Judge Chutkan, God bless her, has set the January 6 trial for March 4, 2024! Assuming that slips no more than a few days or weeks, Trump should be found guilty well before the Republican nominating convention in July. He will by then have wrapped up enough delegates to win the nomination. The Republicans cannot afford to nominate him and they do not dare not nominate him.
Meanwhile, Mark Meadows has testified under oath that he repeatedly
violated the Hatch Act. This is shaping
up to be a politically enjoyable fall and spring.
14 comments:
I still think he rabbits if things go south (he has a 757 and it's only 3,700 miles to St. Petersburg).
The California Bar is currently reconsidering John Eastman's law license:
"Summary of Report
This report addresses the legal positions advanced by Dr. John Eastman in relation to the counting of electoral votes for the 2020 presidential election. It focuses on two issues:
1. Whether the Vice President, in his capacity as President of the Senate, has unilateral authority to resolve disputes about electoral votes or to take other unilateral actions with respect to the electoral count.
2. Whether the Vice President may delay the electoral count for a state legislature to take action with respect to a state’s electoral votes and whether a state legislature may lawfully appoint electors after the electoral count commences.
This report concludes that no reasonable lawyer exercising diligence appropriate to the circumstances would adopt Dr. Eastman’s legal positions on either issue."
https://wpdash.medianewsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/SELIGMAN-Exhibit-179.pdf
"...(he has a 757 and it's only 3,700 miles to St. Petersburg)."
I hear that Wagner has an opening.
FLengyel:
I’been wondering for several months now whether Trump’s Secret Service detail would stop Trump from fleeing.. Does one protect a fleeing presidential felon? It brings to mind Boss Tweed who fled the country while on holiday release from prison, and he had one of the cushiest prison accommodations possible. If memory serves, he was detained in Portugal and repatriated.
Professor Mulvaney,
It was the Secret Service who stopped Trump from going to the U.S. Capitol by car on January 6th after his speech. That was a very lucky turn of events for Democrats & most Americans. Although the Secret Service agents only restrained Trump for security reasons. Not because they were being political or taking sides.
The relevant law regarding who the Secret Service protects (eight paragraphs):
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3056
There's this item right under paragraph 8:
"The protection authorized in paragraphs (2) through (8) may be declined."
Ex-presidents and candidates fall under paragraphs (3) and (7). It looks like Trump could just "fire" his SS detail.
The Secret Service seems to have some personnel problems. Recall that Pence refused to "get in the car" on Jan. 6 and the deleted messages. It's likely some agents were in on the coup. It would have been better for Trump to have gone to the Capitol.
BTW, if the Tuberman hold on flag and general officer promotions isn't resolved in the coming session we're seeing the beginning of the next coup.
aaall
"It would have been better for Trump to have gone to the Capitol."
That depends. If he had tried to calm the crowd after seeing what they were doing, he might now have a somewhat stronger defense to certain of the charges he's now facing. OTOH, that also might have lessened the amount of general damage and the number of injuries to Capitol Police officers, and so on, which would have been a desirable outcome. So a lot depends on (1) what you think Trump would have done when he arrived at the Capitol, (2) how long you think you he would have stayed there, and (3) some other things that are hard to predict. It doesn't seem like a very useful counterfactual to pursue. Of course he didn't try to calm the crowd while watching them on TV from the White House, until he was belatedly persuaded to do so, but had he been there in person his reaction might have been a bit different. Hard to predict.
And btw I don't think Trump is going to flee anywhere. If he does, it would certainly not be to St. Petersburg. More likely Dubai, or somewhere comparable.
typo correction:
s/b: how long you think he would have stayed there
LFC,
The odds that Trump would go to the Capitol and quell the violence is, as far as his narcissism goes, vanishingly small. Doing the right thing is beyond his understanding. In addition, the evidence that he wanted to lead the insurrection - literally - is strong. The Trump campaign initially booked the Ellipse for a speech. About two weeks before 1/6, if memory serves, they amended the application to the parks service to include a March to the Capitol. That change was reported in the Wash. Post at the time and is what made me think that he was preparing to do a Reichstag moment; using the riot to declare a sate of emergency. I expect he thought he would address the nation from the House chamber. His fervid little brain most likely thought he would be the hero.
I am waiting to see what Jack Smith has on the war room in the Willard. One doesn’t need a war room to preach peace to the crowd. Trump’s actions are almost entirely predictable if you think first how a person with a pathological mental condition functions, i.e., they are always constrained by their condition.
Christopher,
I am not really up on the details enough to dispute specific points. But I wonder: If Trump had gone to the Capitol and stayed long enough and been close enough to the "action" to see some of his self-described followers assaulting and in some cases maiming Capitol police officers, would Trump have picked up a pike or other weapon and joined in the assault, like say a twisted version of Henry V at Agincourt? Or would a combination of physical cowardice and other factors have kept him in the background, waiting for the followers to breach the Capitol so he could enter himself? Or would he have made a speech to his followers and if so, said what exactly? And btw if he had entered the Capitol in the wake of the rioters, how could he have addressed the House and Senate when many of the members were in tunnels fleeing for their lives or barricaded in their offices? These are a few of the questions that seen to present themselves if one tries to "game out" a scenario in which Trump goes to the Capitol.
Typo: s/b seem, not seen.
LFC, Trumps a dummy and likely envisioned some sort of acclamation scenario with who knows what happening. Sort of like the kayfabeian rallies he was used to. The actual plan was likely some sort of 1876-like resolution. I assume the organized cadres in the mob were out to break the chain of custody on the ballots and possibly have a Republican Speaker as a fallback. There was only a five seat Democratic majority so the "kill Pelosi" calls should be view in that light.
Perhaps the reaction of the Secret Service agents to Trump's request to go to the Capitol should be viewed in the context of the deleted text messages that happened after Jan. 6 and Pence's refusal to "get in the car." Senator Grassley seemed to believe that Pence wouldn't be there and he would be presiding as president pro tem. Be interesting to see those deleted messages.
I assume that had the ballots been compromised the count would have been delayed until the Archivist could transmit the duplicates. We should be grateful for the quick thinking of a Senate clerk.
Remove the VP to a "secure location" and replace him with a stooge, compromise the ballots, change the House majority (and the Speaker) with extreme prejudice.
There were straws in the wind. In late August, 2020 Gen. Milley, CJCS, sent the following comment in reply to a congressional query:
“I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military,” Milley said in written responses to several questions posed by two Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee. “In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military. I foresee no role for the U.S armed forces in this process.”
Trump fired the SecDef a few days after the election. At that point it was reasonable to assume that some kind of coup was being planned. Of course, an incompetently planned coup that fails should properly be considered practice. I assume that the identities of all the MOCs who were down with plan will remain unknown.
I believe that some constructive changes have now been made by Congress to the Electoral Count Act. I forget the details but they should make future extra-legal or otherwise dubious efforts to overturn election results more dufficult
Sorry, continuation: more difficult.
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