The Big Lie, Con't

Republicans continue the Big Lie because Donald Trump demands it, and the media continues to allow them to get away with it.

 

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) refused to answer whether the 2020 election was stolen when pressed eight separate times in a Sunday interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos.

Asked about conservative Rep. Ken Buck’s (R-Colo.) decision to leave Congress and his departing remark that “too many Republican leaders are lying to America, claiming that the 2020 election was stolen,” Scalise avoided responding directly in the interview on ABC News’s “This Week.”

“Well, Ken, I’ve worked with on a number of issues, including getting spending under control, getting our economy back on track. He’s talked about that 2020 election as well. You and I have, I think, have talked about that too,” Scalise said. “At the end of the day, getting our country back on track is our focus. And that’s what we’re focused on right now.”

“Can you say unequivocally the 2020 election was not stolen?” Stephanopoulos asked Scalise, after the congressman detailed several other legislative priorities for the party.

Scalise dodged the question.

“What I’ve told you, there are states that didn’t follow their laws. That is what the state constitution — the U.S. Constitution requires,” he said. “Every state ought to follow the laws that are on their books. That’s what the U.S. Constitution says.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Stephanopoulos retorted. “I said, can you say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?”

“Look, Joe Biden’s president. I know you and others want to talk about 2020. We’re focused on the future. We’ve talked about 2020 a lot. We’re talking about how to get our country back on track, how to get our economy moving, how to stand up to the bad actors around the world,” Scalise said.

“Congressman, I know that Joe Biden is president. I’m asking you a different question. Can you say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?” Stephanopoulos said, continuing to press him.

Scalise dodged again, citing certain states that he claimed “didn’t follow the laws that are on their books, which is what the U.S. Constitution says they have to do.”

Scalise’s argument is a reiteration of a frequent concern predominantly among voters of former President Trump. They argued that the changes made during the pandemic to allow for mail-in ballots and other measures encouraging voter participation somehow violated state law — even though the changes were largely passed through state legislatures or other legal procedures.

“So you, so you just refuse to say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?” Stephanopoulos said again.

“You want to keep rehashing 2020. We’re talking about the future,” Scalise said, as the two spoke over each other.

“I just want an answer to the question, yes or no?”

“We’ve asked — look, we’ve talked about this before. But, again, will you acknowledge that there were states that didn’t follow the actual state legislative enacted laws on their book, which the U.S. Constitution says they’re supposed to do?” Scalise said, again refusing to answer.

“I know that every court that looked at whether the election was stolen said it wasn’t, rejected those claims. And I asked you a very, very simple question. Now I’ve asked it, I think, the fifth time that you can’t appear to answer. Can you say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?”

The exchange continued without coming to any ultimate resolution.

 

Scalise ran rings around Stephanopoulos again and again and refused to answer the question, and the veteran interviewer simply gave up because he was tired of trying to nail jello to the wall. Scalise knew 100% what he was doing and walked away with total victory.

Republican after Republican is allowed to get away with this, and that remains the problem. Our media is not equipped to stop the Big Lie in any way.The worse lies coming from the GOP in the next year plus will be far worse, and our media is going to get rolled even harder as a result.

There are a few Republicans who will admit that Biden was legitimately elected, and that's only because they are term-limited in purple states like Virginia.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) on Sunday acknowledged President Biden was the “legitimately elected president” as Republicans continue to be peppered with questions about whether the 2020 election was legitimate.

Pressed by ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos on whether the 2020 election was stolen, Youngkin said, “Well, I’ve consistently said that Joe Biden was legitimately elected president. He’s sleeping in the White House. I wish he weren’t.”

 

Youngkin doesn't have to face GOP primary voters again, so he doesn't have to lie. If he did,he'll change his tune.

And nobody will ask him why.

These Disunited States, Con't

A new PRRI poll finds a majority of Americans now believe that the country was better off before the Civil Rights era.

 

Fewer Americans believe that American culture and way of life has mostly changed for the better (44%) than changed for the worse (55%) since the 1950s. Republicans (73%) are more likely than independents (57%) and Democrats (34%) to believe it has mostly changed for the worse.

Nearly nine in ten Americans who most trust far-right news (89%), seven in ten Americans who most trust Fox news (71%), and nearly six in ten Americans who do not watch TV news (58%) believe American culture and way of life have mostly changed for the worse. Under half of Americans who most trust mainstream news (45%) believe the same.

Majorities of white Christians — including white evangelical Protestants (77%), white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (60%), and white Catholics (57%) — believe American culture and way of life has mostly changed for the worse. Hispanic Catholics, Black Protestants, and non-Christian religious Americans are more divided. By contrast, religiously unaffiliated Americans are less likely to say American culture and way of life has changed for the worse (43%) than for the better (57%).

While younger Americans are not optimistic, they remain less likely than older Americans to believe that American culture and way of life have mostly changed for the worse: 49% of Generation Z and millennials, 58% of Generation X, 60% of baby boomers, and 67% of the Silent Generation.

The majority of white (58%) and Hispanic Americans (54%), and nearly half of Black Americans (47%), agree that America’s culture and way of life have mostly changed for the worse.

Americans without a college education are more likely than college-educated Americans to believe that America has changed for the worse, including 61% with some college and 60% with a high school education or less, compared with 46% of college graduates and 43% of postgraduates.

Americans in urban areas are divided on this question (50% better vs. 49% worse), compared with majorities of those who live in suburban (55%) and rural (67%) areas who believe that America’s culture and way of life have changed for the worse.

 

It gets a lot more disturbing when Americans are asked about how to fix things.

Just under four in ten Americans (38%) agree with the statement, “Because things have gotten so far off track in this country, we need a leader who is willing to break some rules if that’s what it takes to set things right,” while 59% disagree.

About half of Republicans (48%) agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules, compared with four in ten independents (38%) and three in ten Democrats (29%). Majorities of Americans who most trust Fox News (53%) or far-right outlets (52%) agree that we need a leader who breaks the rules, compared with smaller shares of those who do not trust TV news (40%), or who most trust mainstream news (32%). Republicans with favorable views of former President Donald Trump are notably more likely than those with unfavorable views of Trump to agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules (54% vs. 32%).

A slim majority of Hispanic Catholics (51%) agree with this statement, along with nearly four in ten religiously unaffiliated Americans (38%), white evangelical Protestants (37%), white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (37%), non-Christians (37%), white Catholics (36%), and Black Protestants (35%). White Americans who attend religious services weekly or more (29%) are less likely than those who attend monthly or a few times a year (39%) or those who seldom or never attend services (37%) to agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules.

Americans who believe that the country has changed for the worse since the 1950s are substantially more likely than those who say that it has changed for the better to agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules (43% vs. 31%).

 

And more and more Americans are ready to turn to violence to try to solve the country's political problems, especially Republicans.

Disturbingly, support for political violence has increased over the last two years. Today, nearly a quarter of Americans (23%) agree that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,” up from 15% in 2021. PRRI has asked this question in eight separate surveys since March 2021. This is the first time support for political violence has peaked above 20%.

