Month: February 2022

Included in the latest batch of Jan. 6 videos: Footage of Trump fanatic Danny Rodriguez driving a stun gun into the neck of Officer Mike Fanone after he was abducted by the mob. pic.twitter.com/fTRDpcLmPj

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) February 7, 2022

"Trump called us. Trump called us to D.C… he's the commander in chief and the leader of our country, and he's calling for help — I thought he was calling for help… My story is just that we thought that we were going to save America, and we were wrong.” https://t.co/XrNlKECFsy

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) February 7, 2022

No excuses. He caused Fanone to have a heart attack by tasering him. But Trump put him up to it. He cheered it when it was happening. And now he’s dangling pardons for the people like him, who committed assault.

Fanone was on CNN today and said that the RNC has become the political arm of the Proud Boys, the OathKeepers and the Three percenters. He has a point. They seem to think what Danny Rodriguez did to him that day was normal political discourse.

And they seem to be settling on this as their excuse for the violence:

.@CawthornforNC wants to use the Jan. 6 Committee to investigate ridiculous questions like, "Was this a false flag operation to try and steal the election? We know that's true."

The truth is that Trump supporters attacked the Capitol in an attempt to steal the election. pic.twitter.com/ZZDCVXgEnb

— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) February 7, 2022

Notice that Schlapp is nodding and agreeing throughout. He’s the head of the American Conservative Union, which holds the CPAC Convention every year. This is where it’s going.

Trump didn’t just tear up official documents in the White House and his people didn’t just put other papers in “burn bags“, all in defiance of the Executive Records Act. Trump stole documents as well:

President Donald Trump improperly removed multiple boxes from the White House that were retrieved by the National Archives and Records Administration last month from his Mar-a-Lago residence because they contained documents and other items that should have been turned over to the agency, according to three people familiar with the visit.

The recovery of the boxes from Trump’s Florida resort raises new concerns about his adherence to the Presidential Records Act, which requires the preservation of memos, letters, notes, emails, faxes and other written communications related to a president’s official duties.

Trump advisers deny any nefarious intent and said the boxes contained mementos, gifts, letters from world leaders and other correspondence. The items included correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which Trump once described as “love letters,” as well as a letter left for his successor by President Barack Obama, according to two people familiar with the contents.

Discussions between the Archives and the former president’s lawyers that began last year resulted in the transfer of the records in January, according to one person familiar with the conversations. Another person familiar with the materials said Trump advisers discussed what had to be returned in December.People familiar with the transfer, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal details.

The Archives declined to comment. A spokesman for Trump did not respond to a request for comment.

The Archives has struggled to cope with a president who flouted document retention requirements and frequently ripped up official documents, leaving hundreds of pages taped back together — or some that arrived at the Archives still in pieces. Some damaged documents were among those turned over to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.

They really needed to count the silverware when the Trumps left the White House. He takes what he wants. Remember this?

President Donald Trump’s November 2018 trip to France is again in the news because of his canceled trip to a cemetery for fallen Marines and allegations that he disparaged veterans. But Bloomberg reports on another aspect of the trip that raised more than a few eyebrows. After Trump’s cemetery trip was canceled, the president suddenly had a few hours to kill inside the U.S. ambassador’s historic residence in Paris and it seems that during that time he took a particular liking to a few pieces of art. The next day, he ordered a Benjamin Franklin bust, a Franklin portrait and a set of figurines of Greek mythical characters be loaded on Air Force One to go back to Washington with him, reports Bloomberg.

The ambassador was reportedly surprised by the move but didn’t raise any objections with Trump joking the art could come back “in six years,” when his second term would be coming to an end. Not everyone was happy with the president’s decision as some in the State Department exchanged tersely worded emails with White House officials. But after all the hand-wringing it was decided that the move was legal because the art is government property.

The White House confirmed the president took artwork from Paris. “The President brought these beautiful, historical pieces, which belong to the American people, back to the United States to be prominently displayed in the People’s House,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in response to questions from Bloomberg News.

