January 6, 2021: Insurrection or “normal tourist” visitation?

[dislaxxic]

This is the Trump Coup D'etat thread, Cranky. It's easy to tell your garden is in hibernation now...you see the jail sentences for Cheeto's goon squad types are getting longer and longer for their participation in that Moron's coup attempt??

..

[PizzaSnake]

Somewhere, Roy Cohn is grinning.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... nald-trump

“ Flynn’s lawsuit is the latest in a flood of litigation by targets of the committee, seeking to prevent it from enforcing its subpoenas.”

[CU88]

GOP Rep Rice regrets voting against certifying 2020 result ‘because Trump was responsible for attack on the Capitol’

Rice, the only Republican to vote against certifying Biden’s election win and for Trump’s second impeachment, said the former president ‘did nothing’ as the Capitol was ‘sacked and defaced’ by a mob of his supporters


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 81032.html


Could be a sign that significant information is coming out proving Trump’s guilt in the attack

[PizzaSnake]

GOP Rep Rice regrets voting against certifying 2020 result ‘because Trump was responsible for attack on the Capitol’

Rice, the only Republican to vote against certifying Biden’s election win and for Trump’s second impeachment, said the former president ‘did nothing’ as the Capitol was ‘sacked and defaced’ by a mob of his supporters


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 81032.html


Could be a sign that significant information is coming out proving Trump’s guilt in the attack

Significant besides that which we’ve observed?

[old salt]

*

[cradleandshoot]

This is the Trump Coup D'etat thread, Cranky. It's easy to tell your garden is in hibernation now...you see the jail sentences for Cheeto's goon squad types are getting longer and longer for their participation in that Moron's coup attempt??

..

Wrongo, we still have parsley, rosemary and thyme..
Since you brought up my garden, Christmas dinner will include my butternut squash. Ole cranky is loving life.

[CU88]

December 22, 2021
Heather Cox Richardson

Yesterday, former national security advisor Michael Flynn filed a request for a restraining order against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and a temporary injunction against a subpoena from the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Today, U.S. District Judge Mary Scriven of Tampa denied Flynn’s request, noting that his lawyers had not followed correct procedure. On Twitter today, legal analyst Teri Kanefield pointed out that, like so many others launched by Trump loyalists, Flynn’s lawsuit was not an actual legal argument but part of the false narrative that Trump and his loyalists are being persecuted by Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who stole the election.

That was the strategy behind the sixty or more lawsuits over the election—Trump won only a single minor one—and behind the continuing demands of Trump loyalists to relitigate the 2020 election. They have produced no evidence of the rampant fraud they allege, but the constant demand that election officials defend the results sows increasing distrust of our democratic system.

Douglas Frank, an associate of Trump loyalist and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, has pressed claims across the country and told the staff of Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, that he was launching lawsuits across the country and that LaRose’s office had better cooperate.

“I’m warning you that I’ve been going around the country. We’re starting lawsuits everywhere,” Frank said, according to a recording reported on by the Washington Post’s Amy Gardner, Emma Brown, and Josh Dawsey. “And I want you guys to be allies, not opponents. I want to be on your team, and I’m warning you.” Frank has called for “firing squads” for anyone found guilty of “treason,” by turning “a blind eye to the massive election fraud that took place in 2020.”

And yet, we continue to learn about the reality of the effort to overturn the election. Today the January 6 committee asked Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) to provide information about his conversations with Trump on January 6—a topic that has made Jordan noticeably uncomfortable whenever it comes up—as well as any other discussions the two men had about overturning the election results, and whether Trump talked about offering pardons to those involved in the insurrection. In October, Jordan said he would be happy to talk to the committee.

Also today, Proud Boy Matthew Greene pleaded guilty to conspiring with others to obstruct law enforcement on January 6 and has agreed to cooperate with law enforcement. His guilty plea and testimony that he helped to program handheld radios for the Proud Boys on January 5 establishes that there was a shared plan and preparation to attack the Capitol.

