Part IV: Helping MAGA Folks Face
Reality
(Steps #213 – 355)
__________
“And we fight. We fight like Hell and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
President Donald J. Trump
__________
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Raffensperger voted for Trump and wanted him to win. |
THE DEBACLE of January 6, 2021, is only days away. On January 3, the Washington Post reveals a recording of a phone call from President Trump to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of State, which took place a day earlier. In a conversation lasting 62 minutes, Donald makes all kinds of claims about vote rigging in Georgia. Raffensperger, Jordan Fuchs, his deputy, and Ryan Germany, a state lawyer, listen patiently. Then the three Republicans shoot them down. You can listen to the call yourself – and if you cherish the rule of law you should.
(Yeah, Trump fans: This
means you.)
___
The president claims, for example, that a “suitcase” full of 18,000 votes was opened up, surreptitiously, in Fulton County, and bogus ballots were run through a machine and counted, “once, twice, three times.” He even named two low-level poll workers who he said perpetrated the scheme.
213. The Georgians told him he was wrong. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation looked into the “suitcase” claim and found it false.
214. The F.B.I. also investigated, and found it false.
None of this helped the poor women, because Rudy Giuliani has been making the same claims publicly, and loudly, ad nauseum, and Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss had been inundated by death threats.
215. We won’t know until June 2023, but the Georgia Elections Board will also rule that allegations lodged against the women were “false and unsubstantiated.”
216. During the call, itself, Trump insisted that 66,000 underage Georgians had cast ballots. The real number was zero. Seventeen-year-olds could register to vote if they would turn 18 by the time of the election.
217. The president cited “5,000” as a figure for dead people who voted in Georgia, and insisted that’s at “minimum.”
The Georgians told him he was wrong.
218. A text sent by then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to a White House lawyer a few days before this call, is revealed in August 2023. Meadows admits that his son, Blake Meadows, who had been working to uncover voter fraud in Georgia, had found only a handful of votes that might have been cast by dead people – whereas Trump had been claiming at least 5,000.
Nevertheless, the elder Meadows participated in the January 2, 2021, call, and never corrected the president.
219. Trump pulled another number out of his ass, insisting there were “300,000 fake ballots.” Wrong again, the three Georgia Republican officials explained. The machine count of ballots, and the hand recount of all the real ballots matched.
220. Trump tells them he had heard a rumor, adding, “this may or may not be true,” that crooked Democratic workers were burning or shredding ballots, and tampering with voting machines. “They’re changing the equipment on the Dominion machines and, you know, that’s not legal,” he says.
The Georgians tell him the rumor is false.
221. Trump hammers away at one of his bugaboos. He insists that Dominion Voting Machines were rigged. Raffensperger says he can’t vouch for other states which used the machines, but notes,
I don’t believe that you’re really questioning the Dominion machines. Because we did a hand re-tally, a 100 percent re-tally of all the ballots and compared them to what the machines said and came up with virtually the same result. Then we did the recount, and we got virtually the same result. So I guess we can probably take that off the table.
Like a toddler having a tantrum when told he has to put on shoes to go to the grocery, the president keeps rattling off claims of fraud, but officials on the other end don’t bend. “Well, Mr. President,” Raffensperger finally replies, “the challenge that you have is the data you have is wrong [emphasis added, unless otherwise noted].”
“We can play this game with the courts.”
222. Finally, the president makes what most listeners would consider a threat. He faults Raffensperger for failing to report all the fraud and rigging, adding, “That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And that’s a big risk.”
223. Then
you get the “ask” in bluntest terms. Donald wants election officials to “flip
the state.”
And you can’t let it happen, and you are letting it happen.
You know, I mean, I’m notifying you that you’re letting it happen. So look. All
I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is
one more than we have because we won the state.
And flipping the state is a great testament to our country
because, you know, this is – it’s a testament that they can admit to a mistake
or whatever you want to call it.
I don’t know, look,
Brad. I got to get . . . I have to find 12,000 votes, and I have them times a lot.
And therefore, I won the state.
Say
whatever else you want about Donald’s claims. He’s asking officials to break
the law. Raffensperger informs the president that such claims must go to the
court, “the court then has to make
a determination. We have to stand by our numbers. We believe our numbers are
right.”