The art was reportedly worth some $750,000 and the White House may have called them “historical” but the truth is that they were fakes and replicas. The figurines that now sit in the Oval Office are from the early 20th century by an artist who was trying to claim they were from the 16th or 17 centuries. The figurines have little value and are really “20th century fakes of wannabe 17th century sculptures,” according to an art dealer. The Franklin bust and portrait were also copies of the originals. White House officials ended up borrowing the original portrait from the National Portrait Gallery and hanging it up in the Oval Office rather than the replica Trump brought back from France.

I remember that the media always used to talk about the Carters and the Clintons as if they were the Clampetts squatting in the White House. But for all their glitz and phony glamour, the most low class people to ever live in the White House were the Trumps.

By the way, according to Axios, among the documents were those “beautiful love letters” between him and Kim Jong Un. It’s hard to imagine any kind of document being more important for posterity than that correspondence. Was he going to sell them at auction? Why would he need the originals.

I am unsure what to think about this Ukraine situation. I’m obviously opposed to Russia’s colonial expansion and unilateral military invasions of sovereign countries are always to be opposed, IMO, regardless of who is doing it (including, of course, the US.) The idea of a bloody land war in Europe in 2022 is almost beyond my comprehension. Putin is an authoritarian monster for threatening to do what he is doing. But NATO and the west also made mistakes in last quarter century that have led to this moment. It is not a strict black and white situation and it’s becoming more and more worrying that someone is going to make a mistake and this thing could blow up into a true global crisis.

This argument for a potentially rational way out by David Von Drehle sounds reasonable to me.

On May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush (a former pilot in the National Guard) donned a flight suit and rode the second seat of a combat aircraft to the deck of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, where he declared victory in the Iraq War beneath a massive banner that said: “Mission Accomplished.”

The Iraq War was not over, of course. The mission had not been accomplished — the mission had never fully been defined. And the testosterone-saturated photo op was not just embarrassing. It was illuminating of Bush’s tendency to overpromise and underdeliver.

Few presidents have promised more liberty and more democracy to the world. Laying out his Bush Doctrine in 2002, he declared: “The 20th century ended with a single surviving model of human progress, based on the non-negotiable demands of human dignity, the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women and private property and free speech and equal justice and religious tolerance. America cannot impose this vision — yet we can support and reward governments that make the right choices for their own people.”

Nearly 20 years later, the only part of that grand promise that has been redeemed is the one about the United States being unable to impose its vision. Russia is not the friend that Bush described in that speech, nor is China opening up as he theorized, nor have we nurtured free and prosperous societies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now the bill is coming due on the last of the Bush overpromises. In the final months of his presidency, he overruled more cautious advisers and allies to offer a vague promise of NATO membership to the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine. Though the promise was, characteristically, unconnected to any concrete steps toward membership, this was taken as an existential threat by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who today has, menacingly, massed many thousands of troops on the border with Ukraine.

As in Afghanistan, failure to deliver on Bush Doctrine promises is coming due during the tenure of President Biden, and we can only hope that lessons learned this past summer might improve performance in this crisis. Historically, Biden has shared some of the Bush tendency to make promises he has no detailed plan to deliver, from an end to the pandemic to the passage of Build Back Better.

The good news here — or what passes for good news in a very troubled situation — is that a middle ground potentially exists. It may be possible to give Putin a portion of what he wants without substantially altering the U.S. position, and thus defuse a dangerous situation.

Ukraine is neither West nor East. That is the curse of this brutalized land. Between 1940 and 1945, when it was part of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was among the bloodiest battlefields of World War II on account of its geographical position between Hitler and Stalin. Its history before, and since, has been darkened by violence, famine and corruption.

It ought to be possible to say forthrightly what everyone in the West knows to be true: NATO has no plan, short or long term, for bringing Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance. Bush did not have a plan in 2008, and no administration has developed such a plan in the years since. If Putin needs assurance that no such plan exists, what’s the harm in giving it to him?

