Just when you thought Donald Trump’s final outrage was firing the White House usher, this story breaks. Trump planned to get rid of acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and replace him with a loyalist who would prosecute his baseless Georgia election fraud claims. New York Times:
The unassuming lawyer who worked on the plan, Jeffrey Clark, had been devising ways to cast doubt on the election results and to bolster Mr. Trump’s continuing legal battles and the pressure on Georgia politicians. Because Mr. Rosen had refused the president’s entreaties to carry out those plans, Mr. Trump was about to decide whether to fire Mr. Rosen and replace him with Mr. Clark.
The department officials, convened on a conference call, then asked each other: What will you do if Mr. Rosen is dismissed?
The answer was unanimous. They would resign.
Their informal pact ultimately helped persuade Mr. Trump to keep Mr. Rosen in place, calculating that a furor over mass resignations at the top of the Justice Department would eclipse any attention on his baseless accusations of voter fraud. Mr. Trump’s decision came only after Mr. Rosen and Mr. Clark made their competing cases to him in a bizarre White House meeting that two officials compared with an episode of Mr. Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice,” albeit one that could prompt a constitutional crisis.
It has been said before, but I’ll say it again because it cannot be said often enough: Democracy dodged the bullet this time. If Trump had had more loyalists in more key places, America as we know it could have come to an end. We need to prepare for the next Trump.
Dodging bullets is easy when the marksmanship is this poor.
The Hill has an article about passing the “For The People Act” HR-1. I think this might go a ways to putting in place needed guard rails against corruption going forward.
And also stop some of the vote-restricting sh1t that the GOP-T loves so much.
I happened to have Chris Hayes’ show on and saw him announce this story had been broken. On top of the news that a deal was struck to delay Trump’s impeachment trial until Feb. 8 it didn’t take me long to recall an old saying. Given the lack of transition and the Senate basically abandoning (“thanks” Yertle) its duties Biden took office with less people working their way through confirmation hearings and votes that I think has happened in our history. Given that appalling fact, and also the need to move on Covid relief legislation this time around I can be in a more forgiving mood than normal towards Schumer for letting McConell have his way. Also, much as I hate to admit it the appearance of fairness in allowing Trump to hire a team of second rate lawyers to defend him (What? No House members want to be Mangers for his defense?) is important – even though we all know the GOP would claim it was all unfair if Trump had the best white collar defense lawyers in DC fighting like hell for him after six months to prepare their case. But I digress.
I don’t think the GOP wanted the delay to give Trump time to hire a competent defense team. Nope. It was in the hopes that their continued lies and a return to “old” school GOP wide hammering of the same few talking points would erode public sentiment (with Independents at least) for holding Trump accountable. Here’s the thing though. Not having gotten the pardons they assumed Trump would give them on the way out the door an increasing number of those that have been hauled into court for their insurrection on Jan. 6 are directly tying their actions to having been told by Trump to do what they did! I read a piece from Business Insider (not exactly a liberal leaning publication) with a title that even stated that these goobers’ lawyers are making the case that Trump is personally responsible for the attack! Even “my tummy is too sensitive for jail food can I please have organic food only” Viking horns and furs dude is now firmly blaming Trump. On the record in Court!
The House Managers say they have been ready to proceed with their case against Trump for days now, but this kind of stuff is music to their ears. They will certainly enter all this into evidence. But here’s where the GOP’s gamble was probably a sucker’s bet all along. Even without Cabinet officials confirmed Biden’s team is already uncovering some damaging stuff, and I don’t think it requires a keen mind to think that career professionals at DOJ have been waiting, tapping their feet in frustration waiting to talk to Biden people. And, journalists too. Hence this bombshell NYT story. I for one don’t think it will be the first such story and the more we learn about this and other attempts by Trump to use the DOJ (and his flunky butt lickers at DOD and DHS among others) to incite that mob and then frantically try to cover things up. Oh, and that unqualified hack Trump tried to burrow into a top spot (General Counsel) at the NSA? I’d bet all I’ve got part of his mandate was to cover up Trump’s complicity in setting up and inciting that riot AND hampering the security planning and then the response when it all went down. He’s still getting his salary which sucks but he’s been shoved off to the side. And his installation into that position is ALREADY being investigated. What might we learn between now an Feb. 8?
