Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

And you don’t mess around with Fani

Rep. Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, wants to get into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ face. He strongly suggests in a letter that Willis has brought charges for political reasons against 19 persons for involvement in a conspiracy to disrupt the 2020 elections in Georgia.

Why, why, indicting federal officers for state crimes violates their free speech, Jordan alleges. “The threat of future state prosecution for official acts [that would be illegal acts] may dissuade federal officers from effectively performing their official duties and responsibilities.” And she’s interfering with the 2024 presidential election.

Oh, and more. Much more.

Jordan demands:

1. All documents and communications referring or relating to the Fulton County District
   Attorney’s Office’s receipt and use of federal funds;
2. All documents and communications between or among the Fulton County District
   Attorney’s Office and DOJ and its components, including but not limited to the Office of
   Special Counsel Jack Smith, referring or relating to your office’s investigation of
   President Donald Trump or any of the other eighteen individuals against whom charges
   were brought in the indictment discussed above; and
3. All documents and communications between the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and any federal Executive Branch officials regarding your office’s investigation of
   President Donald Trump or any of the other eightee

Willis advises Jordan (not in so many words) to go suck eggs or, as Kurt Vonnegut might say, to take a flying fuck at the moon.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

On Thursday, Willis fired back, saying Jordan’s Aug. 24 letter included “inaccurate information and misleading statements.” She accused Jodan of improperly interfering with a state criminal case and attempting to punish her for personal political gain.

“Its obvious purpose is to obstruct a Georgia criminal proceeding and to advance outrageous misrepresentations,” Willis wrote of Jordan letter. “As I make clear below, there is no justification in the Constitution for Congress to interfere with a state criminal matter, as you attempt to do.”

Bolding in original: “Face this reality, Chairman Jordan: the select group of defendants who you fret over in my jurisdiction are like every other defendant, entitled to no worse or better treatment than any other American citizen.“

What’s more, “Here is another reality you must face: Those who wish to avoid (felony charges in Fulton County, Georgia — including violations of Georgia RICO law — should not commit ‘felonies in Fulton County, Georgia.”

Willis was just getting warmed up.

“Your letter makes clear that you lack a basic understanding of the law, its practice and the ethical obligations of attorneys generally and prosecutors specifically,” she wrote.

From the Willis response:

d. Your questioning of the overt and predicate acts listed in the indictment is
misinformed.

Your questioning of the inclusion of overt and predicate acts by the defendants in the indictment’s racketeering count shows a total ignorance of Georgia’s racketeering statute and the basics of criminal conspiracy law. Allow me the Opportunity to provide a brief tutorial on criminal conspiracy law, Chairman Jordan.

As I explained to the public when announcing the indictment, the overt and predicate acts are included because the grand jury found probable cause that those acts were committed to advance the objectives of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the result of Georgia’s 2020 Presidential Election.

For a more thorough understanding of Georgia’s RICO statute, its application and similar laws in other states, I encourage you to read “RICO State-by-State.” As a non-member of the bar, you can purchase a copy for two hundred forty-nine dollars [$249].

Ouch.

The AJC tried to contactor Jordan’s office: “A spokesperson for Jordan’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”

He’s better off not commenting and not smart enough not to.

One of the minor mysteries about the January 6th coup plot is what Grassley was talking about when he said that. Considering that the next day Trump unleashed a slavering mob on the Capitol during the proceedings and the secret service attempted to get him to leave the building (which he resisted, unlike the rest of the leadership) it’s interesting to say the least. There was also the comment by Pence adviser Keith Kellogg that they were afraid that they’d take Pence away to Alaska if he left the building, which is indicative of an awareness that there was a plan afoot to make is so that Pence would not be able to fulfill his duties that day.

Grassley clarified that remark saying that he meant he would preside over the expected Senate debate about voting against the certification and that actually sounds reasonable when you see his full comment. But what do we make of this interesting nugget from yesterday’s John Eastman disbarment hearing in California:

John Eastman, testifying at his own disbarment trial, sidestepped a question Wednesday about whether he and others in former President Donald Trump’s orbit discussed the possibility that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) — rather than Mike Pence — would preside over the Jan. 6, 2021, session of Congress.

During several hours of sworn testimony in a California disbarment proceeding, Eastman said discussions on that topic were protected by attorney-client privilege. When pressed about which client of his he was referring to, Eastman replied: “President Trump.”

Oh really…. This issue was discussed with Donald Trump? Why would that be?

