Georgia Indicts trump and his Big Lie

At last.

Stephen Fowler over at NPR has the basics: 

A grand jury in Georgia has indicted Donald Trump for his role in failed efforts to overturn the state's 2020 election results, implicating the former president as the head of a sweeping conspiracy to subvert his defeat.

It's the fourth indictment in as many months for Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. And it's part of a massive case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis under Georgia's racketeering law, ensnaring a number of defendants that the DA alleges acted as part of a coordinated effort to pressure officials to change the election outcome.

In an indictment handed up Monday, an Atlanta-based grand jury outlined a series of charges against Trump, including violation of the Georgia RICO law and solicitation of a violation of an oath by a public officer.

RICO by the by is a racketeering charge, meaning trump and others engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy to commit multiple crimes. Emptywheel - you know what I need to call her by name, so hello Marcy Wheeler! - has more details on the implications of trump getting hit by RICO:

To explain how, I want to first show that the indictment is, fundamentally, about protecting the integrity of Georgia’s government and elections. To see that, it helps to read counts 2 through 41 before reading the RICO charge, which is laid out in 70 pages describing 161 overt acts, many of which took place outside of Georgia...

LIES TO AND SOLICITATION OF GEORGIA OFFICIALS

Count 2 though Count 7: False claims and illegal requests made, many by Rudy Giuliani, before the fake electors scheme. These were lies told to official bodies of Georgia state government, and charging them is an attempt to prevent corruption in state government.

Count 23 through Count 26 charge Rudy, Ray Smith, and Robert Cheely with false claims and solicitations on December 30 — similar in structure and purpose to Counts 2 through 7.

Count 28 charges both Trump and Mark Meadows for the January 2 call to Brad Raffensperger. Count 29 charges Trump for the lies he told during the call.

Counts 38 and 39 charge Trump with lies and solicitations of Brad Raffensperger on September 17, 2021.

FAKE ELECTORS

Count 8 through Count 19: These are a series of six paired charges tied to various kinds of fraud involved with the fake electors. In each pair, the first count charges David Shafer, Shawn Still, and Cathleen Latham for doing the fraudulent thing, and the second count charges Trump, Rudy, John Eastman, Ken Chesebro, Ray Smith, Robert Cheely, and Mike Roman with soliciting the fraudulent thing. They’re a near parallel to the Michigan charges against the fake electors, except that in Georgia only the three most culpable fake electors are charged, and there’s a mirror charge for Trump’s side of the conspiracy.

ATTEMPTS TO ENTRAP RUBY FREEMAN

Counts 20 and 21 and : These charge two efforts to defraud Ruby Freeman by offering her help when in fact they were an attempt to entrap her.

Count 30 and Count 31 charge aspects of a plot to get Kanye’s publicist to travel from Illinois to Georgia to entrap Ruby Freeman into making false claims.

LIES ABOUT GEORGIA

Count 22 charges Jeffrey Clark for his attempts to get DOJ to claim the Georgia election was fraudulent.

Count 27 charges Trump and Eastman with lying about Georgia’s results in a lawsuit.

TAMPERING WITH COFFEE COUNTY TABULATORS

Count 32 through Count 37 charge Sidney Powell, Latham, and two others for tampering with the Coffee County vote tabulators. Again, this has a parallel in the Michigan charges against Matt DePerno and two others.

LIES DURING THE INVESTIGATION

Count 40 charges David Shafer with false statements told during the investigation.

Count 41 charges Robert Cheely with perjury for false claims made during the investigation.

As I understand it, these are the charges on which the RICO conspiracy is built. The RICO conspiracy gives prosecutors additional tools and penalties with which to prosecute this (similar to the conspiracy law charged at the federal level)...

That's a lot of criming (relax, Spellchecker, we can use slang while blogging), but what are the implications surrounding these particular indictments compared to the other three (and counting) trump and cohorts are facing? Why is this one a bigger deal than most?

One of the common elements in the Georgia indictment is the word "lies". Over and over, DA Willis spells out how trump and company lied and kept lying to other state officials in order to get them to violate the integrity of the 2020 election results. They have trump lying in a lawsuit, they have one underling Robert Cheely charged with straight-up perjury to the grand jury, they had people lying to county-level elections official Ruby Freeman to get her to "confess" to rigging ballots.

All of these lies, serving to the Big Lie that trump pushed and keeps pushing about the 2020 results. trump's Big Lie that the election "was stolen" and he "fairly" won.

I blogged about trump's Big Lie before, and why he can't stop:

Trump has made it clear he views the world in the simplest of terms: That people are divided into Winners and Suckers, and that HE (champion and most excellent of the former group) shall never be lumped in with the latter.

So just on this mindset alone, trump cannot admit – not to others, not to himself – that he lost... 

In one respect, trump lost in 2016: The Popular vote clearly went for Hillary. But due to the broken and anti-democratic nature of the Electoral College, trump squeaked into winning three battleground states with literally mere hundreds of votes that gave him their Electoral Votes instead. It should be noted that trump promptly crowed – against all evidence – that he had won a LANDSLIDE, not just the College but also the Popular vote, and claimed it was the greatest victory in history (ignoring the Electoral and Popular vote blowouts of 1984 and 1932 (we don't count Nixon's 1972 blowout because the cheating exposed by the Watergate scandal negates that)).

Trump can't crow like that this time. The illusion of the Electoral College can't grant him that excuse. So he has to settle on denial. Constant, whining denial that he's the victim of voter fraud and to get us to pity him back into office...

The horrifying thing was how easily trump got fellow Republicans to buy into his Big Lie all because the GOP fears the loss of political power:

The Republicans are stuck with the Big Lie because it happens to fit this One Truth:

The Republican Party cannot and will not share power with a Democratic Party they view as un-American and thus illegitimate.

Somewhere back in time - you can argue happening between the rise of the conservative Southern Strategy in the late 1960s or the rise of Saint Ronnie in the 1980s or the corruption of Newt's Contract On America in the 1990s - the Republican Party bought into the idea that only they were true God-fearing God-chosen Gun-worshiping patriots...

But the Republicans have a problem. Where their One Truth was merely a world-view that did not expose itself to self-destructive implosion (Republicans could keep believing it and still function rationally in polite society), the Big Lie is a direct attack on the Real World that sooner rather than later is going to hit the Brick Wall of Unbreakable Facts. The Big Lie compels trump's believers into direct action - SEE the January 6th Insurrection - and these actions have legal consequences where the Big Lie has not and cannot prevail.

The Republicans are betting on their Big Lie carrying them forward into the future. But it's a Big Lie stuck in the past of a failed 2020 election, pushed constantly by a Big Liar in trump who cannot avoid his impending fate either in civil or criminal courts.

With the Georgia indictments, we are at that moment of Truth for the Republican Party as a whole. DA Willis and her team are making a direct rebuke to trump's Big Lie, confronting it with facts and evidence that not only were the voted counted fairly but that trump and his people intentionally worked to subvert those fair counts.

I am paraphrasing Jean-Luc Picard here, in one of the greatest quotes about the quest for justice. Courtrooms are crucibles: In a courtroom we burn away irrelevancies (the lies and misunderstandings) until we are left with a pure product - the truth (based on fact), for all time. For all of trump's bullshitting at his rallies, for all of the deflection and deception by the Far Right media, for all the spineless quibbling of other Republican leaders who fail to hold trump to the factual truth, in a court of law those lies and deceptions cannot withstand scrutiny. trump will confront - at last - the lies he's been telling to everyone and even to himself, and that those lies have no power to keep him in power.