If you’ve read this far you might recall my mentioning an old saying, and already have asked yourself what’s the saying? If you’ve been reading my guess is that you already know. It’s “Be careful what you wish for!” I think the odds are pretty good that the GOP made a sucker bet. A bet that with a couple of weeks the news would overwhelm news about Trump’s inciting domestic terrorists in the hopes of staying in power and that the sentiment of “Ok – so he didn’t learn his lesson after the FIRST impeachment but pinky finger swear THIS time he reallly did so we need to move on” would take hold. The other possibility is I think coming true. With each passing day more devastating (to Trump and by extension his GOP enablers) will come out and while I’m not about to say it’s even 50-50 odds I believe that the extra time will instead force a number of GOP Senators to vote to convict. Maybe not 17, but if we get it into double digits it will be huge. And who knows? There might be one other possibility.
Playing the “What if?” fantasy game what if McConnell actually WANTS Trump to be convicted at the end of the trial? It IS possible he feels that way. With each passing day since he lost his position of total power as Majority Leader he’s probably grown more pissed. Yes, as was the case twenty years ago when things were 50-50 (only with a GOP Vice-President to give control to them) he still retains quite a bit of power. But nothing like the dominance he’s just lost. When it comes to vindictiveness I doubt there’s ever been nor ever will be a U.S. politician with as much power as President, or a Majority Leader or Speaker of the House wields as Trump. However, if Trump makes Nixon look like a peacemaker in comparison Nixon was a vindictive s.o.b. who proved quite willing to use his governmental powers to punish others. I for one think McConnell is every bit as capable as Nixon on this measure.
From McConnell’s perspective Trump cost him his power. And unlike most people Trump has screwed over in his life McConnell has the ability to maybe, just maybe hit back not only harder but politically (and legacy wise) fatally. Maybe, just maybe McConnell knew from talking to Barr and others that a LOT of shit would be coming out as Biden’s people got in and career folks got to talking to journalists. Maybe, just maybe McConnell pulled a rope-a-dope with the die hard Trumpkins in his caucus – and decided that time was the equivalent of rope they would grab in a heartbeat. Rope that would wind up hanging their orange turd emperor and maybe some of them as well! One thing I haven’t mentioned is all those mega donors and groups normally in lockstep with the GOP are recoiling. Words are one thing but the financial spigot to GOP candidates from major donors has been turned down to a trickle. And the GOP faces a if not a tough then challenging Senate map in two years and quite literally every single day that financial faucet is turned down to a trickle is a whack upside the head with a two-by-four to GOP candidates. As more and more bad/damaging news comes out that trickle might turn into nothing but a slow drip! If that’s the case by the time the impeachment trial starts and a good chunk of the country is seeing it all laid on live on TV McConnell will be in a position to, if he chooses to do so tell the non-batshit crazy members of his caucus that their only way out, and their Party’s only way out is to rip off the ugly shade of orange band aid. That if some of them wind up “taking one for the team” in 2022 they will be very, very well looked after but to have any shot in 2024 and even 2028 that it’s time to dump Trump and convict him. And then vote to bar him from ever holding office again. As a bonus, in one-on-one talks he can point out that convicting and banning Trump from future office might on the surface open things up for Cruz, but that Cruz ain’t Trump and his career will be DONE. Same with Hawley. The Tom Cottons and others might just do the unthinkable an set themselves up for a viable run by convicting Trump. They will at least truly and seriously consider following McConnell’s lead/advice on the matter.
I have no doubt that all evening McConnell has been getting “good for you for delaying impeachment” messages from his GOP colleagues. Is it too much to hope for that with each one he reads or hears he smiles his most malevolent smile to himself an mutters “Be careful what you wish for?” One can always dream!
Andrew Weissman just confirmed on MSNBC that this is criminal election fraud.
Oh yeah…I continue to be astounded on how little this whole coup business was understood by the folks doing it. It’s the ultimate double or nothing bet with zero consolation prizes if it’s nothing.
I think you are all liars.
What would you know about liars since you obviously supported a blatant liar for the past 4 years and accepted everything he said as truth?
To paraphrase Meghan Trainor, I knew Trump was lying ’cause his lips were moving.
And I think you’re either a willing dupe at best or an active traitor at worst. See how this works?
“You think?” How could you possibly think? It requires a brain. Like my wise and ancient daddy used to say, you got to have the right tool for the job. And you don’t.
Trump could replace Rosen with anyone he liked but it wouldn’t have made any difference in getting a court to rule in his favor. Especially since Georgia’s GOP governor and its GOP Secretary of State had already overseen an audit and a full hand recount of the vote and the tally didn’t change perceptibly (I think there were a handful of votes that changed but not nearly enough to have changed the original results).
Goes back to something my mom said about this man’s phenomenal ignorance about government…ANY government, I might add.