Announcement

**TopHatter** · 02 Aug 23,, 00:42

Pence: 'Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president'

Former Vice President Mike Pence issued a scathing statement following the news of Trump's latest indictment:

“Today's indictment serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.

"I will have more to say about the government’s case after reviewing the indictment. The former president is entitled to the presumption of innocence but with this indictment, his candidacy means more talk about January 6th and more distractions.

“As Americans, his candidacy means less attention paid to Joe Biden's disastrous economic policies afflicting millions across the United States and to the pattern of corruption with Hunter.

"Our country is more important than one man. Our constitution is more important than any one man’s career.

"On January 6th, former President Trump demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution. I chose the Constitution and I always will.

"As your president, I will not yield an inch in defending America, our people, or our values, and I promise you: I will do so in a way consistent with my oath to the Constitution and the character and decency of the American people. We will restore a threshold of integrity and civility in public life so we can bring real solutions to the challenges plaguing our nation."
____________

I'm looking forward to Mike Pence walking all of this back tomorrow and re-swearing his personal fealty to Donald Trump, the Constitution be damned.

**tbm3fan** · 02 Aug 23,, 02:24

Originally posted by TopHatter View Post

“As Americans, his candidacy means less attention paid to Joe Biden's disastrous economic policies afflicting millions across the United States and to the pattern of corruption with Hunter.

I would sure like to know what these disastrous economic policies were. Each morning I read Bloomberg and see nothing about doomsday. In fact this mornings headline spoke of how Americans are going full speed ahead despite inflation. S&P 500 on a steady rise with profits being up. So where is the doom?

As for the indictment it will be new ground in holding an ex-President criminally liable for actions while in office. In theory Nixon could be been the first such case had not Ford pardoned him first.

**TopHatter** · 02 Aug 23,, 03:38

Originally posted by tbm3fan View Post

I would sure like to know what these disastrous economic policies were. Each morning I read Bloomberg and see nothing about doomsday. In fact this mornings headline spoke of how Americans are going full speed ahead despite inflation. S&P 500 on a steady rise with profits being up. So where is the doom?

There has to be doom. Otherwise Biden is actually a decent president and Trump is a moronic grifter with a cult of easy marks and suckers.

And we can't have that, now can we.

**TopHatter** · 02 Aug 23,, 03:50

This Is the Case
Special Counsel Jack Smith has sounded the call, but voters must answer it if they wish to preserve American democracy.

Donald Trump stands indicted for attempting to thwart the peaceful transfer of power and subvert the rights of American citizens. This is the moment that will decide our future as a democracy.

Over the past year, state and federal prosecutors have alleged that Donald Trump went on something like a crime spree as a presidential candidate, as the sitting president, and then as a private citizen after his defeat. The charges, from Manhattan to Mar-a-Lago, include business fraud, the illegal retention of classified material, and the destruction of evidence.

All of these accusations, however, pale in importance next to the indictment handed down today.

Trump is accused of multiple conspiracies against the United States, all designed to keep him in power against the will of the voters and in violation of the Constitution. The former president—once our chief executive, the commander in chief, the leader we entrusted with the keys to nuclear hell—is accused of knowing that he lost a free and fair election, and, rather than transferring power to a duly elected successor, engaging in criminal plots against our democracy, all while firing up a mob that would later storm the Capitol. (The Trump campaign issued a rambling statement that called the charges “fake.”)

Long before now, however, Americans should have reached the conclusion, with or without a trial, that Trump is a menace to the United States and poisonous to our society. (Senator J. D. Vance of Ohio once referred to Trump as “cultural heroin,” but that was before he decided to seek power in the Republican Party.) The GOP base, controlled by Trump’s cult of personality, will likely never admit its mistake: As my colleague Peter Wehner writes, Trump’s record of “lawlessness and depravity” means nothing to Republicans. But other Republicans now, more than ever, face a moment of truth. They must decide if they are partisans or patriots. They can no longer claim to be both.

The rest of us, as a nation but also as individuals, can no longer indulge the pretense that Trump is just another Republican candidate, that supporting Donald Trump is just another political choice, and that agreeing with Trump’s attacks on our democracy is just a difference of opinion. (Those of us who share our views in the media have a particular duty to cease discussing Trump as if he were a normal candidate—or even a normal person—especially after today’s indictment.) I have long described Trump’s candidacies as moral choices and tests of civic character, but I have also cautioned that Americans, for the sake of social comity, should resist too many arguments about politics among themselves. I can no longer defend this advice.

The indictment handed down today challenges every American to put a shoulder to the wheel and defend our republic in every peaceful, legal, and civilized way they can. According to the charges, not only did Trump try to overturn the election; he presided over a clutch of co-conspirators who intended to put down any further challenges to Trump’s continued rule by force. According to the indictment:
.

The Deputy White House Counsel reiterated to Co-Conspirator 4 that there had not been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that if the Defendant [Trump] remained in office nonetheless, there would be “riots in every major city in the United States.” Co-Conspirator 4 responded, “Well, [Deputy White House Counsel], that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.”

The Insurrection Act allows the president to deploy the U.S. armed forces against American citizens. The alleged plot inside the White House was not merely to invalidate an election; it included the possibility of unleashing the American military against its own people.