There are signs that some Republicans might want to get out from under whatever might be coming. Representative Tom Rice (R-SC) today said he regrets voting against counting the electoral votes of two states that voted for Biden, although he continued to say there were problems with the election. “In retrospect I should have voted to certify,” Rice told Olivia Beavers of Politico. “Because President Trump was responsible for the attack on the Capitol.”

And in a new interview, quite casually, when talking about his border wall rather than about the election itself, Trump himself undercut the Big Lie altogether: “We built almost five hundred miles of wall,” he said, “and had we won the election it would…be completed by now.”

[Kismet]

Then there's this - Orange Cheeto Former DOPUS awarded Jim Jordan the Medal of Freedom in a private ceremony just days after January 6. Perhaps, very soon we may discover why. HUMINA!HUMINA!

[CU88]

Then there's this - Orange Cheeto Former DOPUS awarded Jim Jordan the Medal of Freedom in a private ceremony just days after January 6. Perhaps, very soon we may discover why. HUMINA!HUMINA!

That still just boggles the mind.

https://www.npr.org/2021/12/23/10652772 ... 6-election


"Part of the character of the 'big lie' is that it turns the powerful person into the victim," he says. "And then that allows the powerful person to actually exact revenge, like it's a promise for the future."

Snyder, author of the books The Road to Unfreedom and On Tyranny, has spent years studying the ways tyrants skewer truth. Snyder points to Hitler's original definition of the "big lie" in his manifesto, Mein Kampf, and the ways he used it to blame Jews for all of Germany's woes.

"The lie is so big that it reorders the world," Snyder says. "And so part of telling the big lie is that you immediately say it's the other side that tells the big lie. Sadly, but it's just a matter of record, all of that is in Mein Kampf."

[seacoaster]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/23/opin ... y-6th.html

"In his nine months in office, Attorney General Merrick Garland has done a great deal to restore integrity and evenhanded enforcement of the law to an agency that was badly misused for political reasons under his predecessor. But his place in history will be assessed against the challenges that confronted him. And the overriding test that he and the rest of the government face is the threat to our democracy from people bent on destroying it.

Mr. Garland’s success depends on ensuring that the rule of law endures. That means dissuading future coup plotters by holding the leaders of the insurrection fully accountable for their attempt to overthrow the government. But he cannot do so without a robust criminal investigation of those at the top, from the people who planned, assisted or funded the attempt to overturn the Electoral College vote to those who organized or encouraged the mob attack on the Capitol. To begin with, he might focus on Mark Meadows, Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and even Donald Trump — all of whom were involved, in one way or another, in the events leading up to the attack.

Almost a year after the insurrection, we have yet to see any clear indicators that such an investigation is underway, raising the alarming possibility that this administration may never bring charges against those ultimately responsible for the attack.

While the Justice Department has filed charges against more than 700 people who participated in the violence, limiting the investigation to these foot soldiers would be a grave mistake: As Joanne Freeman, a Yale historian, wrote this month about the insurrection, “Accountability — the belief that political power holders are responsible for their actions and that blatant violations will be addressed — is the lifeblood of democracy. Without it, there can be no trust in government, and without trust, democratic governments have little power.”

The legal path to investigate the leaders of the coup attempt is clear. The criminal code prohibits inciting an insurrection or “giving aid or comfort” to those who do, as well as conspiracy to forcibly “prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law of the United States.” The code also makes it a crime to corruptly impede any official proceeding or deprive citizens of their constitutional right to vote.

Based purely on what we know today from news reports and the steady stream of revelations coming from the House select committee investigating the attack, the attorney general has a powerful justification for a robust and forceful investigation into the former president and his inner circle. As White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows was intimately involved in the effort to overturn the election. He traveled to Georgia last December, where he apparently laid the groundwork for the phone call in which the president pressured Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find 11,780 votes.” Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio reportedly promoted a scheme to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject duly certified Joe Biden electors. And from their war room at the Willard Hotel, several members of the president’s inner circle hatched the legal strategy to overturn the results of the election.

