NBC News says the White House formally told Trump to bugger off with his dumb attempt to invoke executive privilege to shield archived documents from the House select committee’s January 6 probe:
WASHINGTON — The White House on Friday formally blocked an attempt by former President Donald Trump to withhold documents from Congress related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, setting up a legal showdown between the current and former presidents over executive privilege.
That’s a good start. The refusal is logical for the same reason my father would probably refuse if I asked him to reinstate my allowance, i.e., my former allowance was a privilege that was related to my status as a child, which is no longer the case. (Although Biden would probably reinstate his middle-aged children’s allowance; he seems a softer touch than my old dad.)
Now Trump’s lawyers will argue that he (Trump) retains the power to invoke executive privilege, forever, I guess. I don’t know what that “legal showdown” will entail. I’m not a lawyer, but my understanding is that it’s fairly well established that executive privilege isn’t a thing for ex-presidents and that the current president’s decision controls. But I’m sure Jonathan Turley will have a different take.
Anyhoo, in the next episode of “If We Can Keep It,” we’ll learn what happens if, as expected, the four Trumpsters who’ve been subpoenaed — Mark Meadows, Kash Patel, Dan Scavino and Steve Bannon — refuse to cooperate. From yesterday’s Post:
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the House select committee, threatened possible contempt charges for Trump’s former advisers if they do not comply with their subpoenas, saying it ultimately would be up to Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the Jan. 6 committee.
“I believe this is a matter of the utmost seriousness and we need to consider the full panoply of enforcement sanctions available to us, and that means criminal contempt citations, civil contempt citations and the use of Congress’s own inherent contempt powers.” Raskin said Thursday.
Again, not a lawyer, but it doesn’t seem likely that the committee will dispatch the Sergeant at Arms to clap that quartet of creeps in irons. Enforcing the subpoenas will require the involvement of the DOJ and the courts. I’ll be honest: this doesn’t fill me with confidence that the Trump gang won’t succeed in running out the clock in hopes of a more favorable congress.
I hope I’m wrong about that. Because if the people who tried to smother our democracy aren’t held to account, if the effort to even investigate the attempted coup gets mooted by bad-faith pettifoggery and idiotic institutional dithering, well, there goes the “rule of law” in its most important incarnation.
Open thread.
James E Powell
What’s next? Trump judges will do what they can to stop it.
germy
germy
MisterForkbeard
Oh no. Turley will say that Biden technically can do this but that it’s a betrayal of literally the entire country’s history and our democracy. I believe he’s already said as much, actually.
germy
MisterForkbeard
@germy: Eh. Not gonna believe this until I hear anything else about it from a reputable source.
germy
Trump told his former aides to ignore the subpoenas.
Obstruction of justice?
Raoul Paste
@germy: this sounds suspiciously like non-compliance wrapped in delay.
If the Democrats are not tough on this, It will cement their reputation as wusses, and depress their voter turnout. Surely they must know this
germy
@MisterForkbeard:
Rick Wilson just wants more people to send money to the Lincoln Project.
opiejeanne
The White House should just go ahead and release the docs or order them released. Let them sue.
Snarki, child of Loki
Use the “Inherent Contempt” power.
Throw the MAGAts into a cell in the House Basement.
Waterboard them until they talk.
Omnes Omnibus
Is there anyone who can offer an reason why the current DOJ would not take action to enforce these subpoenas?
germy
@MisterForkbeard:
Here’s their statement. (note the words “swiftly consider” in the full statement)
Old Man Shadow
Time to send the cops with instructions to taser and cuff those assholes.
Gravenstone
@Omnes Omnibus: I expect that they would. The more troubling issue (to me) is the rigmarole around “considering” referral of contempt charges. Those charges should have been written up in parallel with the subpoenas themselves, and submitted the moment the subpoena response periods expired. It ends up as a waste of limited time.
opiejeanne
@germy: Liz Cheney said Rick Wilson’s comment was full of shit.
germy
@Raoul Paste:
I think the committee means business. I don’t think they’ll tolerate anyone refusing to cooperate.
germy
@opiejeanne:
Good.
rikyrah
STOP THREATENING.
JUST DO.