At the same time, while the West does not intend to claim these lands, we won’t surrender them either. The West has precisely the same interest in Ukraine that Russia has. It is a borderland we share.

Biden is right to threaten severe economic consequences for Russia should Putin further invade Ukraine. (He has already annexed Crimea and is fighting a war in the Donbas.) This should include a promise to ramp up U.S. natural gas production to supply Europe’s needs and gut the gas-exporting economy of Russia. And it should include a credible threat to impound Putin’s estimated billions in the West.

At the same time, the United States and its allies must recognize Russia’s interest in a neutral Ukraine. A mechanism of formal and informal talks should be created to pursue the joint interests of East and West in a stable, neutral frontier.

Sometimes, diplomacy involves skirting the truth. But in this case, truth can be a powerful tool. Putin leads a nation in economic, demographic and cultural decline, and has neither the capacity nor the appetite for ruling Ukraine against the wishes of Ukrainians. That’s true. It’s also true that the West has no intention of giving the NATO promise of mutual defense to the age-old battlefield of Ukraine.

A stable, neutral Ukraine serves everyone’s interest. So why not tell it like it is.

Why not?

In this piece about the 1/6 Committee requesting the testimony of Ivanka Trump they do a nice reminder of what Trump was doing on that day as the insurrection raged. We all know the story but there are a couple of details I haven’t heard before:

After Trump’s speech, as rioters began to smash through Capitol police barriers and break windows, the former president tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution …”

That tweet, according to court testimony, only added to the anger fueling the mob.

Back in the White House, as staffers watched in shock at what was unfolding down Pennsylvania Avenue on television screens positioned throughout the West Wing, Trump’s attention was so rapt that he hit rewind and watched certain moments again, according to Stephanie Grisham, a former White House press secretary.

“Look at all of the people fighting for me,” Trump said, according to Grisham, who also served as chief of staff to first lady Melania Trump. At one point, the president was confused why staffers weren’t as excited as he was watching the unrest unfold.

Kellogg testified that staff wanted the president to take immediate action to address the violence consuming the Capitol, but Trump refused.

This rings true to me. It is totally believable that he literally didn’t see anything wrong with what they did and wondered why everyone else was upset. This was in his head for some time:

I always come back to this passage from the Woodward and Costa book “Peril” and the January 5th exchange between Trump and Pence in which Trump, listening to the crowd outside the White House cheering for him, told Pence that he wanted him to let the House of Representatives decide the election. Pence responded that he didn’t have the authority and Trump gestured to the crowd outside the window and said to him, “Well, what if these people say you do?”

Last Friday, appearing before the Federalist Society in Florida, former Vice President Mike Pence said the words that dare not be uttered in the Republican Party: “President Trump was wrong.” He was referring to Trump’s recent assertion that Pence had the right to “overturn” the election. While Trump’s original statement and Pence’s mild rebuke both sent shock waves through the media, they really shouldn’t have. Of course Trump thinks Pence had the right to overturn the election. He couldn’t have been any clearer in the 5,789 times he’s mentioned it.

No one should be surprised that Pence came out and said Trump was wrong, either. He has stayed pretty quiet about the whole thing, but the fact that Pence didn’t actually try to throw out electoral votes, under tremendous pressure, proved long ago that he thought it was impossible and unjustified. He just didn’t have the guts to come out and say it directly until now, which is typical.