The president himself sat back for three hours while his chief of staff was barraged with messages from members of Congress and Fox News hosts pleading with him to have Mr. Trump call off the armed mob whose violent passion he had inflamed. That evidence, on its own, may not be enough to convict the former president, but it is certainly enough to require a criminal investigation.

And yet there are no signs, at least in media reports, that the attorney general is building a case against these individuals — no interviews with top administration officials, no reports of attempts to persuade the foot soldiers to turn on the people who incited them to violence. By this point in the Russia investigation, the special counsel Robert Mueller had indicted Paul Manafort and Rick Gates and secured the cooperation of George Papadopoulos after charging him with lying to the F.B.I. The media was reporting that the special counsel’s team had conducted or scheduled interviews with Mr. Trump’s aides Stephen Miller and Mr. Bannon, as well as Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Of course, there is no way to know for sure whether Mr. Garland’s Department of Justice is investigating the leaders of the attack behind closed doors. Justice Department policy does not permit announcing investigations, absent exceptional circumstances. Mr. Garland, unlike his predecessor, plays by the book, keeping quiet about investigations until charges are filed. But the first of the rioters to plead guilty began cooperating with the Justice Department back in April. If prosecutors have been using their cooperation to investigate the top officials and operatives responsible for the siege of the Capitol and our democracy, there would likely be significant confirmation in the media by now.

It is possible that the department is deferring the decision about starting a full-blown investigative effort pending further work by the House select committee. It is even conceivable that the department is waiting for the committee’s final report so that federal prosecutors can review the documents, interviews and recommendations amassed by House investigators and can consider any potential referrals for criminal prosecution.

But such an approach would come at a very high cost. In the prosecution business, interviews need to happen as soon as possible after the events in question, to prevent both forgetfulness and witness coordination to conceal the truth. A comprehensive Department of Justice probe of the leadership is now more urgently needed than ever.

It is also imperative that Mr. Trump be included on the list of those being investigated. The media has widely reported his role in many of the relevant events, and there is no persuasive reason to exclude him.

First, he has no claim to constitutional immunity from prosecution. The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel has recognized such immunity only for sitting presidents because a criminal trial would prevent them from discharging the duties of their office. Mr. Trump no longer has those duties to discharge.

Nor is exclusion of the former president remotely justified by the precedent President Gerald Ford set in pardoning Richard Nixon to help the country “heal” from Watergate. Even our proud tradition of not mimicking banana republics by allowing political winners to retaliate against losers must give way in the wake of violence perpetrated to thwart the peaceful transition of power. Refusing to at least investigate those who plot to end democracy — and who would remain engaged in efforts to do so — would be beyond foolhardy.

Furthermore, the pending state and local investigations in New York and Atlanta will never be able to provide the kind of accountability the nation clearly needs. The New York case, which revolves around tax fraud, has nothing to do with the attack on our government. The Atlanta district attorney appears to be probing Mr. Trump’s now infamous call to Mr. Raffensperger. But that is just one chapter of the wrongdoing that led up to the attack on the Capitol.

Significantly, even if the Atlanta district attorney is able to convict Mr. Meadows and Mr. Trump for interfering in Georgia’s election, they could still run for office again. Only convicting them for participating in an insurrection would permanently disqualify them from office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Some have expressed pessimism that the Department of Justice would be able to convict Mr. Trump. His guilt would ultimately be for a jury to decide, and some jurors might believe he deluded himself into believing his own big lie and thus genuinely thought he was saving, rather than sabotaging, the election. But concerns about a conviction are no reason to refrain from an investigation. If anything, a federal criminal investigation could unearth even more evidence and provide a firmer basis for deciding whether to indict.