224.
“Why do you say that, though?” Trump replies. “I don’t know. I mean, sure, we
can play this game with the courts, but why do you say that? First of all, they
don’t even assign us a judge.”
(“Play this game with
the courts?” It’s the rule of law.)
(Trump has had plenty of
chances with judges – and keeps losing. See, for example: Part II, #111-118,
123, 124, 128,129, 142-144, 146-148, 150, 151, 164.)
(Also: Part III, #173.)
THE CALL ENDS.
225. Down in Florida, Roger Stone is speaking at a “Stop the Steal” protest. “The evidence is growing, overwhelming, and compelling!” he howls. “By any measure whatsoever, Donald J. Trump won a majority of the legal votes cast.”
Stone is lying.
226. Raffensperger later testifies, under oath, that he voted for Trump in 2020, and did what he could, legally to help his campaign. After he balked the president’s efforts to overturn the Georgia vote, he was subjected to a barrage of death threats. His wife started getting “sexualized threats.”
227. January 5, 2021: The men and women of MAGA, summoned to D.C. by the president, have begun to gather. Enrique Tarrio, head of the Proud Boys, has predicted that his followers will be there in “record numbers.” (See: #242.)
Trump is tweeting
happily. At 5:05 p.m. he posts: “Washington is being inundated with people who
don’t want to see an election victory stolen by emboldened Radical Left
Democrats. Our Country has had enough, they won’t take it anymore. We
hear you (and love you) from the Oval Office.”
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Proud Boys at a different rally - flashing the White Power sign. |
228. Night falls. The pro-Trump crowds are still thumping drums, and giving speeches about the kind of fight they expect on the morrow. Ricky Shiffer is one listener. We still don’t know what Shiffer did on January 6. We do know that on August 11, 2022, he attacked the F.B.I. office in Cincinnati, only to be shot and killed.
You could say, like Ashli Babbitt, shot while rioting on January 6, that Schiffer died in service to Trump’s lies.
229. At any rate, on January
5, the ten living former secretaries
of defense issue stark warning. Signatories include
the first two defense secretaries he hired. The bipartisan group writes:
As former secretaries of defense, we hold a common view
of the solemn obligations of the U.S. armed forces and the Defense Department.
Each of us swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all
enemies, foreign and domestic. We did not swear it to an individual or a party.
American elections and the peaceful transfers of power
that result are hallmarks of our democracy…This should be no exception.
Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have
been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts.
Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time
for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of
the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has
arrived.
As senior Defense Department leaders have noted, “there’s no role for the
U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election.” Efforts to
involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into
dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory.
You might have expected even most Trump fans to catch on at that point; but they didn’t, and still haven’t.
January 6, 2021: The stage has been set. The scenery is painted. The actors have memorized their lines. Rehearsals are over. The curtain is about to rise on an American Horror Story, produced and directed by President Donald J. Trump. The last-ditch plan to keep the undeserving President of the United States in power is about to explode in violence.
230. Let’s start with this irrefutable fact. Trump is president for twenty-four hours straight, on that terrible day. He has, as on every other day, all the powers of his high office.
231. He
proves worse than useless.
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Who had plenty of power all damn day? This Orange Dumpling. |
232. We know
that in the early morning hours, long before dawn, Donald is awake. “Get smart Republicans. FIGHT!” he tweets.
If Vice
President @Mike_Pence comes through for us, we will win the Presidency. Many
States want to decertify the mistake they made in certifying incorrect &
even fraudulent numbers in a process NOT approved by their State Legislatures
(which it must be). Mike can send it back!
That’s the plan right there – all day. Pressure Pence to overturn the electoral vote count. Trump wins!
233. It doesn’t require superpowers to understand, as soon as the sun comes up, that danger is brewing. Rep. Liz Cheney is concerned enough to have hired a former Secret Service agent for protection.
234. At 7:11 a.m., she takes to Twitter to blast GOP colleagues for their plan to challenge the electoral vote: “We have sworn an oath under God to defend the Constitution. We uphold that oath at all times, not only when it is politically convenient [emphasis added, unless otherwise noted].”
