district attorney in Manhattan has been running a criminal investigation.
Meanwhile, the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, has impaneled a special grand jury just to focus on Trump’s attempt to coerce state officials to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss of that state to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020.
And the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 has been subpoenaing more and more former and current Trump aides to determine his precise role in that day’s events, while the Department of Justice this past week confirmed that it is investigating at least one element of Trump’s scheme to remain in power: the submission of fake Trump “electors” in states that Biden won.
Jason Easley adds, Trump Is So Scared Of Criminal Charges That He Threatened America (excerpt):
Trump Is Terrified Of Being Criminally Charged
Trump was sending the message that if he is criminally charged, he will order his supporters to attack America again.
Trump’s threat was not made from a position of strength.
The remarks were not the comments of a man who has a defense to offer or the resources to win a legal fight.
Donald Trump is trying to use whatever platform that he has left to keep himself out of jail.
Prosecutors get threatened all of the time, so no prosecutor is going to be deterred by Trump’s threat of people on the streets if he is criminally charged.
Trump is overestimating his power. Since he left office, support among Republicans for another Trump presidential run has plunged.
If enthusiasm for voting for him is lessening, people aren’t going to take to the streets to keep him out of jail.
Just like after he lost the election, Donald Trump is cornered, scared, and out of cards to play, so he is threatening the nation with civil unrest and violence.
“Trump basically said to go fuck them up,” Proud Boys leader Joe Biggs later said in a chat on the right-wing social media platform Parler. “This makes me so happy.”
Proud Boys Heard Trump’s New ‘Call To Arms,’ Jan. 6 Committee Rep. Zoe Lofgren Warns:
On CNN’s “Newsroom” on Sunday, Lofgren noted that the Proud Boys had a key role in organizing the U.S. Capitol riot, and that even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had said the Jan. 6 mob was “spun up” by Trump.
Now, with Trump’s latest remarks, the Proud Boys hear a new “call to arms,” Lofgren warned.
“I do think that we are in very dangerous territory with this rhetoric,” she said. “Those of us who are against chaos, those of us who believe in law and order, need to speak up strongly against this trend that the former president is encouraging.”
Lofgren also said she doesn’t worry about most Trump supporters, who voted for him and cheer him on.
“I do worry about the militias, some of these extremists groups,” she said.
Bob Brigham reports, When Trump calls for protests, his base hears ‘civil war’: Oath Keepers’ founder’s ex-wife:
The former wife of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes decoded what far-right extremists heard from Donald Trump’s widely-criticized weekend comments.
CNN’s Brianna Keilar reported that on Saturday in Texas was “one of Donald Trump’s most dangerous rallies yet.”
For analysis, Keilar and co-host John Berman interviewed Tasha Adams, who helped her then-husband found the Oath Keepers.
Berman asked, “When you hear the former president, Donald Trump, dangle the notion of pardons for, I presume, your estranged husband and the other capitol rioters, what’s your reaction?”
Absolute terror,” Adams replied.
“And it’s not just terror for me, it’s terror for a lot of these families, because as a lot of people know, there is a huge correlation between violence in the home and willingness to commit violence in the streets,” she explained. “Some of the families themselves turned in their family member because they were being abused at home and now, having done that, all of us have sort of, you know, we have gone for broke.”
“And a lot of us are, I think, realistically facing a potential death sentence if these guys get out,” she warned.
Berman asked about the safety of the nation.
“Donald Trump is trying to weaponize his supporters and I think he is afraid. I don’t know Donald Trump personally, obviously, but I lived under the Stewart Rhodes regime for a long time, so I certainly know the patterns and the behaviors of a grandiose narcissist who has a bit of a messiah complex,” she explained. “So I recognize an underlying threat immediately when I hear one and the threat is that he’s afraid he’s going to be indicted and wants to weaponize his supporters and it’s an absolute threat.“
“So help us understand, because obviously you know many of these people involved really well, you know how they think,” Berman said. “So when they hear Donald Trump say, yeah, I might pardon you, what do they hear?”
“Oh, they hear it’s their chance,” Adams replied. “I think it’s just going to stir up more violence.”
“In addition to the dangle of the pardon, the president called for the biggest protest ever if charges are filed against him in these various investigations,” Berman said. “So once again, tell us what these people hear when he says that.”