To decline from the outset to investigate would be appeasement, pure and simple, and appeasing bullies and wrongdoers only encourages more of the same. Without forceful action to hold the wrongdoers to account, we will likely not resist what some retired generals see as a march to another insurrection in 2024 if Mr. Trump or another demagogue loses.

Throughout his public life, Mr. Garland has been a highly principled public servant focused on doing the right thing. But only by holding the leaders of the Jan. 6 insurrection — all of them — to account can he secure the future and teach the next generation that no one is above the law. If he has not done so already, we implore the attorney general to step up to that task."

[CU88]

POLITICS

How a group of online sleuths are helping the FBI track down Jan. 6 rioters

December 23, 20211:46 PM ET
Heard on Fresh Air

https://www.npr.org/2021/12/23/10668354 ... -6-rioters

[old salt]

Indeed, hopefully it'll show that they resisted such, even if that meant that they were tragically late in responding.

...they were not late in responding. You still don't understand what the National Guard does (or you refuse to acknowledge reality).

As Gen Milley said -- they are not first responders. There was no way they could get there before the Capitol was breached & they were not qualified, trained, organized or armed to clear the building.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5413 ... super-fast

Joint Chiefs chairman: Military response on Jan. 6 was 'super fast'

U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the military response to the deadly rioting by former President Trump's supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 “super fast” in his first public comments since the siege.

Milley on Monday stood by the military’s actions before and during the breach of the Capitol, saying officials acted in a “sprint speed,” The Washington Post reported.

He told reporters traveling with him in Colorado that Pentagon leaders approved requests for help in about an hour, and the D.C. National Guard members took several hours to be fully deployed.

“This is the D.C. National Guard that went from a cold start, and they had troops there in two and a half, three hours. They reacted faster than our most elite forces from a cold start,” Milley told reporters, according to the Post.

“For the Pentagon, that’s super fast. That’s like sprint speed,” he said.

But the chairman noted that he could see why the Pentagon’s reaction would be perceived as slowed by those responding in real time to the raid.

“If you were down there and you’re in the Capitol being attacked, an hour is a lifetime. So I can clearly understand their feelings that that was a very slow response,” he said, according to the Post. “But from a technical military standpoint, from the receipt of the phone call, to alerting National Guard forces from a cold start, to them being on the scene, was very fast.”

“I think it’s a bit of a mischaracterization or a misunderstanding of response times for the military,” he added.

Milley also reportedly responded to Trump’s claim that the former president had called for 10,000 National Guardsmen to be deployed on the National Mall for the demonstrations, saying he was not aware of any request.

“As chairman of the Joint Chiefs, if there was an order for 10,000 National Guardsmen, I would like to believe I would know that,” he said. “I know that that was never transmitted to me by anyone — the president or secretary of Defense or anyone else — for sixth of January.”

Useful summary @ 2017 of what's required, by law, to deploy the DC NG, & why it takes time :
https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-w ... story.html

Like other deployments, Inauguration Day will be a complicated one for the D.C. National Guard - at least on paper. Since the District is not a state, its mayor cannot call up Guard members to active duty as a state governor can.

The District must send a letter to the secretary of the Army requesting the support. The District and the Army must then go through a seven-step process to initiate the deployment, during which Guard members carry out duties at the request of the mayor and city homeland security officials.

The two entities have been able to work together to make that happen quickly in response to unfolding natural disasters, such as last year's record January snowfall. During that storm, which dumped 22 inches of snow, the Guard was activated in anticipation of the storm's arrival, and troops helped shuttle officials, plow drivers and supplies back and forth across the city.

Here's how it's supposed to work :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Walker

In April 2015, he was appointed as the Commander, Land Component Command, District of Columbia National Guard and subsequently promoted to Brigadier General in November 2015.