The reason why I remain so optimistic - giddy, even - about the criminal cases leveled against trump is that these courtrooms are going to be the few places where trump will be held accountable for the ongoing costs of destruction and ruin he has built up over the decades. trump's greed, trump's racism, trump's sexism, trump's rage, trump's delusions of grandeur... All of that finally getting added up and presented as a bill way past due that he has to pay.

Let trump face his lies and failures before the 2024 elections. Let the nation come to terms with the reality that trump should never hold any elected office again.

Let justice be done. Let truth prevail. At last.

What If: How 2024 Could Play Out

(Update: Many thanks to Tengrain for including this article on Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please leave a comment below, or Bluesky me at @paulwartenberg or Spoutify me at @paulwartenberg and Tweet me at... at... DAMN YOU MUSK THE X IS TERRIBLE)

So... All things being equal (although they're not) we are looking at a 2024 Presidential decision between the incumbent Joe Biden and the indicted donald trump.

In this day and age, a first-termer like Biden is always going to run for a second term. And with this corrupt Republican Party, a past-termer like trump is going to run again in order to use the legal protections of the Presidency to negate any criminal convictions that might occur from any three four okay it could get as high as five trials facing him between now and November 2024.

The question we face is not "Will an indicted trump survive a competitive primary against a dozen opponents?" -  because that GOP primary won't be competitive: trump is polling above 50 percent among likely primary voters and so the Republicans are stuck with a potential felon as front-runner - the question will be "How will this be any different from 2020?"

We're facing one of the rare repeats in Presidential campaigning, where the same major party candidates face off in back-to-back election years (anything before 1800 will not fit as party tickets did not exist before then). To my knowledge, there's only been John Q. Adams vs. Andrew Jackson (1824 and 1828),  Martin Van Buren vs. William Henry Harrison (1836 and 1840), Benjamin Harrison vs. Grover Cleveland (1888 and 1892), William McKinley vs. William Jennings Bryan (1896 and 1900), and last with Dwight D Eisenhower vs Adali Stevenson (1952 and 1956).

Half of those repeats happened due to unusual circumstances: with shifts in how candidates got on ballot,  to formations of new parties, to extreme failures of Electoral College results that justified a losing candidate (Jackson in 1828, Cleveland in 1892) running again out of a sense of revenge/defending the popular will over the electoral will.

Losing candidates throughout Presidential campaign histories tended to have the good sense to walk away if they lost the popular vote. Occasionally you'll get the Ambitious types - the Clays - or the Ideological obsessives - the Bryans - who can dominate their party well past their expiration dates and keep running until the party had enough (third time losing) and moved on to fresher talent. By the 20th Century as the Democrats and Republicans stabilized and created deep talent pools, most losing candidates were one-and-done, so rematches stopped happening. Until now, with trump unable to admit he ever loses and able to dominate the modern Republican Party to pretty much bully his way back into a remake of the 2020 elections.

By common logic, we ought to project the results for 2024 to reflect the results of 2020 since it's the same candidates - Biden vs. trump - running pretty much the same platforms - Biden's economic policies of job growth, women's rights, and rebuilding manufacturing/infrastructure vs. trump's anti-immigrant, anti-trade, tax-cuts for the rich, "drain the swamp" destruction of a functioning federal government - all over again.

The actual Electoral Map of 2020, despite
what trump claims, via 270towin.com

However, there are noticeable differences this time.

When 2020 happened, we were in the midst of a global COVID pandemic, which required most states to switch - or heavily promote - a mail-in ballot voting process that expanded regular voter turnout. As a result, there were massive gains compared to previous elections - 158 million total voters compared to 136 million in 2016 and 129 million in 2012 - to where we can't be certain if voter turnout will keep going up or drop back to 2016 levels now that the pandemic has shifted (to a tolerable endemic). It all depends on if the 81 million who voted for Biden (which broke the record for most popular votes for a candidate) and the 74 million who voted for trump (which also broke the previous record) decide to vote again if the mail ballot option isn't there.

Another difference has been the ongoing Republican objective of voter suppression to restrict turnout to their favor. Several battleground states that Republicans control - like Georgia and Arizona - are facing efforts to either make it harder to vote or forcing in new and partisan elections officials who will happily override results in 2024 to favor their own. States like Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania were close electoral wins for 2020 Biden: If the Republicans in those states stir up chaos to undo any popular vote wins Biden could reclaim in 2024, there could well be actual 'stolen' electoral votes.

(Other close electoral win states like Michigan and Wisconsin may not be in play this time, as 2022 midterm gains by Dems will reduce the risks of electoral scamming by trump and his ilk)

These are the states at play as things stand in mid-2023.
Those three states mean the difference between
a Biden win or trump chaos.

One thing that happened post-2020 was trump's direct meddling into the election results using - abusing really - the office of the Presidency to try and force several close states to flip Biden's results and just give trump their Electoral wins. trump also staged "Fake Electors" schemes to give those state legislatures an "alternative" to the official Electors going with Biden. It's questionable - possibly unlikely - trump will be in a position to pull those same stunts again, especially as Michigan already issued criminal charges to their fake electors and Georgia (and the other states) are close to charging their fakes (nobody's gonna volunteer for possible jail time should they fail). However, it may not be trump attempting any Fake Elector stunts in 2024, it will be the Republican state legislators who saw where trump screwed up and where they could make it legal.

If there's any good news, it's that most GOP Red states expected to vote Republican (trump) in 2024 won't need to cheat (much) for the Electoral votes: Any voter suppression will only reflect in the Popular vote numbers, but it's unlikely they can suppress enough to overcome the larger voter turnout of Blue states like California, New York, and Illinois. It's only the battleground states - the Red states Biden won - that will be in play for these schemes to defraud the voters.

It then becomes a question of how Biden's administration will handle the potential cheating in those states. Any intervention by the Justice Department will get attacked by Republicans as "Biden meddling just like trump did," even if Biden doesn't call state election officials directly or threaten others with arrest the way trump and his allies really did. If Fake Electors again show up in 2024, the DOJ could find it hard to fight back, especially if a Republican-controlled House of Representatives overstep and accept Fake Electors to favor trump. It may depend on third-party voting rights groups like League of Women Voters or the Brennan Center to step up and defend the popular vote if that vote went Biden.

That is the one thing we should expect in the 2024 election results: A Popular vote win favoring Biden. In trump's previous two campaigns he never won the Popular vote, and in most respects he has done nothing to improve his position with voters who are not already part of his MAGA cult. The only way trump and the Republicans can cut into Biden's popularity - ignore the constant polling showing Biden in the low 40s pre-election: By election time those numbers tend to improve for incumbents who remain relatively popular over their opponent - is to drag Biden into the mud with scandalmongering and bad economic trends - which is why "Hunter Biden's Laptop" remains the hot topic on Fox Not-News and why House Republicans still want to nuke the federal budget so that Biden takes the blame. 

Another thing to consider is the consequences of trump's criminal misdeeds finally setting an accountability moment for the voters at large. If trump is found guilty in any of the trials he's facing in the next six-eight months, all the voters - even Republican ones - are going to have to decide if they can truly support a jury-convicted felon.

I know I've said before - a lot of others have observed it too - that Republicans WILL vote for a convicted trump, the issue becomes "how many actually will?" 

I've noted before there are factions within the ranks of the party: The die-hard MAGA true-believers who are actually reveling in trump's criminality, the cynical Republican elitists who will mock trump behind closed doors but openly support every trumpian Big Lie in order to beat back Democratic chances, and the Traditional voters who are hard-wired to vote Republican even when it's against their personal interests. Of those factions, only the MAGA voter base will obviously vote trump: There could well be a possibility that the Traditional GOP voters - the ones who grew up to Ike and Reagan and the lofty ideals of a benign conservative utopia - may recoil from a trump convicted on serious matters of espionage, obstruction, tax fraud, and/or subversion of a lawful election.