One-third of Republicans (33%) today believe that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country, compared with 22% of independents and 13% of Democrats. Those percentages have increased since 2021, when 28% of Republicans and 7% of Democrats held this belief. Republicans who have favorable views of Trump (41%) are nearly three times as likely as Republicans who have unfavorable views of Trump (16%) to agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.

Americans who believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump are more than three times as likely as those who do not believe that the election was stolen from Trump — 46% to 13%, respectively — to agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.

Over three in ten white evangelical Protestants (31%), along with 25% of white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants, 24% of Black Protestants, 23% of non-Christians, 23% of religiously unaffiliated Americans, 21% of Hispanic Catholics, and 20% of white Catholics agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country. Among white Christians, there are no differences by church attendance on this question.

Americans who believe that the country has changed for the worse since the 1950s are more than twice as likely as those who say that it has changed for the better to agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country (30% vs. 14%).

 

Again, one-third of Republicans believe in resorting to political violence. That number jumps to nearly half among people who believe the 2020 presidential election was "stolen". These numbers are only going to go up the closer we get to the November 2024 election, or to any real legal consequences in Trump's trials. 

Be careful out there.

Jack Makes A Deal, Or, Mark Of Betrayal

Fulton County Georgia DA may not have flipped former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows yet in her RICO case, but Jack Smith sure as hell got him to testify before a grand jury in his January 6th federal case.

 

Former President Donald Trump's final chief of staff in the White House, Mark Meadows, has spoken with special counsel Jack Smith's team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which came only after Smith granted Meadows immunity to testify under oath, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The sources said Meadows informed Smith's team that he repeatedly told Trump in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election that the allegations of significant voting fraud coming to them were baseless, a striking break from Trump's prolific rhetoric regarding the election.

According to the sources, Meadows also told the federal investigators Trump was being "dishonest" with the public when he first claimed to have won the election only hours after polls closed on Nov. 3, 2020, before final results were in.

"Obviously we didn't win," a source quoted Meadows as telling Smith's team in hindsight.

Trump has called Meadows, one of the former president's closest and highest-ranking aides in the White House, a "special friend" and "a great chief of staff -- as good as it gets."

The descriptions of what Meadows allegedly told investigators shed further light on the evidence Smith's team has amassed as it prosecutes Trump for allegedly trying to unlawfully retain power and "spread lies" about the 2020 election. The descriptions also expose how far Trump loyalists like Meadows have gone to support and defend Trump.

Sources told ABC News that Smith's investigators were keenly interested in questioning Meadows about election-related conversations he had with Trump during his final months in office, and whether Meadows actually believed some of the claims he included in a book he published after Trump left office -- a book that promised to "correct the record" on Trump.

ABC News has identified several assertions in the book that appear to be contradicted by what Meadows allegedly told investigators behind closed doors.

According to Meadows' book, the election was "stolen" and "rigged" with help from "allies in the liberal media," who ignored "actual evidence of fraud, right there in plain sight for anyone to access and analyze."

But, as described to ABC News, Meadows privately told Smith's investigators that -- to this day -- he has yet to see any evidence of fraud that would have kept now-president Joe Biden from the White House, and he told them he agrees with a government assessment at the time that the 2020 presidential election was the most secure election in U.S. history.

 

Mark Meadows doesn't just know where the bodies are, he helped Trump bury them. He's testified at least once to a grand jury.

But does that mean he's actually going to help Jack Smith bury Trump? Marcy Wheeler throws up a big caution flag.

But I caution against concluding too much about what the testimony means. Most importantly, there’s no hint that Meadows has flipped. Meadows has testified (which a past ABC scoop made clear). But giving immunized testimony is not flipping, and the two ABC stories raise far more questions about the story Meadows has told.

I say that for several reasons. First, ABC doesn’t describe the dates for any of his interviews. I’ll return to that, but it’s important that ABC doesn’t reveal whether Meadows’ testimony to Jack Smith precedes or postdates the Georgia indictment and subsequent failure to get the Georgia indictment removed to Federal courts. An earlier big ABC scoop describes April grand jury testimony, and it’s not clear that this would be a different time frame or grand jury appearance.

I offer cautions, as well, because virtually all of ABC’s reporting says that Meadows was asked not about what Trump did on a given day, but whether Meadows believed what Meadows had said publicly. Here’s an example.

Sources told ABC News that Smith’s investigators were keenly interested in questioning Meadows about election-related conversations he had with Trump during his final months in office, and whether Meadows actually believed some of the claims he included in a book he published after Trump left office — a book that promised to “correct the record” on Trump.

Again, click through to see how much of the rest is of the same sort.

As I noted in my post on that prior big ABC scoop, there are still loads of details — especially about January 6 — missing from the public timeline that Meadows surely knows.

There’s a lot that’s missing here — most notably Meadows’ coordination with Congress and any efforts to coordinate with Mike Flynn and Roger Stone’s efforts more closely tied to the insurrection and abandoned efforts to deploy the National Guard to protect Trump’s mob as it walked to congress. Unless those actions get added to charges quickly, Meadows will be able to argue, in Georgia, that his actions complied with federal law without having to address them. If and when they do get charged in DC, I’m sure Meadows’ attorneys hope, his criminal exposure in Georgia will be resolved.

Importantly, that earlier ABC scoop served to signal co-conspirators how Meadows changed his testimony after prosecutors obtained proof his claims about his ghost-writers — the same ghost-writers whose book remains at the center of ABC’s scoop! — were proven wrong by further evidence.

That story suggested Meadows was only going to be as truthful as evidence presented to him required him to be.

And this story is of the same type. It describes how, as he did in the stolen documents case, Meadows said he didn’t believe what he wrote when it was legally necessary.

Meadows is trying to save his ass, yes. But it doesn't mean he's singing like a canary quite yet. 

Still, four major players in Trump's inner circle have now possibly turned on him in the last week.

 

Sleep well, Donnie. Prison bunks are far less comfortable.

 

Fani Makes A Deal, Or, Ellis If I Know

Another of Trump's Georgia co-conspirators turns state's evidence for Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis's RICO case, this time it's former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis. 

 

Jenna Ellis, a former Trump 2020 election attorney, struck a plea deal with Georgia prosecutors on Monday in their sweeping election racketeering case, making her the fourth of the original co-defendants charged by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to now be cooperating with investigators as they prepare for a trial against the former president and his other associates.

Under terms of the plea deal, which were signed Monday and made public Tuesday, Ellis agreed to a single felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.

In brief remarks to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, Ellis expressed remorse for her actions in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.

"What I did not do, but should have done, your honor, was make sure that the facts the other lawyers alleged to be true were in fact true," she said. "...I should have done my due diligence."

Ellis had been facing two felony counts over at least two memos to Trump and his lawyers advising that then-Vice President Mike Pence should disregard electoral votes from Georgia and other “contested” states during the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, certification ceremony at the U.S. Capitol.

She's the fourth person charged by Willis to switch course after initially pleading not guilty. Pro-Trump lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell reached separate plea agreements late last week with Willis to cooperate with her investigation in exchange for their admissions of guilt and less stringent sentences. Those deals nixed a trial that was just getting started last Friday with jury selection in Fulton County.

