Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

CNN’s Daniel Dale sets the record straight on Trump’s grotesque insults toward the Fulton County DA:

Former President Donald Trump has launched a barrage of attacks, many of them dishonest, against the Georgia district attorney who is prosecuting him over his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the state.

Both before and after he was indicted Monday in Fulton County, Trump targeted District Attorney Fani Willis, an elected Democrat, in speeches, social media posts and a television ad released by his 2024 election campaign, which Trump also posted on social media. Below is a fact check of two of his false claims, an inflammatory claim for which there is no evidence, and a misleading claim from the campaign ad.

The legitimacy of the 2020 election

Trump has repeatedly accused Willis of refusing to investigate the supposed theft of the 2020 election.

He wrote in a social media post on Sunday: “The only Election Interference that took place in Fulton County, Georgia, was done by those that Rigged and Stole the Election, not by me, who simply complained that the Election was Rigged and Stolen. We have Massive and Conclusive Proof, if the Grand Jury would like to see it. Unfortunately, the publicity seeking D.A. isn’t interested in Justice, or this evidence.”

Facts First: Trump’s claim of a rigged and stolen election is a lie. The 2020 election was free and fair, in Fulton County and in the rest of the country, and nobody rigged or stole it. Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in Georgia was confirmed by three counts of the ballots and certified by Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. More than two and a half years after his defeat, Trump has never presented anything remotely resembling proof that he was the rightful winner of Georgia or the presidency. Instead, he has deployed false claims that have been thoroughly debunked by Raffensperger and many others, including Trump’s own senior Justice Department appointees.

For example, Trump has continued into 2023 to claim that Fulton County election workers were caught on video stuffing the ballot box – even though this claim was debunked in 2020 and even though top officials from his Justice Department have testified to Congress that they had personally told him in 2020 that the video did not show any wrongdoing.

Georgia’s final ballot count found that Biden beat Trump by 11,779 votes. In a January 2, 2021 phone call with Raffensperger, Trump pushed the secretary of state to “find” enough votes to give him a one-vote victory over Biden in the state.

Murder in Atlanta

Trump wrote in a social media post on Sunday that instead of spending time on him, Willis “should instead focus on the record number of murders in Atlanta!”

Facts First: Trump’s claim about Atlanta having a “record number of murders” is false. Though Atlanta has struggled with a spike in murders since 2020 – part of a national pandemic-era trend that began before Willis became district attorney in 2021 – the city is nowhere near its all-time murder record.

Atlanta’s 2022 total, 170 murders, was its 23rd-highest annual figure since 1960 and not even in its top 30 highest when population size is taken into account, according to figures provided to CNN on Monday by crime analyst and consultant Jeff Asher, co-founder of the firm AH Datalytics. The 2022 total of 170 murders was Atlanta’s highest since 1996 and well above its 2019 total of 99 murders, so it was certainly high by the city’s recent standard, but Trump’s claim of a “record” is not true; the city recorded 263 murders in 1973.

In addition, as Asher and Atlanta media outlets have noted, murder is down substantially in Atlanta so far in 2023 compared to 2022 – again mirroring a broader trend around the country. Atlanta had a 25% year-over-year decline through August 5, Asher said.

The Trump campaign ad features large text reading, “ATLANTA VIOLENCE: NEARLY 60% MORE MURDERS so far this year.” But that claim is highly misleading because it is not about this year at all. Small and faded text in the ad identifies the source for the claim as a Fox News article from more than two years ago, June 2021, that compared murders so far that year to murders at the same point in 2020.

An evidence-free claim about a Willis affair

Trump claimed in a speech last week that “they say – I guess – they say that she was after a certain gang and she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang or a gang member.” He made a similar claim in a social media post on Sunday, writing that Willis “is being accused of having an ‘affair’ with a Gang Member of a group that she is prosecuting.”

Facts First: There is zero evidence for these Trump claims. Trump never explained what he was referring to, and his campaign did not respond to a CNN request for an explanation on Monday, but it appears that the former president may have been grossly distorting a January article in which the rapper YSL Mondo told Rolling Stone magazine that Willis, who became district attorney in 2021, had represented him in an aggravated assault case when she was working as a defense lawyer in 2019. YSL Mondo was quoted as saying that he had a “cool relationship” with Willis during his case, calling her a “great attorney” who understands real life, but specified that they had “auntie-to-nephew, mother-to-son type of talks.” He was also paraphrased as saying that he had no contact with her after his case was resolved.