There's a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll that suggests this possibility of some Republicans refusing to vote for a convicted trump (article by Jason Lange):

About half of Republicans would not vote for Donald Trump if he were convicted of a felony, a sign of the severe risks his legal problems pose for his 2024 U.S. presidential bid, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Thursday...

The two-day Reuters/Ipsos poll, which closed before Trump's late-afternoon court appearance, asked respondents if they would vote for Trump for president next year if he were "convicted of a felony crime by a jury." Among Republicans, 45% said they would not vote for him, more than the 35% who said they would. The rest said they didn't know.

Asked if they would vote for Trump if he were "currently serving time in prison," 52% of Republicans said they would not, compared to 28% who said they would...

This is just one poll, and such things are inaccurate projection until real events prove otherwise (polling science has kinda gotten worse since 2012). The poll at least suggests in this moment enough GOP voters still respect the legal process of trial-by-jury, and understand the implications that supporting a jailed candidate reflects badly on their party and on the nation. More polls will likely follow, and differing results may occur. But it's looking like trump's boast of "shooting somebody on 5th Avenue and not lose any voters" isn't holding up to reality.

Elections always matter, and elections rely on voter turnout. If trump is found guilty, if trump becomes the second man in American history to campaign for President from a jail cell (hi, Eugene Debs!), there is a strong chance trump's voter turnout will suffer far greater than anything that could happen to an unconvicted Joe Biden.

...which may explain, again, why House Republicans are desperate to impeach Biden five different times before 2024 rolls around.

All of this could also be moot by 2024 if trump gets convicted on some of the more serious charges, especially if those convictions trigger the 14th Amendment clause disqualifying insurrectionists from public office. That would kick trump off the general election ballots at the least - depending on the timing, it would negate any primary results - and would be great news for the Republican Also-Rans (up yours, DeSantis) vying for the Replacement gig should trump be banned. Personally, it's a result I keenly desire, because in my view trump has been and will be the worst possible human to ever run for the Presidency.

There are some who disagree with that hope, and Steve M. over at No More Mister Nice Blog does bring up a valid point:

I understand why people want to do this, but what's the likely result? It's hard to imagine Trump being pulled off the ballot in any state he could win in the general election. It's hard to imagine him being pulled off primary ballots in enough states to deny him the nomination. Meanwhile, the effort to remove him from the ballot confirms right-wingers' sense that anti-Trump forces are the real threat to democracy. That's a base motivator for the GOP.

Republicans already believe that the Trump indictments are an attempt to prevent them from voting for the candidate of their choice. Since Trump is actually a criminal, I think what's being done right now is the appropriate compromise: We're charging Trump with crimes while also allowing citizens to vote for him. They know he's facing multiple felony counts. They're making an informed choice. Let the democratic process play out...

Steve quotes that Reuters/Ipsos poll and holds out some hope:

Will nearly half of the GOP electorate really abandon Trump if he's found guilty of felonies? I'm skeptical. But this suggests that some Republican voters will.

And that could be an opportunity for the Republican Party. Even if Trump sweeps the primaries, he might seem like damaged goods to a significant segment of the GOP electorate if he's subsequently convicted of crimes. Maybe there'll be an effort to deny him the nomination, or replace him on the ballot between the convention and the general election. Who knows? A significant portion of the party's voters might approve.

Or maybe not. We'll see how GOP voters really feel once Trump has his day(s) in court and the right-wing media is portraying the proceedings as Stalinist show trials. I think most of the party will rally around him. But this poll suggests that he could lose just enough Republicans to be unelectable in November. It's probably best if the angry base isn't deprived of the opportunity to vote for him, and he loses anyway.

It's a nice sentiment, and like him I do hope enough Traditional Republican voters make the sensible move and NOT vote trump (they don't even have to vote Biden, they could even leave the Presidential choice blank while voting straight Republican down the rest of the 2024 ballot). But we've already seen trump never accepts losing - hence the 2020 schemes that has him facing criminal charges - and it's going to be a question of how far into the trumpian Big Lie madness the GOP state officials have fallen.

One other hope is if trump is convicted, and trump is still on the ballot, there's every motivation by Democratic voters (and No-Party voters leaning Center-Left) to show up in droves to ensure a goddamned felon - likely convicted for acts against the United States - gets nowhere near the White House again.

Again. Elections matter, and voter turnout win elections.

Get the vote out, Democrats. Get the vote out, Indy voters, for the Democratic Party. And for the love of GOD and COUNTRY, Republicans, stop supporting a crooked trump.

Update 7/21/24: Welp. This did not age well...

A Quick Reminder Why trump's Indictments Matter

With all the upcoming storm and fury that the trumpian criminal (and civil) cases will bring, I feel the need to re-up an earlier post I wrote about why these indictments are important and vital (and that yes I have an emotional stake in all this). If there's a way to make "Why It Matters" a permanent link on the side bar, I would do that (edit: I did):

With all this... animosity I've clearly been showing towards donald trump, I have to be honest and admit Yes I am biased, and Yes I am a little too eager to see trump perp-walked to a jail cell where he can rot for the rest of his short days.

You might want to ask me "Why." Why all this hate for the man?

It's not that he's rich (whatever millions he has doesn't make him much different from other rich men), or that he lies about being richer (although the gaslighting is part of the reason I despise trump). 

It's not that he's done anything directly towards me to raise my ire. trump's never come to my door to punch me in the face, or spike my car tires, or give a book I've published a one-star review. The closest he's done was ruining the USFL in 1987. However, taking away the Tampa Bay Bandits wasn't personal, it was just heartbreaking for myself and thousands of local sports fans.

It's not that he's a Republican political figure, although my disdain for that party has been decades long watching them sink into a Culture War miasma that's wrecking the national psyche for the last 25 years.

There are reasons to hate trump, and I listed a number of them back in 2016 regarding his unfitness to serve as President, only to watch since then every argument I made proved correct.

I would argue the reason I want to live long enough to see trump in a jail cell is the horrifying reality that this man has a long history of violating laws and cultural norms, to where he has never been held accountable for any of it. This is something which offends anyone who has a sense of justice in their soul...

Like any person with a desire to see justice done, to see our system of laws hold everyone equal to those laws, trump's ongoing misdeeds from 2017 onward triggered in me this thought: "He can't keep getting away with it..."

At some point, an honest defense of our nation's Constitutional system has to acknowledge the damage trump has done, is still inflicting, on the United States' well-being.

Which is why it matters. It matters to me, it matters to millions of fellow Americans, it matters to our future that all the things trump is under criminal investigation for today - the January 6th Insurrection, his tax fraud scams, that unfinished bribery allegation, his theft of classified documents, and the election interference in Georgia and other states - must finally bring him to heel.

It is a moral imperative as much as a legal imperative that at some point - for any of the crimes trump's committed in his pursuit of greed and power - donald trump must be indicted. It's not schadenfreude, it's not envy, it's not partisan hackery, it's not foolishness on my part or anyone else's. 

It is a straight-up moral imperative that trump stand in an American court of law and be held accountable for the laws he's openly violated. It is a moral imperative that every excuse, every deflection, every lie that trump keeps uttering to avoid the facts all come to an end.

Gods help us. Let Justice Be Done.

Will There Ever Be a Reckoning for What trump Did?

As donald trump gets marched into yet another courthouse today to get arraigned for criminal charges, that question remains at the fore. While trump is getting charged, and is facing his day in front of a judge and jury, will trump face any consequence for the sins he's committed?