“They hear civil war,” Adams replied.
“To them, this is the civil war they’ve been waiting for. A lot of these guys live for this, they have been waiting for this, they spend their lives preparing for it, they look forward to it,” she explained. “There’s an air of disappointment when it doesn’t turn violent with these guys, I think, a lot of them.”
“These guys want a civil war,” she said.
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Ahem…Need to jump i here.
T4ump has been admitting to these things and more since 2015, officially.
Prior to that he was a crooked New York developer with mob ties and a wife who did soft core pr0n modeling while here illegally.
Arizona’s Rep. Ruben Gallego weighs in: “‘Throw him in jail!’ Dem lawmaker reacts to ‘mobster’ Trump’s proposal to pardon Capitol rioters”, https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-2656514684/
One Democratic lawmaker called for Donald Trump to be locked up on Sunday after the former president floated the idea of pardoning Jan. 6 insurrectionists if he recaptures the White House.
“It’s kind of like a mobster trying to tell some of his underlings that are under arrest right now, ‘Don’t talk, don’t worry, I’ll take care of you at the end,'” Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) told MSNBC. “Much of everything that actually Trump does is act like a mobster except being more corrupt and a lot dumber.”
“But the point we have to really be worried about is that he’s trying to incite people to violence in case the judicial process takes hold and actually holds him accountable,” Gallego added, referring to Trump’s call for “massive protests” if he’s prosecuted.
Gallego said those comments were “very dangerous” given that if such protests occurred, “there’s going to be pushback on the other side, and we just don’t want to go down that road.”
MSNBC host Alicia Menendez then played a clip of a Trump supporter who attended his rally on Saturday.
The Trump supporter, Rhoda Benfield, was asked what she makes of “how angry the country is right now at each other.”
“Let them fight it out,” Benfield responded. “You’re looking at another civil war anyway. Let them fight it out. America is not what it used to be. It used to be a great place to live. Now it’s not.”
Asked about his reaction to Benfield’s comments, Gallego said, “People like that are just unpatriotic. I can’t believe they’ve given up on America.”
“My family came here from different countries because they believe in America, and they still believe in America,” Gallego added. “The fact that you don’t have your preferred candidate and suddenly because of that reason, this country is horrible, tells you a lot about who you are, not who the country is. Most of these people hate America because they’re losers and they want to give excuses for everybody else as to why they’re no longer doing well. And instead of actually looking internally and realizing that they probably have some faults, they have to blame people of color, they have to blame a political party, when in fact most of the time it’s their own causes. And this is what Donald Trump is really good at, he’s really good at finding these losers and giving them a reason to blame everybody else except for themselves.”
Finally, Gallego was asked whether Trump’s offer of pardons for Capitol rioters “raises the stakes” of Jan. 6 investigations.
“It shouldn’t,” he responded. “The only reason it shouldn’t is because you should already understand the seriousness of this before he even opened his mouth. So if you are someone like AG (Merrick) Garland, you should obviously not look at this and say, ‘We have to move harder and faster,’ because you should already be doing that.”
“This is nothing that none of us haven’t heard before,” Gallego added. “This man is corrupt. He has no concept of morals. He has no concept of standards. Given the opportunity, he will try to steal the election again. He will try to overthrow the government again. This is why you have to hold him accountable, get the case together, throw him in jail, and throw all the people who were his co-conspirators in jail.”
Bob Brigham writes, “Trump’s latest outbursts ‘should disqualify him from ever holding office again’: analysis”, https://www.rawstory.com/trump-2656516948/
“Former President Donald Trump conjured a vision of a second term that would function as a tool of personal vengeance, and become even more authoritarian than his first, when he vowed to pardon US Capitol insurrectionists if he runs for the White House again and wins,” CNN’s Stephen Collinson reported. “As well as further threatening US democracy on Saturday night, Trump was preoccupied with his personal legal exposure. He fired off a wild attack, which looked to be racially-motivated, on two Black New York prosecutors investigating whether his business empire deliberately falsified accounts to get preferential treatment on loans and income taxes.”