I don’t know if we’ll ever get to the bottom of this. But it’s very weird that Eastman invoked executive privilege over that question.

A Biden impeachment is imminent.

It appears they are settling on bribery:

After nearly a year of investigation, House Republicans have decided to try to make bribery the downfall of President Joe Biden as they prepare to open an impeachment inquiry, according to interviews with top House conservatives and four senior aides.

Key Republicans tell The Messenger they are honing in on what they say is a “pay-to-play” bribery scheme involving first son Hunter Biden’s business dealings when he worked for a Ukrainian energy company and his father served as vice president.

“This is not, ‘Oh my God, you were in Washington, D.C., on January 6 so we’re going to send every frigging power of law enforcement after you or your family.’ This is literally: ‘There was money flowing to the son of the vice president turned president,’” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a leading proponent of impeaching Biden, told The Messenger. 

House GOP chairmen have spent several months sifting through documents and hauling witnesses to testify before their committees in an effort to prove the Bidens personally capitalized off their access to the White House when Hunter Biden was paid by the Ukrainian firm and, separately, by a Chinese energy company.

“That money was coming from foreign countries,” said Roy, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, the panel that would be tasked with initiating an impeachment proceeding against President Biden. “The vice president and then president was then lying about his knowledge about it. We know that to be true.”

Since 61% of the country already believes that Biden is guilty of doing this “thing” whatever it is, I suppose all they really have to do is put on a good show and Biden will be permanently politically damaged. He won’t be convicted in the Senate, of course. They don’t have the votes, But that’s not what this is about. They just want to smear Biden with enough people that Trump will win re-election. This new polling, however, says that they don’t really need to bother. They’ve successfully smeared him with the charge of being a criminal already.

For what it’s worth, Trump was basically impeached on a bribery charge too but he was the briber instead of the bribee. And, of course, Trump and his family were beyond corrupt while he was president and today. For reasons that remain obscure to me, the Democrats never made anything out of that, but it happened nonetheless. Now the Republicans are getting payback.

Elon Musk may have a nose for buying profitable businesses but in every other respect he is a flaming moron. How in the hell is it possible that someone such as he could have so much influence over world events?

Elon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet, according to an excerpt adapted from Walter Isaacson’s new biography of the eccentric billionaire titled “Elon Musk.”

As Ukrainian submarine drones strapped with explosives approached the Russian fleet, they “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” Isaacson writes.

Musk’s decision, which left Ukrainian officials begging him to turn the satellites back on, was driven by an acute fear that Russia would respond to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with nuclear weapons, a fear driven home by Musk’s conversations with senior Russian officials, according to Isaacson, whose new book is set to be released by Simon & Schuster on September 12.

Musk’s concerns over a “mini-Pearl Harbor” as he put it, did not come to pass in Crimea. But the episode reveals the unique position Musk found himself in as the war in Ukraine unfolded. Whether intended or not, he had become a power broker US officials couldn’t ignore.

The new book from Isaacson, the author of acclaimed biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, provides fresh insights into Musk and how his existential dread of sparking a wider war drove him to spurn Ukrainian requests for Starlink systems they could use to attack the Russians.

After Russia disrupted Ukraine’s communications systems just before its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Musk agreed to provide Ukraine with millions of dollars of SpaceX-made Starlink satellite terminals, which became crucial to Ukraine’s military operations. Even as cellular phone and internet networks had been destroyed, the Starlink terminals allowed Ukraine to fight and stay connected.

But once Ukraine began to use Starlink terminals for offensive attacks against Russia, Musk started to second-guess that decision.

“How am I in this war?” Musk asks Isaacson. “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.”

Musk was soon on the phone with President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, the chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, and the Russian ambassador to the US to address anxieties from Washington, DC, to Moscow, writes Isaacson.

Meanwhile, Mykhailo Fedorov, a deputy prime minister of Ukraine, was pleading with Musk to restore connectivity for the submarine drones by telling Musk about their capabilities in a text message, according to Isaacson. “I just want you—the person who is changing the world through technology—to know this,” Fedorov told Musk.

Musk, the CEO of electric carmaker Tesla and private space exploration firm SpaceX, replied that he was impressed with the design of the submarine drones but that he wouldn’t turn satellite coverage back on for Crimea because Ukraine “is now going too far and inviting strategic defeat,” according to Isaacson.