There remains the actual matter of how the trials will end. trump is unlikely to plead to anything - his own narcissism and belief of being "above the law, they let you do it" will stop him from ever accepting guilt on even a misdemeanor deal - so it's going to determine if a jury finds him innocent or guilty on any of these matters.

Criminal cases are different from the civil cases trump has faced - and recently lost - before. The burden of proof on the state is higher, and the jury needs to be unanimous on all guilty verdicts. Meaning trump can pray for at least one die-hard conservative who survived voir dire process to nullify everything into a mistrial, which trump would crow as vindication and delay matters until after the November 2024 elections.

On the other hand, prosecutors have to have a strong case going into these matters in the first place, meaning Special Counsel Jack Smith has enough evidence to sway even a MAGA jury into realizing how badly the laws were broken. Considering the track record the Justice Department's had against the January 6th rioters so far - few acquittals and plenty of plea deals - they know how to present this kind of case to a jury to secure a conviction on at least ONE of the charges. trump's never faced anything this serious before, and is going up against prosecutors who know how trump is going to try to defend himself and will be prepped to outflank him.

What's also at stake here is the nation as a whole. We're entering literally uncharted waters now. We've never had a former President - the highest office in the land - face criminal charges of any kind post-admin. At most we've dealt with corrupt congresscritters going to jail for bribery and other unethical acts, we had to deal with the Confederate leaders like Jefferson Davis for their insurrection of Civil War (which led to the 14th Amendment provision blocking their like from any further office). This is new, and uncomfortably close for a lot of pundits towards crossing a line into partisanship.

In previous matters where a corrupt official found themselves cast adrift by their political party when caught in the act (Hi, Richard Nixon!), for trump almost the entire Republican Party has rallied to his defense. The nature of partisanship has gotten so severe that the modern GOP cannot cut themselves free of trump, and are tying his fate to theirs.

That also has a lot of the punditry worried, especially at the Atlantic (paywalled, by the by) that I still quote from often (blame TNC). Let's start with Ronald Brownstein:

The germ of election denialism that Trump injected into the American political system has spread so far throughout the Republican Party that it is virtually certain to survive whatever legal accountability the former president faces.

With polls showing that most Republican voters still believe the election was stolen from Trump, that the January 6 riot was legitimate protest, and that Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 results did not violate the law or threaten the constitutional system, the United States faces a stark and unprecedented situation. For the first time in the nation’s modern history, the dominant faction in one of our two major parties has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to accept antidemocratic means to advance its interests...

Sean Wilentz, a Princeton historian who specializes in American politics, told me that U.S. history has no exact precedent for a party embracing a leader so openly hostile to the core pillars of democracy. Presidents have often been accused of violating the Constitution through their policy actions, he said, but there is not another example of a president moving as systematically to “manipulate the apparatus of government or elections in order to subvert the will of the people.”

The closest parallel to Trump’s actions, Wilentz said, may be the strategies of the slaveholding South in the decades before the Civil War. Those included violent attacks on abolitionists, suppression of antislavery publications, and the promulgation of extreme legal theories such as the denial of basic rights to Black people in the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision, all of which were designed to protect slavery against the emerging national majority dubious of it. That decades-long “antidemocratic thrust” from the South, Wilentz noted, “finally culminated in the greatest violation of the American Constitution in our history, which was secession.”

And Adam Serwer notes the GOP voting base - and thus the GOP officials pandering to that base - is still with trump:

If you’re wondering how Trump has survived as a candidate for office, you can look squarely at the conservative elites in politics and media—including many people who would prefer to be rid of him—who have staked out the position that trying to overthrow the government is not illegal if a Republican does it. Those defending Trump after his indictment over his attempted autogolpe are not opposing the politicization of justice; they are demanding it...

The hard-core authoritarian right that has risen in Trump’s shadow, the one contemplating political purges, noncompetitive elections, and iron-fisted state repression of its political opposition, has no commitment to democracy as an ideal, and its continued support is no mystery. The group is small in number, even if a committed political vanguard can have influence beyond its numbers, especially given its growing acceptance in mainstream-Republican circles.

The majority of conservative elites, however, retains some philosophical commitment to democracy and self-governance. They have nevertheless repeatedly failed the most basic test of democratic citizenship posed to them, defending the right of their public to choose their leaders. Right-wing media knowingly encouraged the delusions of the conservative base that the election was stolen out of fear that their audiences would flee. Republican lawmakers, now including Trump’s own primary opponents, have validated the idea that Trump is a victim of political persecution rather than someone who engaged in a conspiracy to keep himself in power, because they fear the electoral cost of opposing him. Immobilized by their own cowardice, both groups remain indefinitely in his thrall.

It is that blind devotion to an obviously corrupt figure like trump that is sounding five-alarm bells. Quoting from Tom Nichols about the danger trump represents now:

Long before now, however, Americans should have reached the conclusion, with or without a trial, that Trump is a menace to the United States and poisonous to our society...  The GOP base, controlled by Trump’s cult of personality, will likely never admit its mistake: As my colleague Peter Wehner writes, Trump’s record of “lawlessness and depravity” means nothing to Republicans. But other Republicans now, more than ever, face a moment of truth. They must decide if they are partisans or patriots. They can no longer claim to be both.

The rest of us, as a nation but also as individuals, can no longer indulge the pretense that Trump is just another Republican candidate, that supporting Donald Trump is just another political choice, and that agreeing with Trump’s attacks on our democracy is just a difference of opinion... I have long described Trump’s candidacies as moral choices and tests of civic character, but I have also cautioned that Americans, for the sake of social comity, should resist too many arguments about politics among themselves. I can no longer defend this advice...

This is painful advice to give and to follow. No one, including me, wants to lose friends or chill valued relationships over so small a man as Trump. But our democracy is about to go into legal and electoral battle for its own survival. If we don’t speak up—to one another, as well as to the media and to our elected officials—and Trump defeats us all by regaining power and making a mockery of American democracy, then we’ll all have lost a lot more than a few friendships. We face in Trump a dedicated enemy of our Constitution, and if he returns to office, his next “administration” will be a gang of felons, goons, and resentful mediocrities, all of whom will gladly serve Trump’s sociopathic needs while greedily dividing the spoils of power.

This is the real danger we're facing: The likelihood of donald trump getting criminally convicted by a jury and still eke-ing out a win - thanks to a still-broken Electoral College system and likely Republican voter suppression - for the Presidency in 2024 that would negate any prison time for himself (and then mass pardons for all of his lackeys to join him in the White House to commit more crimes).

Remember, there's only these restrictions - must be 35 years or older, must be a natural-born citizen, must have lived in the United States for 14 years - on running for President. There's no law blocking a convicted criminal running for that office, only the moral and ethical limits of any party willing to back him. Eugene Debs, after all, ran for President from his jail cell in 1920 and garnered about 1 million votes. Thing was, Debs was a fringe candidate for a fringe party and that was 3 percent of the total. This time it's different: trump will be representing one of the two major parties able to rally at least 62 million and at most 74 million to trump's banner. Even with trump sitting in a jail cell come November 2024, Republicans will vote for a convicted trump.

This is the fear: That trump and his Republican followers will never face a true reckoning for the damage they've done to our nation, and threaten to inflict even more.

This is where the ones who can stop that - the 81 million voters who sided with Joe Biden in 2020, the Democratic voters, the No-Party independents - need to stand up, now and in 2024. We need to keep fighting for our right to vote even as the Republican-controlled states try to purge the rolls and rig the results. We need to show up - even more than 81 million strong - to ensure there is no chance the likes of a corrupt trump and a corrupt GOP seizing the Presidency.

Because they're - not just trump - openly promising to make sure they never lose that power again.