During the 2017 Presidential Inauguration, Walker commanded the Joint Task Force-District of Columbia (JTF-DC) which deployed nearly 8,000 National Guard personnel, from 43 states and territories, to support security, traffic control, and crowd management during the Inauguration of Donald Trump. JTF-DC supported seven, federal and D.C. agencies during the presidential inauguration. National Guard personnel helped monitor the 248 traffic, access and security points, and blocking positions along the National Mall and parade route. The support provided by National Guard personnel enabled the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia to respond to 217 arrests, and the District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department to conduct 229 responses, 94 hospital transports and numerous medical tent treatments. The D.C. National Guard has supported 40 presidential inaugurations since 1861.[7]

On January 20, 2017, Walker assumed the role of acting Commanding General, District of Columbia Army and Air National Guard, nicknamed the “Capitol Guardians”. In March 2018, President Donald Trump nominated Walker for promotion to Major General and selected him as the Commanding General.[4][8][9][10][11][12][13]

On June 1, 2020, during an interview with CNN, Walker defended the DC National Guard by stating that DCNG troops were not involved in using force against protesters to clear Lafayette Park during George Floyd protests Walker stated that DCNG troops held their positions and never advanced on the crowd. He emphasized that the use of force concerning protesters is always a last resort.[14][15]

[CU88]

P/O


December 23, 2021
Heather Cox Richardson
Dec 24

..."One of the big questions about January 6 is why it took the National Guard more than three hours to get to the Capitol after the Capitol Police had called for help. On Tuesday, Ryan Goodman and Justin Hendrix of Just Security published a deeply researched article suggesting that the Pentagon was concerned that Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, which gives the president the power to use the military, including National Guard troops, to stop civil disorder or insurrection. Goodman and Hendrix suggest that military leaders worried Trump would use troops deployed to the Capitol in order to hold onto power, and they note that the Pentagon did not let the National Guard deploy until after Trump released the video telling supporters to go home.

While observers have attributed the Pentagon’s reluctance to let the guard help either to bureaucratic inefficiency or to a deliberate effort to help Trump, the idea that Pentagon leaders were concerned about Trump trying to use the military to keep him in office lines up with other things we know about that period.

Military leaders spoke out against the actions of Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark A. Milley on June 1, 2020, when they walked next to Trump to St. John’s Episcopal Church after soldiers had cleared protesters from Lafayette Square. Both Esper and Milley apologized publicly, with Milley saying: “I should not have been there. My presence in that moment, and in that environment, created the perception of the military involved in domestic politics.”

The concern that Trump had plans for using the military to keep himself in power only grew after we learned that on June 1, Trump’s aides had drafted an order to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy thousands of troops in Washington, D.C. Then–attorney general William Barr, Esper, and Milley objected and talked him out of it, and from then on, military leaders were vocal about their loyalty to the Constitution rather than to any particular leader.

Immediately after losing the election, Trump fired Esper (by tweet), and Barr resigned on December 23, 2020, so they were no longer there to object should he try again to invoke the Insurrection Act. He and his supporters, including Alex Jones of InfoWars and one-time national security advisor Michael Flynn—both of whom have been subpoenaed by the January 6th committee—repeatedly suggested he could declare martial law to hold a new election or to stop Biden from taking office.

On January 3, all ten living defense secretaries were concerned enough that they published a joint op-ed in the Washington Post, reminding Americans that “[e]fforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory. Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.”

On January 5, Trump asked acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller to have 10,000 National Guard troops ready for the January 6 rally, and Meadows wrote in an email that the National Guard would “protect pro Trump people.”

Goodman and Hendrix make a strong case that Trump and his loyalists were at least considering using the excuse of chaos at the Capitol—as we know, they expected counter-protesters to show up, and appear to have expected violence—to invoke the Insurrection Act and prevent the counting of the certified ballots by force.


https://www.justsecurity.org/79623/cris ... january-6/

We identify a third explanation: that senior military officials constrained the mobilization and deployment of the National Guard to avoid injecting federal troops that could have been re-missioned by the President to advance his attempt to hold onto power.

