The father of the fake electors had the riot act read to him by the legal system. He was found guilty, that is, a recommendation was made, that the author of the fake electors scheme be stripped of his law license. In a mere 128-pages, the judge ruled that Eastman had violated the rules of professional ethics through his dishonesty in trying to help the Liar in-Chief remain in power after having lost the presidential election. Apparently Eastman thought he was above the law, too.
The “wild theory” theory” that a Vice President could declare Trump the winner was completely bogus. This is a reminder of the taped testimony presented to the House Select Committee of the advice given to Eastman to have an effing great lawyer.
At least in the California court, such sage advice did not prevail. The judge ruled:
In sum, Eastman exhibited gross negligence by making false statements about the 2020 election without conducting any meaningful investigation or verification of the information he was relying upon.
In other words he acted like Rudy Giuliani. Remember how he exclaimed to Rusty Bowers in Arizona that he has the theory but not the facts? Apparently that wisdom guided Eastman as well. The results were similar. Such conduct is acceptable for a President who is above the law and has immunity but is not acceptable for someone seeking to practice law.
Eastman’s travails are not yet over. He still could be charged by Jack Smith for his role in the January 6 insurrection. In fact, all of the unindicted co-conspirators could be. The initial plan to indict only one person, the ring leader, rather than become caught up with multiple defendants has not worked out so far. With Trump’s Court putting the brakes on the case, who knows if it will be tried or not. Why not take advantage of this opportunity to fill the void by charging John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, Rudy Giuliani, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Mark Meadows, Scott Perry, and all the other people who participated in the planning and execution of January 6?
Arizona is beginning to spread its investigative wings to include some of the Congressional members of Trump’s insurrection army. According to the infamous Georgia phone call, Trump was quite confident about his people in the House doing what needed to be done to aid him in his effort to steal the election.
Ironically, Jenna Ellis another lawyer who did plead guilty has Colorado as her home state. Colorado is the very state which brought the Amendment 14 Section 3 to the attention of the Supreme Court in the first place. Now that Ellis had accepted disciplinary measures from the Colorado bar officials, perhaps the state will consider barring her from running for office as well.
True, she has no plans to run for office, but the application of Amendment 14 Section 3 to her would put all the other accomplices to the insurrection on notice that they will not be able to run for office if found guilty of violating their legal code of ethics or in a criminal case.
JEFFERSON DAVIS PLUS
There was more to the Confederacy than Jefferson Davis. While he was the most prominent Confederate figure, there were thousands of others who fought for the Confederate cause against the Union. The three briefs by the historians to the Supreme Court tended to focus on Jefferson Davis to the exclusion of the other Confederates. Such tunnel vision was an error. There is more to the January 6 insurrection than just one person.
In the action taken against John Eastman, we are reminded that Trump had numerous allies in his quest to steal the election. Each of them has had to secure their own funding source to help them get away with that action. Some of them have not been able to do so.
What is to be gained now by not prosecuting all the others who helped make insurrection a day of infamy in American history? Essentially, Jack Smith has an open calendar for months before trying the case against the ring leader. The Trump judge will not allow Trump to be tried before the presidential election. And no matter how much of hard-charger Smith is and how determined the January 6 judge is, they cannot overcome the appeal process and the Trump Court.
At least we can be grateful that the legal profession is taking care of its own garbage. It’s time for the courts to do the same.
Dan Crenshaw the Future of the GOP? (M. Scott Mahaskey for Politico Magazines. March 2, 2019)
The countdown continues to a clear and present danger in 2024. The third session of the House Select Committee introduced a new element into the proceedings. So far the bulk of the effort has been directed to establishing a criminal case for the Department of Justice to pursue against the insurrectionists. Part of that effort includes informing the American people of the truth of what happened. This way the pending investigation and indictments will not simply be a “witch hunt” per Foxhub but a legitimate search for justice.
While all that is well and good, it also is looking backward — an attempt to reconstruct the past. It is critical to keep our eye on the future. 2024 will not simply be a repeat of 2020. It will be an enhanced version of that failed insurrection. The Trumpicans have learned from the failure and now are preparing to plug those holes to ensure success. In this blog, I do not wish to recapitulate the ongoing efforts in voter suppression, creation of the army of Trump Goons in selected voting districts, or the election of secretaries of state and/or governors who will prevent Joe Biden from winning their states in 2024 regardless of the actual votes. Instead, I wish to focus on the consequences of that effort no matter how it actually plays out in the vote results.