It’s one thing to turn twitter into a cesspool. It has had terrible consequences for the scourge of disinformation and the usefulness of the platform for important communications during a crisis. But Musk using his power as the owner of certain equipment he donated to the Ukrainian government to thwart specific war plans he doesn’t understand is simply mind-boggling.

Who in the hell is this guy???

It makes a man woke and you know what that means.

Tuberville responds to the Navy Secretary by saying the Secretary has to get wokeness out of the Navy because “we’ve got people doing poems on aircraft carriers” pic.twitter.com/JiTgCrFb2q

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 6, 2023

Excuse me?

“It seemed as though mother earth had opened and was vomiting shot and shell in a sheet of fire and brimstone,” Francis Scott Key wrote later. But when darkness arrived, Key saw only red erupting in the night sky. Given the scale of the attack, he was certain the British would win. The hours passed slowly, but in the clearing smoke of “the dawn’s early light” on September 14, he saw the American flag—not the British Union Jack—flying over the fort, announcing an American victory.

Key put his thoughts on paper while still on board the ship, setting his words to the tune of a popular English song. His brother-in-law, commander of a militia at Fort McHenry, read Key’s work and had it distributed under the name “Defence of Fort M’Henry.” The Baltimore Patriot newspaper soon printed it, and within weeks, Key’s poem, now called “The Star-Spangled Banner,” appeared in print across the country, immortalizing his words—and forever naming the flag it celebrated.

Does Tommy Tuberville have some kind of brain damage? That is not a rhetorical question.

It works

When you think that the Republicans are idiots for their outlandish repetition of outright lies and innuendo, think again. A majority of Americans will believe anything if enough people say it often enough, facts and details don’t matter:

Most Americans say they think President Joe Biden was involved in his son’s business dealings with Ukraine and China while he served as vice president under Barack Obama, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS.

A majority, 61%, say they think that Biden had at least some involvement in Hunter Biden’s business dealings, with 42% saying they think he acted illegally, and 18% saying that his actions were unethical but not illegal. Another 38% say they don’t believe Joe Biden had any involvement in his son’s business dealings during his vice presidency. Just 1% believe Biden was involved, but did not do anything wrong.

A 55% majority of the public says the president has acted inappropriately regarding the investigation into Hunter Biden over potential crimes, while 44% say that he has acted appropriately.

I guess my sunny assumption that the country wouldn’t stand for a convicted felon as president was overly optimistic. People think both Biden and Trump are crooks, that Biden has been interfering in the investigation of his son (and probably the investigations of Trump) because they all do it, so whatever. If they impeach Biden over this, I don’t think the public will even know what crock it is. Because they don’t really care.

Well played, Republicans, well played.

It appears that Trump is getting no love from the judge in his NY civil trial:

A New York judge—unmoved by the incessant pleas from Donald Trump’s legal team to delay trial—made quick work of the former president’s last-minute request Tuesday night to push back his first big upcoming trial for bank and tax fraud. On Wednesday morning, Justice Arthur F. Engoron pulled out a pen and scribbled a nine-word remark at the bottom of the draft order that Trump’s lawyers wanted him to sign, rejecting it outright. “Decline to sign; Defendants’ arguments are completely without merit,” Engoron wrote, signing it with his trademark ligature “Æ.” The Trump family is now less than four weeks away from the start of a monumental civil trial in which AG Letitia James seeks to siphon at least $250 million away from the Trump Organization over accusations that it routinely inflated asset values and lied on official paperwork.

Will he be called to testify? Don Jr, Eric and Ivanka? Could be …

Plea deals offered and rejected

Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff reminds those still on “formerly known as Twitter” that the Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy could have taken plea offers. Seditious conspiracy is notoriously tough to prove, as the the Department of Justice found in the Hutaree Militia case.

The Proud Boys may have betted their seditious conspiracy prosecution would fail too. Except theirs (and the damage they wrought) was so public and so thoroughly documented on thousands of video clips even before prosecutors obtained emails, phone records, and cooperation from witnesses, that there is little comparison to the Hutaree, “almost a gang that couldn’t shoot straight.”