I doubt Pence’s comments would have caused the stir they did if it weren’t for the fact that earlier in the day the Republican National Committee had voted to censure Reps. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., and Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., at the RNC’s winter meeting in Utah. The committee statement said, among other things, that the party would “immediately cease any and all support of them as members of the Republican Party for their behavior which has been destructive to the institution of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic, and is inconsistent with the position of the Conference,” and described Cheney and Kinzinger’s roles on the House Jan. 6 committee as helping the “Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

Once it was pointed out that the Republican Party’s governing body appeared to be saying were saying that the Capitol rioters were “engaged in legitimate political discourse” the statement was rapidly amended to read “legitimate political discourse that had nothing to do with violence at the Capitol.” RNC leaders claimed they meant to refer to people like those fraudulent “electors” from various states, whom they characterized as being just regular folks. (One of them has close ties to RNC chair Ronna McDaniel.) According to the New York Times, however, the language of the resolution had been carefully negotiated over several days, and was voted on first by the executive committee and later by the full conference. So unless the Republican leadership has reading comprehension problems (which they might!) if they hadn’t mean to embrace the insurrectionists surely someone would have raised an objection before the whole thing went public.

According to reports from the conference, there was quite a bit of back-and-forth among members, some of whom thought it wasn’t a good look for the party to cater to Trump’s revenge fantasies. But the true believers won out, led by one of Trump’s top henchmen, David Bossie. I have written about Bossie before. He’s a notorious right-wing operative, going all the way back to the 1990s when he made his bones as an anti-Clinton character assassin working with the notorious Floyd Brown, who was famous for producing the racist “Willie Horton” ad in the 1988 presidential campaign. Brown’s group was called Citizens United, which Bossie later took over, and which brought the infamous lawsuit to the Supreme Court that opened up unlimited big money in politics. (The suit was over Bossie’s film “Hillary: The Movie,” one of his patented hit jobs.)

Bossie quickly became a media go-to source for dirt on the Clintons and his career was off and running. He soon became a congressional Whitewater “investigator” (and was later fired by Newt Gingrich for doctoring tapes and releasing them to the public.) He produced films with Steve Bannon long before Bannon was a household name or had hooked up with Trump, and wrote several crude smear jobs on Democratic politicians.

Naturally enough, Bossie jumped on the Trump train back in 2016 and soon teamed up with Trump’s first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. The two of them made quite a pair. At one point during Trump’s term he even discussed bringing them into the White House as a “crisis team,” although no one was quite sure whether they’d be tasked with creating crises or fixing them. The dynamic duo wrote a book together called “Let Trump Be Trump,” a memoir of the glory days of the 2016 campaign.

In 2019, Bossie was exiled from TrumpWorld over accusations that his misleadingly-named fundraising outfit, the Presidential Coalition, had bilked Republican donors out of millions of dollars that was supposed to go to support conservative candidates and somehow never got there. Trump does not like it when someone uses his name to run a grift without giving him a taste, and was reportedly “apoplectic.” But Bossie has been slowly but surely worming his back into the fold ever since. Trump assigned him to challenge ballot-counting in swing states after the 2020 election and Bossie recently took on the important task of destroying the presidential debates for 2024, so Trump can skip them if he wants to. (Debates don’t tend to work to his advantage.)

As the Washington Post’s Philip Bump has pointed out, this appears to be yet another piece of the plan Trump is setting in motion for 2024. Aside from all the legal shenanigans going on with election officials in battleground states, Trump will almost certainly try to clear the primary field, as he did in 2020, when he strong-armed states into canceling their Republican primaries altogether. But Bossie’s latest task, shepherding the censure of Cheney and Kinzinger, has to have him fully back in Trump’s good graces. Nothing is more important to the ex-president than that and Bossie handled it smoothly, including the inflammatory language that McDaniel was forced to amend, but no doubt had delighted Trump, who is now fully supportive of the Jan. 6  insurrectionists. He probably wasn’t too happy with McDaniel’s forced “clarification.”

Considering Bossie’s very special set of skills, it’s not unrealistic to suspect he may be setting up McDaniel for a fall. According to Vanity Fair, he wants the RNC chair for himself. That would be the zenith of his career as a right wing operative and would signal the final and total takeover of the party by Donald Trump (as if that hasn’t happened already). When you think about it, in Trump’s Republican Party, David Bossie is the only man for the job. 

Salon

Republican voters between Chattanooga and northern Atlanta suburbs have heard plenty from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Too much for many. Georgia’s redistricting plan has done her no favors, says former Dade County Republican party chair Tom Pounds. Greene’s antics have inspired several primary challengers.