Bear spray, guns, knives, and a pitchfork.
235. At 8:06 a.m. Secret Service agents are alerted. Ten thousand people are waiting to pass through security checkpoints to enter the “Save America” venue, and hear President Trump speak. Some are “wearing ballistic helmets, body armor and carrying radio equipment and military-grade backpacks.”
 |
A Trump supporter: Ready to riot. |
Trump has to be getting notifications – or you have to believe he’s in a medically induced coma.
Nope. He’s up. And angry.
At 8:17 a.m. he tweets:
States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!
236. Promptly at 9:00, the “March to Save America” rally commences. Homeland Security personnel notice hundreds of backpacks left outside the venue, as rallygoers choose not to pass them through metal detectors. At the same time, Vice President Pence calls the White House. He informs his boss that he has concluded he has no authority to block the certification of the electoral votes.
237. At the rally, Rep. Mo Brooks is first to
stride to the podium and speak. He offers these “soothing”
words: “Today is the day American patriots start
taking down names and kicking ass,” he says.
…Today,
Republican senators and congressmen will either vote to turn America into a
godless, amoral, dictatorial, oppressed and socialist nation on the decline or
they will join us or they will fight and vote against voter fraud and
election theft and vote for keeping America great.
Then he promises: “But we are not going to let the socialists rip the heart out of our country. We are not going to let them continue to corrupt our elections and steal from us our God-given right to control our nation’s destiny.”
238. Rep. Brooks will later admit that Trump continued to ask him to “violate the U.S. Constitution and federal law,” even after January 6.
239. At 10 a.m., National Park Police report that Trump supporters carrying “shields and gas masks” are gathering at several locations. This warning comes from officers at the Washington Monument: “Just for safety, there’s a guy, a White male, walking around the flag circle with a pitchfork.”
“A hijacking of the Constitution.”
240. Up next at the rally, Rudy Giuliani has a turn to speak. He tells the crowd that Vice President Pence can do what Thomas Jefferson did when he was vice president and challenged the electoral vote.
Rudy is garbling the story of 1800, when Jefferson and Aaron Burr both earned 73 electoral votes. Unfortunately, the Founding Fathers had never considered a situation where a tie between two men of the same party occurred – or a scenario where the man voters clearly intended to be vice president (Burr) saw a chance to snatch power from the man electors clearly intended to be president (Jefferson).
In any case, Rudy insists that all Trump wants is a ten-day delay to examine all the claims of fraud that Donald, Rudy, and other crackpots have made. “Who hides evidence?” he asks the crowd.
“Criminals hide evidence. Not honest people.”
241: We won’t know this till later, but it seems relevant to mention here. When investigators start looking into events surrounding the January 6 riot, and alleged plots to steal the election for Trump, Rudy and a busload of Trump toadies start “hiding evidence” and plead the Fifth.
242. 11:07 a.m.: Signs of serious trouble are multiplying, as Trump supporters begin leaving the rally (or never attend). Capitol Police radio: “Be advised, the Proud Boys group is now crossing Third Street onto U.S. Capitol property, numbers still approximately two hundred.”
243. Sen. Todd Young (R-In.) meets with constituents. They want him to vote to block certification of the electoral votes.
“I took an oath, first as a United States Navy sailor, and then as a United States Marine, and then as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives to our constitution. I took an oath as a United States senator. It’s covenant,” he tells them. He doesn’t believe there was “a vast judicial conspiracy of sixty courts,” all working to thwart Trump from serving a second term.
“I wanted Trump to win,” he adds. “I will not be joining the Cruz effort [Sen. Ted Cruz has already announced that he will protest the counting of votes]: I think it’s a hijacking of the Constitution.”
“They’re not going to take it any longer.”
244. The president begins his rally speech just
before noon. “We have hundreds of thousands of people here,”
he begins. He asks the news media to turn their cameras and show the massive
crowd. These people, he says, waving a hand at the throng, “They’re not going
to take it any longer.”
All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left Democrats, which is what they’re doing and stolen by the fake news media. That’s what they’ve done and what they’re doing. We will never give up. We will never concede, it doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.