JUST DO it to these clowns. Period.
kmeyerthelurker
Even if they get these people to show up & testify, its pretty well established that lying under oath comes naturally to the Trump gang. I guess we can jail them for perjury, but I don’t see much investigative purpose in these subpeonas.
lee
I take issue with this.
There is no ‘probably’ he absolutely would but he would send it to his grandkids.
topclimber
Isn’t it nice that the debt ceiling is gone for two months so this story can float closer to the top?
Omnes Omnibus
@Gravenstone: I am pretty sure they are written and ready to file. No one said how long they are going to consider.
hueyplong
I haven’t seen a lot of evidence that the Jan 6 commission people are just playing. Rick Wilson is moving clicks in an attempted win-win strategy in which he claims he was right all along about spineless Dems or else he claims it was his bold shrieking that finally moved them to do what they should have done all along.
Yawn.
Wilson now hates all the right people, but he was, is, and ever shall be a prick. For anyone who says something different, I have two words: Max Cleland.
germy
18 months in prison might do Bannon some good. Three low-calorie meals a day, an exercise yard, maybe some counseling.
Omnes Omnibus
@rikyrah: They need to follow the process. If they don’t, a judge could kick the contempt charge because they didn’t.
VOR
They need the Susan MacDougal treatment. Surely an attempt at a coup ought to be treated as least as seriously as a failed land deal in Arkansas by a then-state governor.
Ben Cisco
@germy: That, and a good hosing down/delousing
Also, if you delouse a louse, what’s left?
OzarkHillbilly
Laws are for little people.
SpaceUnit
I briefly scanned an article this morning (wish I could remember where!) about how Susan McDougal defied a subpoena during the Whitewater investigation. She spent 18 months in the pokey.
What comes around ought to go around
Edit: Oops, VOR beat me to it.
germy
@Ben Cisco:
Shave that hair off his head. Let his scalp breathe.
Winston
Great article to keep track of the defenses repubs are expected to use in the coming months: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/11/14/one-defenses-trump-is-literally-tv-sitcom-joke/
Side show bob is already in play.
Baud
The committee should just stop being transparent about the current developments. The liberal internet can’t deal with the information.
germy
@Winston:
something fabulous
Hey– am changing my default email, so this is just a comment to fish out when you have a moment! thanks!
Baud
@something fabulous: I hope you changed it to something fabulous.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Co-sign.
sab
@germy: Why on earth would anyone on the committee tell Rick Wilson anything?
Ben Cisco
@germy: This is also acceptable.
germy
@sab:
Exactly.
Jeffro
This is excellent, Betty!
raven
Go Braves!!!
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us
patroclus
These are document subpoenas to the National Archives, which will comply after these nonsense Executive priveledge claims are disposed of. The committee will get these documents unless the WH Counsel’s office decides that there is a good reason for them not to do so. Contempt referrals to the DOJ can only be pursued after the subpoenaed persons have shown contempt. Meadows and Patel are at least engaging in arguable good faith ; Bannon isn’t. I think a contetmpt referral should be issued immediately for Bannon – he deserves the Hollywood 10 treatment now.
hueyplong
@Ben Cisco: If the delousing is via ice water from the hoses, it will be Otto Preminger-esque.
WaterGirl
Washington Post
something fabulous
@Baud: HA!
Thought I’d end up in the bin. Either I was wrong in how that goes, or someone around here is pretty quick!
no-one shall ever know just how fabulous– mwah ha ha…
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
If they pull you over in Ohio and you throw a dime bag of pot out the window while complying with the stop to avoid the minor misdemeanor on the pot charge, they can then charge you with felony obstruction.
They HAMMER little people for defiance/obstruction and do absolutely nothing to powerful people. If the DOJ are actually interesting in “restoring credibility” and ‘the rule of law” they should start applying it to powerful people. Show, not tell.
Mike in NC
Several more subpoenas have dropped regarding the Jan. 6 ringleaders, like Ali Alexander. About 15 in total. Lock them all up.
piratedan
coming at this from the POV of a cynical pragmatist…. I think we’re gonna hear a lot from Liz Cheney on this, this is her golden ticket to play by Machiavellian rules by eradicating the Trumpist elements from her party. Sure, subpeona them all, and if we find something illegal, arrest them all. Decapitate the movement, throw them in jail…. and what will the dark money do? Will they continue to back the felons or will they fall in line behind Ms. Cheney and begin the rebuild of the party with “less Fascism”… at least as a brand change.