This is why we can no longer merely roll our eyes when an annoying uncle rhapsodizes about stolen elections. We should not gently ask our parents if perhaps we might change the channel from Fox during dinner. We are not obligated to gingerly change the subject when an old friend goes on about “Demonrats” or the dire national-security implications around Hunter Biden’s genitalia. Enough of all this; we can love our friends and our family and our neighbors without accepting their terms of debate. To support Trump is to support sedition and violence, and we must be willing to speak this truth not only to power but to our fellow citizens.

Trump and his media enablers, of course, will fume that any criticism of choices made by millions of voters is uncivil and condescending—even as they paint other American citizens as traitors who support pedophiles and perverts. Trump has made such accusations, and the implied threat of violence behind them, part of the everyday American political environment. This brutish bullying is aimed at stopping the rest of us from speaking our mind. But after today, every American citizen who cares about the Constitution should affirm, without hesitation, that any form of association with Trump is reprehensible, that each of us will draw moral conclusions about anyone who continues to support him, and that these conclusions will guide both our political and our personal choices.

This is painful advice to give and to follow. No one, including me, wants to lose friends or chill valued relationships over so small a man as Trump. But our democracy is about to go into legal and electoral battle for its own survival. If we don’t speak up—to one another, as well as to the media and to our elected officials—and Trump defeats us all by regaining power and making a mockery of American democracy, then we’ll all have lost a lot more than a few friendships. We face in Trump a dedicated enemy of our Constitution, and if he returns to office, his next “administration” will be a gang of felons, goons, and resentful mediocrities, all of whom will gladly serve Trump’s sociopathic needs while greedily dividing the spoils of power.

In the 1982 film The Verdict, Paul Newman plays Frank Galvin, an ambulance-chasing attorney with an alcohol addiction who takeson what he thinks will be a routine malpractice suit and soon finds himself fighting for justice against powerful institutions determined to stop him. On the eve of the trial, all seems lost. His mentor and former partner tries to comfort him. “There’ll be other cases,” his friend says. Galvin knows better. “There are no other cases,” he says quietly, with his eyes closed. “This is the case.” He repeats this truth, whispering to himself, over and over: “There are no other cases. This is the case.”

Jack Smith has indicted Donald Trump for trying to overthrow our system of government. There are no other cases. This is the case.
________

**TopHatter** · 02 Aug 23,, 15:07

Six Things We Learned From the New Trump Indictment

The new charges against Donald Trump may not be the first indictment against the former president, but they almost certainly include the most serious charges.

The indictment itself—a 45-page document laying out Trump’s scheme to subvert democracy and remain in power after he lost the 2020 election—includes a number of new revelations.

Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, as well as his actions on Jan. 6, have been well documented. Congress dedicated an entire special committee to showing how Trump acted inappropriately—or didn’t act at all—as rioters attacked the Capitol. But DOJ special prosecutor Jack Smith was still able to unearth new details that have never been previously disclosed.

Here are the top six revelations contained within Tuesday’s indictment:

Trump Was Trying to Delay Election Certification During the Jan. 6 Attack

The indictment notes that after it became clear Vice President Mike Pence “would not fraudulently alter the election results,” the attack on the U.S. Capitol halted the Electoral certification. “As violence ensued,” the indictment claims, “the Defendant and co-conspirators exploited the disruption by redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud and convince Members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those claims.”

If true, that means Trump wasn’t just sitting on his hands during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack; he was actually pushing harder to delay the certification in his overall goal of overturning the election.

That evidence could show Trump’s intentions and highlight the former president’s slow action to deploy National Guard troops at the Capitol.

During and After Violence at the Capitol, Trump and Giuliani Kept Pressuring GOP Lawmakers to Delay Certification

It has been known that Trump personally called Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) on the afternoon of Jan. 6, though he apparently dialed Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) by accident first.

But the indictment reveals for the first time the extent of Trump and Giuliani’s efforts to continue pushing lawmakers to delay the certification process, during and after the worst of the violence at the Capitol. None of these lawmakers were named in the indictment.

At 6:01 p.m., Trump finally urged rioters to “go home in love & peace.” According to the indictment, at 6:00 p.m., Trump—through aides—attempted to reach two senators on the phone.

An hour later, Giuliani placed calls to five congressmen and one senator. At the same time, Co-conspirator Number 6 was attempting to track down phone numbers for six more senators that Trump had directed Giuliani to contact.

Giuliani left a voicemail for a senator in which he said: “We need you, our Republican friends, to try to just slow it down so we can get these legislatures to get more information to you. And I know they’re reconvening at eight tonight but the only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states and raise issues so that we get ourselves into tomorrow—ideally until the end of tomorrow.”

In another voicemail, Giuliani repeated false claims about 2020 election fraud, said Pence’s actions were surprising, and asked the senator to “object to every state and kind of spread this out a little bit like a filibuster.”

Trump Loyalists Welcomed Possibility of Widespread Violence and Suggested Martial Law

During a meeting on Jan. 3, Co-conspirator Number 4 spoke to Patrick Philbin, the Deputy White House Counsel, who warned that “there would be riots in every major city in the United States” if Trump remained in office. Co-Conspirator Number 4 replied to Philbin, “that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.” That law, enacted in 1807, empowers the president to deploy federal troops within the United States to suppress civil disorder.

Then, on Jan. 4, a Trump Senior Adviser told Co-Conspirator Number 2 that their plan to overturn the election would cause “riots in the streets.” At that point, according to the indictment, Co-Conspirator Number 2 said that there had been points in American history when violence was necessary to preserve the country.