For the LOVE OF GOD, America, stop voting for a corrupt Republican Party and their crooked banner carrier donald trump.

Third trump Indictment the Charm, And Still More To Come

Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
-- Matthew 7:7 

Well, I demanded indictments and BY GOD Special Counsel Jack Smith delivered with regards to trump's involvement in the January 6th Insurrection. Via Dareh Gregorian and Ryan J. Reilly at NBC News:

Former President Donald Trump was indicted Tuesday on charges he conspired to defraud the country he used to lead and attempted to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power to Joe Biden. 

“The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified,” the indictment from special counsel Jack Smith’s office says. 

The indictment marks a historic moment for a nation less than 250 years old — the first time a former president has faced criminal charges for trying to overturn the bedrock of democracy, a free and fair election. While Trump's failure to reverse his defeat was a credit to the guardrails of that democracy, the ability to prosecute him may renew the stress test on the constitutional design.

The allegation that Trump used "dishonesty, fraud, and deceit" to subvert the 2020 election with "pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud" comes after a sprawling investigation that included testimony from dozens of White House aides and advisors ranging in seniority up to former Vice President Mike Pence.

The indictment accuses Trump of taking part in three criminal conspiracies: "to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit" to obstruct the electoral vote process; to "impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified;" and "against the right to vote and to have that vote counted."

There is a link to the indictments provided here.

I would like to refer to Emptywheel for her legal expertise, but she's only posted a quick review and promises to have more later (and gives us clues as to who the yet-indicted co-conspirators are):

It’s late here, so this may be my only analysis before you all wake up.

But I wanted to lay out the structure of the Trump indictment.

The indictment charges him, alone, with four crimes:

18 USC 371 (conspiracy to defraud the US)

18 USC  1512(k) (conspiracy to obstruct the vote certification)

18 USC 1512(c)(2) (obstructing the vote certification)

18 USC 241 (conspiracy to violate civil rights)

They all are entirely overlapping. That is, Trump’s conduct, and those of 6 alleged co-conspirators, is cited in all those charges.

These are four charges for the same crime. So if the DC Circuit or SCOTUS overturns how DOJ has applied 1512, there are two back stops.

The other most important part of this indictment is who is named as a co-conspirator (and who might well be charged, as far as we know, today, separately by sealed indictment):

• Co-Conspirator 1, an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the Defendant’s 2020 re-election campaign attorneys would not. (Rudy Giuliani)
• Co-Conspirator 2, an attorney who devise and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election. (John Eastman)
• Co-Conspirator 3, an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the Defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded “crazy.” Nevertheless, the Defendant embraced and publicly amplified Co-Conspirator 3’s disinformation. (Sidney Powell)
• Co-Conspirator 4, a Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and who, with the Defendant, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud. (Jeffrey Clark)
• Co-Conspirator 5, an attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding. (WaPo says this is Kenneth Chesebro, and I think that’s sound.)
• Co-Conspirator 6, a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding. (Note: Emptywheel doesn't speculate but others are thinking it's Boris Epshteyn)

I argued since April 2022 that DOJ could — and should — charge Trump first and build in the stuff around him. I reiterated that a few weeks ago.

There’s a lot here...

One thing I would note is how Jack Smith spelled out more indictments are coming, not just for the conspirators but that trump is still on the hook for other matters the grand jury haven't voted on yet. For example, there's charges related to the Fake Electors scheme that Conspirator Number 6 oversaw that haven't been directly indicted yet (possibly waiting for Georgia's indictments on their Fake Electors to set up the charges for that state and several others).

Why these charges matter is that Smith presents as a legal matter before the courts strong evidence that donald trump has been - still is - lying about the 2020 election results, and using those lies to conspire against the Constitution and the United States and the People it represents.

Throughout the indictments, time and again Smith and his team point out where trump had been told the election results were fair, there was no proof of stolen or faked ballots, and yet trump still schemed to undo those results. Worse, trump and his co-conspirators were planning out ways to disrupt the formalities of our electoral system through means of violence: First towards trump's own Vice President Pence and towards Congress, and then violence towards any Americans who would rise up in protest against trump's coup attempt.

For all of trump's screaming that these indictments are a "WITCH HUNT", for the love of God the whole world witnessed what happened on January 6th when trump's rally turned into a riot that smashed into the halls of the Capitol. There's been hundreds of court cases that convicted - or forced plea deals - almost half of the trumpian MAGA rioters by now. There's been two-plus years of Congressional hearings and grand jury inquiries into trump's misconduct that presented enough evidence that the Justice Department can now take to trial.

We've seen real witch hunts, by the by: Far Right Republican pursuits after Bill Clinton in the 1990s that only uncovered adulterous affairs that had nothing to do with financial or political crimes; Far Right Republican allegations against Obama for everything they feared but could never prove; Far Right Republican attacks on Hillary's handling of Benghazi and her emails, which all turned into nothingburgers that could never stand up in a court of law.

We've never been in a moment like this, with a former President Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice) facing criminal charges for attacking constitutional norms and in most respects the nation itself. All because we've never had as blatant a con artist and would-be mafia boss like trump reach that level of power before.

Gods help us, our nation needs this moment to force trump into the crucible of a courtroom, to face the reality of the schemes he's plotted and the sins he's committed. Anything to stop him from his constant Big Lies that have brought us to this place. Anything to stop him before he can lie and bully his way back into the Presidency where the law will be impotent to hold him accountable (ever again, if he gets his wish of dismantling every federal system to stay in power for the rest of his aging life).

Let Justice be done. For everything that the United States represents in the long arc of human history.

I'm Just Sitting Here Watching the Indictment Wheels Go Round and Round

It is Tuesday August 1st 2023.

I was promised indictments for donald trump and his associates/handlers/lackeys involved in both the January 6th insurrection in Washington DC, as well as indictments in Fulton County Georgia covering trump's attempts to bully state elections officials into throwing the results and scheming fake electors to steal the 2020 Electoral College count.

Goddammit. The sooner we get these charges before a judge, the sooner we get trump in a courtroom before the November 2024 general election, and the sooner we can see trump dragged off in handcuffs when a jury finds him guilty - one hopes - on at least ONE of the multiple charges he's facing.

I am tired of the delays.

Indict him on everything, for the Love of Mom, Baseball, Apple Pie, and good music, just do it, and let God - and a competent jury - sort it all out.

Lemme quote from Lennon:

Ah, prosecutors asking questions
Lost in confusion
Well, I tell them trump insurrected
Bring the solution

Well, they shake their heads and they look at me, as if I've no legal mind
I tell them there's a hurry, I'm hoping trump finally sees doing time

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels of justice go round and round
I really love to watch them charges roll
No longer riding on the media go-around

I just hope to see trump go (to jail)
I just hope to see trump go (to jail)
I just hope tooooooooo see trump go (to jail)

(piano flourish at the end)

Update about seven hours later: ASK AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE. Special Counsel Jack Smith indicts trump on four charges related to January 6th insurrection. More to follow.

The Stakes for the Rule of Law vs. trump (w/ Update)

MAGA trump voter: My President committed 37 counts of federal criminality!
Every sane person who voted for Hillary and then Biden: In a row?
-- I'm Gen Xer dammit, of course I fucking quote from Clerks

So, the day after the big announcement, more details emerged as the Special Counsel moved to unseal the indictments (because trump just wouldn't shut up about them on social media).

Special Counsel Jack Smith showed up, gave a brief speech about the importance of national security, the seriousness of obstruction and espionage, the right of trump (and fellow defendant Walt Nauta) to presumption of innocence before a court of law, and the need for a speedy trial. (via Emily Olson and Barbara Sprunt at NPR): 

"We have one set of laws in this country and they apply to everyone," Smith said. "Adhering to and applying the laws is what determines the outcome of an investigation. Nothing more, nothing less...