 

Like The Big Chese Bro and The Kraken Lady, Ellis is getting probation and a fine in return for testifying against the other co-conspirators at a later date. DA Willis is putting on a master class here in busting organized crime and racketeering by flipping the smaller fish to catch the white whale. Or, you know, the orange whale in this case.

Last Call For Fani Makes A Deal, Or, One Grilled Chese Please

Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis keeps on winning, and this time she's gotten a felony plea along with state's evidence.

Kenneth Chesebro, a former lawyer for Donald Trump’s campaign, pleaded guilty Friday to illegally conspiring to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia, a deal in which he will avoid jail time and agreed to provide evidence that implicates other co-defendants, including Trump himself.

Chesebro was the second former Trump lawyer to accept a plea deal in the sprawling conspiracy case in as many days. The plea came in just hours after jury selection began, ahead of an expected trial next month.

Chesebro pleaded guilty to a single felony count of conspiracy to file false documents and accepted a sentence of three to five years of probation, a $1,000 fine, $5,000 in restitution to the state of Georgia, an apology letter, 100 hours of community service and a promise to testify truthfully against any other co-defendants in the case, should they go to trial.

In his plea deal, Chesebro implicated several of those co-defendants as being part of the conspiracy to file false documents: Trump, four other lawyers including Rudy Giuliani, and one campaign operative. The charge relates to Chesebro’s role organizing slates of pro-Trump electors to meet in seven states where Biden had won.

Chesebro’s guilty plea follows that of Sidney Powell on Thursday and makes him the third co-defendant to admit guilt in the criminal racketeering case, which alleges Trump and 18 allies broke Georgia law when they sought to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state. In addition to Powell, bail bondsman Scott Hall pleaded guilty earlier this month in the conspiracy — with all agreeing to testify against others in the case.

The plea is the latest legal victory for Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D), whose office is prosecuting the Georgia case. In addition to flipping one of the key members of the alleged conspiracy, prosecutors now avoid a trial in which they would have had to showcase much of their evidence against Trump and others, which might have offered lawyers for other defendants a legal advantage heading into their trials.

The potential for incriminating testimony from three of Trump’s co-defendants could have a far-reaching impact on the former president’s legal fortunes, as well as some of the other high-profile defendants, notably Giuliani, who is alleged to have known about Powell’s and Chesebro’s efforts to help overturn Trump’s loss. 

 

And the right-wing keeps yelling that these pleas are meaningless and that Willis doesn't have any case because she hasn't gotten anyone to cop to a RICO felony yet.

Don't worry, kids. That's coming. The Finding Out Phase is definitely here for Trump and fiends.

Fani Makes A Deal, Or, Sidney's Kraken Up

Looks like Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis played Let's Make A Deal again, and I told you she would. Her contestant: Former Trump lawyer and oceanic cryptid enthusiast Sidney Powell, who just flipped on Trump in Fani Willis's Georgia election interference case.

 

Sidney Powell, a GOP lawyer who briefly represented Donald Trump, has flipped on the former president, striking a plea deal with Georgia prosecutors ahead of her trial on a slew of criminal charges.

According to court filings, Powell pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy to interfere with election duties.

She was one of over a dozen co-defendants — including Trump himself — in the Fulton County DA's office's RICO case, which accused Trump and his allies of violating the state's racketeering statute while working to overturn Georgia's 2020 presidential election results.

As part of the plea agreement, Powell — who pushed several conspiracy theories about the 2020 election results and vowed to release the "Kraken," purported evidence of widespread election fraud that never materialized — will have to testify at future trials and write a letter apologizing to Georgia citizens.

Powell's plea deal was announced at a court hearing on Thursday. As part of the agreement, she will also have to pay $2,700 in restitution to replace election equipment, as well as a $6,000 fine. She faces a maximum sentence of six years probation.

Powell was set to go to trial on Monday, along with co-defendant and former Trump campaign lawyer Kenneth Chesebro.

 

I don't use this language often, but Trump is fucked. 

 

We'll see if Kenny Cheseboro flips before his trial on Monday, but does Willis really need him at this point? The only bigger fish on this seafood buffet are Rudy, Mark Meadows, and the king marlin himself, Trump. At this point, unless Meadows or Rudy flips, the window for a deal has closed.

Expect another tirade as Trump gets closer and closer to prison.

Last Call For The Big Lie, Alexa Edition

The thing with AI is that as with any computer database, if you feed it garbage input, it'll give you garbage output, and that applies to Amazon's Alexa digital assistant just like any other search engine or social media outlet.

Amid concerns the rise of artificial intelligence will supercharge the spread of misinformation comes a wild fabrication from a more prosaic source: Amazon’s Alexa, which declared that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Asked about fraud in the race — in which President Biden defeated former president Donald Trump with 306 electoral college votes — the popular voice assistant said it was “stolen by a massive amount of election fraud,” citing Rumble, a video-streaming service favored by conservatives.

The 2020 races were “notorious for many incidents of irregularities and indications pointing to electoral fraud taking place in major metro centers,” according to Alexa, referencing Substack, a subscription newsletter service. Alexa contended that Trump won Pennsylvania, citing “an Alexa answers contributor.”

Multiple investigations into the 2020 election have revealed no evidence of fraud, and Trump faces federal criminal charges connected to his efforts to overturn the election. Yet Alexa disseminates misinformation about the race, even as parent company Amazon promotes the tool as a reliable election news source to more than 70 million estimated users.

Amazon declined to explain why its voice assistant draws 2020 election answers from unvetted sources.

“These responses were errors that were delivered a small number of times, and quickly fixed when brought to our attention,” Amazon spokeswoman Lauren Raemhild said in a statement. “We continually audit and improve the systems we have in place for detecting and blocking inaccurate content.”

Raemhild said that during elections, Alexa works with “credible sources” like Reuters, Ballotpedia and RealClearPolitics to provide real-time information.

After The Washington Post reached out to Amazon for comment, Alexa’s responses changed.

To questions The Post had flagged to the company, Alexa answered, “I’m sorry, I’m not able to answer that.” Other questions still prompt the device to say there was election fraud in 2020.

Jacob Glick, who served as investigative counsel on the Jan. 6 committee, called Alexa’s assertions nearly three years after the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol “alarming.”

“If major corporations are helping to give life to the ‘big lie’ years after the fact, they’re enabling the animating narrative of American domestic extremism to endure,” said Glick, who now serves as a policy counsel at the Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. “They should be doing everything they can to stop the ‘big lie’ in its tracks, lest we see history repeat itself.”

They should be, but why would they bother when the Biden administration is suing the pants off of Amazon over antitrust violations? If I'm an evil tech billionaire like Bezos or Musk or Zuckerberg, I'm putting my thumb on the scale to turn the country over to Trump and the fascists in order to get a better deal.

The point is that nobody should be surprised that three years later that Alexa is drawing on Big Lie bullshit and spreading it to tens of millions. We're at the point where The Big Lie has been "fact" to a majority of the GOP since November 2020.

Why wouldn't Big Tech look the other way?

