Fifty Democrats weighed the evidence and voted to convict. They are heroes because they have consistently opposed Trumpism. Their vote yesterday was part of that heroism. Yet they are being all but ignored while the press fawns over the fake prodigal sons on the other side. Each and every one of these GOP-portunists was provided numerous chances to denounce Trump before it came to this monstrous moment — and they chose to stand with him until it was nearly too late .
And the press rewards McConnell with free publicity for the single most dishonest and hypocritical public statement in all of American history since his last one. Oh, NOW he gets it.
The focus on prodigal sons ignores those who were right all along. It represents, among other things, a monumental waste of time as the public discourse entertains both sides of ideas which really need no debate. Ideas like whether creationism should be taught , whether gay marriage is a good thing, whether separating children from their families is good immigration policy. And whether Donald Trump incited a riot.
As long as the media worship prodigal sons and privilege their return to reality over those who were always sensible, the Republican party will continue to set the agenda. It’s a cynical game that this country could never afford, and certainly can’t now.
This is what right wing media and Donald Trump have done to people’s minds. And apparently, there are a lot of them, even some in powerful positions in Republican politics .
Dustin Carnahan, a professor at Michigan State University who studies misinformation, believes that conspiracy theories and misinformation is what led hundreds of Trump supporters and QAnon believers to storm the building that day, which disrupted congresspeople from certifying Joe Biden’s electoral college win and forced them to evacuate the chamber and hide in undisclosed locations.
“There was this conspiracy that there’s this individual in government, Donald Trump, [former] President Trump is acting to kind of combat this cabal of secretive actors,” Carnahan said during a Zoom interview last week.
The conspiracy’s cabal included Hollywood stars and global elites working together to take over the government and the world, he said. GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene supported and perpetuated this theory and others in past social media posts. The House on Thursday February 4 voted to remove her from committee assignments.
“With conspiracies it’s all about how people formulate explanations about why the world is the way it is and how it operates,” Carnahan said. “It’s just understanding how it is that people go about kind of creating their own reality. It’s not necessarily rooted in actual facts.”
Carnahan said conspiracy theories and misinformation tend to be feelings-based and pry on people’s already anti-government sentiment. Trump’s rhetoric toward the media over the last four years, calling journalists ‘fake news,’ only fueled the sentiment even more.
“We’ve seen kind of a sustained attack against the press and kind of the generation of skepticism that journalists aren’t giving us the whole story, that they’re selectively choosing different types of facts to present in other facts. They’re omitting and they’re protecting people in power,” Carnahan said. “So, when you have those sustained attacks overtime what you see is a public decline in trust in news.”
He also said there’s been a decline in trust towards the medical and public health fields. There’s been increased attacks on doctors, scientists and other experts; people questioning their fact-based research and work.
“When you have the skepticism and you have that decline in trust in news media, and this almost anti-intellectual movement where we’re questioning and pushing back against official stories and experts,” he said, “what you see is the potential for people to start gravitating towards other sources of information and other explanations as to why something happened or why an election turned out the way it did or why a disease or how a disease originated.”
Those other sources that people gravitate to, he said, tend to be websites or online groups dedicated to misinformation, which in the wake of the riots on January 6, many social media giants have banned from their platforms.
More importantly, he said people started leaving the QAnon movement.
“You started seeing people say ‘wait a second this isn’t what we were told was going to happen. We thought President Trump had our back,’” Carnahan said. “You start to see people abandon the ideology and starting to abandon the conspiracy.”
I don ‘t think you can discount the right wing media and Donald Trump in all this either. They helped create the conspiratorial atmosphere that helped spread this virus.
Things will get worse for the 45th president. The 57-43 margin in the Senate flashes a green light to federal and state prosecutors that, if they find evidence of crimes, proceeding with legal action against Trump would be politically safe.
Trump also faces the prospect of civil actions by the families of those who lost their lives in the insurrection that he incited. If and when they sue, their attorneys cite what Senator Mitch McConnell said immediately after the trial vote. The Senate minority leader condemned Trump’s actions as a “disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty” and held Trump “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.” McConnell continued:
<blockquote>The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instruction of their president. Having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the gowing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth. The issue is not only the president’s intemperate language on January 6 … it was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe, the increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was somehow being stolen by some secret coup by our now president.</blockquote>
His own damning assessment did not suffice to persuade McConnell to convict Trump of impeachable offenses. That abdication will weigh on McConnell’s conscience and historical reputation.