The Trump campaign ad cited the Rolling Stone article as supposed support for the ad’s claim that “Willis got caught hiding a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting.” YSL Mondo is a co-founder of the YSL hip-hop collective; Willis has prosecuted other YSL members since she became district attorney (YSL Mondo is not among those defendants), alleging that the group is also a criminal street gang.

But there was no sign in the article that Willis had made an effort to conceal her ties to YSL Mondo. In fact, she confirmed to Rolling Stone that she had represented him when she was in private practice and said she had liked him and continues to want him to succeed. And there was nothing at all in the article to suggest the two had ever had an affair.

Trump has a long history of attributing baseless and inflammatory claims to unnamed sources, regularly using vague phrases like “they say” or “many people are saying.” Willis sent an email to her staff last week, which was later obtained by CNN, calling unspecified claims in the Trump campaign ad “derogatory and false” and telling them not to comment.

YSL Mondo, whose legal name is Fremondo Crenshaw, faces gun, drug and gang charges after his arrest in early August in a different Atlanta-area county. His attorney did not respond Monday to a CNN request for comment for this article.

Willis is a tough, no-nonsense, 20 year prosecutor so I doubt she’s going to crumble over these inane insults. But it does put her in danger. There are a lot of Trump cultists out there and they are armed. I hope she is well protected.

Sarah Huckasanders is competing for the vaunted title of most racist governor. Florida, Alabama and Mississippi Govs have early leads but she’s making a real run for it:

The Arkansas Department of Education (DOE) abruptly rejected AP African American Studies, saying the course may violate Arkansas law. “The department encourages the teaching of all American history and supports rigorous courses not based on opinions or indoctrination,” Kimberly Mundell, Director of Communications for the Arkansas DOE, told Popular Information on Monday. Mundell said the course may violate a new Arkansas law regarding “prohibited topics” in public schools. 

In March, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) signed the LEARNS Act, which prohibits “teaching that would indoctrinate students with ideologies, such as Critical Race Theory [CRT]” or “that conflict with the principle of equal protection under the law.” The law, however, explicitly allows teaching the history of racism and “public policy issues of the day and related ideas that individuals may find unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive.” The Arkansas DOE did not explain what in the AP African American Studies course constitutes prohibited indoctrination.

The College Board, which has spent a decade developing the AP African American Studies curriculum, describes it as “an evidence-based introduction to African American studies” that “reaches into a variety of fields—literature, the arts and humanities, political science, geography, and science—to explore the vital contributions and experiences of African Americans.” 

The first signs of trouble for AP African American Studies in Arkansas were reported over the weekend by the Arkansas Times. According to the Arkansas Times, “[a]n official from the Arkansas [DOE] reportedly alerted high school teachers by phone on Friday that the class would not be recognized for course credit by the state in the 2023-24 school year.” The decision by the Arkansas DOE to directly contact teachers — bypassing school district officials, principals, and other administrators — is highly unusual. The teachers reportedly were told they could continue to offer AP African American Studies, but it would not count toward graduation requirements, would not be graded on a 5.0 scale like other AP courses, and the state would not pay the $90 fee for students to take the AP test. 

But Mundell’s statements to Popular Information on Monday raise questions about whether any Arkansas school can still offer AP African American Studies. Mundell warned that anyone who teaches the course would be “at risk of violating Arkansas law.”

Some high schools in Arkansas, including Central High in Little Rock, offered AP African American Studies as part of a pilot program last year before the LEARNS Act was in effect. More high schools, including North Little Rock High School, the North Little Rock Center for Excellence charter high school, and Jacksonville High School, were planning to offer the course this year.

Mundell also told Popular Information that the Arkansas DOE was concerned that the AP African American Studies course would not be recognized for college credit. But, according to the College Board, more than 200 colleges and universities have already decided to award credit for AP African American Studies. The Arkansas Times reports that this includes the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the state’s flagship public university.

Mundell noted that other AP courses, including AP European History, were approved and vetted for Arkansas schools. 

This is the new generation of Republicans. They’re making America 1950 again.

What are the cultists going to do about this? The Georgia Governor doesn’t have the pardon power, it’s relegated to a commission and requires felons to serve their sentences before they are eligible.

But it may turn out that’s just for Black people:

Davis: I think the legislature in Georgia needs to amend that statute and give Governor Kemp the ability to pardon in this situation pic.twitter.com/exoJZIyeSQ

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 15, 2023

Meanwhile, Georgia recently passed a law that allows the Governor to remove any DA he doesn’t like but it also requires a commission to approve it. It was originally supposed to take effect in 2025 but was amended at the last minute to take place in October 2023. I wonder why? Gov. Brian Kemp hasn’t named the commission yet but the minute he does you can bet they are going to move to remove Fanni Willis from her job.