[old salt]

December 23, 2021
Heather Cox Richardson

On January 5, Trump asked acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller to have 10,000 National Guard troops ready for the January 6 rally, and Meadows wrote in an email that the National Guard would “protect pro Trump people.”

https://www.justsecurity.org/79623/cris ... january-6/

Sorry Heather -- 4 Pinocchios for you.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... tol-jan-6/
...it turns out a Vanity Fair reporter was embedded with acting defense secretary Christopher Miller and his top aides during the period leading up to the insurrection. That real-time access provided a different version than the account offered by Trump and his former chief of staff.

During a meeting on Iran with Miller on the evening of Jan. 5, Trump suddenly shifted direction, Vanity Fair reported.

The president, Miller recalled, asked how many troops the Pentagon planned to turn out the following day. “We’re like, ‘We’re going to provide any National Guard support that the District requests,’” Miller responded. “And [Trump] goes, ‘You’re going to need 10,000 people.’ No, I’m not talking bullsh--. He said that. And we’re like, ‘Maybe. But you know, someone’s going to have to ask for it.’”
The reporter, Adam Ciralsky, asked Miller why Trump threw out such a big number: “The president’s sometimes hyperbolic, as you’ve noticed. There were gonna be a million people in the street, I think was his expectation.” (It was just thousands of people.)

In other words, 10,000 troops was a guesstimate based on Trump’s inflated belief in his ability to draw a crowd. The statement did not come as part of a meeting to discuss how to handle the event. Instead, it appears to have been an offhand remark. That’s not the same thing as a “request.” (Trump certainly knew how to order the deployment of National Guard troops in June 2020.)

In fact, the Defense Department never acted on Trump’s remarks, according to our reporting, as department officials did not regard the offhand comment to be a “direct order,” as Meadows claimed.

Miller and other senior Pentagon officials did not relay the 10,000 figure to anyone outside the Defense Department, according to a former U.S. official who was familiar with the matter. “They didn’t act on it, because based on discussions with federal and local law enforcement leadership, they didn’t think a force of that size would be necessary,” the former official told The Fact Checker.

Indeed, the official Defense Department planning and execution memo on the Jan. 6 events also makes no mention of any such discussion. Instead, it notes the possible activation of 340 National Guard troops to assist the D.C. government with traffic control — a move that came about after a Dec. 31 request by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D).

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said officials checked the records after Trump’s remarks about ordering 10,000 National Guard troops. “We have no record of such an order being given,” Kirby told The Fact Checker.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2 ... ps-jan-6-/

In an Feb. 28 interview, Fox News host Steve Hilton asked Trump if he would have done any differently on Jan. 6. Trump said:

"We said to the Department of Defense, the top person, days before we had the rally … I requested … I definitely gave the number of 10,000 National Guardsmen, I think you should have 10,000 of the National Guard ready. They took that number. From what I understand, they gave it to the people at the Capitol, which is controlled by Pelosi. And I heard they rejected it because they didn’t think it would look good. So, you know, that was a big mistake."

According to a Jan. 22 Vanity Fair article, Christopher Miller, then the acting defense secretary, said he met with Trump the night before the attack about a matter unrelated to Trump’s rally the next day. But then Trump asked Miller how many troops the Pentagon planned to deploy the next day in D.C., according to Miller’s account.

There is no clear evidence that Trump made a request for 10,000 National Guard troops, but based on what Miller told the magazine, it appears Trump wondered aloud about what was planned:

The president, Miller recalled, asked how many troops the Pentagon planned to turn out the following day. "We’re like, ‘We’re going to provide any National Guard support that the District requests,’" Miller responded. "And (Trump) goes, ‘You’re going to need 10,000 people.’ No, I’m not talking nonsense. He said that. And we’re like, ‘Maybe. But you know, someone’s going to have to ask for it.’" At that point Miller remembered the president telling him, "‘You do what you need to do. You do what you need to do.’ He said, ‘You’re going to need 10,000.’ That’s what he said. Swear to God."