But McConnell’s words on the record may well suffice in future civil proceedings to impose responsibility on Trump for the harm he did. If your loved ones were injured or killed on January 6, the leader of Trump’s party in the Senate just volunteered his video jury testimony about who might be held liable for your loss.
Even more significantly, McConnell reminded senators that the regular criminal law could deal with common criminals—as the Republican leader suggested Trump to be. Maybe McConnell was just emitting words, only maneuvering. But if federal and state law enforcement is pursuing Trump, today’s events will encourage it, not deter it.
If you looked to the U.S. Senate for a full measure of accountability, you did not receive it, of course. Donald Trump, the twice-impeached president, is also a twice-acquitted president. He lives in a palace on the sea, supported by unconstitutional emoluments from foreign governments, unethical payments from the U.S. Treasury to his businesses, and gullible donations from the suckers he duped. Almost half a million are dead from the plague he promised would go away by itself, even as he received the benefit of miracle treatments available only to the most favored few.
But if justice failed, democratic self-preservation is working. Trump lost the presidency, and that loss held despite all his attacks on the vote and the counting of the vote. His party split against him on this second round of impeachable offenses. He has lost his immunity to civil suit and his impunity against federal indictment.
The world is crashing upon his head.
I’ve heard that before …
However, it’s important for me not to become too pessimistic in order to save myself ffrom disappointment. It’s not good for my mental health. So, I am going to embrace this as one possibility going forward, and one that certainly is backed up by the fates of previous demagogues like Jospeh McCarthy and previous huckster phonies like Sarah Palin.
On the other hand, it’s also important to recognize that Donald Trump is not just either of those things. He is the leader of a full-fledged cult and I don’t know that it’s as ephemeral as people think. In fact,k I know it isn’t. That cult has been building for three decades. Trump just recognized it and claimed it as his own, he didn’t invent it. I could imagine that surviving two impeachments and pounding virtually the entire Republican party into submission has made him even more attractive to the Grievance Party.
The Senate struck a deal Saturday morning to forgo calling Washington state Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (and perhaps others) as a witness in the Trump impeachment trial in exchange for reading Beutler’s stunning statement into the record. It was inevitable that no sooner than the deal was announced that a “Democratscaved” narrative would spread.
The point of witnesses was to make it as UGLY AS POSSIBLE for Republicans to vote to acquit, which we all knew they were going to do anyway.
Impeachment itself was a waste of time, if you thought the point was to convince REPUBLICANS.
The point of calling for and winning a vote was not to get Beutler to testify, but to get her statement admitted as part of the historical record. So I have to agree with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) here:
“We could have had 500 witnesses, and it would not have overcome the kinds of arguments being made by Mitch McConnell and other Republicans who were hanging their hats on the claim that it was somehow unconstitutional to try a former president,” he said. “They’re going to have to live with those arguments that they made, but we think that we overwhelmingly proved our case.”
“The point of witnesses was to make it as UGLY AS POSSIBLE for Republicans,” The Nation‘s Elie Mystal counters. “‘The show’ was the only point.” But shamelessness is their superpower, as Digby says regularly. That applies not only to Republican electeds in Congress but to the Republican base.
For whom would a parade of witnesses make Republican senators’ votes to acquit “as ugly as possible”? Not to them. Not to their base. For whom then? For Democrats seeking vengeance and needing to see Republicans punished somehow?
There are plenty of more winnable fights ahead. Legislative ones. Fights that if won will deliver relief and visible, dramatic improvements in the lives of voters Democrats need motivated to vote in 2022. Control of Congress is already on the line and the clock is ticking.
Given Republican obstruction and bad faith during Barack Obama’s first term, President Joe Biden has a rough road ahead for delivering tagible improvements for Americans before November 2022. Democrats had no choice but to impeach Trump again even if it meant some legislative delay. But there is little return in trying to make the rubble bounce for emotional gratification. I’d rather win elections.
It’s cold comfort this morning, but what are you gonna do? The spin on Saturday’s Senate acquittal will be that, with seven Republicans joining Democrats in voting to convict, the second impeachment trial of Donald John Trump was the most bipartisan in history.
That still means, Dana Milbank writes, the other 43 Republicans, “now have the cowardly distinction of licking the boots of the man who left them to die,” just as the unrefuted account of Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) stated.
Meaning, Senate Republicans look to history like Dinsdale’s victims in Monty Python’s “Piranha Brothers” sketch. They excused the mobster for nailing their heads to the floor. Trump didn’t want to nail their heads to the floor; they insisted. He had to. They had transgressed the unwritten law, whatever it was.