Trump Personally Reinserted Language Attacking Pence Into His Jan. 6 Speech

The indictment claims that, at 11:15 a.m., Trump called Pence once again and “pressured him to fraudulently reject or return Biden' legitimate electoral votes.” Pence once again refused.

“Immediately after the call, the Defendant decided to single out the Vice President in public remarks he would make within the hour, reinserting language that he had personally drafted earlier that morning falsely claiming that the Vice President had authority to send electoral votes to the states but that advisers had previously successfully advocated be removed.”

We knew Trump had inserted language going after Pence into his Jan. 6 speech. But we didn’t know that aides had removed that language—only to have Trump reinsert the language again.

Trump Privately Said He’d “Give” a National Security Crisis “To The Next Guy”

On Jan. 3, Trump indicated he knew he was imminently leaving office during a meeting with top national security officials. According to the indictment, Gen. Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed Trump on an unspecified “overseas national security issue”—which had previously come up in December—and presented options for Trump to address it.

When Milley and another official advised Trump against acting on the situation so close to the transfer of power, the president agreed. “Yeah, you’re right, it’s too late for us,” Trump said. “We’re going to give that to the next guy.”

Mike Pence Took ‘Contemporaneous Notes’ of a Damning Meeting With Trump

The indictment notes that Pence took “contemporaneous notes” during one meeting with Trump and alleged co-conspirator John Eastman. The indictment alleges that Trump “knowingly false claims of election fraud” during that meeting.

“Bottom line won every state by 100,000s of votes," Trump said, according to Pence’s notes. The president claimed he “won every state” and asked about a claim that senior Justice Department officials had previously had told him was false—the alleged claim that there were 205,000 more votes than voters in Pennsylvania.

According to Pence’s notes, Eastman asked Pence to either unilaterally reject the legitimate electors from seven states that Trump wanted to dispute, or to at least send the question of which slate of electors was legitimate back to state legislatures.

Pence purportedly challenged Eastman on whether he was allowed to do that. "Well, nobody's tested it before,” Eastman said, according to Pence’s notes.

Pence apparently seized on that to challenge Trump. "Did you hear that? Even your own counsel is not saying I have that authority," he allegedly said. Trump then told Pence that was OK because he preferred the first option—Pence just unilaterally rejecting the legitimate electors—anyway.
________

Uhhh.... bothsidesdeepstateblmrayeppsfbiantifacommunistmarx istglobalisthunterslaptopnancypelosihillarysemails notarealinsurrection...

Did I miss anything?

**TopHatter** · 02 Aug 23,, 15:27

The Unnamed Co-Conspirators (probably):

Co-Conspirator 1, an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the Defendant's 2020 re-election campaign attorneys would not. This is Rudy Giuliani.
.
Co-Conspirator 2, an attorney who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President's ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election. This is John Eastman.
.
Co-Conspirator 3, an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the Defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded "crazy." Nonetheless, the Defendant embraced and publicly amplified Co-Conspirator 3's disinformation. This is Sidney Powell.
.
Co-Conspirator 4, a Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and who, with the Defendant, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud. This is Jeffrey Clark, the low-level Department of Justice attorney Trump considered elevating to acting AG, but was forced to back down when DoJ staff threatened to resign en masse.
.
Co-Conspirator 5, an attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding. This is Kenneth Chesebro.
.
Co-Conspirator 6, a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding. This is... an unknown person.
_____

**tbm3fan** · 02 Aug 23,, 20:01

as for the Judge assigned to the case Trump has to be thrilled given she said “Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.”

**TopHatter** · 02 Aug 23,, 21:10

Why Jack Smith didn't charge Trump with inciting an insurrection

Since former President Donald Trump was criminally indicted for the third time Tuesday, legal experts have pored over the new revelations related to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the four charges he’s facing, and possible defenses.

Special Counsel Jack Smith charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

But what he didn’t charge Trump with — namely, incitement of an insurrection — can illustrate how Smith plans to present the unprecedented case.

We’ve curated insights and analysis from experts on the lack of an insurrection charge against the former president.

Insights

When the Jan. 6 House committee formally referred Trump for criminal charges last year, insurrection was one of the counts included. It would allege that Trump was directly involved in the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6. But including that charge would’ve complicated the case and been harder to prove than the broader conspiracy charges, Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, writes in Slate. “That narrowing increases the prospects for a pre-election trial.”
One of the reasons an insurrection charge could be complicated: Prosecutors would have to rely on Trump’s speech the day of the riot to prove he was encouraging a riot. That kind of argument could face “potentially tricky First Amendment issues,” former assistant U.S. attorney Randall Eliason writes in The New York Times. Those legal disputes “would have been time-consuming and distracting because the speech could be easily characterized as a political rally.”
The charge of “conspiracy against rights,” a civil rights law that prohibits trying to deprive someone of their right to vote, can serve as a more straightforward stand-in for an insurrection charge, which is rarely brought in court. The conspiracy charge, on the other hand, has been successfully tested. —
There was outsized attention on a possible insurrection charge in part because the Constitution’s 14th Amendment bars anyone who engages in insurrection from holding office. In theory, a conviction would disqualify Trump from serving a second term in the White House. —
While the lack of an incitement charge simplifies the case against Trump, we’re still in uncharted legal territory, especially given that the defendant is the former president. Smith’s case “requires some unprecedented interpretations of the U.S. criminal code” — including proving that Trump knew he lost the election — and shouldn’t be seen as a slam dunk, Jim Geraghty argues in National Review.

