July 30, 2021: Trump's Own Officials Told Him He Lost

 

7/30/21: What lessons, if any, did we learn about Team Trump, Loser Don, and life in general in July?

 

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If you fail to grasp the acute danger represented by this call, you should jump on a plane and go live in an authoritarian state. Russia or North Korea would be happy to welcome your dumb ass.

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Vice President Pence, Trump, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley.

Only one man in this picture believed the election was stolen.

  

We learned that while president, Donald J. Trump called the Department of Justice and asked top officials to declare the whole November election “corrupt.” The House Oversight Committee has just released notes from that call. 

As ABC News explains, 

At one point in the conversation, the notes show, Acting AG Jeffrey Rosen told Trump that the Justice Department “can’t + won’t snap its fingers + change the outcome of the election, doesn’t work that way.”

 

Trump responded by saying: “Don’t expect you to do that, just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen,” according to the notes taken by Richard Donoghue, who was then Rosen’s deputy and who was also on the call.

 

“We have an obligation to tell people that this was an illegal, corrupt election,” the president insisted.

 

This call, logged on December 27, came even after Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr had made it clear there was no evidence the election was determined by fraud. Then he resigned. 

Fox News has the same story, but adds a bit more detail. The Acting Attorney General and other officials on the call reassured the president – if he actually cared about fair elections. “Sir we have done dozens of investigations, hundreds of interviews, major allegations are not supported by evidence,” Rosen and Donoghue said according to the notes. “We are doing our job.”   

“Much of the info you’re getting is false,” they added.  

There’s nothing in the notes to indicate Trump cared whether or not his information was correct.

 

In fact, the most ill-informed man ever to be elected president – and then remain ill-informed after four years in office – insisted people were “angry,” which was true. Mostly because he kept telling his equally ill-informed followers that the entire election was a giant cheat. “You guys may not be following the internet the way I do,” he added. Yes. Twitter. Facebook. QAnon chat rooms. Just where you’d look first for evidence that the outcome of an election was determined by fraud. 

(These DOJ notes are consistent with accounts offered by Republican officials in Georgia and Arizona, indicating corrupt intent on the part of the president, when he told them to “find” enough votes in Georgia to give him the state’s electoral votes, and in Arizona, where he wanted GOP officials in Maricopa County to stop the vote counting with him ahead.)

 

We don’t usually quote Democrats on this blog to support our points, but in this case the chair of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, nails the point: “These handwritten notes show that President Trump directly instructed our nation’s top law enforcement agency to take steps to overturn a free and fair election in the final days of his presidency.” 

The Justice Department has approved six witnesses, including Rosen and Donoghue, to appear before the House Oversight panel and provide “unrestricted testimony.” DOJ cites public interest in the “extraordinary events” of those critical weeks when a defeated president tried to steal back an election that wasn’t stolen. 

Still don’t get it? 

You could purchase a one-way ticket from Cincinnati to Moscow for $716. I swear, if you promise never to come back, I might buy you one.

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“I foresee no role for the U.S armed forces in this process.”

It’s possible, if you’re a hardcore Trump fan, that you still won’t; and we’d hate to lose you to the Russians. 

You might end up with a lethal nerve agent smeared in the seams of your underwear if you criticize Vladimir Putin. 

So, consider the supporting evidence. According to two reporters for the Washington Post,  Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, in the days leading up to the 2020 election, with the president already insisting the vote would be rigged, the Joint Chiefs of Staff began planning how to respond if Trump and his allies tried to stage a coup. 

If you are a hardcore Trump supporter, of course, you no doubt saw the words “reporters” and “Washington Post,” and your eyes glazed over, and your brain shorted out.

 

But we had already had signs of concern in August 2020, when Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, first sounded alarm. When Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee asked about any role the military might play in the coming election, Milley responded pointedly. 

I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military. In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes [emphasis added] not the U.S. military. I foresee no role for the U.S armed forces in this process.

 

And let’s be frank. Joe Biden wasn’t howling about how the coming election was going to be “rigged.” 

And no chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had ever felt the need to reassure lawmakers and, if they were listening, members of the American public. 

No, the U.S. military would not interfere in any election if ordered…by the only person in position to order them. 

TRUMP.

 

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The Joint Chiefs would resign, by order of rank. 

NOW, reporters from the Post were adding depth to the story. The Joint Chiefs, they said, had discussed a plan to defeat any takeover by resigning in order of rank if Trump ordered the military to interfere in the election. Gen. Mark Milley, as chairman, would refuse to carry out such orders and resign. Then the other members would resign in protest, by order of rank. 

Or as Gen. Milley reportedly put it during one conversation with top officers, referring to Trump and his minions and any plan for a coup: “They may try, but they’re not going to f****** succeed,” he said. “You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with the guns.” 

Concern increased after the election, with the president stirring up supporters with a litany of stolen election claims. “This is a Reichstag moment,” Milley warned top military leaders. In the days leading up to the attack on Capitol Hill, he believed the president was preaching, “the gospel of the Führer.”

 

As has often been true, the ex-president responded heatedly once the story broke. He wouldn’t plan a coup, he said. But if he did, he wouldn’t rely on Gen. Milley. “I never threatened, or spoke about, to anyone, a coup of our Government. So ridiculous! Sorry to inform you, but an Election is my form of ‘coup,’ and if I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Milley,” he fumed. 

No. He’d call the DOJ and have them declare the election corrupt. 

He’d pressure Republicans in charge of the Georgia and Arizona elections to switch the necessary votes to his column. Then he’d rely on members of Congress, like Rep. Jim Jordan and Sen. Josh Hawley, men of zero principles, to help block the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr. He’d call in Gen. Michael T. Flynn, and men of that kind, to take command of the troops. 

Mike Lindell, his MyPillow pal, would probably grab a gun and join the coup. 

That last is supposition, of course. But when asked by reporters about the story of the planned resignation of the Joint Chiefs, Milley’s spokesman, Army Col. Dave Butler, declined to comment.

 

For hardcore Trumpers, you need to understand that the U.S. military has historically stayed out of politics. Thank you, Gen. George Washington, for setting that precedent back in 1782. It had been suggested by some of his young officers that he might make an excellent king. 

George declined.

 

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“Not to any individual at all.” 

A few days later, Gen. Milley was pressed to respond. His non-answer was really a fairly obvious answer. It’s an answer that had never before been necessary in the long history of the United States. 

I, the other members of the Joint Chiefs, and all of us in uniform, we take an oath, an oath to a document, an oath to the Constitution of the United States, and not one time do we violate that. The entire time, from time of commissioning to today, I can say with certainty that every one of us maintained our oath of allegiance to that document, the Constitution, everything that’s contained within it.

 

I want you to know, and I want everyone to know, I want America to know, that the United States military is an apolitical institution – we were then, we are now – and our oath is to the Constitution, not to any individual at all. And the military did not and will not and should not ever get involved in domestic politics. We don’t arbitrate elections.

 

“We don’t arbitrate.” That’s the same answer the officials at DOJ gave, when they said, “we don’t snap our fingers.”

 

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TO SUM UP: Decent and good men and women had chilled the worst instincts of the worst president in American history. Trump was no George Washington, turning down a chance to be king. Trump desperately wanted to serve a second term, even though his own officials were telling him he hadn’t won.

 

His evidence was “false.” Attorney General Barr had told Trump so. Rosen and Donahue said the same. State and federal courts turned back fictitious claims of a “stolen election” in more than sixty cases.

 

Trump knew on December 27, that he was running out of options, and top military leaders feared he would resort to violence.

 

See: January 6.