As expected as the Senate’s verdict was, it is a struggle to be optimistic this morning about our country’s future when so many among us behave like victims of a violent spouse or cult leader.
“It’s hard to be human,” Democrats’ impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland said, quoting his late son in his Saturday afternoon closing. His daughter Hannah had felt sorry for the children of one insurrectionist who said goodbye to his children before heading to Washington, D.C. He expected violence there and felt he might never see them again. Jamie Raskin felt shame. He viewed the statement as a prosecutor would. His daughter saw it like a human being, like someone who had just lost her brother.
Hannah saw through the legality and politics clear through to the humanity. His kids, Raskin said, “are literally better people than me.”
Raskin’s closing was as artful as it was human.
“Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil,” Raskin said, something from Exodus remembered from Sunday school. The rest of the verse Raskin did not recite. In another translation it reads, “neither shall you testify in court to side with a multitude to pervert justice.”
Yet those who would be Republican leaders in the Senate, 43 anyway, did just that. Cowed, fawning, they excused their abuser, the would be autocrat, and still call themselves Americans.
Bill McKibben writes at The New Yorker that Raskin’s America is more hopeful, more courageous, more democratic, and more beautiful. “Although constantly accused of undermining American pride, of debasing American history, progressives are, in fact, the ones who actually understand the nation’s story,” McKibben writes. And Raskin is one who can tell it:
On Thursday, Raskin, arguing gamely for a conviction that everyone knows he cannot win, had to pretend that his audience of senators shared his assumptions about democracy. But, of course, many of them didn’t—many had truckled to Trump precisely in order to maintain position and privilege. Is there anyone who thinks that a 1776 version of Lindsey Graham would have been fighting alongside Sam Adams and Tom Paine? It’s much easier to imagine him as a bewigged and bewildered gent ordering the servants to pack the household baggage for the move back to London with the other Tories. That members of the party that licked Trump’s spittle called themselves “Republicans” and pretended their subservience was somehow an attack on “élites” is a reminder of the power of the idea that they have done their best to wreck.
One has to stand up to that privilege and rank and vested interest constantly, so Raskin’s case was made for history—a case against Trump, and the next Trump, and the Trump after that, if we’re lucky enough to endure as a country to see those challenges. And, if we are that lucky, it will be because new generations of Raskins will keep standing up to power, very much in the progressive tradition that goes back to our founding. American history is full of ugliness, but there is beauty at its core, as well, and that was what illuminated this week’s proceedings.
With Valentine’s Day nearly upon us, I thought that I would share my 12 favorite romantic comedies with you. So in a non-ranking alphabetical order, here we go:
Amelie-Yes, I know this one has its share of detractors-but writer-director Jean-Pierre Juenet’s beautifully realized film (co-written with Gillaume Laurant) has stolen my heart for life.
Audrey Tautou literally lights up the screen as a gregarious loner who decides to become a guardian angel (sometimes benign devil) and commit random acts of anonymous kindness. The plight of Amelie’s people in need is suspiciously like her own…those who need a little push to come out of self-imposed exiles and revel in life’s simple pleasures.
Of course, our heroine is really in search of her own happiness and fulfillment. Does she find it? You will have to see for yourself. Whimsical, inventive, life-affirming, and wholly original, Amelie should melt the most cynical of hearts.
Gregory’s Girl– Scottish writer-director Bill Forsyth’s delightful examination of first love follows gawky teenager Gregory (John Gordon Sinclair) as he goes gaga over Dorothy (Dee Hepburn), a fellow soccer player on the school team. Gregory receives advice from an unlikely mentor, his little sister (Allison Forster). While his male classmates put on airs about having deep insights about the opposite sex, they are just as clueless as he.
Forsyth gets a lot of mileage out of a basic truth about adolescence-the girls are usually light years ahead of the boys in getting a handle on the mysteries of love. Not as precious as you might think, as Forsyth is a master of low-key anarchy and understated irony. You may have trouble navigating those Scottish accents, but it’s worth the effort. Also with Clare Grogan, whom music fans may recall as the lead singer of 80s new wavers Altered Images, and Red Dwarf fans may recognize as “Kristine Kochanski”.
Modern Romance (1981) – In his best romantic comedy (co-written by frequent collaborator Monica Johnson), writer-director Albert Brooks (the inventor of “cringe” comedy) casts himself as a film editor who works for American International Pictures. His obsessive-compulsiveness makes him great at his job, but a pain-in-the-ass to his devoted girlfriend (Kathryn Harrold), who is becoming exasperated with his penchant to impulsively break up with her one day, then beg her to take him back the next.