Last Call For A Rudy, Awakening Con't

The hammer falls again on Rudy Giuliani, and by the time all the construction tools of justice get done with him, he's going to be spending his golden years spitting out chunks of drywall.

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Rudy Giuliani is legally liable for defaming two Georgia election workers who became the subject of conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election that were amplified by Donald Trump in the final weeks of his presidency.

In an unsparing, 57-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell said Giuliani had flagrantly violated her orders to preserve and produce relevant evidence to the election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, resulting in a “default” judgment against him. She is also ordering him to pay Freeman and Moss “punitive” damages for failing to fulfill his obligations.

“Just as taking shortcuts to win an election carries risks — even potential criminal liability — bypassing the discovery process carries serious sanctions,” Howell ruled.

Giuliani spent weeks accusing Freeman and Moss of manipulating ballots during Georgia’s vote counting process after the 2020 election, despite repeated investigations that debunked and discredited the allegations.

The harassment that Freeman and Moss endured as a result of these conspiracy theories is at the heart of some of the criminal charges now facing several of Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia racketeering case brought by Fulton County prosecutors. Giuliani is charged in that case, in part, for “false statements” to Georgia legislators related to his attacks on Freeman and Moss.

Howell has now ordered the case to proceed to a trial purely to determine the amount of damages Giuliani will now be forced to shoulder on charges of defamation, civil conspiracy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

It’s unclear how much money the pair will seek in the trial, either in direct compensation for the damage to their reputations and other harms they faced or in terms of punitive damages–which can range to several multiples of the direct damages. The total might be influenced by what Giuliani does next.

Howell has given the former mayor until Sept. 20 to produce documents about his net worth, which she said he has dragged his feet on producing so far, as well as records from his companies related to the revenue produced by his “Common Sense” podcast.

 

Understand that Rudy fucked around so much, the judge ordered him directly into the Find Out phase, to determine solely how many millions he's going to fork over to the two Georgia election workers he made MAGA targets of.  He's guilty, It's just how much the damage will be.

And this will only be the beginning.

The Big Lie, Con't

Once again, the actual voter fraud in 2020 and 2022 favored Trump and the GOP, not Democrats.

James Saunders, the 56-year-old Shaker Heights tax attorney convicted last week of voting multiple times in the last two general elections, was sentenced to three years in prison, a judge decided Monday morning.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Andrew Santoli coupled Saunders' sentence with a $10,000 fine, a punishment, as Santoli detailed in last week's hearing, to match the severe violation against the nation's voting laws.

"You violated the premise that every citizen, regardless of race, creed or religion, speaks in one voice," Santoli told Saunders from the bench last Monday. "Your opinion does not outweigh other citizens."

Throughout the case, the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office presented evidence that Saunders, who traveled regularly to a second home in Pompano Beach, Florida, attempted to cross states lines to vote multiple times, by mail and in person in Broward and Cuyahoga counties.

The case of election fraud was the first of its kind in 2023, county prosecutors present at trial told Scene. Because Saunders' duplicitous votes infringed on federal law, his actions in Florida were under Santoli's, and the court's, jurisdiction.

For both prosecutors present at trial and for Chief Prosecutor Michael O'Malley, the Saunders trial—and its steep sentencing—was a clear deterrent to future violators.

"One person one vote is the foundation of our democracy," O'Malley wrote in a statement. "I think the message is clear: do no commit election fraud in Cuyahoga County."

 

The system works, and it catches the actual vote cheaters.

 

And you know what?

 

It caught Trump and his merry band of clowns too.

A Rudy Awakening, Con't

Remember that both Arizona and Michigan, with Democrats as each state's AG and Governor, are investigating their own slates of fraudulent 2020 electors in addition to Georgia, and many of the players at the national level, Trump's inner circle f criminals, are mostly the same. Arizona's AG Kris Mayes in particular would like to have a few words with one Rudolph Giuliani.

 

PROSECUTORS IN ARIZONA are “aggressively” ramping up their criminal probe into the 2020 fake electors plot aimed at keeping then-President Donald Trump in power. They’re not just looking at the fake electors, though. Rudy Giuliani is also now high on their list.

Two sources with knowledge of the matter tell Rolling Stone that in the past several weeks, state prosecutors have been asking questions about the former New York mayor who became a ringleader in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Investigators assigned to the case by Arizona’s Democratic attorney general Kris Mayes have recently asked potential witnesses and other individuals specific questions not only about Giuliani’s behind-the-scenes conduct, but that of other key Trump lieutenants at the time, as well.

Prosecutors appear particularly interested in a number of notable meetings and phone calls, including a late November 2020 meeting with members of Arizona’s state legislature convened by the Trump legal team, which aired bogus claims of voter fraud and lobbied lawmakers to “take over” the state’s selection of electors, the sources say.

Arizona’s attorney general has publicly referred to the case as an investigation into “fake electors,” but the questions about Giuliani suggest that investigators may be interested in probing pro-Trump figures who were higher up on the food chain in addition to the 11 Republicans who falsely claimed to be the state’s legitimate electors.

In public comments following the Fulton County, Georgia, indictment of Trump and his associates earlier this month, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes called for patience, saying “we are doing a thorough and professional investigation and we’re going to do it on our timetable as justice demands.”

State investigators have also at times inquired about Trump’s level of personal involvement in the Arizona-focused pressure campaign, one of the people with knowledge of the situation says. The campaign was part of a multi-state fake elector scheme, which along with other aspects of Trump’s crusade to overturn Joe Biden’s legitimate 2020 victory has figured prominently into multiple federal and state-level criminal probes.

Giuliani’s attorney and a Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on this story. The Arizona attorney general’s office declined to comment.

Arizona law enforcement officials have also been looking into the activities of former Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward and her role as a fake elector. As Rolling Stone reported last week, prosecutors have asked possible witnesses about a December 2020 signing ceremony where Ward and 10 other Republicans signed documents falsely attesting to be Arizona’s legitimate electors.

 

Going after ward, and God willing, Kari Lake as well, would go a long way towards people in the Grand Canyon State getting a big dose of The Find Out Phase. 

We'll see if Arizona is as gung-ho as Fani Willis is.

Orange Meltdown: A Rudy Awakening Edition

Rudy Giuliani faces the music in Georgia today for his role in Trump's election-theft conspiracy to defraud the state.

Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer who championed the former president’s bogus election fraud claims, said he will turn himself in to authorities in Georgia on Wednesday to face racketeering charges alleging he meddled in the state’s 2020 presidential election.

"I’m going to Fulton County to comply with the law, which I always do," he told reporters before leaving for Georgia. "I don’t know if I plea today but if I do I plead not guilty."


Giuliani and Trump both face 13 counts, more than the other 17 defendants in the case.

The former New York City mayor has maintained his innocence, and claimed the only thing he’s guilty of was zealously advocating for his client.

“I never thought I’d ever get indicted for being a lawyer,” Giuliani said on his radio show last week.

Trump has said he will surrender at the Atlanta jail Thursday.

Giuliani is being represented by New York-based attorney John Esposito, a former Manhattan assistant district attorney.

After their arrival, they will go to his local counsel’s office, where Giuliani will remain as the attorneys go to District Attorney Fani Willis’s office to negotiate a bail amount and sign documents.