PROPHET MICHAEL LUTTIG
Sometimes a judge can be a prophet. No, I am not referring to the judges from the Book of Judges but to Michael Luttig, a retired federal appeals court judge and highly respected conservative in legal circles who testified on the third day of hearings. However, he is not well-known to the general public yet alone to the Trumpicans who support the BIG LIE. As a result, the impact of his testimony on them probably is minimal. The impact of his testimony on the DOJ is likely to be more substantial. He augments the words of United States District Judge David Carter on John Eastman’s efforts as “a coup in search of a legal theory”
In his testimony, Luttig asserted that the actions of January 6, 2021, brought the country to the precipice of a constitutional crisis that could have ended the existence of the constitutional republic just before the 250th anniversary of the country’s declaration. In his words, the actions were “tantamount to a revolution.” The rule of law was under direct attack. If the Vice President had succumbed to the pressure from the President and successfully thwarted the peaceful transfer of power, it would have been “the first constitutional crisis since the founding of the Republic.” When I first blogged about political thrillers in movies and books from the 1960s on January 3, 2021 (Seven Days in January: This Time It Is Not a Movie), it never occurred to me that we would be living one in real world to the extent that we are.
Nor that there would be a sequel. Prophet Luttig warned us that the threat to the constitutional Republic remains alive and well, continuing to foment trouble. For the most part we have moved on past the silly scenarios of Biden stepping down and being replaced now or in the immediate future by the “rightful President.” Of course, no sooner had these words been written than I learned that the Republican Party of Texas at its state convention resolved that:
We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States. We strongly urge all Republicans to work to ensure election integrity and to show up to vote in November of 2022, bring your friends and family, volunteer for your local Republicans, and overwhelm any possible fraud.
So at least the gaze is shifting politically to the upcoming elections.
PREPARING FOR THE DIVORCE
Prophet Luttig’s words are a call to action in the present. The danger exists now and it is building towards an explosion in 2024. The wheels are already set in motion for the chaos he alluded to. It is not a question of if it will happen, but what will be done to prepare for it when it does. What does “it” mean?
The “it” was clearly enunciated by White House counsel Eric Herschmann in an oft-played tape of his testimony about a telephone call will coup-designer Eastman about his plan to have the Vice President rig the electoral count in plain sight to obtain the results Trump wanted:
You’re going to cause riots in the streets.
To which Eastman blithely replied:
There’s been violence in the history of our country to protect the democracy or protect the Republic.
This exchange about what would have happened on January 6, 2021, if Pence had weakened foretells what will happen on January 6, 2025. Eastman has legitimated the right of Biden supporters to take to the street to protect democracy and the republic from a Trump victory. It is unlikely that Eastman intended to do this. Naturally, he meant only the right people have the right riot in the street to challenge an injustice (January 6, 2021) and not that the wrong people (BLM, ANTIFA, Team Normal Americans) have the right to do so if Trump is declared the winner. That subtlety may be lost on people who are opposed to letting the Hitman return to the White House under any circumstances.
In the meantime, we have been reminded vividly of the violence that is in store for America following the 2024 presidential election.
Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger said he received a letter that threatened to execute him, his wife and their newborn. “There is violence in the future, I’m going to tell you,” he said on ABC “This Week.”
The next day, Eric Greitens, one of the “man’s man” beloved by Bone-spur Boy, running for the Republican Senate nomination in Missouri, released a new video saying:
I’m Eric Greitens, Navy SEAL, and today we’re going RINO hunting. Join the MAGA crew. Get a RINO hunting permit. There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit and it doesn’t expire until we save our country.
This is the political professional wrestling arena trash talk Trumpicans love. As in any cult, it bespeaks the effort to cleanse the cult itself even before attacking others. It also legitimates the effort to go Trumpican hunting in the event Democrats stop bringing a plastic spoon to a gun fight and expect to win.