There are many inspired scenes, particularly a sequence where a depressed Brooks takes Quaaludes and drunk dials every woman he’s ever dated (like Bob Newhart, Brooks is a master of “the phone bit”). Another great scene features Brooks and his assistant editor (the late Bruno Kirby, in one of his best roles) laying down Foley tracks in the post-production sessions for a cheesy sci-fi movie. Brooks’ brother, the late Bob Einstein (a regular on Curb Your Enthusiasm) has a wry cameo as a sportswear clerk. Also with George Kennedy (as “himself”) and real-life film director James L. Brooks (no relation) playing Brooks’ boss.
Next Stop, Wonderland – Writer/director Brad Anderson’s intelligent and easygoing fable about love and serendipity made me a Hope Davis fan for life. Davis plays a laid back Bostonian who finds her love life set adrift after her pompous environmental activist boyfriend (Philip Seymour Hoffman) suddenly decides that dashing off to save the earth is more important than sustaining their relationship.
Her story is paralleled with that of a charming and unassuming single fellow (Alan Gelfant) who aspires to become a marine biologist. Both parties find themselves politely deferring to well-meaning friends and relatives who are constantly trying to fix them up with dates. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell you that these two may be destined to end up together. The film seems to have been inspired by A Man and a Woman, right down to its breezy bossa nova/samba soundtrack.
Play it Again, Sam – I don’t know what it is about this particular Woody Allen vehicle (directed by Herbert Ross), but no matter how many times I have viewed it over the years, I laugh just as hard at all the one-liners as I did the first time I saw it. Annie Hall and Manhattan may be his most highly lauded and artistically accomplished projects, but for pure “laughs per minute”, I would nominate this 1972 entry, with a screenplay adapted by Allen from his own original stage version.
Allen portrays a film buff with a Humphrey Bogart obsession. He fantasizes that he’s getting pointers from Bogie’s ghost (played to perfection by Jerry Lacy) who advises him on how to “be a man” and attract the perfect mate. He receives some more pragmatic assistance from his best friends, a married couple (Diane Keaton and Tony Roberts) who fix him up with a series of women (the depictions of the various dating disasters are hilarious beyond description). A classic.
She’s Gotta Have It – “Please baby please baby please baby please!” One of writer-director Spike Lee’s earlier, funny films (his debut, actually). A sexy, hip, and fiercely independent young woman (Tracy Camilla Johns) juggles relationships with three men, who are all quite aware of each other’s existence.
Lee steals his own film by casting himself as the goofiest and most memorable of the three suitors- “Mars”, a trash-talking version of the classic Woody Allen nebbish. Lee milks laughs from the huffing and puffing by the competing paramours, as each jockeys for the alpha position (and makes some keen observations regarding sexist machismo and male vanity). Spike’s dad Bill Lee composed a lovely jazz-pop score. A milestone for modern indie cinema.
Sherman’s March – Documentary filmmaker Ross McElwee is truly one of America’s hidden treasures. A genteel Southern neurotic (Woody Allen meets Tennessee Williams), McElwee has been documenting his personal life since the mid 70’s and managed to turn all that footage into some of the funniest and most thought-provoking films that most people have never seen. Viewers weaned on reality TV and Snapchat may wonder “what’s the big deal about one more schmuck making glorified home movies?” but they would be missing an enriching glimpse into the human condition.
Sherman’s March actually began as a history piece, a project aiming to retrace the Union general’s path of destruction through the South during the Civil War, but somehow ended up as rumination on the eternal human quest for love and acceptance, filtered through McElwee’s personal search for the perfect mate. Despite its daunting 3 hour length, I’ve found myself returning to this film for repeat viewings over the years, and enjoying it just as much as the first time I saw it. The unofficial “sequel”, Time Indefinite, is worth a peek as well.
Smiles of a Summer Night– “Lighthearted romp” and “Ingmar Bergman” are not usually mentioned in the same breath, but it applies to this wise, drolly amusing morality tale from the director whose name is synonymous with somber dramas.
Gunnar Bjornstrand heads a fine ensemble, as an amorous middle-aged attorney with a young wife (whose “virtue” remains intact) and a free-spirited mistress, who juggles a few lovers herself. Love in all its guises is represented by a bevy of richly drawn characters, who converge in a third act set on a sultry summer’s eve at a country estate (the inspiration for Bergman admirer Woody Allen’s A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy).