"Today, an indictment was unsealed charging Donald J. Trump with felony violations of our national security laws, as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice.

"This indictment was voted by a grand jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida. And I invite everyone to read it in full to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged.

"The men and women of the United States intelligence community and our Armed Forces dedicate their lives to protecting our nation and its people.

"Our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the United States and they must be enforced.

"Violations of those laws put our country at risk.

"Adherence to the rule of law is a bedrock principle of the Department of Justice, and our nation's commitment to the rule of law sets an example for the world...

"It's very important for me to note that the defendants in this case must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

"To that end, my office will seek a speedy trial on this matter consistent with the public interest and the rights of the accused. We very much look forward to presenting our case to a jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida."

The actual indictment count might be 38 - I keep reading different numbers - but 37 is more poetic and I don't wanna lose the quote above, so let's roll with that. ANYway.

Emptywheel takes a moment to document the 31 times trump allegedly withheld documents (all the times he refused to return them to the National Archives), which included the ones he eventually returned in June 2021. Consider 5. June 2020 concerning nuclear capabilities of foreign country (TS/XX/XX/ORCON/NOFORN), or 8. October 4, 2019 military capabilities of foreign country (S/REL TO USA FVY), or 13. Undated document concerning military capabilities of foreign country and United States (TS/SI/TK/NOFORN), or 19. Undated document concerning nuclear weaponry of US (S/FR), or... AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaa.

What's important are the dates of each document and the importance those documents had as classified materials, and you'll spot a lot of those documents involve the military capabilities of foreign nation(s) that could be pretty valuable commodities for the nations opposed to them.

In this, you see how damaging trump's mishandling of these documents are: Our allies' military secrets exposed, or worse exposure of our ability to gain intel on our antagonists. Worst of all, our own nation's military and nuclear secrets, exposed to the world while sitting in trump's Mar-A-Lago ballroom (or in the bathrooms. /headdesk).

Digby over at Hullabaloo has her thoughts:

I just read through it quickly and it’s much, much worse than we thought. He had very sensitive documents including war plans and classified info about America’s nuclear arsenal and showed them to people. He kept them in totally insecure locations, including an unlocked bathroom and a ballroom at Mar-a-Lago. When they asked for them back he moved them around, rummaged through them and tried to get his lawyer to lie about what was in them...

There's a link to the full indictment if you want to read it all. Apparently, by the second page of the document you w-- OH MY FUCKING GOD.

Well okay it probably won't get worse than t--

Did trump AT LEAST keep all these documents in secure parts of Mar-A-Lago?

(blank stare) The White and Gold Ballroom?!?!

Great. Not only could the Chinese guests sneak in and snap photos of all the classified stuff, they could bring their own DJ and dance to Milli Vanilli songs 'til the sun came up.

I shouldn't joke. This is serious business. We are dealing with the reality that a former President of the United States violated his oath of office to "preserve, protect and defend" our nation. We're dealing with - considering the number of classified documents trump released to the wild where any visitor without clearance could access them - one of the largest failures of national security since the likes of Robert Hannsen and Aldrich Ames.

As David A Graham points out at The Atlantic:

But Trump faces his own political complications. Voters have proved fairly willing to forgive politicians’ personal failings, especially in recent decades and especially when it comes to Trump. (The Manhattan case, for example, stems from hush-money payments to an adult-film actor who has claimed a sexual liaison.) But the removal of the documents is an act that stems directly from his role as president, and it implicates the very security of the country. The documents removed are reported to have included detailed information about Iran’s missile program and intelligence programs in China—the sorts of things that are kept under tight wraps in government facilities, but were reportedly stuffed haphazardly in storage areas at Mar-a-Lago...

In Trump’s long career in and out of the courts, he has not yet faced a legal peril this serious, but just how serious it is will not be clear until the charges emerge. Prosecutors could use several laws to bring those charges, with different standards and different penalties.

His defense will face difficulties, including the huge amounts of evidence obtained in the search, as well as a ruling that one of his lawyers had to turn over information that otherwise would have been shielded by attorney-client privilege. Trump will likely try to spin the charges as concerning “process crimes,” as though those are not just crimes, and deflect from the papers themselves. He has also claimed that he declassified all of the papers at the end of his presidency, but he produced no evidence for that, and his lawyers have avoided making the claim in filings. Reports last week said that prosecutors have a recording in which he seems to acknowledge that he cannot show a document to visitors because it is classified. And if he’s charged for refusing to return the documents, their classification status will not matter. (Graham wrote this before the indictment's release, and the charges do point out trump acknowledged he held classified docs AND refused to return them)

The number of charges do not shock me, because this is trump and to me his flagrant abuse of the legal system is limitless (I was hoping for more). I'm also aware these are merely the charges being brought in South Florida: There are pending federal indictments in DC on these classified documents matters as well.

And for all the details provided in this matter, we're talking about the human element of any criminal prosecution: The jury. It's going to be their job to weigh the state's evidence and listen to trump's arguments about why this is a witch hunt why he shouldn't be found guilty. Even with the legal system's batting averages of oft-times getting at least one Guilty verdict out of a major crimes case, there is no given of victory for the rule of law here. This is trump: his shamelessness can translate into convincing enough jury members to believe his gaslighting (then again, his failures in recent courtroom matters suggest juries can suss out the gaslighting for what it is and convict). trump can easily push for jury nullification in some form, especially a hung jury forcing a mistrial. Everything is at risk.

The greater risk is if trump survives this - and other - felony indictments at the federal and state levels. If he does, he goes into the Republican 2024 primaries vindicating his "success" and ability to thwart those who would stop him. If trump can then win a second term, you can look to how he behaved in pushing out those who were disloyal to him and how he insisted on using the Justice Department to persecute those opposed to him. And then multiply that by 100, because trump will know he can't leave unfinished business like the way it was left in 2020.

trump will shred every intelligence agency he felt complained about his lack of security protocol, he will decimate the Justice Department and fill every opening with lackeys regardless of skill or experience (he will likely fill them with incompetents whose only value is loyalty to him alone). trump will resume his plan of filling the federal benches with judges who will owe him favors (SEE: Aileen Cannon, who is reportedly in line to preside over this case!). trump will gut the federal government across every department and every branch, and he will ensure complete control to where he will never face accountability like this again.

trump is, based on the evidence presented by Smith, a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States. trump is a threat to every allied nation we have, who will immediately close off every shared intel we have with them because they know what he will do with it. trump will turn our nation away from our strongest, most reliable allies we've had over the centuries - France, the UK, NATO, Japan, half of South America, most of Central America and the Caribbean - and align us with corrupt regimes like Russia, who profits from trump's reckless disregard for the Constitution and rule of law.

This is what you're still voting for, Republicans. What the hell. You're doubling down on a business failure and national security risk. You have a chance to choose better - well, sort of - this time. Take it. 

And let justice be done.

Update: It keeps getting worse. There's photographic proof trump stored multiple boxes in the Mar-A-Lago bathrooms.

From the Slate article

Where's the toilet paper?

AND WHY THE FUCK IS THERE A CHANDELIER IN THE BATHROOM??!?!?!!?!?!

IT'S HAPPENING: trump INDICTED ON MAR-A-LAGO CHARGES

IT'S FITZMAS.

NBC News has some of the details:

Former President Donald Trump has been indicted by a federal grand jury in connection with his mishandling of more than 100 classified documents, two sources confirmed to NBC News.