Even in a diminished GOP, Cheney can rake in a lot of cash and get herself deified by the less chaotic right and coalesce those elements to something slightly more respectable. The press gets their villains and scandal, they still get to ensure that they praise their Conservative masters as being those that led the rescue. All in the name of bipartisan politics.
waspuppet
I mean, it’s simpler than that, I think. “Executive” privilege means the office of president, not the individual president. And it’s related to national security. And Biden is saying “Well, I’M the one in charge of national security, and I say there’s no threat in releasing this. YOU are not in a position to judge.”
Right?
HumboldtBlue
In a country where daily outrages are the norm, this story out of Tennessee has taken outrage to another level.
Leto
@WaterGirl: Remember when Trumpov released code word classified material to the Russians inside the Oval Office? And all the shitheels said, “HE CAN DO THAT! IT’S HIS RIGHT!” Biden should just take a copy of all the material, ask to meet with the committee, and then just read it to them. Honestly, they can all just eat shit and die. And fuck’em for good measure
Edit: also, what are they going to do if Biden did that? Arrest him? Hahahahahahaha (Smokin’ Joe in his ‘Vette, Aviator sunglasses on, flipping them off as he drives away on Penn Avenue… /end scene)
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: Yup. These people aren’t stupid. They know very well how all this stuff works, and all the necessary and proper procedures.
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
I hope that a FrontPager will take this story and publicize it. This woman is a muthaphuckin’ DEMON.
Of course, you can guess the color of these children.
Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) tweeted at 10:58 AM on Fri, Oct 08, 2021:
Three police officers went to an *elementary* school in Tennessee & arrested four Black girls.
One girl fell to her knees. Another threw up. Police handcuffed the youngest, an 8 yo with pigtails.
Their supposed crime? Watching some boys fight — and not stopping them. (THREAD)
Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) tweeted at 10:58 AM on Fri, Oct 08, 2021:
2/ The police wound up arresting 11 kids in total, using a charge called “criminal responsibility.”
The arrests created outrage. State lawmakers called the case “unconscionable,” “inexcusable,” “insane.”
So how did this happen?
Ken Armstrong (@bykenarmstrong) tweeted at 10:59 AM on Fri, Oct 08, 2021:
3/ These arrests took place in Rutherford County, which had been illegally jailing kids for years, all under the watch of Judge Donna Scott Davenport.
(https://twitter.com/bykenarmstrong/status/1446505437520560137?t=q7YuUSD4DS3tPZSMRiLD3Q&s=03)
rikyrah
@HumboldtBlue:
You and me…on the same wavelength.
Omnes Omnibus
@Leto: One of the things this administration is trying to restore is not only doing the right thing but also doing things the right way.
Baud
@HumboldtBlue:
Sounds like someone set up a little despotic fiefdom in that county.
WaterGirl
@Leto: That works for me!
Leto
@Omnes Omnibus: I know, I know. It’s a nice day dream and all.
Benw
@raven: on now? Thanks for the reminder
Baud
I am worried about Trump judges and delay from that end. Very little to be done about that though.
raven
@Benw: yup, 4 games today
Edmund Dantes
@WaterGirl: this all assumes good faith and interpretation by Federalist hack judges.
Cermet
Salon is correct that this White House is doing next to zero to prevent a future Coup by not dealing with the extremely overt Coup we just endured. I mean for fuck’s sake, the ass hole tRump said direct to the acting attorney general this:
“On January 3 — three days before Trump resorted to inciting violence in a last-ditch effort to overthrow the election — Trump called a meeting and opened it by complaining, “One thing we know is you, Rosen, aren’t going to do anything to overturn the election.”
What more does the DOJ need to indict, try and convict this thug?! Why doesn’t Biden just tell the AG to do this and also, remove the insane DOJ lawyers that wrote up justifications for the Coup!!!!! This is beyond insane!
Read : ”
Facebook and Trump: America is sleepwalking towards fascism”
Kay
HumboldtBlue
@rikyrah:
I got so fucking angry reading that thread I turned off my computer and rage-walked the neighborhood.