Once a judge approves those documents, Giuliani will head to the Fulton County Jail, where he will be fingerprinted and photographed. His arraignment is expected in the next week or two and may take place virtually.

"I get photographed, isn’t that nice? A mugshot for the mayor who probably put the worst criminal of the 20th century in jail," Giuliani complained to reporters when he left his apartment.

The indictment in Fulton County alleges that Giuliani was a key part of a criminal conspiracy, pressing election officials in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania to act on voting fraud claims that he was repeatedly told were false. Giuliani was also charged with promoting false claims that voting machines were rigged, and making false claims in sworn legal filings.

Additionally, the indictment singles out false claims Giuliani made about Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman, who was targeted with death threats and harassed as a result of the phony allegations.

The main charge against Giuliani — racketeering — is similar to a federal law he used with great success when he was U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Giuliani predicted Wednesday that he will be vindicated. “This will be proven to be like all the rest, a complete hoax and a lie,” he said.

 

I predict Rudy Giuliani will spend the rest of his life behind bars, completing his fall from grace as NYC's Hizzoner to Georgia inmate. Of course, during that meeting with Fani Willis today, he could always cut a deal.

 

We'll see.

The Big Lie, Con't

Donald Trump's campaign continues to lie about the 2020 Georgia presidential election even after being indicted on state RICO charges over it, and now they are citing the indictments by Fulton County DA Fani Willis as further "evidence" that Georgia state lawmakers and GOP Gov. Brian Kemp are all part of the same massive Big Lie "conspiracy".

Although Trump’s allegations have repeatedly been disproven — often by his own advisers — they’ve taken a firm hold among his party. An Associated Press poll last week found 57% of Republicans said they didn’t view Biden as a legitimately elected president.

The 98-page Georgia indictment lists several false allegations made by Trump that were quickly disproven by fellow Republicans, Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and Gov. Brian Kemp. Still, Trump insists to this day that the election was stolen from him and continues to lie about it.

After the indictment, he promised a press conference this week revealing a report he claimed would show how the Georgia election was stolen from him — a pledge he rescinded on Thursday, saying his lawyers wanted to make his argument in a court filing instead.

“Does anybody really believe I lost Georgia?” Trump asked on his Truth Social network Saturday. “I DON’T.”

By repeating the lie over and over, even when it has been repeatedly exposed as baseless, Trump is not only ensuring that his loyal followers remain energized, but also dominating the discussion and forcing others to relitigate the 2020 election on his terms.

At the recent Iowa State Fair, where he was campaigning for that state’s presidential caucus next year, Trump again claimed the 2020 election was “rigged.” In anticipation of the Georgia indictment, Trump’s campaign issued a statement a week ago saying prosecutors were “taking away President Trump’s First Amendment right to free speech, and the right to challenge a rigged and stolen election that the Democrats do all the time.”

His attorneys have defended his actions by saying the former president sincerely believes fraud cost him reelection.

Lee McIntyre, a Boston University researcher, noted that many of Trump’s followers no longer see other Americans as legitimate opposition, but rather as an enemy. “This is strategic,” McIntyre said. “This is not a mistake. Somebody is profiting from this — politically, ideologically or financially — and we know it’s Trump.”

Known as “affective polarization,” that phenomenon has led to increased violence and political destablization in other nations. This month, FBI agents fatally shot an armed Utah man who had threatened to kill Biden and referred to himself online as a “MAGA Trumper.”

“It’s not just that the other side is wrong, it’s that the other side is evil, and they deserve to be punished, maybe even physically harmed,” McIntyre said. “It is no longer about facts, but about trust. It’s about teams, and which side you’re on.”

 

Increasingly, Gov. Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger are The Enemy to Trump, and part of The Big Lie now. Trump wants to get rid of Fani Willis for sure, and Georgia GOP lawmakers are trying to make that happen.

 

But Trump also wants Kemp and Raffensperger gone too. Don't be surprised if Trump has a Georgia rally in MTG country in order to turn his MAGA cultists against the two of them as well.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Trump's lawyers are requesting that, since Special Counsel Jack Smith had 2.5 years to investigate Trump's election interference charges, that Trump should have 2.5 years to prepare his defense and that the trial under US District Judge Tanya Chutkan shouldn't start until April 2026.

 

Citing extraordinary amounts of evidence — including a tranche of 11.5 million pages that prosecutors handed over earlier this month — Trump lawyers John Lauro and Todd Blanche said in court papers filed Thursday that a 2.5-year delay before picking a jury would properly factor in the complexity of the case.

The proposal stands in almost absurd contrast to prosecutors’ call for a trial to begin on Jan. 2, 2024, a highly ambitious timeline. And it sets up a consequential choice for U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, who has indicated she will set a trial date by Aug. 28.

Trump’s proposal is almost certainly a non-starter. It would result in a trial six years after the events that formed the basis for the charges: Trump’s staggering and multi-faceted effort to subvert his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election. But his lawyers framed the decision in stark terms, noting the unprecedented nature of a leading candidate for president being prosecuted by the Justice Department led by his political opponent.

Trump’s lawyers also pointed to typical lags in more routine criminal trials in Washington, D.C.’s federal court.

“In this District, ordinary order when faced with such overwhelming discovery is to set a reasonable trial schedule, commensurate with the size and scope of discovery and complexity of the legal issues,” Lauro and Blanche wrote. “The government rejects this sensible approach. Instead, it seeks a trial calendar more rapid than most no-document misdemeanors, requesting just four months from the beginning of discovery to jury selection.”

The attorneys also noted that the district typically prioritizes trials for defendants who are in pretrial detention, a factor that is not facing Trump.

Unsaid in the brief, however, is another significant calculus. Trump could, conceivably, be back in the White House in January 2025. If that happens and the case is still pending, he could instantly shut it down, either by issuing himself a presidential pardon or by appointing an attorney general who would agree to dismiss the charges.

Special counsel Jack Smith has charged Trump with three conspiracies aimed at derailing the transfer of power to Joe Biden, in part through a campaign of disinformation aimed at disrupting state government and congressional efforts to certify the 2020 election.

In their court filing Thursday, Trump’s team also continued to push the notion that prosecutors have had 2.5 years to investigate the case, while Trump is only just beginning to prepare his defense. An April 2026 trial date would give Trump’s team an equal amount of time to prepare, they said.

But that notion is erroneous, prosecutors said in their own proposed trial schedule brief last week. They noted that Trump is privy to large swaths of evidence arrayed against him as a result of the House Jan. 6 select committee’s hearings and trove of public documents. And he also has access to millions of pages of records that overlap with the materials the government is producing to him — such as documents from his White House, his campaign and his PAC.

Chutkan has given no hints about the timetable she’s considering, but she has warned that she would speed up the timeline if Trump continues to make “inflammatory” remarks about witnesses and parties to the case that could influence the jury pool. She is also unlikely to be swayed by Trump’s claims of political malfeasance by prosecutors: During her first hearing in the case, she repeatedly emphasized that she won’t be factoring in Trump’s political candidacy or the politics of the matter at all in her trial decisions.