245. He tells his listeners that he was told “by the real pollsters” that if he “went from 63 million [votes], which we had four years ago to 66 million, there was no chance of losing. Well, we didn’t go to 66. We went to 75 million and they say we lost. We didn’t lose.”
This is a childish claim – that 66 million votes would guarantee a win – but the MAGA faithful never question. In 2008, Barack Obama polled 69.5 million votes and defeated Sen. John McCain.
In 2012, Obama polled 65.9 million, and Hillary Clinton had 65.9 million in 2016. Only an ill-informed dope would claim that “66 million” was sure to be enough.
(Also: 22 million more people voted in 2020, compared to 2016.)
246. Trump compares what is happening in America to what happens in “third world countries.” In fact, he adds, “It’s a disgrace. It’s a disgrace.” The radical Democrats stole the election. “We will not let them silence your voices. We’re not going to let it happen. Not going to let it happen.”
[Crowd]: Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump!
Fight for Trump!
“What an absolute disgrace, that this could be happening to
our Constitution,” the president continues. He says he hopes Mike Pence will
challenge the electoral vote count. “I hope Mike is going to do the right
thing. I hope so. I hope so because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win
the election.”
There’s no secret. Donald is clear. If Pence will stop the count, Trump will f**k with the system, and he will “win” a second term.
247. We don’t know this at the time, but behind the scenes, Dr. John Eastman, whom Trump refers to in his rally rant as the “number one” constitutional lawyer in America, has already admitted. If the plan to overturn the electoral vote in the way he and others have suggested were to be submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of time, they would shoot it down without delay.
In a 9-0 vote.
Regardless, Mr. Trump calls on the gathered faithful to walk to the Capitol and
make their presence known:
We’re going walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.
248. Mr. Pence’s office releases a three-page letter, making it clear that he will not be interfering with the counting of the votes. That letter, signed by Pence, reads in part, “I do not believe that the Founders of our country intended to invest the Vice President with unilateral authority to decide which electoral votes should be counted during the Joint Session Congress.”
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Signing the Constitution: Philadelphia, 1787. |
249. Imagine that any vice president did have that power. In 2016, Biden could have exercised that same option and tossed the votes of three states. Presto. Hillary Clinton becomes president.
250. Even better, in the sense that it would be
“better” if you wanted to stab democracy in the back with a steak knife, in
2001, VP Al Gore could have tossed the electoral votes of Florida, alone, which
he lost by 537 popular votes. He could have made himself President of
the United States.
 |
If Pence could f**k with the count, so could Harris, on January 6, 2025. What idiot would think this was a good idea? |
251. Anyway, back to Donald: “
Look, I’m not happy with the Supreme Court,” he tells the crowd. “They love to rule against me. I picked three people. I fought like hell for them, one in particular I fought.”
And what thanks does he get! Does he get unlimited power?
“They couldn’t give a damn,” those justices. “They couldn’t give a damn. Let them rule the right way, but it almost seems that they’re all going out of their way to hurt all of us, and to hurt our country. To hurt our country.”
252. At 12:45 p.m. Trump is still haranguing the crowd. Georgia has already done three counts of the votes and shown three times that Trump lost. Not good enough.
Trump bashes Sec. Raffensperger:
In Georgia,
your secretary of state, I can’t believe this guy’s a Republican. He
loves recording telephone conversations. I thought it was a great conversation
personally, so did a lot of other … people love that conversation, because it
says what’s going on. These people are crooked. They’re 100%, in my opinion,
one of the most corrupt. …
The crowd grows angrier and angrier. More and more Trump fans peel off and head for Capitol Hill.
253. At 1:00 p.m. there are reports that hundreds of Trump supporters have reached the Capitol and breached police barricades. A woman filming the scene can be heard saying, “Holy fucking shit.” Three minutes later, Capitol Police discover a parked red pickup truck with Alabama tags. Inside they find an M4 assault rifle, loaded magazines, and materials for eleven Molotov cocktails.
Lonnie Coffman, the vehicle owner, is a Trump supporter.
254. The president is still babbling at the rally. He and his followers “have truth and justice” on their side. “We have a deep and enduring love for America in our hearts. We love our country,” he shouts. “We have overwhelming pride in this great country, and we have it deep in our souls. Together we are determined to defend and preserve government of the people, by the people and for the people.”