___________

Cult45: "See?? It wasn't a REAL insurrection!"

**TopHatter** · 03 Aug 23,, 01:07

Jack Smith's latest Trump indictment was built from Republican witness testimony

Former President Donald Trump addresses supporters in Erie, Pa., on Sunday.

On Tuesday, special counsel Jack Smith unsealed his latest criminal indictment of Donald Trump, and like the first indictment he filed against the former president, over his handling of classified documents, it was made up of hundreds of hours of grand jury testimony given by Republican witnesses, many of them former members of Trump's administration.

Trump and his political allies have attacked the indictment as being politically motivated, and the old legal adage that a prosecutor can convince a grand jury to "indict a ham sandwich" should give Americans some pause about whether Smith will be able to obtain guilty verdicts in this case. But as with the House Jan. 6 committee's final report on the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Tuesday's indictment is notable in that the evidence of criminal activity comes almost exclusively from Republicans sympathetic to Trump who testified under oath.

On the witness list

Among those who sat for questioning from prosecutors and whose answers were reviewed by the grand jury are the following:

Former Vice President Mike Pence

Former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows

Pence aides Greg Jacob and Marc Short

Former White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino

Former White House speechwriter Stephen Miller

Former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani

Trump attorney and adviser Boris Epshteyn

Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone

Former Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli

Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich

Chairman of the Nevada Republican Party Michael McDonald

Former White House aide Nick Luna

Former White House personnel director John McEntee

Former Trump campaign deputy director Gary Michael Brown

"Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger

Numerous so-called fake electors from multiple states

Dead people voting in Georgia

Again and again, the indictment makes clear, first, that Trump repeatedly lied to the American people that fraud had cost him victory in the 2020 election and, second, that members of his staff, many of whom testified before the grand jury, told him there was no evidence to back up his claims.

When Trump spoke with Raffensperger on Jan. 3, 2021, for instance, he claimed 5,000 dead people had voted in Georgia.

"Well, Mr. President, the challenge you have is the data you have is wrong," Raffensperger replied, adding, "The actual number were two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. And so [your information]'s wrong, that was two."

On Jan. 6, Trump went on to claim publicly and without evidence that 10,300 dead people had voted in Georgia.

'Yeah, you're right, it's too late for us'

At a Jan. 3, 2021, meeting between Trump and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Trump appeared to acknowledge his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Milley briefed Trump on national security situations, advising that the president refrain from taking any action, since he was only 17 days from leaving office.

“Yeah, you’re right, it’s too late for us. We’re going to give that to the next guy,” Trump allegedly said.

Milley sat for interviews with the House select committee, and Smith has relied on those findings.

'Just say that the election was corrupt'

Richard Donoghue, former acting deputy attorney general, testifies on June 23, 2022, to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
On Dec. 27, 2020, Trump called Jeffrey Rosen, then acting attorney general, and Richard Donoghue, acting deputy attorney general, and “raised multiple false claims” about the election, according to the indictment. Donoghue had a meeting with prosecutors but was not called to testify.

“When the Acting Attorney General told the Defendant that the Justice Department could not and would not change the outcome of the election, the Defendant responded, ‘Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,’” the indictment states.

'You’re too honest'

Former Vice President Mike Pence addresses the Republican Party of Iowa's Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines last Friday. (Sergio Flores/AFP via Getty Images)
Although Pence sought to avoid testifying before the grand jury on the grounds that he was acting as the president of the Senate when certifying the Electoral College vote, a federal judge ruled that he must testify and detail his conversations with Trump prior to Jan. 6, 2021.

One such conversation featured in the indictment occurred on Jan. 1, 2021. Trump had called Pence to berate him for not going along with a plan to have him reject the certification of the Electoral College vote.

“The Vice President responded that he thought there was no constitutional basis for such authority and that it was improper,” the indictment states. “In response, the Defendant [Trump] told the Vice President, ‘You’re too honest.’”
_______

**TopHatter** · 03 Aug 23,, 15:06

Trump Indictment Leaves Alleged Co-Conspirators Facing Tough Choices

Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, speaks at a news conference at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee in Washington on Nov. 19, 2020.

By the time Jack Smith, the special counsel, was brought in to oversee the investigation of former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, the inquiry had already focused for months on a group of lawyers close to Trump.

Many showed up as subjects of interest in a seemingly unending flurry of subpoenas issued by a grand jury sitting in the case. Some were household names, others less familiar. Among them were Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell.

On Tuesday, most of these same lawyers showed up again — albeit unnamed — as Trump’s co-conspirators in a federal indictment accusing him of a wide-ranging plot to remain in office despite having lost the election.

The appearance of the lawyers at the center of the case suggests how important prosecutors judged them to be to the conspiracy to execute what one federal judge who considered some of the evidence called “a coup in search of a legal theory.”

The lawyers’ placement at the heart of the plot while remaining uncharged — for now — raised questions about why Smith chose to bring the indictment with Trump as the sole defendant.

In complex conspiracy cases, prosecutors often choose to work from the bottom up, charging subordinates with crimes to put pressure on them to cooperate against their superiors. It remains unclear precisely what Smith may be seeking to accomplish by flipping that script.