HumboldtBlue
@Baud:
And you can bet auntie Anne’s apple pies they’re not the only ones.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cermet: See my comment at 57.
Fair Economist
@rikyrah: I’m sure that “judge” gets kickbacks from the juvenile facility that unjustly holds those kids in prison. That twitter thread reports the county commissioners routinely ask about its financial situation. Just like that judge in Pennsylvania.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: One of my Twitter mutuals calls them the sealioning chicken little caucus. They are well represented in this comment section from what I can see.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Imagine the feeding frenzy if banks gave Hillary secret loans/”aid” while running the State Department
sab
@waspuppet: IANAL but I think it is a combination of two things. The privilege is for the current executive. Traditionally current presidents have given deference to prior presidents’ concerns out of courtesy (to Trump? Seriously?) and also in respect of the office itself.
The last few Republican presidents frat boy behavior has really weakened the whole respect of the office argument, since only Dems seem to respect their predecessor. Bush cleaned up his act later, but his transition in was pretty tacky and tasteless. I think that opened the way for Trump vulgarity to be green-lighted.
Another Scott
@waspuppet: But if a president is afeared of all of his criming becoming public when he’s trying to run for the office again, how is that fair??
Nobody has been treated more unfairly than TFG. Nobody.
//
Cheers,
Scott.
SpaceUnit
@Kay:
Upon further reading, I came to realize that this is not exactly analogue. McDougal was jailed on contempt of court, not congress. She refused to answer questions by a grand jury convened by the Office of Independent Council (Kenneth Starr).
I’m still not sure what mechanisms are available to drag someone in for defying a congressional subpoena. I don’t know what sort of jurisdiction the Sergeant of Arms would have. Looks like they’d have to refer the matter to the US Attorney in DC. I could be wrong.
RaflW
Amidst all the subpoena noise, the key thing to me is the finding by the House that Trump ‘opaquely moved funds’ from his D.C. hotel to other Trump Organization businesses (and back, most likely).
And oh, hey, Deutche Bank re-jiggered the terms of the D.C. hotel in 2018. Remember 2018? That was when we found out that Justice Kennedy’s son was a Deutche mucky muck. Huh.
Oh, and lookit there, Deutche Bank settled (another?) money laundering charge for over $100 mil early this year.
The whole thing, all of it, is a god damned money laundering ring. When the absolute frunk will this really crack open? It needs to be soon.
HumboldtBlue
@Fair Economist:
Yup
gene108
@Omnes Omnibus:
The DOJ will prosecute, but my feeling from people I know and what I see on Twitter is a lot of Democrats and Democratic leaning voters are fed up with the status quo.
Depending on the age of the person, they harbor resentment that the system will never hold a powerful person accountable because Nixon got away with Watergate, Reagan and Bush, Sr. got away with Iran-Contra, Bush, Jr. got away with his lies about Iraq’s WMD’s, and Trump got away with self-enrichment, family separation, inciting an insurrection, collusion with Russia, etc.
People have lost faith in the system, and though I have not heard this specifically articulated, I feel people really want some sort of revolutionary justice against the powerful people who they feel abused the system, whether in politics or in business. They want Trump in prison right now. They have wanted Wall St. executives in prison for the Great Recession for a dozen years. To many, their crimes are crystal clear. Only a corrupt system or doddering fools blind to the dangers we face are why more powerful people are not in prison.
sab
@Kay: Wow. My step-son in his very misspent long ago youth was generally too high to toss the evidence, so the cops confiscated it and then booked him on something minor like disorderly conduct (white privilege.)
Who knew his sheer drug-addled incompetence made him a legal genius?
Baud
@gene108:
Those people will become Republicans and go after the next Hillary Clinton.
MomSense
@germy:
He also wants to drive up discontent with Democrats.
VeniceRiley
I am so so sick of all this shit. All of it.
frosty
Perfect Betty C, perfect!
RaflW
@waspuppet: I admit I had unclean thoughts when I read a thread on this earlier today.
Did the PA judge who was running a youth jail-for-profit ring actually do any time? This lady who took nine years to pass the bar, she needs to do nine years in the workhouse. Damn.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat:
That’s perfect. In describing how tiresome and depressing they are.