 

The legal nonsense is just what it is, nonsense. Trump's lawys know Judge Chutkan won't buy this for a millisecond. The point however is to continue to stoke anger and outrage by Trump's faithful against his "unfair" treatment, and maybe, just maybe, someone rids him of that troublesome Judge Chutkan. Even the very real prospect of such a grim act however is secondary to creating a path for Trump-appointed judges on appeal having a fig leaf to overturn all his convictions, preferably just ahead of the November 2024 elections.

 

In a just world, Trump would have long ago dropped out of the race and would be under house arrest waiting trial quietly. 

 

Sadly, that won't happen.

 

 

Last Call For Fani, Flagged In Georgia, Con't

As I expected and warned about, Georgia GOP lawmakers are now calling for Fulton County DA Fani Willis to be investigated and removed from office for the crime of indicting Trump.

 

Georgia state Republican Sen. Colton Moore is calling for an emergency special session to review the actions of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

"America is under attack. I’m not going to sit back and watch as radical left prosecutors politically TARGET political opponents," Moore wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday.

Moore's special session request is in response to Fani's indictment charging former President Donald with more than a dozen felonies, including racketeering, related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.

Moore's call quickly earned the support of fellow Trump supporter Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

"Great job Colton!" she wrote when sharing Moore's message calling for a potential impeachment of Willis. "There must be something done to stop Biden’s political henchmen like Fani Willis!!"

A special session would need majority support in the state Senate and House as well as from Gov. Brian Kemp, R, who has been pushing back on Trump's continued claims of election fraud against him within Florida.

 

If what I think will happen does happen, that is Trump and Rep. Greene to run amok on social media with the calls of a special session to remove Willis from office, then Gov. Kemp and the rest of the Georgia GOP will have a difficult time resisting.  Actually impeaching and removing Willis may not be possible, but they sure will try to get rid of her, or maybe in the special session pass a law that makes that far easier.

We'll see how far they go, but Trump's going to make life very uncomfortable for those Republicans who don't play ball.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Trump's lawyers are in absolute panic mode ahead of Monday's scheduled press conference where Trump says he will present "conclusive" evidence that refutes his RICO charges in Georgia.

Former President Donald Trump's promised press conference to refute the allegations in the indictment handed up by the Fulton County District Attorney's Office is now very much in doubt, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

Sources tell ABC News that Trump's legal advisers have told him that holding such a press conference with dubious claims of voter fraud will only complicate his legal problems and some of his attorneys have advised him to cancel it.

Trump announced the planned press conference with a social media post shortly after he and 18 co-defendants were indicted late Monday in Georgia. He said he would present, "A Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable REPORT on the Presidential Election Fraud which took place in Georgia."

Georgia's Republican governor responded to that with his own social media post declaring, "The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen. For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward -- under oath -- and prove anything in a court of law.”

Campaigning in Iowa, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he agreed with Kemp. And so did former Vice President Mike Pence, who said on Wednesday, "The Georgia election was not stolen."

Georgia's 2020 presidential election has been thoroughly examined and re-examined. The results were confirmed in three separate counts, include a hand count of the nearly 5 million ballots cast in the state. Under Attorney General Bill Barr, Trump's own Justice Department looked allegations made by Trump. So did the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

To recap, Trump's solution to being charged with a conspiracy to defraud the 2020 presidential election in Georgia  based on fraudulent evidence is to publicly present additional fraudulent evidence in a further attempt at conspiracy to defraud the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. 

No wonder Trump's lawyers are looking for the nets and tranquilizer darts. Even GOP Gov. Brian Kemp is telling Trump to screw off.

Now again if this evidence is actually irrefutable and exculpatory, presenting it publicly would be Trump's duty to America. Since it's in fact flatulent elephant diarrhea that will almost certainly be used against Trump in the trial that Fani Willis wants to start in early March, I can't wait to see it.

By all means, proceed.

Fani, Flagged In Georgia, Con't

Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis is coming for the entire Trump Gang.

 

DONALD TRUMP MAY be in trouble in Fulton County, Georgia. But unlike the recent indictment of him in a federal court in Washington, DC, he may not be alone.

Three sources who have spoken with prosecutors tell Rolling Stone that they believe that Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis is likely to indict not just Trump, but a number of his associates involved in attempting to overturn the election, as well.

“It really seems like they’re coming for everyone,” says one lawyer who has repeatedly dealt with the prosecutors in this criminal probe. “Based on what I know, Willis and her team do not seem to be stopping at Donald Trump. The scope for this [likely coming indictment] is probably going to be a hell of a lot wider than that…and round up a significant number of people.”

The Fulton County DA’s office has declined to comment on what will occur with an indictment, and only she knows for sure who ultimately will be hit with charges.

Still, some of Trump’s own lawyers, as well as other attorneys retained by his election-denying allies, are already preparing for the very real possibility that Trump will have plenty of company in an upcoming indictment. Lawyers have already outlined legal strategies, memos, and other material that factor in their expectation that an array of these Trump subordinates will face charges alongside him, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Trump’s team is in part basing their expectation of wider charges on the subject matter of prosecutors’ witness grillings, as well as what the DA has asked for. Those inquiries include granular details of what certain Trump allies were doing in the weeks following Election Day 2020. Figures of particularly high interest have included, but aren’t limited to, the once obscure lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, John Eastman, and Rudy Giuliani, sources who’ve dealt with the prosecutors tell Rolling Stone.

The Fulton County district attorney’s office and attorneys for Trump, Eastman, and Giulaini did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

 

In return, Donald Trump is making good on his threats that he's coming for Fani Willis. 

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Wednesday flatly denied that she had a relationship with a former client and other rumors spread by former President Donald Trump in a new campaign ad.

In an email to her colleagues, obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Willis called the information in a television spot bankrolled by the Trump campaign “derogatory and false.” She urged her staff not to respond to any of the allegations.

“You may not comment in any way on the ad or any of the negativity that may be expressed against me, your colleagues, this office in the coming days, weeks or months,” Willis wrote in the email, sent early Wednesday. “We have no personal feelings against those we investigate or prosecute and we should not express any.”

A Willis spokesman declined to comment.

In the minute-long ad, titled “The Fraud Squad,” the narrator refers to Willis as “Biden’s newest lackey.” It says that Willis presided over a sharp rise of violent crimes in Atlanta and highlights her office being disqualified from investigating Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in her long-running election interference case due to a political conflict of interest.

But the most incendiary allegation is that Willis “got caught hiding a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting.” It cites as evidence a Jan. 25, 2023, article in Rolling Stone.

But the ad gets several facts wrong. The Rolling Stone article is an interview with YSL Mondo, one of Willis’ former clients in 2019 when she worked as a defense attorney, and it doesn’t make reference to any sort of affair.

In the interview, Mondo is quoted saying that he had some “auntie-to-nephew, mother-to-son type of talks” with Willis. But the article notes that the two didn’t talk after his case was resolved.

After Willis was elected DA, her office opened a racketeering case against the rapper Young Thug and the alleged street gang Young Slime Life. YSL Mondo co-founded the Young Slime Life music crew with Young Thug in the early 2010s, according to Rolling Stone, and in the article commented that the Willis who defended him is not the same person who would pursue such a racketeering case.