Some legal experts theorized on Wednesday that by indicting Trump alone, Smith might be seeking to streamline and expedite the case before the 2024 election. If the co-conspirators were indicted, that would almost certainly slow down the process, potentially with the other defendants filing motions and seeking to splinter their cases from Trump’s.

“I think it’s a clean indictment to just have Donald Trump as the sole defendant,” said Soumya Dayananda, a former federal prosecutor who served as a senior investigator for the House Jan. 6 committee. “I think it makes it easier to just tell the story of what his corrupt activity was.”

Another explanation could be that by indicting Trump — and leaving open the threat of other charges — Smith was delivering a message: cooperate against Trump, or end up indicted like him. By not charging them for now, Smith could be giving the co-conspirators an incentive to reach a deal with investigators and provide information about the former president.

While the threat of prosecution could loom indefinitely, it is possible that the judge overseeing the case might soon ask Smith’s team to disclose whether it plans to issue a new indictment with additional defendants. And some legal experts expect additional charges to come.

“It’s clearly a strategic decision not to charge them so far, because it’s out of the ordinary,” said Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney who is now a University of Alabama law professor. “I don’t see an advantage to giving people this culpable a pass.”

That said, at least one of the co-conspirators — Giuliani — and another possible co-conspirator — Boris Epshteyn, a lawyer and strategic adviser close to Trump — have already sat with prosecutors for extended voluntary interviews. To arrange for such interviews, prosecutors typically consent not to use any statements made during the interview in future criminal proceedings against them unless the subject is determined to have been lying.

But those protections do not prevent Smith from charging anyone who sat for an interview. He still has the option of filing charges against any or all of the co-conspirators at more or less any time he chooses.

He used that tactic in a separate case against Trump related to the former president’s mishandling of classified documents, issuing a superseding indictment last week that accused a new defendant — the property manager of Trump’s private club and residence in Florida — of being part of a conspiracy to obstruct the government’s attempts to retrieve the sensitive materials.

Some of the lawyers named as Trump’s co-conspirators in the indictment filed on Tuesday have effectively acknowledged to being named in the case through their lawyers.

In a statement issued Tuesday night, Robert J. Costello, a lawyer for Giuliani, said it “appears” as if the former New York City mayor were co-conspirator 1. The statement also leveled a blistering attack on the indictment — and a defense of Trump — suggesting that Giuliani was an unlikely candidate for cooperating against the former president.

“Every fact that Mayor Giuliani possesses about this case establishes the good-faith basis President Donald Trump had for the action that he took,” Costello said.

Not long after, Charles Burnham, a lawyer for Eastman, implicitly admitted his client’s role as co-conspirator 2 by issuing a statement “regarding United States v. Donald J. Trump indictment” in which he insisted Eastman was not “involved in plea bargaining.”

“The fact is, if Dr. Eastman is indicted, he will go to trial,” the statement said. “If convicted, he will appeal.”

Some sleuthing was required to determine the identities of the other co-conspirators.

The indictment refers to co-conspirator 3, for instance, as a lawyer whose “unfounded claims of election fraud” sounded “crazy” to Trump.

That description fits Powell. She was best known during the postelection period for filing four lawsuits in key swing states claiming that a cabal of bad actors — including Chinese software companies, Venezuelan officials and liberal financier George Soros — conspired to hack into voting machines produced by Dominion Voting Systems and flip votes from Trump to Joe Biden.

Clark is a close match to the description of co-conspirator 4, who is identified in the charges as a Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and plotted with Trump to use the department to “open sham election crime investigations” and “influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.”

Against the advice of top officials at the Justice Department, Trump sought to install Clark, a high-ranking official in the department’s civil division, as the acting attorney general in the waning days of his administration after Clark agreed to support his claims of election fraud.

Clark also helped draft a letter to Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican, urging him to call the state Legislature into a special session to create a slate of false pro-Trump electors even though the state was won by Biden.

A batch of documents obtained by The New York Times helped to identify Chesebro as co-conspirator 5, who is described in the indictment as a lawyer who helped to craft and implement “a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.”

The emails obtained by the Times laid out a detailed picture of how several lawyers, reporting to Giuliani, carried out the so-called fake elector plot on behalf of Trump, while keeping many of their actions obscured from the public — and even from other lawyers working for the former president.

Several of these emails appeared as evidence in the indictment of Trump, including some that showed lawyers and the false electors they were seeking to recruit expressing reservations about whether the plan was honest or even legal.

“We would just be sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the ‘fake’ votes should be counted,” a lawyer based in Phoenix who helped organize the pro-Trump electors in Arizona wrote to Epshteyn on Dec. 8, 2020.

In another example, Chesebro wrote to Giuliani that two electors in Arizona “are concerned it could appear treasonous.”

At one point, the indictment quotes from a redacted message sent by an Arizona lawyer on Dec. 8, 2020, that reads, “I just talked to the gentleman who did that memo, [co-conspirator 5]. His idea is basically. …”

An unredacted version of that email obtained by the Times has the name “Ken Cheseboro” in the place of co-conspirator 5.

The indictment also cites a legal memo dated Nov. 18, 2020, that proposed recruiting a group of Trump supporters who would meet and vote as purported electors for Wisconsin. The court filing describes it as having been drafted by co-conspirator 5. That memo, also obtained by the Times, shows it was written by Chesebro.