Omnes Omnibus
@gene108: Well, any electable Democratic administration would disappoint them.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@gene108:
That’s why I only read Pornhub (for the articles)
sab
@Baud: All of these people jumping up and down wanting revenge now forget that at some point Republicans will be in charge again. I prefer the rule of law to current revenge.
Of course, the rule of law includes actual law enforcement of laws across class lines (per Kay) but this lust for rapid revenge prosecutions now that we are in charge horrifies me.
Not intending to argue with you. i hope I am agreeing with you in more lay terms.
RaflW
@gene108: This sums up the undercurrents very well. Elite & institutional failures have been mounting for decades.
People in MAGA land have been aware of that, even in their addled state. They get – at some level – that McConnell was pulling a fast one on all of them for decades. Pretending to do the social agenda of the right while mostly just moving money uphill, fast.
But indeed as you say, the left has simmering rage too. And I think D.C. democrats do not feel that pulse beating in the body politic. Things may continue to spiral out on more than just the right flank.
eta: As sab says just above, my aim is to describe, not invoke.
Kay
@SpaceUnit:
The public has absolutely no idea what happened on January 6th, other than what they saw on tv. Almost a year later.
The Republican Party position is “we -none of us- had any idea it was going to happen and had nothing to do with it”. That’s not true. It isn’t JUST that they should be held accountable- it’s the disparity in treatment. The rioters are being charged. The insurrectionist plannners are not. That’s not a recipe for “respect for the rule of law”. You can’t just say it. You have to do it.
Ruckus
@HumboldtBlue:
The part about the judge who has been having this done for years.
And we are only hearing about it now.
debbie
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
Bullshit. Where did he shift the actual revenues to?
Baud
@Ruckus:
There’s always a ton of atrocities we hear nothing about.
Omnes Omnibus
@RaflW: Populist rage is a danger whether it comes from the left or right.
sab
@Kay: I want many prosecutions (slow, orderly, with crossed t’s and dotted i’s.)
SpaceUnit
@Kay:
I agree. Congressional Dems need to bring the hammer down on these bozos if they defy their subpoenas. They have to make examples of them.
I’m just not sure how the process works.
Omnes Omnibus
@sab: I agree with you.
Ruckus
@VeniceRiley:
It is rather amazing that we have a country that operates above the very low minimum, given all the BS that happens within republican hands, isn’t it?
J R in WV
@germy:
Make him shower every morning, and wear a white tee shirt.
Dump his lunch in the trash if there’s any dirt on the collar of the white tee. Dinner/supper too.
Ruckus
@Baud:
Well of course there are, but.
These are public people and public employees. If I’m not mistaken, judges take an oath to uphold the law, not to make it. Or make off with it.
Another Scott
@SpaceUnit: It would be fun if the SCOTUS said that the only remedy for Congress to investigate behavior of TFG was via impeachment.
And he was impeached a 3rd time.
It would be fun to see Rmoney squirm again.
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Who doesn’t actually think it is going to happen that way.”)
Leto
@Kay: And the rioters are barely being charged with anything. Federal judges keep asking DoJ lawyers why they aren’t being charged with more serious crimes, why they’re only being hit with a wet noodle on the wrist. The Federal judges get it, yet here we are.
Baud
@Ruckus:
There are so many thousands of public officials in this country, you’re really not going to hear about the worst ones unless the national media spotlights it or it goes viral on social media.
I hope the fact that this is now viral will lead to some accountability.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: I forget who but recently read of a high powered DEM lawyer who was arrested for lying to the FBI ( John Durham charged an ex-attorney for the Clinton campaign) I predicted the charging was the last we would hear of it. Not just because it appeared to be a really weak case, but because he was a high powered well connected lawyer with lots of money.
J R in WV
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
They have ARTICLES !!?!?!!!!
;~)
schrodingers_cat
It is Premchand’s death anniversary today and what he said almost a 100 years ago seems prescient.
Naked bigotry is too shy to come out in the open, that’s why it wears the robes of nationalism
—-Premchand ( a celebrated novelist of Hindustani literature) (1880- 1936)
Translated by me.
SpaceUnit
@Another Scott:
I would actually prefer to see him hounded into his grave by state and federal law enforcement agencies as a private citizen.