I’m not sure what happens in that case — if there’s a new DA appointed, a new election or if one of her deputies takes her place, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up about this trial actually happening. The Trumpers have plenty of moves up their sleeves.

Update — This certainly isn’t one of them. Fergawdsakes:

Of witch hunts and indictments

It’s not news that when it comes to “working the refs,” conservatives command what old-school bloogers once called “the right’s mighty Wurlitzer.” Partisan ownership of conservative media outlets means the right maintains an asymmetrical advantage in steering the national narrative. The left has never really achieved parity on that. The message discipline isn’t there even when the news cannot avoid covering political American carnage, Trump-style.

One of the right’s tactics we returned again to last week Digby addressed several years ago: “If they can engage the mainstream media and throw everything they have at it, they may succeed at confusing the public and convincing them that all this smoke they’re blowing means there must be a fire.” When there isn’t. It’s propaganda. See: Hunter Biden and the Biden crime family.

that's a lot of witch hunts pic.twitter.com/lJm6n8Q5ke

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 15, 2023

When, if ever, will all the legal indictments, pending court cases, hundreds of convictions, imprisonments, and thousands of hours of Jan. 6 testimony and Capitol-sacking videos involving Republican Party officials, advisers and supporters convince America that there are, you know, actual fires?

This is the first time we've indicted a former US President since last week

— Mike Madrid (@madrid_mike) August 15, 2023

18 others swept up in Georgia election crimes

Where to begin with the sweeping, 98-page indictment issued by Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis? The document released before midnight Monday accuses former president Donald Trump and 18 others with conducting a criminal enterprise to undermine the 2020 Georgia election results. Willis means to take this case to trial within six months.

Willis’ introduction begins, “Defendant Donald John Trump lost the United States presidential election held on November 3, 2020. One of the states he lost was Georgia. Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.”

The 41-count indictment includes 13 directed at Trump himself, the Washington Post reports, “including violating the state’s racketeering act, soliciting a public officer to violate their oath, conspiring to impersonate a public officer, conspiring to commit forgery in the first degree and conspiring to file false documents.” The indictment details 161 “overt” acts committed “in furtherance of the conspiracy” and cites 30 unindicted co-conspirators.

Willis has only to prove two of the Georgia RICO charges to convict, the New York Times explains:

Prosecutors need only show “a pattern of racketeering activity,” which means crimes that all were used to further the objectives of a corrupt enterprise. And the bar is fairly low. The Georgia courts have concluded that a pattern consists of at least two acts of racketeering activity within a four-year period in furtherance of one or more schemes that have the same or similar intent.

That means the act might allow prosecutors to knit together the myriad efforts by Donald J. Trump and his allies, like Rudolph W. Giuliani, to overturn his narrow loss in Georgia in the 2020 presidential race. Those efforts include the former president’s now infamous phone call in which he pressed Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” him enough votes to win.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution adds:

The DA took the unusual step of convening a separate special grand jury in 2022 which investigated election interference in Georgia for eight months. They heard from almost 75 witnesses and recommended who they thought Fulton prosecutors should indict.

Familiar faces and names from Trump’s post-election efforts to overturn his loss join him in this case including members of the “Kraken” team: Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell, and Jenna Ellis. Former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows faces two charges: racketeering and soliciting a public officer to violate their oath. Many of those indicted with Trump are not national names. Missing among the indicted is Georgia Kraken lawyer Lin Wood, perhaps among the 30 co-conspirators.

Here was Sidney Powell in Nov 2020, explaining how she was going to “release the kraken” and put everyone in jail with her new evidence of how Hugo Chavez stole the election from Trump. Sidney was just indicted. pic.twitter.com/3oI0qR7LjQ

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 15, 2023

Also charged are several Georgia Republicans who served as electors: former GOP chairman David Shafer, former GOP finance chairman Shawn Still and Cathy Latham of Coffee County. Latham is also charged in the breach of election data in Coffee County, 200 southeast of Atlanta.

The cites as “overt acts” in furtherance of the conspiracy multiple actions taken by conspirators, including Giuliani, falsely charging wrongdoing by Fulton County, Georgia, election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss. Appearances by the two Black women was among the most emotional testimony presented by the House Jan. 6 Committee.