A separate email, reviewed by the Times, gives a hint that Epshteyn could be co-conspirator 6.

The email — bearing a subject line reading, “Attorney for Electors Memo” — was sent on Dec. 7, 2020, to Giuliani and Giuliani’s son, Andrew.

“Dear Mayor,” it reads. “As discussed, below are the attorneys I would recommend for the memo on choosing electors,” adding the names of lawyers in seven states.

Paragraph 57 of the indictment asserts that co-conspirator 1, or Giuliani, spoke with co-conspirator 6 about lawyers who “could assist in the fraudulent elector effort in the targeted states.”

It also says that co-conspirator 6 sent an email to Giuliani “identifying attorneys in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin” — the same seven states mentioned in the email reviewed by the Times.

THE UNNAMED CO-CONSPIRATORS

Co-conspirator 1

Believed to be Rudy Giuliani, a former prosecutor and mayor of New York City who, as personal lawyer for Donald Trump, oversaw attempts to claim the 2020 election had been marred by widespread fraud.

“An attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the Defendant’s 2020 reelection campaign attorneys would not.”

Co-conspirator 2

Believed to be John Eastman, a former law professor who advised Trump about a plan to use fake electors and Vice President Mike Pence to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory.

“An attorney who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election.”

Co-conspirator 3

Believed to be Sidney Powell, a lawyer and conspiracy theorist who was part of Trump’s legal team as it tried to undo the results of the election.

“An attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the Defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded ‘crazy.’ Nonetheless, the Defendant embraced and publicly amplified Co-Conspirator 3’s disinformation.”

Co-conspirator 4

Believed to be Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department official whom Trump wanted to appoint as acting attorney general.

“A Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and who, with the Defendant, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.”

Co-conspirator 5

Believed to be Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who wrote the earliest known memo putting forward a plan to use fake electors.

“An attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.”

Co-conspirator 6

“A political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.”
________

What a lot of people are missing, is Trump wasn't merely talking about overturning the election. He was actively into his plot to overthrow the election.

There was an incredible amount of groundwork necessary to get his plot to work, and he and his co-conspirators did all of it. He failed only because Mike Pence decided to not go along with it, but if Pence had, it is very likely that the election certification process would've been stopped long enough to get Trump's fake electors inserted into the debacle.

Trump was not idly talking about a bank robbery, he was standing at the bank vault with a Mike Pence-brand drill when the drill decided to not work.

The indictment spells it all out, including the contingency plan to use the US military to put down the nationwide riots Trump expected. It's all laid out in Section 81. The Insurrection Act authorizes deadly force.

His plan expected the killing of Americans to get there.

**TopHatter** · 03 Aug 23,, 15:22

Coup Indictment: Here’s Why Trump’s Usual Defenses Won’t Work
They’re not suited for these charges or circumstances.

DONALD TRUMP’S “DEFENSES” to the various civil and criminal charges that have been brought against him change shape over time like cinematic alien invaders:

I didn’t do it. I had every right to do it. I never even met her. I may have met her, but she’s not my type. My lawyer told me I could do it. Hunter Biden did it. I did it, but it wasn’t a crime. It’s too insignificant to charge a former president. It’s too significant to charge a presidential candidate. It’s fake news.

But two of Trump’s standard, all-purpose defenses seem to have survived the test of time: (1) I really believed it. And (2) I relied on the advice of counsel.

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s new indictment of Donald Trump for crimes connected to the 2020 presidential election will challenge and, I believe, ultimately lay waste to those defenses.

The indictment charges Trump with conspiracies to defraud the United States “to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government” and to obstruct an official proceeding, specifically the lawful certification of the election results.

Broken down into their component parts, the conspiracy counts allege that Trump and his co-conspirators

used knowingly false claims of election fraud to get state legislatures and election officials to subvert the legitimate election results;
organized fraudulent slates of electors in seven targeted states to create the illusion that the election results were disputed in those states;
attempted to use the power of the Department of Justice to conduct sham election-crime investigations and to inform certain state legislatures, falsely, that the DOJ had identified significant concerns about fraudulent activity that may have impacted the result of the election when, in fact, the DOJ had reached exactly the opposite conclusion;
attempted to enlist the vice president to use his ceremonial role at the January 6, 2021 congressional certification proceedings to fraudulently alter the election results; and
exploited a large, angry mob whom they had deceived into believing that the vice president could change the election results in order to obstruct and delay the certification of the election results.

It is crucial to understanding the indictment to observe that Smith has not charged Trump with separate criminal violations for each—or any—of the individual component parts listed above. He could have. For instance, the fake-electors scheme alone implicated a host of state and federal criminal statutes that could have been charged assuming, as the indictment strongly suggests, that Trump can be credibly linked to them.

But Smith went a different route. Rather than charging Trump with discrete crimes for specific acts, he charged Trump with broader conspiracies, using the specific acts as evidence of and support for the larger conspiracy charges.

Smith’s strategy makes sense. Since entering into a criminal conspiracy is by itself sufficient to support a criminal charge, the object of the conspiracy doesn’t have to be achieved.

That will shape the entire prosecution. For instance, while Trump attempted to coerce state legislatures to reverse the results of the election, he failed to convince them to do so. Similarly, he tried—but failed—to get the DOJ to send a letter to the states falsely claiming that it had determined that there had been significant election fraud. And Trump’s attempt to get Vice President Mike Pence to exceed his constitutional authority on January 6th also failed.