Before trial, USA offered Proud Boys plea deals, revealed yesterday. They passed. Result:
Offer | Sentence after trial
Tarrio 9-11 yrs| 22 yrs
Nordean 6-8 yrs | 18 yrs
Biggs 6-8 yrs | 17 yrs
Rehl 6-7 yrs | 15 yrs
Pezzola 4-5 yrs | 10 yrs
/1 pic.twitter.com/OGf0CdRipr

— Roger Parloff (@rparloff) September 7, 2023

… at least some of disparity is built into sentencing guidelines, which give credit for acceptance of responsibility & saving govt resources—in this case, a 4-mo trial. Also, def Rehl took stand &, in judge's view, lied. Full result chart by @TylerMcBrien & me below.
/3 pic.twitter.com/8HDrFWspLT

— Roger Parloff (@rparloff) September 7, 2023

The “Boys” now have twice as much jail time than they might have to contemplate their miscalculation (if not their sins). And to ponder why that six-foot-three inches and 215 pounds of rippling man-flesh named Trump, to whom they pledged so much allegiance, passed on pardoning them on his way out of the White House.

More bluster than balls

Jeff Sharlet (“The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War“) posts in response to a Mike Huckabee monologue, “This is slow civil war: the rhetorical preparation, the simmer of hate, the little violences between individuals that won’t register to wonks as ‘political.’”

Huckabee, likening the Biden administration to a third-world dictatorship (via The Wrap):

“Do you know how political opponents to those in power are dealt with in third-world dictatorships, banana republics and communist regimes?” Huckabee asked during his monologue of Saturday night’s episode. “The people in power use their police agencies to arrest their opponents for made-up crimes in an attempt to discredit them, bankrupt them, imprison them, exile them or all of the above.”

Bullets, not ballots

“Joe Biden is using exactly those tactics to make sure that Donald Trump is not his opponent in 2024,” Huckabee went on before firing off the sort of “or you’re not going to have a country anymore” rhetoric Trump used to inspire a mob to attack police and sack the U.S. Capitol.

For those not keeping current (Huckabee’s audience), Biden has gone out of his way to keep the DOJ prosecutions at arm’s length. He has no say in state prosecutions in New York or Georgia.

“Here’s the problem: If these tactics end up working to keep Trump from winning or even running in 2024, it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets,” Huckabee finished.

Mike Huckabee warns that if Trump's legal problems prevent him from winning in 2024, "it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets." https://t.co/ktwb4fyANo pic.twitter.com/0msd1gvD8i

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) September 6, 2023

Um, an election decided by bullets is not an election, Mike. But then conservatives such as yourself considered democracy optional long before David Frum in 2018 predicted they’d reject it.

Stuart Stevens reacts:

In “The Conspiracy to End America,” I write about how there are five elements always present when democracies slide into autocracy:

-the backing of a major party
-financiers
-propagandist
-Legal theories to justify autocracy
-shock troops

Listen to Huckabee. He’s getting the shock troops ready. He is part of the conspiracy to end America.

Goat ropers

I don’t want to minimize warnings from Sharlet or Stevens. Sharlet has been in the field among actual militiamen in Wisconsin. He’s been inside their homes/armories. But Mike Huckabee doesn’t even merit “Honorary Goat Roper.” Why “real men” in MAGAstan (much less Texans) consider Donald Trump anything more is a mystery liberally infused with homo-eroticism.

There are actual violent agents on the right. Domestic terrorists. The world saw that on Jan. 6. Henry “Enrique” Tarrio was just sentenced to 22 years behind bars for coordinating the Proud Boys’ attack on the U.S. Capitol. Then there are the poseurs like Donald Trump, like Mike Huckabee, like Steve Bannon, like Alex Jones. Big, tough talk from the padded-rear-end set about others stepping up and fighting their fantasy revolution for them. Are they more contemptible than pathetic? (Perhaps a poll is in order.)

Once again, this mini rant from my files dates from the second Obama administration (2013), but with a minor edit could still work today:

It sure seems that every time some people are mildly threatened by cultural, political or demographic change in America, they run out and buy more guns and ammo.

They create shortages. There’s of talk of tyranny and rebellion, and how they need their private arsenals to defend the United States of America from internal enemies – meaning their neighbors and the elected government. And they carry AR-15s to rallies to show everybody they can’t be messed with and that they really mean business this time.

Well. There’s Pennsylvania Avenue, pal. And there’s the commie, fascist, Muslim, Kenyan usurper. And there’s your “Don’t Tread On Me” flag and your tri-cornered hat. And your gun safe full of weapons. And your basement full of ammo.

So which way to the revolution, Rambo? Are you really a Minuteman, or is that just what your wife tells her friends?

He really thinks this speaks well of him. Sadly, most of his followers probably think so too.