Jennifer Strahan, a self-described mother and Christian conservative, won’t repeat Greene’s racist and antisemitic tropes or conspiracy theories. “Strahan is among a small group of challengers during Georgia’s May 24 primary who argue they can deliver Republican values without the sideshow,” reports the Associated Press:

“You don’t always have to go around and tell people what she has done or said,” Strahan, the 35-year-old founder of a suburban Atlanta health care advisory firm, said in an interview. “That’s known.”

[…]

“I think people in this district are mostly tired of her crap,” Charles Lutin, 69, a retired physician and Air Force flight surgeon who is another Republican trying to unseat Greene, said in an interview. “It’s not anything like 95% are tired of her. But I think it’s a good strong majority.”

[…]

David Harvey, an 85-year-old retiree in Rome, Georgia, voted for Trump in 2016, but he-said the former president so divided the party that it led many Georgia conservatives to stay home rather than keep voting Republican. He said he wouldn’t vote for Greene, who he believes “rode Trump’s coattails” to notoriety for all the wrong reasons.

Greene, permanently banned from Twitter, has also been stripped of her committee assignments. Even so, says Pounds, “she will be very difficult to defeat based on the far-right, rural area support she has.”

Strahan sells herself as the conservative alternative without the drama. She hopes to defend unspecified freedoms she sees at risk.

Lutin is Jewish. He condemns Greene’s “hate and blatant antisemitism.” Lutin styles himself “anti-Trumpist,” an advocate for lower government spending, but for higher taxes on the wealthy. Some GOP officials, especially in the district’s northern-most, rural reaches “have been openly hostile,” to Greene facing a primary challenge, Lutin said without saying more.

Democrats are lining up to run for Greene’s seat. One has a familiar approach:

Distaste with Greene has also fueled donations for Democrats, with Army veteran Marcus Flowers raising $4.6-plus million by the end of last year. Three other Democrats vying to face Greene in November’s general election collectively took in nearly $2 million.

That includes Holly McCormack, a 37-year-old small business owner and conservative, rural “dirt road Democrat” from Ringgold, near the Tennessee line, who was recently turned away from a Greene town hall in her hometown.

McCormack said her campaign identified 12,000 likely Democratic voters who had moved into the district but not registered. Still, she knows she’ll have to attract Republicans to have a chance, and has tried to boost her bipartisan appeal — including having dinner with the Harley-Davidson Club in rural Walker County, “so they can see I don’t have horns.”

It’s a line I actually use as an ice-breaker with conservatives sometimes. I may be a lefty but I do try to fit in, I tell them. I try to keep my horns ground down and my tail tucked in.

Last week’s events reveal the extent to which the Republican Party has rotted from the inside. Donald Trump is not only their avatar. He is the insecure bully whom Republican “leaders” now openly emulate. The Party of Trump is not just rhetoric. He is them. They are him.

The Republican National Committee’s winter meeting in Salt Lake City concluded with the censure of Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) for upholding their oaths of office. That is, for cleaving to the Constitution before Trump.

The party is “loath to antagonize Trump and possibly drive off his hard-core followers,” MSNBC reported from the scene. “Yet in interviews, party officials showed little appetite for organizing the GOP around Trump’s grievances.”

“[T]hey are all too cowardly and/or craven to do anything about it,” as Heather Digby Parton put it.

The party of violent insurrection tripled/quadrupled down, officially declaring that through their work with the Jan. 6 House inquiry, the pair of Republican apostates participated in “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

Party chair Ronna McDaniel attempted to walk back the declaration, saying, “They chose to join Nancy Pelosi in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens who engaged in legitimate political discourse that had nothing to do with violence at the Capitol.” Of course, citizens unconnected to the violence are not the panel’s focus.