Unlike special counsel Jack Smith’s federal indictment targeting Trump singly, the Georgia indictment means to describe the sweep of efforts by Trump and his allies to undo his 2020 election loss not only in Fulton County and “elsewhere in the State of Georgia,” but also “in other states, including, but not limited to, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and in the District of Columbia.”

Willis told reporters, “The grand jury issued arrest warrants for those who are charged. I am giving the defendants the opportunity to voluntarily surrender no later than noon on Friday the 25th day of August, 2023.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution report what makes this legal trap more difficult for Trump to slip than Smith’s federal indictment:

The Fulton case, however, could ultimately have some of the most staying power if Trump is convicted. That’s because unlike the federal cases, which could be dismissed by a future Republican president, Georgia’s pardon process is in the hands of an independent board, not the governor. Under the state’s rules, a person needs to wait five years after they serve any prison sentences before they can be considered for a pardon.

At least one Fox News guest Monday night nevertheless called on Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to pardon Trump.

Even if the board were to consider a pardon, “it wouldn’t seem to do him much good any time soon,” explains MSNBC’s Jordan Rubin. The application requires the convicted be “free of supervision (custodial or non-custodial) and/or criminal involvement for at least five consecutive years thereafter as well as five consecutive years immediately prior to applying.” And be free of pending charges.

With all the charges Trump faces, that’s not likely in the near future.

This GOP official's quote of Trump's actions shortly after the November election continues to be an all timer pic.twitter.com/tHSTYq4MI0

— Sam Stein (@samstein) August 15, 2023

One year ago https://t.co/Qh9WhHmHHa

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 15, 2023

Karma, baby.

… what else is new?

That didn’t take long:

After U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan made explicit Friday that she will do whatever is necessary to protect the integrity of the proceedings in the Jan. 6 case of U.S. v. Trump, the former president resumed his public attacks on her and her proceedings.

In posts and reposts on his Truth Social platform, Trump impugned Chutkan, her motives, and the proceedings against him. Not surprising or unprecedented to anyone who has paid even a smidge of attention to Trump’s history of acting out in legal matters, but no less damaging or destructive or corrosive to the rule of law.

The latest attack last night:

An earlier repost by Trump from the weekend:

What will be done about it? What can be done about it?

Judge Chutkan can haul him into court and read him the riot act, she can impose further restrictions on his out-of-court statements, and she can ultimately hold him in contempt, even remand him into custody pending trial.

I don’t expect dramatic action from Chutkan immediately for reasons that mostly make sense in this particular moment: she might not want to escalate this fight too quickly but rather leave herself room to ramp up down the road when it might really be needed, she doesn’t want to get bogged down in First Amendment fights over a gag order, she doesn’t want to feed Trump’s narrative of this all being a personal attack on him.

But Trump’s ability to spend 77 years on this planet without being held to real account is largely because each new person he encounters attempts to give him the benefit of the doubt, or to play the long game with him, or makes a transactional calculation to just grin and bear it in order to get what they need out of the interaction.

So we see in this latest round of boundary-setting followed immediately by Trump’s boundary-pushing the pattern that has played out over and over for decades. He can no more break that pattern – which has been marvelously successful for him – than he can stop breathing.

Now, whatever calculation Chutkan makes here and now regarding these statement, I have the sense from reading the accounts of Friday’s hearing that she knows the pattern. She’s no fool. She won’t be played. But she will pick her spots. Is this her spot? I don’t know. But I’ll be watching to see if:

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team brings these posts to her attention formally;

Chutkan sua sponte raises them before the next scheduled hearing in the case; or

Chutkan waits until the case comes before her again in a scheduled hearing later this month.

Or she may decide to keep her powder dry. But I suspect she and Trump are on a collision course that can’t be avoided indefinitely.

There is no doubt about it.

Hunter Biden, who was never in govt, got roughly $10 million from foreign entities 2014-2017.

Jared Kushner got a $3.1 B portfolio from foreign entities in 2021 that he had just been directly involved in directing US policy from inside the govt.

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 14, 2023

The utter gall of these Republicans never fails to astonish me. They outdo themselves. And yes, I have to say that it’s a little bit weird that the Democrats didn’t take a deeper look at this when they had the majority in the House. And the last I heard, they have the majority in the Senate. But I guess Trump’s kids are still off limits, even the ones who were his closest White House advisers while he was president. Nice for them.