THE TWO PRESIDENTS BICENTENNIAL
In 1824, there were two claimants to the Presidency – John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. Of the five sectional candidates that year, these two emerged in the leading positions. The first party system of Federalists and Republicans had dissolved and the second party system of Whigs and Democrats was being born. While Jackson claimed he had been cheated out of victory that was rightfully his (a questionable claim) due to a backroom deal between Adams and Henry Clay, he accepted the results and lived to fight another day in the 1828 election which he won.
For the bicentennial year in 2024 of that presidential election, we already know that there will be no agreement on the results. No matter what, there will be no peaceful transfer of power from Joe Biden to the Hitman; no matter what there will be no acceptance by the Hitman of another four years in office for the worst candidate ever.
Choices will have to be made.
Will California or South Carolina be the first to secede?
Will the military support the president in the White House or the one in Mar-a-lago?
Who will the world recognize as the American president?
Who will have the nuclear football?
What happens after both are sworn in on January 20, 2025?
The odds on this division being resolved peacefully are slim. More likely are armed clashes in the nation’s capital and in scattered locations throughout the country. The situation will be scary…. Unless we recognize now that the divorce is our future and start to plan for it to minimize the violence.
Trumpicans search for the illusive 11,780 votes (Deliverance)
Who can forget the blockbuster thriller from 2020 when the arch villain memorably said: FIND ME 11,780 VOTES! That thrilling assertion quickly became part of American folklore. The embattled loser struggling to remain in power reached out telephonically to the supposed little people in Georgia eager and willing to do his bidding. Instead he discovered not only did that Secretary of State refuse but he recorded the call! Now he has testified under oath to a jury about the call. A criminal indictment is expected.
THE VOTES HAVE BEEN FOUND! THE VOTES HAVE BEEN FOUND! (Psycho)
While all this is going on, the press has overlooked the fact the missing 11,780 votes have been found. An intrepid group of Trumpican adventurers went deep into the hills of Georgia passed where civilized people live. There they found partially floating in the river, a mysterious out-of-place car. When the trunk of the vehicle was pried open, LO AND BEHOLD, there were the missing votes. [What were you expecting to find? Janet Leigh?]
RELITIGATING 2020
Meanwhile, the attempt to relitigate the 2020 Presidential election continues. True, it does not have the excitement and urgency of when Pillowhead was specifying the actual date when the current occupant of the White House would be removed be replaced by the rightful winner. True, Séance Sydney seems to have lost her ability to communicate with the dead. True, more and more people are turning to the upcoming elections in 2022 and 2024. Still the 2020 effort proceeds in support to maintain the perfect record of the Loser and Hitman never having lost.
Kudos in particular to John Eastman. It was just a short time ago when nobody knew who he was. Then we learned that he was one of the masterminds behind the effort to have the Vice President undo the election results and declare the Loser the winner….or, at least, give the House of Representatives the opportunity to do so. While that initiative failed, Eastman is still at it. He is trying, with less attention and the same lack of success, to have states “decertify” the election results of 2020. Then somehow through some magical process not in the Constitution, the current President and Vice President would be removed from office and the Loser would be inaugurated.
Clearly Eastman has not thought this through. If Biden and Harris step down, the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi would become President, not the Loser. She would then select Joe Biden to her Vice President. She would resign and he would become President again. However if the unconstitutional scenario proposed by Eastman worked, once the Loser was installed as President for his second term he would lose the right to run for a third term in 2024. Perhaps Eastman then would propose that the second term begin only with the inauguration of the Loser in 2022 and the 2024 election should be suspended until 2026. I confess it can be fun exploring the different possibilities in the alternate Eastman world even though none of them are even plausible in the real world.
Still the Eastman cabal carries on with some support in various insurrection states.
2022 PRIMARIES
Suddenly while no one was looking, the stolen election gambit has reared its ugly head in the 2022 primaries. So even before Republicans square off against Democrats in November, the cry of “stolen election” is being heard in Republican primaries. Trumpican candidates have been defeated in Nebraska, Idaho, and North Carolina. Even in Ohio, two-thirds of Republicans rejected the Trumpican Senate candidate. The same is true in the Pennsylvania Republican Senate race where a flurry of law suits had been filed to prevent the Trumpican candidate from having the election stolen from him bfore the Republican candidate conceded. Lawsuits! For a Republic primary! What is the world coming to when Republicans cannot even rely on the integrity of Republican primaries?!