Trump, who first revealed the news earlier Thursday in a post on his Truth Social platform, faces seven counts, according to his lawyer and another source. The charges include false statements and conspiracy to obstruct, two sources said.

A federal grand jury in Florida has been meeting in special counsel Jack Smith's investigation of Trump’s handling of classified documents, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The Florida grand jury is separate from a panel that was convened in Washington, D.C.

The investigation began last year when the National Archives alerted the FBI that government documents Trump had returned after having been out of office for about a year included 184 that were marked classified. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

Insert ALL the dancing GIFs here!!!

Okay I'll settle down.

The specific charges may not be known for some time. The courtroom appearance is reportedly scheduled for next Tuesday (CLEAR THE CALENDAR!) in Miami and it'll be a question of how quickly this gets sent to actual trial. I'm hearing stuff on MSNBC about a 'fast track' for major criminal cases, and I'm sure the DOJ wants this done before the 2024 primaries.

This doesn't affect the separate grand jury investigation into trump's role in the January 6th riots, and there's a chance additional charges from the DC grand jury investigating trump's theft/mishandling of classified documents are forthcoming.

MORE DANCING GIFS!

Oh, by the way, remember how the Republicans and the mainstream media screamed bloody murder about all the "criminal acts" of Hillary Clinton to suppress voter turnout for her in 2016? 

How many DOJ investigations into her server? 

How many Congressional inquiries into Benghazi and other things she did as Secretary of State? 

BUT HER EMAILS! 

It's been seven years now: Every allegation aimed at Hillary turned out to be nothingburgers. Not even Durham's trump-ordered investigation into Hillary's 2016 campaign "spying" on trump turned up serious criminal charges or jury convictions. 

Meanwhile, trump himself is so corrupt he's facing his SECOND CRIMINAL INDICTMENT THIS YEAR.

DAMMIT. Why are there NO GIFs of Jennifer Connelly dancing?! /cries

KEEP DANCING, AMERICA. LET'S PARTY.

This May Be for trump, But It's Feeling Like Fitzmas

A lot of you kids may be too young to remember, but back in 2003 there was a serious criminal investigation into political shenanigans that disrupted national security: Reporters outed a noted critic of the Bush administration's Iraqi invasion narrative as being the husband of a CIA covert operative Valerie Plame. Because that revelation exposed ongoing CIA operations - a serious breach of security and forced the shutdown of various overseas operations, if not exposing other operatives to harm - the agency insisted on a special prosecutor to hunt down the leaks, which ended up pointing to Vice President Dick Cheney's office staff that were eagerly promoting our nation's involvement in Iraq. 

The Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald had a solid reputation as as prosecutor, and by all evidence he conducted a thorough investigation. By 2005, many of Bush's (and Cheney's) critics - the ones who opposed the Iraqi invasion, and who questioned the lack of WMDs that were a cause for that invasion - were hoping that Fitzgerald found enough proof that the leakers included Cheney himself (or that they at least did so on Cheney's orders).

Excitement ran high. Those of us waiting - and yes, I was among that throng - began calling the expectant day of charges "Fitzmas" as a mash-up on Fitz's name to Christmas: The Special Counsel as our Santa Claus delivering presents indicting a corrupt administration of their malice and deceit.

So there was a ton of disappointment when Fitzgerald's final report led to only one person getting charged - Scooter Libby, who was found guilty by a jury but then his sentence commuted by Bush to complete the cover-up - and not enough evidence to prove Cheney had any hand in the leak (Karl Rove almost got indicted on charges of lying to investigators, but Fitzgerald decided against it).

Ever since then, there's been this sense of justice denied. That the moment of holding corrupt figures in high office accountable - Dick Cheney then, donald trump now - had passed us by.

The Mueller special counsel investigation into both Russia's involvement in the 2016 elections as well as any trump ties to Russia during that election cycle started and ended in a similar fashion: High expectations that the most obvious thing - trump had known business ties for decades to Russia, half his campaign people had ties to Russia, trump openly begged for Russia to dig up dirt on Hillary - would lead to justice against a strutting con artist. That ended with Mueller proving only half the matter - he uncovered Russian interference in our elections - while AG Barr ended Mueller's work prematurely and issued a heavily redacted report that Barr claimed exonerated trump (which we can't prove because too much of it remains redacted).

Today, we're coping with a series of federal criminal investigations since 2021, of donald trump's involvement with the January 6th insurrection as well as revelations that trump pilfered hundreds of classified documents to Mar-A-Lago. If you've been regularly following this blog, you'll know that I've been waiting - impatiently, as before - for some form of justice to finally indict trump for the things he's done.

(And this is alongside the state-level investigations in Georgia that should issue indictments on trump and his allies for electoral interference and election fraud - maybe even state racketeering - some time in late July)

It's like every other day there are new revelations and reports to the media about how Special Counsel Jack Smith's digging into trump's misdeeds are going, but today a lot of bombshells got dropped that hint to the very big possibility that federal felony indictments on the Mar-A-Lago documents case are happening this weekend.

A more formal report at the Guardian from Hugo Lowell:

Federal prosecutors formally informed Donald Trump’s lawyers last week that the former US president is a target of the criminal investigation examining his retention of national security materials at his Mar-a-Lago resort and obstruction of justice, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The move dramatically raises the stakes for Trump as the investigation appears to near its conclusion after taking evidence before a grand jury in Washington and a previously unknown grand jury in Florida that was impaneled last month.

Trump’s lawyers were sent a “target letter” days before they met on Monday with the special counsel Jack Smith leading the Mar-a-Lago documents case and the senior career official in the deputy attorney general’s office and argued that prosecutors should not indict the former president in the matter...

On Wednesday, former Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich testified before the Florida grand jury and was asked in part about a statement that Trump drafted in early 2022 that said he had given “everything” back after he returned 15 boxes of materials to the National Archives.

The statement was never issued, Budowich is understood to have confirmed. Several aides to Trump were against releasing the statement because they were not confident that the assertion was accurate, a person close to the former president said.

What charges might emanate from the Florida grand jury remains unclear.

But prosecutors would most probably prefer to bring charges in Washington, where the judges at the US district court are more familiar with handling national security cases – though Florida also has a robust national security section – and the jury pool skews more Democratic.

The impaneling of grand juries has to do with where prosecutors believe a crime was committed. And the most straightforward reason for the Florida grand jury is that prosecutors have developed evidence of criminal activity at Mar-a-Lago, which is in the southern district of Florida.

In this investigation, prosecutors considering charges against Trump for retaining national security material may have concluded from the evidence that he was still president when classified documents were moved to Mar-a-Lago, meaning his “unlawful possession” only started in Florida...

Andrew Feinberg over at the Independent (may be paywalled) is reporting the grand jury is voting this week on the indictments:

The Department of Justice is preparing to ask a Washington, DC grand jury to indict former president Donald Trump for violating the Espionage Act and for obstruction of justice as soon as Thursday, adding further weight to the legal baggage facing Trump as he campaigns for his party’s nomination in next year’s presidential election.

The Independent has learned that prosecutors are ready to ask grand jurors to approve an indictment against Trump for violating a portion of the US criminal code known as Section 793, which prohibits “gathering, transmitting or losing” any “information respecting the national defense”...

It is understood that prosecutors intend to ask grand jurors to vote on the indictment on Thursday, but that vote could be delayed as much as a week until the next meeting of the grand jury to allow for a complete presentation of evidence, or to allow investigators to gather more evidence for presentation if necessary...

A separate grand jury that is meeting in Florida has also been hearing evidence in the documents investigation. That grand jury was empaneled in part to overcome legal issues posed by the fact that some of the crimes allegedly committed by Mr Trump took place in that jurisdiction, not in Washington. Under federal law, prosecutors must bring charges against federal defendants in the jurisdiction where the crimes took place.