Why is RFK Jr bothering? I honestly can’t understand what he’s getting out of this:

Democratic presidential hopeful and known anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Sunday that he would support a national ban on abortion after the first three months of pregnancy if elected, only to walk back the stance hours later alleging he “misunderstood” repeated questions from NBC News on the topic.

“Mr. Kennedy misunderstood a question posed to him by an NBC reporter in a crowded, noisy exhibit hall at the Iowa State Fair,” a spokesperson said, clarifying the candidate’s stance on abortion as “always” being the woman’s right to choose. Kennedy “does not support legislation banning abortion,” the spokesman added.

But Sunday morning, Kennedy was much more specific, telling NBC: “I believe a decision to abort a child should be up to the women during the first three months of life.” Pressed on whether that meant signing a federal ban at 15 or 21 weeks, he said yes.

“Once a child is viable, outside the womb, I think then the state has an interest in protecting the child,” he continued, adding “I’m for medical freedom. Individuals are able to make their own choices.”

The original stance put Kennedy — who’s mounting a controversial, long-shot bid to unseat President Joe Biden as the Democratic standard-bearer in 2024 — out of step with the majority of his party at a time when abortion access has been a sustained motivator for voters.

A leading conservative anti-abortion group, Susan B. Anthony List, praised Kennedy’s position in a statement, calling it “a stark contrast to the Democratic Party’s radical stance of abortion on demand. … Kennedy is one of the few prominent Democrats aligned with the consensus of the people today. Every candidate should be asked, ‘Where do you draw the line?’”

In the interview, Kennedy defended running as a Democrat, despite espousing multiple typically conservative talking points during the 15-minute appearance. 

For instance, Kennedy said he would not have voted to support the Inflation Reduction Act, among the biggest Democratic policy wins of Biden’s first term. Asked about the hundreds of billions of dollars in investments to fight climate change in the legislation, Kennedy said: “They say that this is fighting climate change; it’s actually doing the opposite.”

Kennedy steeply trails Biden in the polls and has been dogged by controversy in his few months as a candidate, including his having spread repeated disinformation about the efficacy of vaccinations and deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well antisemitic remarks.  

While he agreed that former President Donald Trump had lost the 2020 election, he posited that “elections can get stolen in this country.” Asked whether he thinks Trump tried to overturn the election results after he lost, Kennedy said that based on what he has seen, “it seems like he was trying to overturn it.”

Yah think? He went on to say that he didn’t think all these indictments are disqualifying but a conviction might be.

Sheesh…

It looks like Sidney Powell is the preferred fall guy

Make room under that bus:

JACK SMITH’S LATEST indictment of Donald Trump isn’t yet two weeks old, but the alleged “co-conspirators” it identifies are already beginning to turn on each other — and some of them aren’t even being subtle about it. 

A number of the ex-president’s chief lieutenants and alleged co-conspirators in the plot to overturn the election, such as conservative attorney John Eastman, have insisted the effort was perfectly legal and based on sound evidence. Others, however, have recently sought to distance themselves from the efforts of others, implicitly heaping the blame for any potential criminal conduct onto fellow participants in Trump’s attempted coup.

“It is the ‘please don’t put me in jail, put that other guy in jail’ strategy that was sure to come up at some point or another,” says one attorney working in Trump’s legal orbit.

Attorneys for veterans of Trump’s post-election activities like Rudy Giuliani and Kenneth Chesebro — both of whom have been identified as among the six unnamed “co-conspirators” in the most recent federal indictment of Trump — are now casting blame towards others on the campaign’s legal team or people close to the then-president. Giuliani and his lawyer are now openly trashing and blaming the “crackpot” alleged activities of Sidney Powell, another lawyer who worked on Trump’s post-election efforts. On top of that, Chesebro, the key architect of Trump’s fake-electors ploy, is now trying to downplay his involvement in the effort, spreading the possible blame and criminal exposure elsewhere.

And in recent weeks, Trump and his own lawyers have made abundantly clear that part of their legal defense will lean heavily on “advice of counsel” arguments — in other words, it will involve scapegoating attorneys who were only doing what Trump instructed them to do, or wanted them to do.

Prosecutors appear to be only too happy to seize on these divisions. Sources who’ve been in the room with special counsel staff tell Rolling Stone that in the past several weeks, the special counsel’s office has signaled that they intend to put pressure on the half dozen “co-conspirators” listed in the Trump indictment. Representatives of the special counsel’s office also appear unusually well-briefed on the existing fissures between members of the Trump post-election endeavors, according to those who have spoken with the office.