Mike Pence, the former vice president, took a year to summon the courage to call out Trump for attempting a coup. It would have been “un-American” of him to reject state slates of 2020 electors at Trump’s request. “President Trump is wrong” in believing the vice president had the authority to do so, Pence told a Federalist Society meeting in Florida.

Even a stopped clock

Trump loyalist Steve Bannon condemned Pence for his statements during his War Room: Pandemic podcast, branding Pence “a stone-cold coward.” Even a stopped clock, they say:

“My head’s blowing up,” Bannon said. “I can’t take Pence. And I can’t take Pence and Marc Short and all these Koch guys up there ratting out Trump up on Capitol Hill right now.”

Heather Cox Richardson observed in her Friday substack, “It seems that we might be able to choose better leaders than ones who are leaving us at the end of this day in 2022 with the truly legitimate political question: ‘Ratting him out for what?’”

While there are a few flickers of conscience left among party electeds, the party’s elite and its rank-and-file have given themselves over to Trumpism. They are self-anointed victims, whiners, drones, followers, not leaders.

The problem with news coverage and Democrats’ response, says my friend BeninSC, is that no one is making an issue of that:

It almost never happens that a Republican takes a stand independently of the party line. That means that almost NO Republicans are – or CAN BE – Leaders. They are ALL followers. What Republican can counter the argument that that party doesn’t need human beings for candidates, when they are ALL rubber stamps. What Republican can counter the question of where their representation of the citizens of their geographical area differs from Republican-mandated positions? If EVERY position is dictated by their leadership, how can anyone think of them as leaders? They can’t answer the question of naming anything they disagree with their party on, or they’ll be primaried out of office. Because gerrymandering insures that whatever Republican runs in the general for that seat will win it. They can’t answer the question of how their loyalty to the COUNTRY can ever be greater than loyalty to their party, because their votes NEVER diverge from loyalty to the party. 

“All of that is a STAGGERING political weakness” Democrats ought to exploit, BeninSC adds.

In election time, the entirety of Republican ads are negative. None focus on their achievements, their positions for positive change. Because they HAVE no achievements, other than blocking or HITTING Democrats. And they have no ideas to make anything better.

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking,” said Gen. George S. Patton. That certainly describes the Trump cult. Or any cult.

In fear of being “replaced,” or more accurately, of losing white cultural and political dominance, a Republican Party that a decade ago was already 90% white is no longer “willing to defend democratic values and institutions.” Republican politicians hoping to cling to power bow and scrape before an autocratic demagogue. They are not fit to lead.

That ought to be an explicit campaign issue for Democrats.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

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This is not the way anyone should make a serious decision, but it’s the way he was. I’m glad he never became president:

At the moment the late Sen. John McCain green-lit Sarah Palin as his presidential running mate in 2008, he told top advisers: “F— it. Let’s do it.”

The intrigue: McCain balled up a fist and shook it as if rolling dice, N.Y. Times political reporter Jeremy W. Peters reveals in his forthcoming book, “Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted.”

The conversation in August 2008 — which took place outside, at the water’s edge near a hawk’s nest on McCain’s ranch in Sedona, Arizona — was confirmed for Axios by a top McCain source.

Why it matters: The incident gives new vividness to how impulsively McCain made a fateful decision that badly diminished him in his race against then-Sen. Barack Obama.

Here’s how Peters tells the story in his book (out Tuesday from Crown), which traces the Trumpification of the Grand Old Party over a three-decade arc, stretching back to Pat Buchanan in 1992:

“Mark Salter, a longtime aide to McCain, cautioned him that voters could see a Palin pick as discordant with the message of readiness and experience that the campaign had been focusing on as a contrast with Obama, a forty-seven-year-old first-term senator. ‘There’s worse things, John, than losing an election. You could lose your reputation,’ Salter told him.”

Steve Schmidt, a top campaign strategist often blamed for pushing Palin, “also thought Palin was a risk but said maybe it was one worth taking,” Peters writes:

[Schmidt] told McCain he should consider whether it would be worth it if he chose Palin and lost, but also knew in the end that he’d lost because he did something bold. “What you’ve got to decide,” Schmidt told the senator, “is would you rather lose by seven going for it?”