Fast-paced, literate, and sensuous, Smiles of a Summer Night has a muted cry here and a whisper there of that patented Bergman “darkness”, but compared to most of his oeuvre, this one is a veritable screwball comedy. Gorgeously photographed by Gunnar Fischer (he was also cinematographer for Bergman’s classics Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal).
The Tall Guy –Deftly directed by British TV comic Mel Smith with a high-brow/low-brow blend of sophisticated cleverness and riotous vulgarity (somehow he makes it work), this is the stuff cult followings are made of.
Jeff Goldblum is an American actor working on the London stage, who is love struck by an English nurse (Emma Thompson). Rowan Atkinson is a hoot as Goldblum’s employer, a London stage comic beloved by his audience but an absolute backstage terror to cast and crew. The most hilariously choreographed sex scene ever put on film alone is worth the price of admission; and the extended set-piece, a staged musical version of The Elephant Man (a brilliant takeoff on Andrew Lloyd Webber) had me on the floor. An underrated gem.
Tampopo – Self billed as “The first Japanese noodle western”, this 1987 entry from writer-director Juzo Itami is all that and more. Nobuko Niyamoto is superb as the eponymous character, a widow who has inherited her late husband’s noodle house. Despite her dedication and effort to please customers, Tampopo struggles to keep the business afloat, until a deux ex machina arrives-a truck driver named Goro (Tsutomo Yamazaki).
After one taste, Goro pinpoints the problem-bland noodles. No worries-like the magnanimous stranger who blows into an old western town (think Alan Ladd in Shane). Goro takes Tampopo on as a personal project, mentoring her on the Zen of creating the perfect noodle bowl. A delight from start to finish, offering keen insight on the relationship between food, sex and love.
A Touch of Class – Directed by Melvin Frank (The Court Jester, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) this 1973 film was co-written by the director with Jack Rose and Marvin Frank. George Segal and Glenda Jackson make a great comedy tag team as a married American businessman and British divorcee (respectively) who, following two chance encounters in London, quickly realize there’s a mutual attraction and embark on an affair.
The story falters a bit in the third act, when it begins to vacillate a little clumsily between comedy and morality tale, but when it’s funny, it’s very funny. The best part of the film concerns the clandestine lovers’ first romantic getaway on a trip to Spain. Segal has always shown a genius for screen comedy, but I think Jackson steals the film (and gets off some of the best zingers, with her impeccably droll “English-ness”).
Two for the Road – A swinging 60s version of Scenes from a Marriage. Director Stanley Donen (Singin’ in the Rain) whips up a cinematic soufflé; folding in a sophisticated script by Frederick Raphael, a generous helping of Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn, a dash of colorful European locales, and topping it with a cherry of a score by Henry Mancini.
Donen follows the travails of a married couple over the years of their relationship, by constructing a series of non-linear flashbacks and flash-forwards (a structural device that has been utilized since by other filmmakers, but rarely as effectively). While there are a lot of laughs, Two For the Road is, at its heart, a thoughtful meditation on the nature of love and true, lasting commitment. Finney and Hepburn have an electric on-screen chemistry.
While it was a disappointment that the Democrats didn’t take the opportunity to call witnesses in person, it doesn’t mean we will never hear from them. Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast reminds us that there are other processes that can get to that:
[T]o the extent that there is a hunger to get to the bottom of everything that happened on Jan. 6—and I hope that extent is considerable across the nation—there is a far better venue for doing so than an impeachment trial.
[…]
All of which brings us to the superior venue through which the nation can get to the bottom of this. It’s the 9/11-style commission that Pelosi has promoted. That would be a commission of experts, with a large and top-drawer staff and subpoena power, that would get to the bottom of everything. It could and should take months and do hundreds of interviews and subpoena resistant witnesses and tell the whole story.
That, to me, is the right venue for understanding what happened on Jan. 6. You’ll remember if you’re of a certain age that the 9/11 commission was co-chaired by Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, who were two elder statesmen of their parties. So today, equivalents might be, oh, Tom Daschle and Trent Lott, something like that. They oversaw a comparatively civil impeachment trial of Bill Clinton in 1999.
That’s where Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) should be made to talk, under oath, about his phone chat with Trump at 2:20-ish p.m. on Jan. 6. That’s where everyone in Trump’s retinue can be subpoenaed to talk about what they knew and when they knew it, and then jailed if they duck their subpoenas and refuse to talk. It’s where even Trump himself can be made to talk (George W. Bush testified, but not under oath; an oath won’t matter with Trump since he will lie with impunity regardless). The Mikes, Lee and Pence, will have to talk to such a commission. We’ll get to the bottom of what Trump knew about Pence’s fate and when he knew it.
