In the fall and winter of 2020, former President Trump’s top lieutenants were in touch with reality: the election had not been stolen. Their guy lost.
It is important to hear it from their lips, but show of hands: who here thought any of the vaguely serious crowd (the Barrs, etc.) actually believed any of the shit they were selling?
Like, maybe Powell and Giuliani and Donny believed it. Mayyybe.
They were just happy to go along with it until it involved a violent insurrection and sedition.
It was clearly bullshit all along and only the snowflakes thought otherwise.
Trump’s knowledge that the Big Lie was false (or at least, that he was recklessly indifferent to its truth or falsity) is important because it proves the mens rea necessary to convict him of conspiracy to defraud the United States. You still need overt acts, by him or the other conspirators, but there are tons of overt acts that Fat Donnie Two Impeachments did all on his own, including the Raffensperger call and the Pence pressure campaign. Meanwhile, his co-conspirators – namely, Rudy and Sidney, but also others – were rounding up the fraudulent electors.
Conspiracy to defraud the United States is a 5-year max. felony, and they already have Fat Boy dead to rights. But don’t expect him to be charged right away because they’re still investigating at least conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, which is a 20-year max. felony. The publicly available evidence that Trump agreed to do the violent insurrection against Congress is mostly circumstantial at the moment, and I don’t think a conviction on circumstantial evidence is likely to survive scrutiny by the Fascist Five.
They’re not even vaguely serious. But they didn’t believe it, either.
Golly, makes you wonder what else they have lied about if they lied about something that caused an attack on our Capitol building.
Indeed, may be they lie so often they no longer think of the consequences. Or, it was the consequences they wanted, except they knew they were caught unless they cover their ass.
Not at all. Violence was expected, some people got a little queasy at being potential targets of the mob, when they had expected that folks would be judicious about just hunting down Nancy and AOC and the Squad, not broadly threatening the collective.
From what I saw last night, I’m pretty certain that evidence exists and either the Jan 6th committee or the DOJ have it.
I’m just pessimistic that the Fascist Five will let any conviction of Trump stand. However, it should still be attempted, as it’ll lay bare their corruption and immorality for all to see.
“Evidence made public by the Jan. 6 Committee demonstrates not only that key Trump advisers and campaign officials told the former President that he had lost.”
Is the evidence just their testimony? Because I’d be willing to bet more than a few of them were lying about telling Trump he had lost.
Trump’s top lieutenants were in touch with reality: the election had not been stolen.
The entire Party knew. Everyone in the entire world knew.
I didn’t get that confidence from the opening statements. Bunch of “trump just sat there and did nothing”, felt like they’ve still been stonewalled at breaching that last line.
But… Do feel like they got at least to the last line of folks around him and have the goods on 9/11NounVerb, WhoFramedRogerRabbit and others.
It is plausible that Rudy and Sidney and Fat Boy “believed” that the election was stolen. But such a “belief” could only be formed by acting with reckless disregard for the truth, and that means it’s still fraudulent. You don’t get to perpetrate an electoral coup on the basis that you have elected to believe @MAGAmoonboy45 on Twitter over your own Attorney General, head of cybersecurity, and losing something like 63 court cases seeking to validate the claim. That’s pretty much the definition of reckless indifference to the truth, and that means it’s defrauding the United States to press forward with the electoral coup. Felony, 5 years max.
It would pretty much have to be in the form of insider testimony, since Fat Boy never puts anything other than Tweets into writing. And that requires rounding up the insiders and getting them to cooperate, which has not happened yet. I do look forward to the testimony of Meadows’ assistant though. She might be in a position to shine a spotlight on things.
(Jared and Ivanka would not have been trusted with any planning of the violent insurrection. They would have leaked it.)
I get your point, and think it’s possible Trump calculated that, if he did nothing, he couldn’t be blamed for anything worse than stopping up the toilet.
On the other hand, no instructions to ANY executive department while the Capitol in Washington DC was occupied by unauthorized personnel…? That can be documented.
Assuming they were unauthorized ; - )
From Cheney’s opening statement:
Over multiple months, Donald Trump oversaw a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power. In our hearings, you will see evidence of each element of this plan.
In our final two June hearings, you will hear how President Trump summoned a violent mob and directed them, illegally, to march on the U.S. Capitol. While the violence was underway, President Trump failed to take immediate action to stop the violence and instruct his supporters to leave the Capitol.
I suspect the Fascist Five will claim that because Trump didn’t officially say “go sack the Capitol” that he isn’t liable. However, he did just about everything else but that in directing the insurrection.
Which is weak tea and indicates that they’ve not been able to get ahold of his communications during that 7-hour gap when the WH logs went silent.
Guy couldn’t live without his phone, was tweeting during the insurrection, so we know he was in constant contact with people because that’s him (and when the WH logs come back online in the evening, he manages over 20 contacts from like 8 to midnight, so good indication how much he loves to chat).
But that they’re not claiming to know what he was doing other than watching tv and doing nothing, sounds like the code of omerta is still holding. Or they’re gonna drop a big season-ender.
You can tell my brainwashed relatives that the election was stolen and they will not believe you.
Their preachers and priests will continue to say the election was stolen.
Mastriano will continue to say the election was stolen.
Fox, OANN & Newsmax will continue to say the election was stolen.
Hate Radio will continue to say the election was stolen.
Gateway Pundit, Red State and other right wing sites will continue to say the election was stolen
The QAssholes will continue to say the election was stolen.
This is such a critical message to get out. If it sinks into some of the cultists that their leader lied to them, it will be very demoralizing, which means lower turnout.
I’ve never known a judicious mob. I’ve always thought that was a contradiction in terms.