McCain turned to his wife, Cindy. “John, it’s a gamble,” she said.

This made McCain’s face light up. “Well, I wish you hadn’t said that,” he said. McCain, an avid craps player, balled up his fist and blew on it, then shook it like he was about to roll a pair of dice. “F— it,” he said. “Let’s do it.

Imagine if there was a national security crisis and he had been president. (No, he’s not as bad as Trump but then, nobody is.)

I’ve mentioned this blog called “Trumpslegalproblems” before but it’s worth checking in from time to time on Trump’s legal issues. I’ll just post the list:

Lawsuits

• Lt. Col. Vindman sues Donald Trump Jr. and others for witness intimidation during impeachment trial
• Two Peas in a Pod: Michael Avenatti sues Donald Trump
• Michael Cohen sues his former boss – the former president
• Chinese American group sues Trump for calling COVID “Kung Flu”
• House Ways and Means Committee sues for President Trump’s tax returns
• NAACP, Democratic House members file lawsuit for Jan. 6 attack on Capitol; Trump, Pence don’t see “eye to eye” on Jan. 6 violence
• Michigan group, NAACP sue Trump over Voter Rights Act
• DC Attorney General sues Trump over misuse of Inaugural funds, judge rejects part of suit
• E. Jean Carroll sues Trump for defamation
• Rep. Swalwell files lawsuit alleging Trump, others responsible for Jan. 6 riots
• Trump faces five separate lawsuits by Capitol and D.C. police officers for Jan. 6 riot
• Trump sues Facebook, Twitter and Google
• Trump Organization could be forced to open books to scrutiny after it sues NYC for terminating golf course contract
• Dominion sues Fox, Giuliani, Powell and the MyPillow Guy (and vice versa)
• Smartmatic sues Fox News, OAN, Giuliani, MyPillow Guy and Powell
• Pennsylvania voting machine warehouse custodian sues Trump for defamation
• Dominion sues Newsmax, One America News
• Court allows pyramid scheme lawsuit against Trump family to proceed publicly
• Trump sues the New York Times and niece Mary Trump

Criminal indictment

• Trump Organization, CFO Weisselberg indicted for fraud; investigation continues

Investigations

• House of Representatives seeks Trump’s financial, hotel records
• New York AG investigating whether Trump Organization committed fraud
• Trump Organization under scrutiny for property tax issues Westchester County, N.Y.
• Georgia county DA investigating Trump’s alleged attempt to overthrow election
• House Select Committee investigates Jan. 6 riot; plus, Who’s cooperating, who’s not, Is Donald Trump Guilty of Criminal Obstruction? and 64 Days That Will Live in Infamy
• SEC and others investigating Trump’s new media company 

Partial settlement

• Newsmax apologizes, settles with Dominion executive; but Trump campaign, Giuliani, Powell, One America News and others still target of defamation suit

Disposition of three Trump cases

• Summer Zervos drops suit against Trump for alleged assault
• Human rights group loses case to expose source of Trump cash at Scottish golf courses
• Trump avoids Wisconsin $$ bill for failed election fraud lawsuit

That’s a lot, don’t you think?

This is actually uncomfortable to watch. As Sarah Longworth quipped on twitter: “This must be what the soul looks like leaving the body.”

Marco Rubio is so unbelievably cowardly. Get a load of him repeatedly refusing to say Trump was wrong to pressure Pence to overturn the presidential election. pic.twitter.com/INFgt6lSgs

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 6, 2022

Marco Rubio repeatedly refuses to condemn Trump’s effort to overthrow his presidential election loss pic.twitter.com/INFgt6lSgs

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 6, 2022

This clip of Rubio saying "this is not gonna end well" about Trump in 2016 is amazing to watch in hindsight https://t.co/OOuPBGTB3f

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 6, 2022

It’s not going to end well, alright.