Impeachment just gives congressional republicans an opportunity to grandstand for Fox News. Despite their show of outrage, they love every minute of it.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
It does look like a bullshit political case that Durham brought after how many years of investigating. I’m glad we’re not hearing anything about it, because anything we heard would be nakedly partisan.
gene108
@rikyrah:
This seems worse than the Pennsylvania “kids for cash” scandal.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/08/11/139536686/pa-judge-sentenced-to-28-years-in-massive-juvenile-justice-bribery-scandal
Ella in New Mexico
@germy:
I really think that the Never-Trump Republicans are so used to how their ruthless party, when in power, takes no prisoners (whether fair or unfair, right or wrong) they are apoplectic the Democrats function in such a meticulous and methodical manner instead of just nuking the entire bunch of frigging traitors wholesale.
They can’t believe we don’t go ahead and use the power we have, ethical or not.
New Deal democrat
If Congress won’t enforce its own subpoenaes, they are toilet paper.
The Supreme Court will get around to it. . . . . < y a w n > . . . . In a few years or so.
This is how the Republic ends. Not with a bang but with a whimper.
Ruckus
@Baud:
I really do understand but if I’m not mistaken the story says this judge has been doing this for years. That means that likely if there was any money changing hands, it’s now likely not a small sum. Someone is/has been looking the other way. Now understand I’m not nearly naive enough not to know how this crap works, but I am thinking that there is just a bit more of this kind of crap going on than this one case. Our “news” media is big business, money business. And I wonder how much they never find because they don’t want to even look, for whatever reason. And that doesn’t account for the local governments, how many of them have their hands out? Look at the comment at #109 by Gene 108
Steeplejack
@Benw:
I kept missing parts of games, finally looked this up: MLB playoff schedule (chronological).
Kay
@Leto:
Most people, the vast, vast majority of people, comply with laws and rules. They really do. I’ve been suprised over the years not at how many people lie under oath, but how few do.
But you can’t break that trust with them. They have to know that if anyone violates they’ll be held accountable, or we really will have lawlessness. They’ll stop going along.
It would be better to not issue subpeonas at all than to issue and not enforce. The second is more damaging to the public trust.
Leto
@OzarkHillbilly: Here you go: Michael Sussman, former federal prosecutor. It’s a bullshit charge, but Durham is a bullshit employee.
schrodingers_cat
Last weekend a BJP minister’s son trampled protesting farmers under his vehicle. He is absconding from the law.
While Shahrukh Khan’s son is in jail for minor drug possession
BJP minister’s name is Mishra (Brahmin from Northern India)
Khan of course is Muslim. He is a Pathan with Peshawar roots.
Coincidence? I think not.
BJP’s message is clear, if you are a Muslim in India you are not safe.
If you are Brahmin male associated with the BJP, murder in broad daylight is A-OK.
J R in WV
@Kay:
You are so wise, oh legal eagle. No kidding, thanks for the wisdom from a legal whiz!
gene108
@Baud:
I don’t think so. The ones I know IRL, won’t vote Republican.
People feel society is broken and we need extreme action to fix it.
I think this feeling of wanting extreme action is across the political spectrum. For liberals, it’s as much a reaction to conservatives staging an insurrection, wandering into state legislatures armed, and endless calls for a civil war.
I think for Democrats/liberals it’s a feeling born out of the belief that 2021 and 2022 will be the last chance to save American democracy, especially if Republicans take back one or both Houses of Congress in 2023.
sab
@Kay: Yes, so much. Americans mostly believe in the law. We need to keep it up.
WV Blondie
@Leto: I keep thinking it’s because the administration has no interest in creating more “martyrs,” even though they clearly broke the law and are being coddled.
The MAGAts (pronounced “maggots”) are just begging for something else to take up arms about!
sab
@raven: Hah hah! My team (Cleveland) fixed their name. What about yours?
Geminid
@Baud: Marcie Wheeler put out a long review of Durham’s lone indictment at @Empty Wheel. It was pretty dense for this airhead, but my Atlanta friend likes this sort of thing and reviewed her post. He concluded that Durham’s case was flimsy, and unlikely to prevail at trial.