Trump made a similar baseless relationship allegation against Willis during a Tuesday campaign rally in Windham, N.H.

“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,” Trump said. “And this is a person that wants to indict me.”

Since then, his comments have been amplified by several right wing activists.

The Trump campaign paid $79,000 for “The Fraud Squad” ad to run on cable news channels in metro Atlanta between Aug. 9 and 13, according to Medium Buying, which tracks political ad spending.

As I said last week, Georgia Republicans will almost certainly try to use a law passed earlier this year and signed into law by former GA Secretary of State and current GOP Gov. Brian Kemp to remove Willis from office for "misconduct" with an "independent commission" whose members are of course appointed by Kemp. That law is currently being challenged in state court by four of Willis's fellow Georgia County DAs.

What Trump is doing with his ludicrous slime job is laying the false justification for doing just that. If the indictment includes several of the false slate of electors who are powerful members of the state Republican Party apparatus on RICO and fraud charges as I strongly suspect, then the pressure on Kemp and the commission to remove Willis will be overwhelming, hence the lawsuit filed last week.

We're most likely headed for a massive court battle to even see if Willis will be allowed to bring her case against Trump at all, delaying a possible trial for months, if not years. Willis will be attacked on all sides, and Trump is sending a message to anyone else poised to charge him: you're next.

And even if he is found guilty, Gov. Kemp will then be under pressure to pardon Trump, his lackeys, and all the state Republicans who joined in.

What I'm saying is don't expect Trump to end up in an Atlanta jail anytime soon.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

So it turnes out that the Trump legal brain trust were indeed dumb as hog shit, because yes, they were, in fact, taking notes on the criminal fuckin' conspiracy.

A lawyer allied with President Donald J. Trump first laid out a plot to use false slates of electors to subvert the 2020 election in a previously unknown internal campaign memo that prosecutors are portraying as a crucial link in how the Trump team’s efforts evolved into a criminal conspiracy.

The existence of the Dec. 6, 2020, memo came to light in last week’s indictment of Mr. Trump, though its details remained unclear. But a copy obtained by The New York Times shows for the first time that the lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, acknowledged from the start that he was proposing “a bold, controversial strategy” that the Supreme Court “likely” would reject in the end.

But even if the plan did not ultimately pass legal muster at the highest level, Mr. Chesebro argued that it would achieve two goals. It would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and “buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column.”

The memo had been a missing piece in the public record of how Mr. Trump’s allies developed their strategy to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory. In mid-December, the false Trump electors could go through the motions of voting as if they had the authority to do so. Then, on Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally count those slates of votes, rather than the official and certified ones for Joseph R. Biden Jr.

While that basic plan itself was already known, the document, described by prosecutors as the “fraudulent elector memo,” provides new details about how it originated and was discussed behind the scenes. Among those details is Mr. Chesebro’s proposed “messaging” strategy to explain why pro-Trump electors were meeting in states where Mr. Biden was declared the winner. The campaign would present that step as “a routine measure that is necessary to ensure” that the correct electoral slate could be counted by Congress if courts or legislatures later concluded that Mr. Trump had actually won the states.

It was not the first time Mr. Chesebro had raised the notion of creating alternate electors. In November, he had suggested doing so in Wisconsin, although for a different reason: to safeguard Mr. Trump’s rights in case he later won a court battle and was declared that state’s certified winner by Jan. 6, as had happened with Hawaii in 1960.

But the indictment portrayed the Dec. 6 memo as a “sharp departure” from that proposal, becoming what prosecutors say was a criminal plot to engineer “a fake controversy that would derail the proper certification of Biden as president-elect.”

“I recognize that what I suggest is a bold, controversial strategy, and that there are many reasons why it might not end up being executed on Jan. 6,” Mr. Chesebro wrote. “But as long as it is one possible option, to preserve it as a possibility it is important that the Trump-Pence electors cast their electoral votes on Dec. 14.”

Three days later, Mr. Chesebro drew up specific instructions to create fraudulent electors in multiple states — in another memo whose existence, along with the one in November, was first reported by The Times last year. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot also cited them in its December report, but it apparently did not learn of the Dec. 6 memo.

“I believe that what can be achieved on Jan. 6 is not simply to keep Biden below 270 electoral votes,” Mr. Chesebro wrote in the newly disclosed memo. “It seems feasible that the vote count can be conducted so that at no point will Trump be behind in the electoral vote count unless and until Biden can obtain a favorable decision from the Supreme Court upholding the Electoral Count Act as constitutional, or otherwise recognizing the power of Congress (and not the president of the Senate) to count the votes.”

As an American, I demand that our national political conspiracies are held to the standards of terrifyingly powerful evil seen in Mission Impossible and James Bond films and Tom Clancy novels, not this middle school class "And I'll put soda vending machines in all the homerooms" president bullshit.

We nearly lost the country to magical thinking cartoon evil.  We may still lose it unless this blunderfuck ends up in prison, for the love of God.  The trials cannot come quickly enough, and the convictions and sentencings require even more alacrity.

Ron's Gone Wrong, Con't

On Sunday, Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis rejected the notion that Donald Trump "won" in 2020, and if he wasn't somehow toast before in the GOP primary race, he's definitely finished now.

 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Sunday rejected Donald Trump's claim that he was the true winner of the 2020 presidential election in his most forceful comments to date on the matter.

"Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on Jan. 20 every four years is the winner," DeSantis told NBC News correspondent Dasha Burns in his first broadcast network interview since he launched his presidential campaign.

DeSantis continued to discuss all the ways he believed the previous presidential election was not perfect. But pressed further, he clearly stated that Trump lost.

"But respectfully, you did not clearly answer that question," Burns said. "And if you can’t give a 'yes' or 'no' on whether or not he lost —"

"No, of course he lost," DeSantis said, adding, "Joe Biden’s the president."

"Ron DeSantis should really stop being Joe Biden’s biggest cheerleader," Trump spokesman Steve Cheung told NBC News.

DeSantis' comments come just days after Trump pleaded not guilty to charges that he broke the law by trying to overturn the 2020 election.

And at a campaign stop in Iowa on Friday, DeSantis also strongly dismissed theories that the election was stolen, saying they "did not prove to be true."

Still, DeSantis made sure to point out in Sunday's interview that he saw a number of problems with the 2020 election, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s grants for election administration, the widespread availability of mail-in ballots, state laws that allow third parties to collect and return voters' ballots, and how social media outlets de-emphasized a story about the laptop of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

"I think what people in the media and elsewhere, they want to act like somehow this was just like the perfect election. ... I don’t think it was a good-run election," DeSantis said. "But I also think Republicans didn’t fight back. You’ve got to fight back when that is happening."

 

Even when Ron's gone right a bit, he can't help being wrong. Trying to have his cake and eating it too is just going to piss off Republican primary voters even further.  MAGA is a Trump cult and has been for years now, and DeSantis just doesn't know how to play the game. He's sliding into Jeb Bush territory here.