A Defense Department spokesman said the department "has no record of such an order being given" by Trump.

A news article reported that Trump told the acting defense secretary the night before the rally that he thought 10,000 National Guard troops would be needed, but he did not make any clear request for 10,000 troops.

Without evidence to back it, we rate Trump’s statement False.

[dislaxxic]

We see this phenomenon right here on the pages of FanLax...Trump apologists equating a deliberate attempt to completely dismantle the credibility of our electoral system with a BIG LIE about Trumps welcoming every attempt made by Russia to help him win in 2016...

THE BIG ELECTION LIE BUILT ON THE LAST BIG ELECTION LIE

...Trumpsters excuse their own participation in The Big Lie by turning a bunch of different prongs of reporting on Russia in 2017 — some undoubtedly overblown but much based on real facts about real actions that Trump and his aides really took — into the equivalent of wild hoaxes about efforts to steal the 2020 election.

And it’s not just those who fostered The Big Lie. As I’ve noted, a viral thread earlier this year went further still, blaming January 6 on the Steele dossier (which most Republicans agree was larded with Russian disinformation).

This use of the Russian investigation, the Democratic-paid dossier, and the legitimate reporting on both to rationalize Trump’s actions post-2020 is no accident. That’s one reason I persist in reporting on the dossier: because Paul Manafort came back from a meeting with an Oleg Deripaska associate and encouraged everyone to discredit the Russian investigation by focusing on the dossier. Because it was so full of garbage (some of it placed there at the behest of Russian intelligence, if you believe all the Republican members of Congress to focus on it), it was an easy way to make the real Russian investigation look corrupt to people like Dustin Stockton, to say nothing of the real cover-up disclosed by the investigation.

Before Trump claimed to be the victim of vote fraud, Trump claimed to be the victim of an investigation into the many documented ways in which Trump tried to optimize Russian help to get elected. That claim — that he was the real victim of the Russian investigation — is how Trump trained so many Republicans to put his fate over the fate of the country.

And so as the traditional press turns its attention to the lies that Trump tells to claim he’s a victim, that first lie cannot be forgotten.

..

[RedFromMI]

There was a SECOND rally planned for January 6, 2021:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker ... surrection

EXCLUSIVE: There Was ANOTHER Rally Planned On Jan. 6 … At The Supreme Court
The same people who organized Trump's fateful rally on the Ellipse had something else in store on Jan. 6: a rally planned in front of the Supreme Court.

By Josh Kovensky
|
December 28, 2021 9:11 a.m.
18

The same people who organized Trump’s fateful rally on the Ellipse had something else in store on Jan. 6: a separate, previously unreported rally planned in front of the Supreme Court.

According to text messages and invoices obtained by TPM and provided to the House Jan. 6 committee, the rally outside of the Supreme Court was set for the afternoon of Jan. 6 with some of the same speakers scheduled to appear.

The plan for a Supreme Court rally after the event at the Ellipse reveals a new and different perspective on the geography and timing of the attack on the Capitol.

We already knew that President Trump amassed supporters at the Ellipse, at the White House end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and dispatched them toward the Capitol end of Pennsylvania Avenue, declaring that he would walk with them before promptly returning to the White House. But whether the rally at the Ellipse was planned as a march on the Capitol, even though it was never issued a march permit, remains a hotly contested issue. Regardless, rioters penetrated the Capitol even as the President was still speaking at the Ellipse.

But now TPM’s reporting suggests that the Ellipse rally organizers intended to hold a separate 2 p.m. ET event on the steps of the Supreme Court, across the street from the Capitol, where Congress began certifying the Electoral College vote at noon ET. It suggests that organizers wanted to keep up the pressure on Congress through an event far closer to the Capitol.