And we’ll discover the entire extent of the coordination. How many local Republican elected officials were involved? How many party officials, national and local? How many police officers were in on it? Was Rudy involved, or Flynn, or the Trump kids? These questions must be answered for the sakes of both closure and history. An impeachment trial won’t answer them.
Regular readers know that I’ve been pushing for commissions and investigations in this congress for a long time. I thought that before January 6th. The insurrection just made it even more imperative.
So yes. There should be a commission. There must be a commission and a report. This trial’s outcome was foreordained and it actually was better than I expected with 7 Republicans voting against Trump. But there is more to be discovered about this and the congress — or a blue ribbon commission — will have the ability to do it, taking the time to delve into the case wherever it leads.
And yes, if there’s a prosecutable crime, the DOJ should prosecute. I’ll be very surprised if that happens. Unfortunately.
He was acquitted. Of course. But 7 Republicans voted to convict and Mitch McConnell got up afterwards and basically made the case that he should have been even though he voted to acquit. I guess that’s better than nothing but still, it’s nothing. Trump will very likely run again in 2024 unless his health gives out.
Lindsey Graham: “There is no doubt that January 6 was one of the saddest days in American history. It will be part of President Trump’s term in office.”
“This was an impeachment effort driven by passion and hatred against President Trump.”
“I want to first thank my team of dedicated lawyers and others for their tireless work upholding justice and defending truth.
“My deepest thanks as well to all of the United States Senators and Members of Congress who stood proudly for the Constitution we all revere and for the sacred legal principles at the heart of our country.
“Our cherished Constitutional Republic was founded on the impartial rule of law, the indispensable safeguard for our liberties, our rights and our freedoms.
“It is a sad commentary on our times that one political party in America is given a free pass to denigrate the rule of law, defame law enforcement, cheer mobs, excuse rioters, and transform justice into a tool of political vengeance, and persecute, blacklist, cancel and suppress all people and viewpoints with whom or which they disagree. I always have, and always will, be a champion for the unwavering rule of law, the heroes of law enforcement, and the right of Americans to peacefully and honorably debate the issues of the day without malice and without hate.
“This has been yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our Country. No president has ever gone through anything like it, and it continues because our opponents cannot forget the almost 75 million people, the highest number ever for a sitting president, who voted for us just a few short months ago.
“I also want to convey my gratitude to the millions of decent, hardworking, law-abiding, God-and-Country loving citizens who have bravely supported these important principles in these very difficult and challenging times.
“Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun. In the months ahead I have much to share with you, and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all of our people. There has never been anything like it!
“We have so much work ahead of us, and soon we will emerge with a vision for a bright, radiant, and limitless American future.
“Together there is nothing we cannot accomplish.
“We remain one People, one family, and one glorious nation under God, and it’s our responsibility to preserve this magnificent inheritance for our children and for generations of Americans to come.
“May God bless all of you, and may God forever bless the United States of America.”
He’s running. He has no remorse, no regret and still believes that everything he did was perfect. And he still owns the Republican Party:
Friendly reminder that Schumer tried to get McConnell to bring the Senate back into session under emergency powers that the two leaders have, so a trial would be held while Trump was still in office. McConnell declined. https://t.co/aKqCavqIjc
I mean this is the point: he could spend the next few years re-doing 1/6 with an ever-mounting body count and I don't think it would appreciably hurt his political fortunes or those of the Republican party.
Some of the organizers of the Jan. 6 Trump rally that led to the deadly storming of the Capitol are planning another series of events across the country, along with a recruiting effort to attract 2022 primary challengers against Republicans who they say “betrayed” former President Donald Trump.
Posting on the online platform Subtack, Stockton, a longtime associate of former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, released a schedule from February to May that looks to target multiple Republicans in their home states, including Reps. Liz Cheney, Tom Rice, and Adam Kinzinger. The page says that specific dates and events will be added soon.
“To date we’ve identified 13 unlucky Republicans up for reelection in 2022 who MUST BE DEFEATED,” the page reads. “We will be visiting each of their districts to recruit and vet primary challengers in the coming months.”
Trump is reportedly getting ready to go out on the road and crank up the rally machine. And he has a specific plan in mind:
[T]he time is not yet ripe for the former president to make the kind of public return he has in mind, which, based on intel coming out of Trumpworld, may involve hitting the road for a “campaign revenge tour” against Republican defectors.
