Tomorrow is, of course January 6th. The news of the day will of course be dominated by coverage of official congressional memorials and ceremonies marking the day, all of which sniveling piece of shit Kevin McCarthy will be skipping so that His Lowness can toss him a stick. What a goooood little poochie!
But the events of tomorrow will only serve to turn a brighter spotlight on the Department of Justice, and Attorney General Merrick Garland in particular, for their failure to do more over the last year to perp walk Traitor tot out of Mar-A-Lago, and throw him in the dungeon. I find this unfair for a couple of reasons.
First of all, the DOJ has a standard practice of not publicizing cases under investigation. Mainly because a subject can never defend his name and reputation in court if the DOJ later declines to prosecute. Second, any RICO prosecutor will tell you that you begin at the lowest level, and work your way up the food chain, which the DOJ appears to be doing. And third, Biden tapped Garland for a very specific reason, he is the most apolitical person in Washington. After 4 years of The Mango Messiah using the DOJ as his personal law firm, Garland is reestablishing political independence, and Biden is letting him do it. And so should we.
But most of the angst and despair about Garland failing to make mass arrests of Hair Twitter and his cronies for financing, calling for, inciting, and aiding and abetting an insurrection on the US Capitol. And that’s some deeply scary shit, and must be addressed. But it also involves large numbers of people, and is going to take time to successfully investigate and prosecute. But Trump’s personal Roslyn Village Idiot, Peter Navarro is desperately trying to hand prosecutors a bird in the hand!
I can’t quite wrap me head around Peter Navarro. I can’t decide if he’s arrogant, delusional, bone stupid, or all three. In multiple outlets, including MSNBC, Navarro is not only acknowledging a conspiracy to overthrow the election, he’s trying to claim to be the mastermind of it. Everything but the insurrection that is. That wasn’t part of the plan, more like Trump supporters imitating English soccer fans and getting out of control. But the rest of it was flawless.
To recap, Navarro wanted GOP House and Senate loyalists to dispute the electoral slates of 6 contested states. Vice President Mike Pence would then reject those slates back to the states, which would decertify them, throwing the election to the House to decide. And with a GOP statehouse majority, they would hand Trump a 2nd term, along with a scepter.
There’s only one fatal flaw with that Navarro master plan. Not One. Single. Fucking. Thing. in it was either legal or constitutional. The Vice President’s role is purely ceremonial, he certifies the results when the count is completed in the chambers. And while the House and the Senate have the right to contest electoral slates, they have no power to return slates back to the states. And from what limited research I have been able to do, once states certify their electoral slates, there is no way to unwring that bell. As near as I can tell, the only role for the House in an electoral election would be in the case of a 269-269 tie.
Yes, it is critical for their to be accountability for the Capitol riot, and let the chips fall where they may. But Peter Navarro is giving anyone who will listen a specific, fully formed, chapter and verse attempt to overthrow a free and fair election. That is at the very least conspiracy to obstruct an official act of congress, and if the DOJ can dot the I’s and cross the T’s, they have fuel for an attempted insurrection against the United States. I know the DOJ is pretty busy right now, but they have to have a few people left over to process document requests and search warrants. If Peter Navarro wants to sink the battleship, let’s let him!
I’m sure that both the 1/6 committee and DOJ are looking at Navarro closely. *Very* closely. Especially since he likes opening his mouth.
At this point, do you honestly believe Navarro has any better prospects for longevity than Epstein did once he was incarcerated?
Yes, I do. Epstein was taken off the board before he could spill any secrets (not that it helped, given the fallout). Navarro is just saying out loud what the 1/6 Committee probably already knows better than him. As targets go, he should be considered “not worth the bullet”. Oh and Trump’s crony over the Bureau of Prisons resigned today, so we can rule out repeat performances.
“And from what limited research I have been able to do, once states certify their electoral slates, there is no way to unwring that bell. As near as I can tell, the only role for the House in an electoral election would be in the case of a 269-269 tie.”
The ONLY time that there’s ever been an election with disputed electoral slates was in 1876 and the states involved were all former Confederate states that had just recently been readmitted to the Union (well, there was an elector from Oregon who’d been replaced for having been an “elected or appointed official” which violates Constitutional guidelines for electors). But Democratic candidate Samuel Tilden had an undisputed 184 electoral votes while Rutherford B Hayes had an undisputed 165 electoral votes with 20 disputed votes at stake–the three state delegations of FL, LA and SC combined for 19 and the Oregon elector made the 20th. In the three states, both parties claimed their candidate won (the reported popular votes show all three went to Hayes but there doesn’t seem to be a count that supports the state Democratic Parties’ contention; it’s possible both parties filed fake numbers to back up their claims). At any rate, Congress stepped in and both parties agreed to end Reconstruction in the South if the Democrats agreed to award the 20 disputed votes to the Republican Hayes. (I’m quite sure if the GOP had made that part of their 1876 party platform, it would’ve swept the South but, at the same time, possibly have alienated a lot of folks in the North.) Ted “Cancun or bust” Cruz tried to use the 1876 election to support his position to stop the certification but it only proved Cruz didn’t understand a single thing about US history or the electoral process.
As for the “tie” matter, not necessarily. The election is MOST LIKELY going to go to the House as the result of a tie (it doesn’t need to be 269-269; let’s imagine the presidential candidate for a Hawaiian nationalist, secessionist party manages to win a majority of Hawaii’s vote and wins the state’s 4 electoral votes, and the candidates for the Democratic and Republican parties wind up with 267 electoral votes each, the election would go to the House where the Hawaiian delegation would be under NO obligation to cast its vote for the state’s presidential choice) but it can also happen when no candidate manages to win a majority because of “faithless electors” or a strong third-party candidate manages to win some major states while the Dems and GOP split the other states but neither gets even 269 electoral votes (for example, the Dem candidate gets 245 electoral votes, the GOP candidate gets 238 and the hypothetical third-party candidate gets 55, so the election goes to the House where it’s possible the GOP candidate wins the House vote because 26 state delegations are GOP or majority-GOP). That’s basically what happened in 1824 when 4 candidates split the 261 electoral votes (the House dealt with the 1800 election as well but that was under a different set of rules). The candidate who received the fewest electoral votes was eliminated (as per the 12th Amendment) which left J Q Adams, Andrew Jackson and William Crawford competing to win 13 of 24 state delegations. Adams, of course, wound up winning 13 states to Jackson’s 7 and Crawford’s 4 (but looking at the individual votes by the delegations, Adams still had the most support; someone in the Virginia House delegation didn’t vote but Adams had the support of 87 Representatives, Jackson had 71 and Crawford had 54).