Fecklessness all around—yet all of these failures will be damning evidence against Trump at his trial on the conspiracy charges. It’s not so much what he accomplished (not much, unless you count undermining about half the nation’s belief in democracy). It’s more about what he tried to do. “But we couldn’t break into the vault” isn’t going to be much of a defense when you get caught robbing a bank.

THE NATURE OF SMITH’S CHARGES will also shape Trump’s defenses. Most of the political arguments made by Trump’s supporters in response to the indictment are just that: political, not legal, defenses. The claim that the indictment was designed to distract from “ongoing legal troubles” of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, for instance, may have ramifications for the 2024 presidential election, but it won’t mean anything in a criminal trial. The case will rise or fall on its merits, and Hunter Biden will have no role in it.

But Trump’s two stock legal defenses—that he sincerely believed he had won the 2020 election and that he relied on the advice of counsel in his post-election activities—will be very much in play.

Let’s take a look at how each of those defenses is likely to play out in court.

First, some commentators are claiming that prosecutors will have to prove that Trump knew he had lost the 2020 election, and that this may be a major potential weakness in their case. Here’s how two writers phrased it in the Dispatch yesterday: “If Trump can convince one juror that he believed that he won the 2020 election and that he was trying to prevent the election from being stolen with fraudulent votes, then that’s the ballgame.”

To see what’s wrong with that analysis, start with the factual problem of Trump proving at trial that he really, most sincerely believed that he won the election. How is he going to do this? Is he going to testify? And what about the fact that virtually every senior member of his own administration—the vice president, the senior leaders of DOJ, the director of national intelligence, officials from the Department of Homeland Security, and senior staff members, not to mention state legislatures and officials, and dozens of state and federal courts—told him otherwise? And wouldn’t a claim that despite all of that, he really believed he had won have to pass some kind of smell test for reasonableness in order to gain any credence with a jury?

But forget all that and assume that Trump could, in fact, convince jurors that he really believed the election was stolen. What then?

Convincing at least one juror that Trump sincerely believed he won the 2020 election could gain him some sympathy if the juror were already inclined to view him favorably and might even have won the day, at least partially, if each of the components of Smith’s conspiracy counts had been charged as standalone crimes. For instance, Trump’s attempts to convince state officials and legislators to revisit the election results in their respective states could be seen as an attempt to right a wrong, not to commit one, if Trump could convince jurors that he sincerely believed that there were substantial, outcome-determinative fraudulent votes to be found.

But Trump’s attempts to strong-arm state officials are not charged as standalone crimes. Rather, they are presented as examples of what lawyers refer to as “overt acts” taken by Trump and others in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy to defraud the government. They are used to demonstrate that a conspiratorial agreement has advanced from mere talk to action, not to show that the conspirators committed additional crimes above and beyond the conspiracy itself.

Think, for instance, of a conspiracy to kidnap and hold a person for ransom. In furtherance of the scheme, the conspirators locate and rent a safe house, stock up to hold the hostage for a protracted period of time, buy ski masks, restraints and a telephone voice changer, and carefully observe the comings and goings in the target area. Not one of these acts taken in furtherance of the conspiracy is, standing alone, a crime. But individually and taken together, those overt acts are powerful evidence of a criminal conspiracy.

So it is with Trump. If he could convince a jury that he truly believed he had won the election, some of the overt acts alleged against him, standing alone, might look less sinister. But those acts do not stand alone. Rather, they are powerful evidence of the criminal conspiracy alleged in the indictment.

And while some of the overt acts alleged against Trump might look less damning if Trump could show he truly believed he won the election, others would not. Even a sincere, deeply held belief that the election had been stolen would not, for instance, give Trump license to participate in a fake-electors scheme. As I wrote over a year ago, none of Trump’s standard defenses can excuse this piece of dirty work. Trump can’t claim he didn’t know about it, and he can’t claim that forging election certificates and then attempting to pawn them off as official documents is just fine as long as you believe you won an election.

Think of it this way. You may be absolutely convinced that a charge on your credit card isn’t yours, but you can’t hack into the bank’s server to remove it. You may know with all your heart that your neighbor took your Rolex, but you can’t break into his house in the middle of the night to retrieve it (just ask O.J. Simpson about that one). You may hold it as an article of near-religious faith that the government is tyrannical, but you can’t blow up the federal building.

Believing you have a legitimate gripe—even if you’re right about it—doesn’t give you license to commit crimes. As the indictment concedes, Trump had a right, “like every American,” to speak publicly about the election “and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won.”

But he didn’t have the right to attempt to redress that supposed grievance by defrauding the government and attempting to obstruct one of our democracy’s most sacred official proceedings.

TO SEE WHY TRUMP’S OTHER MAINSTAY DEFENSE—claiming he relied on the advice of counsel—won’t work this time around, ask yourself this: What legal advice did Trump supposedly rely upon, and from whom did he receive it?

There are only two potential areas of legal advice that could be advanced on Trump’s behalf in any meaningful sense: (1) that there was a level of fraud in the election that determined its outcome; and (2) that the vice president had the constitutional authority to reject the certified election results and throw the election to state legislatures who could overturn it in Trump’s favor.