Only in the Georgia Senate primary did things work well as the supremely unqualified Trumpican candidate prevailed because he was a great football player who knows how to take care of women.
On the other hand, in the two big Georgia Republican races that mattered most to the Loser, he did not fare so well. He even got a Congressional Representative to abandon his seat to go down with the ship for him. What dedication.
It seems that the sequel was even a bigger blockbuster in vote fraud than the original. As ace reporter Emerald Robinson for the Pillowhead Network wrote:
President Trump’s endorsement is the single most powerful force in the universe of American politics. There’s never been anything quite like it. Trump-endorsed candidates overwhelmingly prevailed in the latest GOP primaries by a margin of 24-4. In fact, President Trump is running the table on the GOP establishment in the 2022 races. His record stands at 92-7 at the moment. …
That’s what makes the primary results in Georgia last night so curious and so suspect. Georgia is the only state where President Trump’s endorsements did not count….
Something stinks in Georgia. The numbers are funny because many of these races were rigged.
Endorsing incumbent Republican candidates in Republican primaries is a great way to rack up wins. But it did not work in the two races that meant the most. So who does the loser call now to find the missing 624,120 votes? He cannot call the Governor or the Secretary of State. He’s stuck. However these results do not mean he will not carry Georgia in 2024.
2024 Elections
For 2024, it is necessary to put aside the antics of the 2020 decertification and 2022 Republican primary steals.
First, there is an established Trumpican base in the insurrection legislatures that believes the election was stolen in 2020. According to a survey taken by The New York Times (Trump ’20 Election Lies Take Root in Statehouses,” May 22, 2022, print), a significant number of Trumpican legislators who hold office in states won by Joe Biden subscribe to this fraudulent belief:
81% Arizona
78% Pennsylvania
73% Wisconsin.
These people know how the game is played and will be ready to act to ensure their candidate wins in 2024.
Second, the success of the legislatures is dependent of the Governor and/or the Secretary of State depending on how a state is configured. It already is taken for granted that if the Pennsylvanian Trumpican who participated in the January insurrection wins the election for Governor and appoints the Secretary of State that either Biden will not be allowed to win on Election Day or if he does, the results will be challenged. This time the alternate slate of electors will be the state-approved slate.
Similar stories could be told in other states where Trumpicans are challenging for the positions of Governor or Secretary of State. The America First slate of 2020 deniers has multiple candidates. Not surprisingly, it is focusing on the key insurrectionist states. Here the effort is not so much to relitigate 2020 but to control 2024. We will have to wait until after the dust settles in the 2022 elections to know what it means for 2024. 2022 will serve as a test for 2024.
Third, the Trumpicans are actively working to establish the ground forces to suppress the Democratic vote. Last year, the focus was on the laws being passed to suppress the vote. This year we can see Cleta Mitchell, one of the insurrectionists, working to establish a national ground force of both poll workers and poll watchers to monitor the vote. Besides the laws on paper, these people will provide an in-your-face presence at the local precinct level. They will be a rapid deployment force ready to nip Democratic votes in the bud.
In the last election, Democrats mounted their own national legal forces to combat the “stolen election” claim. Next time around that will not be enough. The Civil War will be fought in the election district trenches. Given the levers of power likely to be held by Trumpicans, they may not need the courts anyway. Like the Russians in eastern Ukraine (and Syria before), they may just use the brute force at their disposal to control the outcome.
Putting aside extraneous factors like the House Select Committee and the normal election issues, there may be a new wrinkle to the challenges. Last time Trumpicans were able to get away with the claim that only the presidential vote was stolen. Somehow, all other votes on the ballot were accurate. This time Democrats may not let Trumpicans get away with such nonsense. This year, if the Georgia vote is contested, it is for the Governor, Senator, Secretary of State, Representatives, and state legislators as well. Who knows who will govern there on January 1, 2023? That is just a preview for January 1, 2025, nationwide. The 67 Senators not up for election will be in office then, but who else will be? The resulting chaos will extend not just from Congress but to the states. It is too early to tell what might happen, but it is worth starting to think about scenarios that never have been considered before.