J R in WV
@schrodingers_cat:
Sounds worse than our local/national jurisprudence, actually!
Sorry you and yours back home are being afflicted by this.
We hired a great HIndi software guru to help us migrate from a COBOL IBM mainframe environment into a Windows networking environment. His wife was a Muslim, which was why they migrated to the US — he firmly believed that they both would have been killed had they married and remained in India. We wound up hiring her also, they were both great folks.
louc
As the investigation peels the onion, I’m that Trump attorney John Eastman, in response to the NY Times story about his coup memo, wrote this defense in a letter to the editor.
“Regarding my advice to Vice President Mike Pence in the days before the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6: Although I take issue with some statements in the front-page news article, its most important point, one backed up by very thorough reporting, is that I did not recommend “that Mr. Pence could simply disregard the law and summarily reject electors of certain key battleground states,” as your editorial contends.
Rather, as your own reporters noted, I told Mr. Pence that even if he did have such power, “it would be foolish for him to exercise it until state legislatures certified a new set of electors for Mr. Trump.”
WTF?! That’s a defense? Admitting that they’re trying to get state legislatures to overturn voters?
schrodingers_cat
@J R in WV: It is pretty bad if you happen been to be a minority (especially Muslim or Christian) or a Dalit, or you are a vocal opponent of the regime and its “philosophy”. With the ongoing farmer’s agitation, BJP has declared an open season on Sikhs as well.
Most of my family in India are BJP voters and cheerleaders I am afraid. They don’t belong to the groups above. So BJP is doing this dance of death in their name and they don’t seem to mind.
Benw
@Steeplejack: neat!
Subsole
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
Their rendition of Hamlet is quite remarkable…or so I’m told.
Subsole
@Ruckus:
There is only one America. But it has some thick walls and wide halls between its tenants.
Bupalos
@opiejeanne: This feels like one of those “the above statement is true/the below statement is false” things.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott:
Lincoln only got shot in the head.
gene108
@sab:
A large part of this is generated from the fact or belief that Republicans lie, cheat, and steal their way into power and abuse their offices, while facing no consequences.
A lot of folks feel, including myself that we are not in a typical political fight, but some sort of “Cold War” asymmetrical warfare scenario, where Republicans keep getting more extreme to cling to power by voter suppression, gerrymandering, packing the courts, etc. and Democrats are still playing by an outdated set of rules.
Where I disagree with those that seek “revenge prosecutions” is that we cannot re-establish political norms by breaking them ourselves. This just gives the Machiavellian folks, like McConnell, an excuse to go all in on power grabs, and they are better at it than us.
@RaflW:
I think 96% of Senate Democrats get the simmering rage that’s brewing. Pelosi definitely gets it, which is why she gets so much done, in terms of the House passing legislation.
It just two Senators who do not grok this, and the occasional House member that always pops up and then backs down.
Another Scott
@?BillinGlendaleCA: “Great president. Most people don’t even know that he was a Republican.”
Cheers,
Scott.
H-Bob
@waspuppet: Taking your explanation a step further, Trump’s actions and discussions concerned his role as a political candidate, not as the President. He has no executive privilege concerning those matters, just like Biden does not have executive privilege for his actions and discussions as a candidate. The privilege is based on the role, not the actor playing the role.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Definitely. But my rule about high powered well connected lawyers with lots of money applies equally to trump’s henchmen. There may be a sacrificial lamb (can you say Giuliani?) but that’s about it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Leto: I know, but if it was you or me charged? We’d be plea bargaining right now.
zhena gogolia
I don’t think Cole read this thread.
Bupalos
Doesn’t this sort of fall under the same category of refusing to alter the filibuster so the Republican’s can’t profit from that later? I mean, how many Garland Units does it take to get to the center of this tootsie pop? Because by my count we’re already at a few dozen.
Ruckus
@Subsole:
Interesting and realistic way of stating it.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: Do Something Twitter and their brother blogs, are addicted to rage clicks.
?BillinGlendaleCA
deleted.
JMG
@Ruckus: The “national” media (Times, Post, broadcast and cable networks) don’t give a damn about local government except NYC local government, because to them the country does not exist outside the Acela Corridor. Note: Boston only gets national coverage because so many elite media types went to school “near Boston” as the saying goes.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: Great.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Check out the post above this one.