A source identified as “one of the Republicans who remains tight with Trump” told Business Insider that they speculate the former president “wants to get out a roulette wheel with all their faces on it,” referring to GOP lawmakers who voted in support of Trump’s removal from office. According to Trump insiders, his vindictive road trip is expected to target the ten House Republicans who voted for his impeachment last month; he has also been keeping a watchful eye on any GOP senators who break with him.
I would have thought that people would start to get sick of his schtick, but since the GOP is now officially a cult and he is the leader, I’m not sure it will. And from the looks of it, a large majority of Republican officials are full-fledged members. As the secret ballot in the House vote to depose Liz Cheney from her leadership role showed, there are plenty who would like to leave the cult but they just can’t make that move publicly. And there are quite a few who are true believers. I think Lindsey Graham might actually be one of them now.
The Red Hats have not been vanquished.
Republicans keep pointing out that Trump can be prosecuted, which is true and I think there are a *number* of crimes to choose from. But let’s be clear: there will be very serious violent threats and security concerns for anyone that prosecutes Trump.
Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers mounted an aggressive defense Friday in Trump’s second impeachment trial — and made multiple false and misleading claims to bolster their case.Arguing that Trump did nothing to incite the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, the lawyers distorted the facts about both what happened that day and what happened in the past.Here is a fact check of some of their claims:
Defense team misleadingly omits Trump remarks defending violence
Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen highlighted comments from Democrats that he suggested had promoted or defended violence. Trump, he argued, is different than these Democrats.”Contrast the President’s repeated condemnations of violence with the rhetoric from his opponents,” van der Veen said. He then played a video that juxtaposed clips of Trump condemning violence, and calling himself an “ally of all peaceful protesters,” with some selectively edited clips of Democrats.
Facts First: This argument and video were misleading by omission. Trump has indeed condemned violence and called for peaceful protest, but he has also repeatedly applauded or defended violence and aggressive behavior.
Among other things, Trump has done the following since he launched his presidential campaign in 2015: praised a Republican congressman for assaulting a journalist; urged police officers not to worry about injuring the heads of suspects they are arresting; said he would like to punch a protester in the face; urged supporters to “knock the crap out of” any protester they saw holding a tomato; said a kidnapping plot against Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer might not be an actual “problem”; approvingly told a fake story about an early 20th century US general who massacred Muslim terrorists with bullets dipped in the blood of pigs; said it was a “beautiful sight” when the authorities tossed a journalist to the ground during unrest in Minneapolis; mocked a reporter who got shot with a rubber bullet; and applauded the Trump supporters who surrounded a Joe Biden campaign bus on the highway, an incident that prompted an FBI investigation.
Trump’s lawyer falsely claims Trump’s first two tweets during the Capitol attack urged calm
Van der Veen claimed that “the first two messages the President sent via Twitter once the incursion of the Capitol began” urged people to “stay peaceful” and called for “no violence.”
Facts First: This is not true.Trump’s “stay peaceful” tweet at 2:38 p.m. and “no violence” tweet at 3:13 p.m. were his second and third tweeted messages after the Capitol was breached, not his first. Trump’s first tweet was at 2:24 p.m.: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”Rioters had already entered the US Capitol building by the time of the Trump tweet about Pence.
No, the media wan’t lying that there was hacking during the 2016 election
Van der Veen claimed that Washington officials other than Trump are the ones who used reckless and inflammatory rhetoric. He claimed: “The entire Democratic Party and national news media spent the last four years repeating without any evidence that the 2016 election had been hacked.”
Facts First: The Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign were indeed hacked during the 2016 election campaign; this is a fact, not a claim made “without any evidence.” The US intelligence community, special counsel Robert Mueller and the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee all concluded that the Russian government was responsible for stealing and leaking internal documents and emails.
If van der Veen was suggesting that the “entire Democratic Party and national media” spent four years falsely alleging that hackers altered actual votes or vote totals in the 2016 election, that would not be true either. We can’t speak for every word uttered by every Democrat or every journalist since 2016, but it is clearly inaccurate to say that the entire party or entire media spent four years pushing such a claim. The national discussion about hacking during the 2016 election focused on the actual, confirmed hacking that targeted the Democrats’ computer systems.
Castor falsely claims rioters didn’t attend Trump’s DC speech
Trump’s lawyer Bruce Castor claimed that the rioters who stormed the Capitol didn’t attend the ex-President’s incendiary speech that day, and that this proved the insurrection was a pre-planned attack that wasn’t incited by Trump.
“Given the timeline of events, the criminals at the Capitol weren’t there at the Ellipse to even hear the President’s words,” Castor said. “They were more than a mile away, engaged in their pre-planned assault on this very building.”