How is Trump to convince a jury that he relied on such legal advice? If Trump doesn’t testify—which seems near-certain—who will supply the evidence of this? The attorneys on whom he might claim to have relied—Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell—are unlikely to testify because they are either named or unnamed co-conspirators with potential criminal liability of their own. If any of them do testify, they risk being exposed as liars and frauds who can be torn to shreds on the witness stand.

The attorneys who will testify, on the other hand, are credible professionals—many of whom, like Bill Barr and Pat Cipollone, were appointed by Trump himself—who will establish that Trump did not rely on the advice of counsel. Based on what they told the House January 6th Committee, we know they will testify that they advised Trump that they had seen no evidence of outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 election, and that the vice president did not have constitutional authority to reject singlehandedly the slates of electors that had been officially certified.

Trump didn’t rely on the advice of counsel, he rejected it. He then went and sought out a cohort of kooks and shameless conspiracy nuts who would say whatever he wanted to hear. That’s not reliance on the advice of counsel, that’s the opposite: that’s the client advising the lawyer of what he wants to hear.

Even so, suppose for a moment that Trump could convince a juror or two that he actually had relied on the advice of counsel. That still wouldn’t excuse the “use of deceit to get state officials to subvert the legitimate election results and change electoral votes,” the use of “dishonesty, fraud, and deceit” to “organize fraudulent states of electors and cause them to transmit false certificates to Congress,” the “attempt to leverage the Justice Department to use deceit to get state officials to replace legitimate electors and electoral votes with [Trump’s],” or the “exploitation of the violence and chaos at the Capitol” on January 6th—all as alleged in the indictment.

TRUMP AND HIS ATTORNEYS obviously know that neither a supposedly sincere belief that the election was stolen nor the claim that he relied on the advice of counsel will be an effective defense if it comes down to a criminal trial.

Trump’s ultimate defense will have nothing to do with the facts, the law or the judicial system.

It will revolve around only one thing: getting re-elected so that Trump can either pardon himself or, more likely, rely on a carefully chosen attorney general to drop the charges.
_______

**tbm3fan** · 03 Aug 23,, 16:50

In short he can yell from the top of the Washington Monument that I won, I truly believed I won.

However, as Bill Barr has said "But that does not protect you from entering into a conspiracy."

**TopHatter** · 03 Aug 23,, 19:46

Capitol Police officers speak out on Trump Jan. 6 indictment: ‘I want justice’

Some U.S. Capitol Police officers embraced the news Tuesday that former President Trump was indicted on four counts related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, characterizing the development as another step closer to justice.

Trump, who is the front-runner in the GOP presidential primary, was indicted on four criminal charges related to his attempts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election, which culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The indictment charges him with three distinct conspiracies: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against people’s rights.

U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn — who has been outspoken about the trauma he endured while defending the Capitol on Jan. 6 — issued a formal statement through a lawyer in response to the news.

“All I have wanted from day one is accountability and justice for the law enforcement men and women who fought bravely on January 6th. As we get closer to the proverbial finish line, I can only reflect on how long this fight has been,” Dunn said in the statement posted by attorney Mark Zaid on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“I would be lying if I did not acknowledge my numbness with the news of the indictment today of a former President of the United States. I am confident our legal system will handle this case properly,” Dunn continued in the statement.

Earlier, Dunn posted on X writing, “937 days and counting… An indictment is only a mile marker along the highway to justice and accountability.”

Former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Winston Pingeon posted a photo of himself in front of the U.S. Capitol building and responded to the news by demanding “justice.”

“I want Justice for what my fellow officers and I endured while defending democracy on January 6th. One step closer,” Pingeon wrote in a post on X.

Former D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone — who has also been vocal about his struggles after defending the Capitol on Jan. 6 — issued a statement responding to the news, slamming House Republicans for defending Trump after this indictment.

“I saw the Trump-fueled MAGA attack before my eyes. It was calculated, premeditated, and malicious. It disgusts me that House Republicans are heinously coming to the defense of Trump’s criminal behavior while putting up the foundation of our democracy as collateral,” Fanone said in his statement, which specifically called out Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for defending the former president.
___________

Cult45: "But did you actually die?

**TopHatter** · 04 Aug 23,, 21:40

Trump calls on Supreme Court to ‘intercede’ in legal fights
Former President Trump is calling on the Supreme Court to intercede in the legal battles he is facing after he pleaded not guilty federal to charges related to special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Trump, in a post on Truth Social early Friday, repeated accusations that President Biden is pushing for the cases against him for political purposes. Trump also said the multiple cases against him will require “massive amounts” of time and money and force him to use resources on court battles that could have been used for advertisements and rallies.

“I am leading in all Polls, including against Crooked Joe, but this is not a level playing field. It is Election Interference, & the Supreme Court must intercede. MAGA!” Trump said.

The former president appeared in a Washington, D.C., courtroom Thursday for his arraignment to enter his not guilty plea to the four charges he is facing in the Jan. 6 case.

He has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.

All three of Trump’s criminal cases remain in early stages. Although the disputes could eventually end up at the Supreme Court, such an appeal would not take place until further down the road.
___________

Keeping to the decades-old script lol. Slow your roll there IQ45, you'll have plenty of time for appeals later.

Announcement

Donald Trump Indicted for Attempting to Overturn 2020 Election

Donald Trump Indicted for Attempting to Overturn 2020 Election

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