The feud between Giuliani and Sidney Powell — another attorney and alleged Trump co-conspirators — is among those probed by prosecutors, sources with knowledge of the situation say. Recent witnesses have offered up details on the behind-the-scenes animosity between the two attorneys. They’ve also told investigators their accounts of the former New York mayor’s private antics during the months following Election Day 2020.

Adding to the intra-MAGAland tensions overflowing into public view, Robert Costello, Giuliani’s lawyer, attempted to put as much space as possible between his client and some of Powell’s work to keep Trump in power. emphatically telling CNN: “Rudy Giuliani had nothing to do with this,” and, “you can’t attach Rudy Giuliani to Sidney Powell’s crackpot idea.”

Powell in particular has been a major focus of the special counsel’s office, as recently as within the past several days, as Rolling Stone reported last week, with certain Trump allies already providing the Justice Department with what they view as incriminating evidence against Powell.

“If I were the feds, and I wanted to build cases against the [so far unindicted] ‘co-conspirators’ to apply maximum pressure to them, to see what they’d…have to say about the [former] president, this is exactly how I’d do it,” says one person intimately familiar with recent questioning.

It’s “highly probable that several others will be charged,” the person says. “Jack Smith is not slowing down.”

The possibility that one of Trump’s former advisers could turn state’s witness and testify against either him or his aides or close associates is already apparent to the twice-impeached former president. 

This summer, Trump has asked some of his political and legal advisers to name who — especially among those investigated or questioned by the special counsel’s office — they believe to be the most “vulnerable” and likely to crack under pressure from prosecutors, according to two people who’ve heard him ask about this.

Last week, longtime Giulian associate and Trump ally Bernie Kerik sat for a nearly five-hour, voluntary interview with special counsel staffers, and his attorney pointed the finger for over-the-top election fraud claims at Trumpist diehard Powell. Kerik is not among the six unindicted alleged co-conspirators, but was asked by federal investigators to offer his accounts relating to multiple alleged Trump co-conspirators and other topics.

“Sidney Powell’s conduct stands in stark contrast to that of Rudy Giuliani and President Trump, who were looking to only make claims that could be backed up by evidence,” Tim Parlatore, Kerik’s lawyer, argues to Rolling Stone. Parlatore previously served as one of Trump’s top attorneys who were handling the Jack Smith probes.

Kerik’s lawyer continues: “Having Sidney Powell in the same courtroom would also significantly undermine [Jack Smith’s] case against the president, because the president and his lawyers could easily point at Sidney and say: Over there is the evidence of making knowingly false claims, not here. And President Trump rejected Ms. Powell’s efforts.”

This is a sentiment shared by Giuliani, and also by various senior members of Trump’s own team who would be thrilled if Powell ended up as one of the people who take the fall for the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and the efforts leading up to it, sources close to Giuliani and the former president say.

As for Chesebro — the attorney accused of being an architect of the Trump team’s bogus-electors scheme — he too has hinted that he may be trying to distance himself from the campaign’s effort to swap in slates of fake electors. That is, now that the fake-elector plans have become a central focus of the Department of Justice’s sprawing criminal investigation.

In a statement sent last week to Rolling Stone, Chesebro’s attorney drew a distinction between the memos his client authored for the campaign and how the campaign acted on them. “Whether the campaign relied upon that advice as Mr. Chesebro intended,” attorney Scott Grubman wrote, “will have to remain a question to be resolved in court.”

Conspicuously, Chesebro’s lawyer added: “We hope that the Fulton D.A. and the Special Counsel fully recognize these issues before deciding who, if anyone, to charge.”

Unlike other prominent Trump-aligned attorneys, Chesebro lacks an extensive pedigree in the conservative movement. At Harvard Law School, he studied under the liberal constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe and attended a fundraiser for another Tribe law student — Barack Obama — back in 2004.

The statement, first released to Rolling Stone late last week by Chesebro’s lawyer, prompted some more raised eyebrows and speculation among the upper echelons of Trumpland. 

According to two people with direct knowledge of the situation, the statement, along with other chatter about Chesebro’s recent moves, has led some of Trump’s lawyers and several members of the ex-president’s inner orbit to wonder if the architect of the fake-electors plot was trying to shovel all blame and potential criminal liability for that very plot on to Trump and his loyalists.

“These concerns have been shared with the [former] president,” one of these sources says. 

This clown car of zealots, weirdos and drunks may very well end up being the instrument that convicts Trump. They aren’t exactly the best and the brightest.