Questioning election integrity, but rejecting Trump's "win" is the middle of the road that DeSantis is walking, and eventually he's gonna get flattened by a truck if he stays out there.

Last Call For The Big Lie, Con't

With Donald Trump being indicted in multiple legal venues now for election fraud, classified document theft and corporate tax fraud, the Republican Big Lie that Biden stole the 2020 election has moved from commiseration of sour grapes to justification for revenge against Democrats nationwide.

 

The share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who believe that President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was not legitimate has ticked back up, according to a new CNN poll fielded throughout July. All told, 69% of Republicans and Republican-leaners say Biden’s win was not legitimate, up from 63% earlier this year and through last fall, even as there is no evidence of election fraud that would have altered the outcome of the contest.

The new poll, conducted in the run-up to former President Donald Trump’s indictment on Tuesday over efforts to overturn the 2020 election, suggests the share of election deniers among his partisans has climbed to a level last seen before hearings held last year by the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack. In January of 2022, 67% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they thought Biden’s win was not legitimate; that had been as high as 72% in CNN polling in the summer of 2021.

Among Republican-aligned adults, the share who believe there is solid evidence proving the election was not legitimate stands at 39%, while 30% say it is merely their suspicion that Biden did not win legitimately, and 29% say Biden’s election was legitimate. The 39% of Republicans and Republican-leaners saying that Biden’s win was not legitimate and that there is evidence for it is not much changed from May, when 36% said the same, and it is well below the high point for that belief, which was 54% shortly after the attack on the US Capitol in January 2021.

Overall, 61% of Americans say Biden did legitimately win enough votes to win the presidency, and 38% believe that he did not. Among registered voters who say they cast a ballot for Trump in 2020, 75% say they have doubts about Biden’s legitimacy.

But those who supported Trump in 2020 are actually less likely than those who backed Biden to say that a shared view on that year’s election is a must for them to support candidates for federal office next year. Overall, 30% of Americans say they would only vote for a candidate who shares their view on the 2020 election, 49% would consider it just one of many important factors, and 20% say it wouldn’t be a major issue for them. Those who say they voted for Biden in 2020 are more likely to see it as an essential shared view (48%) than are those who voted for Trump (20%).

About half of Americans continue to feel that it is at least somewhat likely that elected officials will successfully overturn the results of a US election if their party does not win (50%). That view has been fairly stable since CNN began polling on the question in summer 2021. There has been an uptick in the share of political independents who feel that it’s at least somewhat likely, though, from 42% who felt that way last summer to 53% now.

And most Americans lack confidence that elections in the US today reflect the will of the people. Overall, 58% say they are just a little or not at all confident that elections reflect the public’s will, while 42% say they are at least somewhat confident they do. Only 13% are “very confident” that elections reflect the will of the people, the lowest share to say so in CNN polling since 2021. That deep confidence has declined somewhat among Democrats (from 26% last year to 21% now), and about half of Republicans say they have no confidence at all (48%), similar to last year.

Biden’s approval rating for protecting democracy in the US has dipped into negative territory: 44% approve and 55% disapprove. That stood at a near even 50% approve to 49% disapprove in December. That shift has come fairly evenly across party lines, and in the new poll, 84% for Democrats, 42% of independents and 7% of Republicans approve of his handling of the issue.

With 40% of Republicans believing the 2020 presidential election was actually stolen (complete with non-existent evidence) and 30% merely suspecting it was, Trump and the GOP will have plenty of fertile ground to plant whatever stochastic terrorism roots they want in order to grow into violence in the months ahead.

We'll see.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis says that her two year plus investigation into Donald Trump's 2020 election fraud has been completed, and that a charging decision will be made by September 1.

 

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis reaffirmed in a local news interview that she will announce charging decisions by September 1 in her investigation into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election result, while applauding the ramped-up security measures around the local courthouse.

“The work is accomplished,” Willis told CNN affiliate WXIA at a back-to-school event over the weekend. “We’ve been working for two and half years. We’re ready to go.”

Willis has previously signaled in letters to local officials and those providing security that she would make any charging announcements between July 31 and the end of August. She laid out a variety of security provisions her team plans to take beginning Monday.

Willis’ latest commitment to that time frame comes after a judge scheduled an August 10 hearing on the Trump team’s efforts to disqualify Willis, a Democrat, from the case, toss much of the evidence she has collected and remove another judge in Fulton County from presiding over the case.

In the local news interview, Willis also praised the Fulton County sheriff after barricades recently went up around the county courthouse in anticipation of what the sheriff’s office referred to as “high profile legal proceedings.”

“I think that the sheriff is doing something smart in making sure that the courthouse stays safe,” Willis said. “I’m not willing to put any of the employees or the constituents that come to the courthouse in harm’s way.”

 

Indeed, Willis is certainly acting like she has the cards to play with a broad suite of charges against multiple investigation targets, including Trump himself. 

Meanwhile, Trump is lawyering up and getting donors to pay for his rapidly mounting legal bills, to the tune of tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars.

Former President Donald J. Trump’s team is creating a legal-defense fund to handle some of the crush of legal bills stemming from the investigations and criminal indictments involving him and a number of employees and associates, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

The fund, which is expected to be called the Patriot Legal Defense Fund Inc., will be led by Michael Glassner, a longtime Trump political adviser, according to the people familiar with the planning, who were not authorized to discuss it publicly. Another Trump aide who worked at the Trump Organization and then in Mr. Trump’s administration, Lynne Patton, will also be involved, the people said.

It is unclear how broad a group of people the legal-defense fund will cover, but one person said it was not expected to cover Mr. Trump’s own legal bills. In recent months Mr. Trump’s political action committee has paid legal bills for him and several witnesses, spending over $40 million on lawyers in the first half of 2023.

But a wide swath of people have become entangled in the various Trump-related criminal investigations, both as witnesses — of which there are many who work for Mr. Trump personally or did in the White House — as well as defendants.

A spokesman for Mr. Trump, Steven Cheung, said that the Justice Department had “targeted innocent Americans associated with President Trump,” and that “to combat these heinous actions” and “protect these innocent people from financial ruin and prevent their lives from being completely destroyed, a new legal defense fund will help pay for their legal fees to ensure they have representation against unlawful harassment.”

Mr. Trump’s PAC, Save America, has been a focus of one of the investigations by the special counsel Jack Smith, who has had at least two grand juries looking at Mr. Trump and his allies and advisers. Mr. Smith’s team has questioned why some lawyers for specific witnesses are being paid, as well as whether aides to Mr. Trump and Republicans knew Mr. Trump had lost the election but continued to raise money off his debunked claims.

The creation of the legal-defense fund could ease some of the financial pressure on Save America, which was severe enough that it requested a refund of the $60 million it had transferred to a pro-Trump super PAC late last year.

 

Remember, the goal of Trump's legal team is to delay all the legal proceedings against him until he can run out the clock and win the election. At this point, he has to win, or he's spending the rest of his life in prison, so yes, the Laird of Mar-a-Lago is larding the larder with all the money he can get his orange mitts on in order to buy time.

 

How well that plan works, nobody knows, but time gives him options, even the more drastic ones.

 

We'll see.