Even if grand jurors vote to return an indictment against the ex-president this week, it is likely that those charges would remain sealed until both the Washington and Florida grand juries complete their work.

Feinberg added that that Mark Meadows - who was serving as trump's last Chief of Staff during the final days of his administration, and who was clearly in the room when a lot of things happened - has already testified to both federal grand juries and has accepted a plea deal to testify in exchange for lesser charges.

MORE: It is understood that Mr Trump's last White House chief of staff, @MarkMeadows, has agreed to plead guilty to several lesser federal crimes in exchange for his testimony under a limited grant of immunity. https://t.co/7ZMm60nhxf

— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) June 7, 2023

It may take a few more days for all of this to play out. 

HOWEVER.

(Insert GIF of Happy Snoopy Dance)

I'm as giddy as a schoolboy.

And so, in honor of the Fitzmas that's finally arriving - better late than never - a quick little ditty sung to the tune of "It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas" (lyrics by Michael Buble):

It's beginning to look a lot like Fitzmas
As Smith's grand juries go
Trump is looking at five to ten with indictments closing in
Obstruction and espionage don't you know

It's beginning to look a lot like Fitzmas
Classified docs on the floor
But the prettiest sight to see is Donald Trump that will be
Behind his own prison door

And while we're at at, Justice Department, will you PLEASE release the full unredacted Mueller Report?

Ahhhh, this could be an enjoyable weekend for me, personally.

And yes. I know the Proud Boy types might start street riots if this happens, but damn trump and his decades of avoiding his sins. Let justice be done.

March 30 2023: IT'S HAPPENING

Dammit! It had to happen while I was getting groceries on my way home!!!

To the AP NEWS (thanks to Michael R Sisak, Eric Tucker, Colleen Long, and Jennifer Peltz)!

A Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict Donald Trump on charges involving payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter, the first ever criminal case against a former U.S. president and a jolt to Trump’s bid to retake the White House in 2024.

The indictment, confirmed Thursday by Joe Tacopina, a lawyer for Trump, and other people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss sealed criminal charges, is an extraordinary development after years of investigations into his business, political and personal dealings. It is likely to galvanize critics who say Trump lied and cheated his way to the top and embolden supporters who feel the Republican is being unfairly targeted by a Democratic prosecutor...

The indictment(s) is/are sealed for now, meaning we don't know the specifics, but we should find out soon, probably when trump is required to appear in court.

Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly attacked the investigation as politically motivated, was expected to surrender to authorities next week, though the details were still being worked out, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to discuss a matter that remained under seal...

The fate of the hush-money investigation seemed uncertain until word got out in early March that Bragg had invited Trump to testify before a grand jury, a signal that prosecutors were close to bringing charges.

Trump’s attorneys declined the invitation, but a lawyer closely allied with the former president briefly testified in an effort to undercut the credibility of Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen.

Late in the 2016 presidential campaign, Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 to keep her silent about what she says was a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier after they met at a celebrity golf tournament.

Cohen was then reimbursed by Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, which also rewarded the lawyer with bonuses and extra payments logged internally as legal expenses. Over several months, Cohen said, the company paid him $420,000.

Earlier in 2016, Cohen had also arranged for the publisher of the supermarket tabloid the National Enquirer to pay Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 to squelch her story of a Trump affair in a journalistically dubious practice known as “catch-and-kill.”

The payments to the women were intended to buy secrecy, but they backfired almost immediately as details of the arrangements leaked to the news media.

Federal prosecutors in New York ultimately charged Cohen in 2018 with violating federal campaign finance laws, arguing that the payments amounted to impermissible help to Trump’s presidential campaign. Cohen pleaded guilty to those charges and unrelated tax evasion counts and served time in federal prison.

Trump was implicated in court filings as having knowledge of the arrangements, but U.S. prosecutors at the time balked at bringing charges against him. The Justice Department has a longtime policy that it is likely unconstitutional to prosecute a sitting president in federal court...

The state legal system doesn't have to abide by that DOJ policy, but the implications of a sitting President under those circumstances obviously delayed matters until trump was out of the White House.

But this has never even happened for former Presidents before. For all the potential criminal misdeeds that Presidents could commit before, during, and/or after office, none of them have reached this accountability moment before. Nixon almost did until Ford pardoned him. Bill Clinton could have faced indictment but he made a plea agreement to suspend his law license for five years and pay fines.

It's official: donald trump is indicted. He is facing at least one felony criminal charge.

To everyone who complained about DA Alvin Bragg dragging his heels, please apologize.

Let the celebrations - and the worries about wingnut violence - begin!

(starts playing the one dance song from his teen years that still gets his feet moving)

"And now on with the opera. Let joy be unconfined. Let there be dancing in the streets, drinking in the saloons and necking in the parlor!" - Groucho Marx, A Night At the Opera

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Update 3/31/23: Some additional notes to make:

The arraignment is officially set for Tuesday April 4 in the afternoon, so there's pretty much a whole weekend for the Far Right wingnuts to stoke themselves into enough of a frenzy to stage a riot in Manhattan before then. /sigh

A leaked report that has some veracity to it tells us trump is facing at least 30 separate counts, which is telling legal experts that Bragg's office uncovered a lot more serious stuff than just hush-money payouts to cover up trump's alleged affairs. One report suggests a number of counts on First Degree Falsifying Business Records, which is a Class E felony carrying a minimum of a year in jail each count.

Even with all this, those legal experts are also hinting that Bragg doesn't even have that strong a case. They're worried that juries tend to be lenient on matters where the defendant is covering up sexual affairs, that some of the witnesses against trump are tainted, and that Bragg waited too long to pursue this case risking trump's lawyers having a good chance to throw out part or all of the charges due to statutory limits. Those experts may not understand that 1) unlike previous adulterers who turn regretful on the stand, trump remains arrogant and defensive, and 2) Bragg and his team apparently uncovered a lot of financial corruption during their previous trial against trump's corporation to where a jury could convict on that instead of the affairs. 

trump is still facing a serious criminal matter in Manhattan: That the experts believe this is the weakest case should tell everybody how fcked trump is going to be when the Fulton County GA indictments into election fraud (which has the slam-dunk evidence of trump himself on audio) - as well as the federal Special Counsel indictments into BOTH trump's theft of classified docs AND his involvement in the January 6th Insurrection - drop on him.

And for all the storm and fury trump is unleashing over these indictments, it may not even be the worst of it. trump's never faced a criminal court case (only civil cases), and trump's not prepared to deal with the likelihood the judge is going to set harsh restrictions on himself to keep him from raging against all this in public. Given the obvious attention this trial faces - this is international news, a former President facing historic justice - the judge could well insist on gag orders to prevent any pre-trial conflicts and risks to the defendant's (trump) right to a fair trial. Even to where the judge could put that gag order on the defendant himself, whose social media rants could well enflame people interfering with his own right to an honest jury of his peers.

trump's already issued threats to the DA's office and to Bragg directly, and Bragg is already receiving death threats by the boxload. Given this, the judge setting bail could arguably detain trump to stop or reduce trump's danger to the prosecution (and any jury being formed): If not in prison without bail, at least home arrest to where trump can't leave the city without permission from the courts. THAT would unleash a political firestorm our nation's never seen before. The odds of trump refusing to abide by any bail agreement are pretty fucking high.

Everything's not going to calm down. This weekend will be just another escalation of the wingnut madness we've been suffering since 2015, and next Tuesday is going to escalate even more. Gods help us.

Still, get the popcorn and the body armor ready.