“This was a pre-planned assault,” Castor said, “make no mistake.” He also claimed this assertion was “confirmed by the FBI, Department of Justice and even the House managers.”
Facts First: It’s false that none of the accused Capitol rioters attended Trump’s speech beforehand. And Castor is exaggerating the known facts about whether the assault was pre-planned.
Ellipse to the CapitolIt’s true that the timeline shows that someone who attended the entirety of the speech at the Ellipse could not have been among the very first people to breach the Capitol grounds. But that’s a much narrower claim than the one Trump’s lawyers are making.Court documents and video footage show that some Trump supporters did make this walk from the Ellipse to the Capitol, undermining Castor’s claims. This includes one woman who allegedly went from the Trump speech to her hotel, and then into the Capitol.
And all of this ignores the fact that insurrectionists near the Capitol could have listened to Trump’s speech on their phones or could have been inspired by Trump’s previous rhetoric.
Pre-planned?The Justice Department and FBI have accused some rioters of planning the attacks before coming to Washington, and top prosecutors have said more charges along those lines are expected. But only a handful of the 200-plus criminal cases indicate that rioters had showed up that day intending to breach the Capitol.
Therefore, Castor cherry-picked a few unrepresentative cases from the pool of more than 215 cases to support his misleading assertion that federal investigators “confirmed” this was a “pre-planned assault.”In interviews with reporters and FBI investigators, some of the rioters said they came to DC for the rally and later got swept up in the crowd as it rushed the Capitol.
No, Georgia did not see a ‘dramatic drop’ in ballot rejection rates
As evidence of Trump’s efforts to subvert the certification of the 2020 election results, the article of impeachment cites Trump’s call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger where Trump asked Raffensperger “to ‘find’ enough votes to overturn the Georgia presidential election results.”Castor argued Trump’s use of the word “find” was “solely related to his concerns with the inexplicable dramatic drop in Georgia’s ballot rejection rates.”
Facts First: The intent of Trump’s use of the word “find” aside, Georgia did not experience a “dramatic drop” in ballot rejection rates, according to data from the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.In fact, the total number of absentee ballot rejections increased in direct proportion to the number of additional votes compared to the most recent past election. But ultimately, the percentage of ballot rejections remained the same. The Georgia Secretary of State’s office noted that “the rejection rate for absentee ballots with missing or non-matching signatures in the 2020 General Election was 0.15%, the same rejection rate for signature issues as the 2018 General Election.”Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling reacted to Castor’s claim on Twitter Friday, stating that “shockingly, the disinformation continues.”
Trump lawyers misleadingly use Biden comment on peaceful protest
Trump’s lawyers argued that Democrats had taken Trump’s words out of context. Castor argued that the House managers had used “selective editing and manipulated visuals.”But the Trump defense team itself clearly did selectively edit its video presentations. For example, moments before this Castor complaint, he had played a video that showed then-candidate Joe Biden saying, of last year’s racial justice protests, “The vast majority of — of the protests have been peaceful.” The video then cut immediately to footage of rioting, suggesting that Biden’s claim was wrong.
Facts First: This video cut was misleading. Biden was correct when he said that the vast majority of racial justice protests in 2020 were peaceful; he was not describing riots as peaceful. Biden has repeatedly condemned rioting.
The video played by Castor was reminiscent of tactics used by Trump’s unsuccessful reelection campaign. Trump himself had inaccurately attempted to convince Americans that Biden had described violence as peaceful protest.
Trump lawyers falsely claim trial violated due process
Van der Veen argued that the impeachment process was unconstitutional, in part because it violated the due process clause.”The due process clause applies to this impeachment hearing and it’s been severely and extremely violated,” he said.
Facts First:This is false. An impeachment inquiry is a political process, not a criminal case, therefore the constitutional rights of criminal defendants, such as due process, do not apply.
The Fifth Amendment, which outlines the right to due process, states that it applies specifically to any criminal case. And as Steve Vladeck, a Supreme Court analyst for CNN and professor at the University of Texas law school, noted ahead of Trump’s first impeachment, “Impeachment is not a criminal prosecution.”
Furthermore, William Banks, a law professor at Syracuse University, told CNN, “There is nothing in the Constitution or any law, nor any rules of the House, that prescribes a particular procedure for impeachment proceedings.”The Constitution details only the basis for impeachment, the potential consequences of impeachment and that the House “shall have the sole power of impeachment” while the Senate “shall have the sole power to try all impeachments.”