Dan B
@rikyrah: This reminds me oh the reason my father quit his job in 1961 and got us kids and the whole family out of Arkansas. There were tinpot dictators everywhere and a 99.9% compliant white population. This judge, jailer, and the entire cabal around them need federal law enforcement, good and hard.
Geminid
@gene108: The 2022 midterms will be very consequential. Reapportionment and redistricting make a Democratic House a 50-50 proposition (although I would still bet on Pelosi and company). Democratic Senators face tough reelections in Georgia, Arizona, New Hampshire and Nevada. Open Republican seats in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Ohio could go either way, and Val Demings gives Florida Senator Rubio something to really sweat about.
But the big showdown will be 2024. Even if Republicans win narrow majorities in both houses of Congress, Joe Biden will still have the President’s veto power. And while Democrats faced losses in 1946, and despite Strom Thurmond and Henry Wallace running to his right and left, Harry Truman won in 1948 by running against the Republican “Do Nothing” Congress.
Burnspbesq
@Winston:
The great thing about conspiracy charges in situations like this is that the agreement is the criminal act, and it doesn’t matter whether or not any of the objects of the conspiracy are achieved. All of the recipients of the subpoenas can fold and comply, and Trump can still go down.
sab
@gene108: Thank you for this comment.
Subsole
@WV Blondie:
The maggits will INVENT something to take up arms about.
Christ and Buddha these people worked themselves into a lather over Mr. Potatohead’s gender.
They were screaming about a plastic toy’s cokkenballs.
They are automartyrs. Forget their response, do what is necessary.
Burnspbesq
@Edmund Dantes:
Come on. Not all judges on the district court for D.C. are hacks. You owe Reggie Walton an apology.
Burnspbesq
@sab:
Amen. I don’t just want prosecutions. I want convictions.
Subsole
@Ruckus:
Steinbeck’s On America had the two truest, saddest critiques of America I have ever read, foreign or domestic.
“Americans always fight our way in, then try to buy our way out.”
The other was a white man in pre-integration South (I think Tennessee?). He was asked about racial justice, and said “I don’t have anything against them folks, but…what do we got to say to each other?”
Just…the sheer, yawning chasm between people that exchange encapsulated…
Hell, Fox News can make your family members feel like foreigners. Nevermind your neighbors.
sab
@Burnspbesq: Not all urban areas are not cities. You owe us an apology we will never get, so we laugh at your silly comments. Especially the not cities on I 90 that are actually nowhere near I 90.
What were you thinking.? You are not usually an idiot.
Cameron
@JMG: Not true! They’re on the lookout for Real Merkins in diners in Bumfuck, Egypt and other locales in The Heartland.
Subsole
@Dan B: Yep. People who scream about Federal tyranny really don’t understand how small towns work.
Or, they understand perfectly.
sab
@Burnspbesq: Hence the dotted i’ s and crossed t’s. Do it right and thoroughly, even if slow.
sab
@Burnspbesq: Me also.
sab
@sab: Also, my snarky comments suggest I don’t respect you. I do. We often disagree but I think you are a good lawyer.
Response to burnsesq.
RaflW
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes.
And while I do not excuse the rage, the serial failures of institutions to use the accountability measures they had available is contributing to the looming crisis. Inchoate mobs are bad. But they don’t just pop out of nowhere.
Irishweaver
@Gravenstone: Totally agree!
Kay
@J R in WV:
I genuinely don’t understand. If they can’t enforce the subpeonas, if they can’t get the tax returns, why even issue a demand? Then everyone knows they can’t enforce their own orders. Either figure out a way to enforce the demands and do that, or stop issuing them.
Kay
He won’t be the only one for long.
TriassicSands
President-in-Exile Trump will just pardon them. Imaginary powers for an imaginary president.
@Omnes Omnibus:
Because the DOJ is being run by Merrick Garland, who will need to research the issue, consider the options, and ponder responses for a while?
George
@rikyrah:
Wow. I was on the college newspaper with Ken Armstrong. He has won a Pulitzer. I am such a failure.
Amir Khalid
@Another Scott:
If Abe were to see what has become of his party, would he still want to be a Republican?