And to get there, Big Lie supporters would have had to walk past the Capitol building, traversing a geographic bit of irony: Constitution Avenue.

Second rally fell apart when Trump spoke too long at WH and people actually started breaking into the Capitol before he finished speaking...

[dislaxxic]

Evidence of a larger conspiracy regarding J6 is starting to appear in both the activities being observed in several of the Trump goon trials, as well as tidbits squeezing out about things like a subpoena for Rudy Colludy in the offing. The "Willard War Room" is coming under increasing scrutiny.

THE TRUMP TO WILLARD WAR ROOM TO MILITIA CONNECTION

Charges aimed at the disgraced former president seem closer and closer...perhaps even a subpoena of His Orangeness hisself...

..

[cradleandshoot]

Evidence of a larger conspiracy regarding J6 is starting to appear in both the activities being observed in several of the Trump goon trials, as well as tidbits squeezing out about things like a subpoena for Rudy Colludy in the offing. The "Willard War Room" is coming under increasing scrutiny.

THE TRUMP TO WILLARD WAR ROOM TO MILITIA CONNECTION

Charges aimed at the disgraced former president seem closer and closer...perhaps even a subpoena of His Orangeness hisself...

..

Did these conspiracy theories involve Trump people hiding behind the grassy knoll? How dead does the horse need to be before you decide it is time to stop thumping on it? You no longer will be satisfied with a pound of flesh, I don't think 20 tons tons of flesh would satisfy you. You call me cranky.. . FTR, you know this as well, trump will never testify in front of any court or committee. Even if he did, the only thing he would recite would be his 5th amendment rights. No way in hell he ever sits in a courtroom to testify about anything.

[seacoaster]

Evidence of a larger conspiracy regarding J6 is starting to appear in both the activities being observed in several of the Trump goon trials, as well as tidbits squeezing out about things like a subpoena for Rudy Colludy in the offing. The "Willard War Room" is coming under increasing scrutiny.

THE TRUMP TO WILLARD WAR ROOM TO MILITIA CONNECTION

Charges aimed at the disgraced former president seem closer and closer...perhaps even a subpoena of His Orangeness hisself...

..

Did these conspiracy theories involve Trump people hiding behind the grassy knoll? How dead does the horse need to be before you decide it is time to stop thumping on it? You no longer will be satisfied with a pound of flesh, I don't think 20 tons tons of flesh would satisfy you. You call me cranky.. . FTR, you know this as well, trump will never testify in front of any court or committee. Even if he did, the only thing he would recite would be his 5th amendment rights. No way in hell he ever sits in a courtroom to testify about anything.

Of course, the horse isn't dead. If only it was. But you are too busy worrying about the state of "Merry Christmas" and Jingle Bells to worry about an effort to derail the results of an election. Jesus, the GOP longs for people like you.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Evidence of a larger conspiracy regarding J6 is starting to appear in both the activities being observed in several of the Trump goon trials, as well as tidbits squeezing out about things like a subpoena for Rudy Colludy in the offing. The "Willard War Room" is coming under increasing scrutiny.

THE TRUMP TO WILLARD WAR ROOM TO MILITIA CONNECTION

Charges aimed at the disgraced former president seem closer and closer...perhaps even a subpoena of His Orangeness hisself...

..

Did these conspiracy theories involve Trump people hiding behind the grassy knoll? How dead does the horse need to be before you decide it is time to stop thumping on it? You no longer will be satisfied with a pound of flesh, I don't think 20 tons tons of flesh would satisfy you. You call me cranky.. . FTR, you know this as well, trump will never testify in front of any court or committee. Even if he did, the only thing he would recite would be his 5th amendment rights. No way in hell he ever sits in a courtroom to testify about anything.

Of course, the horse isn't dead. If only it was. But you are too busy worrying about the state of "Merry Christmas" and Jingle Bells to worry about an effort to derail the results of an election. Jesus, the GOP longs for people like you.

Loves ‘em!