[W]atergate figure John Dean warned Trump’s comments were “beyond being a demagogue to the stuff of dictators. He is defying the rule of law. Failure to confront a tyrant only encourages bad behavior. If thinking Americans don’t understand what Trump is doing and what the criminal justice system must do we are all in big trouble!”
Progressive CNN opinion writer Dean Obeidallah said Trump’s comments should be disqualifying.
“The former president’s suggestion of pardons for those who waged the January 6 attack to stop the peaceful transfer of power should disqualify him from ever holding office again. The same should be true if Trump calls on thousands to flood the streets to protest any criminal charges leveled against him personally — even if that leads to violence,” he wrote.
Former Ted Cruz speechwriter Amanda Carpenter agreed, posting a thread on Twitter explaining why Trump should be disqualified from ever running again: “He didn’t stop the rioters when he was President and wants to reward them if he becomes President again. It’s dereliction of duty, as he left the WH and tries to get back in. He should be disqualified from office. Period.”
And further: “This isn’t just on Trump. Anyone seeking or accepting Trump’s endorsement ought to be made to answer for Trump’s pardon talk for rioters. Again, this should be on its face disqualifying.”
“‘We are going to win by killing people’: Morning Joe warns that ‘fascist’ Trump made his plans clear”, https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-fascist/
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough condemned Donald Trump’s latest “fascist” remarks, and he said the former president’s rhetoric had grown so alarming that even Republican senators were pushing back.
[T] he “Morning Joe” host said there was no doubt that Trump was an authoritarian.
“You have seen the rise of authoritarianism, and it is certainly what we all understand Donald Trump has been wanting to do for quite some time,” Scarborough said. “If you can’t win an election, steal an election, overturn an election — that’s what he was saying, talking about Mike Pence. Yeah, he actually said some things — we haven’t been playing his rallies of late, but he actually said some things that were so inflammatory that you had Republicans coming out and actually criticizing him and saying, ‘Hey, no, no, let’s take a step back, we didn’t want to overturn the election, we were just talking about having some of the votes recounted.'”
“But, again, Donald Trump is now speaking in shorthand, now saying what he really means,” Scarborough added. “He wanted a free and fair election overturned. Why? Because he didn’t win, and, again, his words have consequences. This new sort of almost fascist — I don’t know, do you say almost fascist after Jan. 6 or do you say fascist? His fascist instinct to use violence to overturn government institutions, we’re actually seeing it at Trump events where you have people asking, when do we start using guns? You are seeing it at forums. This past weekend, I believe it was, you had a Michigan Senate candidate telling people to bring guns to polling places. If they didn’t win, they needed to be locked and loaded. Basically saying, if we can’t win at the ballot box we are going to win by killing people.”
Aaron Blake rites at the Washington Post, “Trump toys with the mob — again”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/30/trump-toys-with-mob-again/
Former president Donald Trump on Saturday night sent his strongest signal to date that he will fight his legal problems outside of a court of law. He encouraged people to engage in massive demonstrations in jurisdictions pursuing criminal investigations against him over Jan. 6 and tax-related issues. Then, minutes later, he said that if he’s reinstalled as president, he would consider pardoning some of the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters.
Both Trump comments were, as with many earlier ones about ongoing legal matters, carefully tailored. (Trump seemed to be reading them off a teleprompter rather than speaking extemporaneously.) The combination of the two comments, though, can’t help but conjure a repeat — or at least the suggestive prospect of a repeat — of the kind of lawlessness we saw just over a year ago.
[In] other words: I might use my extraordinary potential power to free those who broke the law to support me, and I would like you to consider assembling en masse to again rise up against another injustice that has befallen me.
[W] we need not look too far in the rearview mirror to see how his supporters can view this as a wink and a nod. Trump’s main defense with regard to incitement on Jan. 6 was that, yes, he told people to march to the Capitol, but he told them to “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” Nonetheless, numerous Capitol rioters have said they believed they were acting on the wishes of a president who had often toyed with the utility and suggestions of justified violence by his supporters.
And after what happened a little more than a year ago and all of the relevant history described above, it’d be pretty silly to pretend otherwise — or that Trump didn’t intend to plant that seed. One of the best legal protections he has right now is the fear that criminally charging a former president would inflame our divided country. And he served notice Saturday that he will happily stand by such a situation with a blowtorch in hand.