(That’s why we had an election; and his fat ass got waxed.)
255. His speech all but over, he offers this: “And we fight. We fight like Hell and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Trump apologists will later claim he tried to calm his supporters on January 6.
(That’s absurd.)
At 1:12 p.m. Rep. Paul Gosar in the House, and Sen. Ted Cruz in the Senate challenge the electoral votes from Arizona.
256. With more and more rioters swarming to the attack, Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police arrive to bolster defenses. Philip Lewis, a journalist on the scene, tweets: “Whoa: Trump supporters going at it with the police on the steps of the Capitol as Congress counts the Electoral College ballots inside.”
For the next 187 minutes.
257. At 1:19 p.m. the president returns to the White House. He settles in front of a wide-screen TV in the private dining room just off the Oval Office. For the next 187 minutes he watches events unfold but does nothing to stem the violence. He has access to phones and a television link. He can call for any action he wants – assuming it’s legal – which, with Donald, you never know.
258. Official White House call logs on January 6, indicate a last incoming call at 11:04 a.m., for two minutes. The first outgoing call logged does not come until 6:54 p.m. Either Trump is making zero official calls – or someone is trying to cover up any calls he does make.
The official
Presidential Diary is similarly blank. At 1:21: “The President met with his
valet.” Then nothing, till 4:03 p.m.: “The President went to the Rose Garden.”
259. Even the official White House photographer was admonished not to take any pictures that day.
260. At 1:44 p.m., from the window in her office in the Cannon Building, Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) can see what’s happening. “Just evacuated my office in Cannon due to a nearby threat,” she tweets. “Now we’re seeing protesters assaulting Capitol Police. This is wrong. This is not who we are. I’m heartbroken for our nation today.”
261. Capitol Police request assistance from the National Guard. A member of the Metropolitan Police is heard over the radio, frantically calling for backup. “This is now effectively a riot.”
262. At that same moment, President Trump issues a tweet. It provides a link to his incendiary speech, now just ended.
(He’s the f**king President of the United States.)
(And he’s not helping.)
263. 2:03 p.m.: Trump uses someone’s phone to put in a call to Rudy Giuliani. That call lasts eight minutes.
264. 2:11 p.m.: Rioters seize control of the steps on the west side of the Capitol Building and break in near the Senate chambers.
265. 2:13 p.m.: Vice President Pence is ushered out of the Senate and taken to a safe room, along with family members.
(Trump is watching TV.)
266. 2:15 p.m.: Speaker Nancy Pelosi is led out of the House chamber and taken to safety off site. Rioters are heard calling out her name and threatening to kill her.
Several members of her staff find their escape route cut and take shelter in a back conference room, barricading the door with furniture. Rioters break down the door to the main office, shatter an antique mirror, scatter documents, steal computers, and pound on the conference room door.
Staffers remain huddled in the dark for two-and-a-half hours.
(Trump is watching TV.)
267. At 2:17 p.m. Donald Trump Jr. is also watching the attack unfold. He is smart enough to tweet a call for calm: “This is wrong and not who we are. Be peaceful and use your 1st Amendment rights, but don’t start acting like the other side. We have a country to save and this doesn’t help anyone.”
(Trump apologists will later insist there was no riot. Don Jr. knew there was.)
268. The National Security Council is advised that the mob has stormed the Capitol. A warning from the Secret Service comes in. A decision has to be made in the next two or three minutes. If Mr. Pence (and his wife and daughter) are not evacuated to a safer location, they might not escape.
In taped testimony later, in response to a request from congressional investigators, an “Anonymous White House Security Official” added his thoughts. His voice, for a televised hearing, was disguised to protect his identity and his picture was not shown. Members of the vice president’s security detail, he explained “were starting to fear for their lives. It was “very disturbing.”
Agents were calling to say goodbye to their families.
269. At 2:22 p.m. This blogger’s wife, watching the first rioters attack Congress, comes upstairs to the blogger’s office in Glendale, Ohio. “You better come watch,” she says. “They’re attacking the Capitol.”
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"You better come watch. They're attacking the Capitol." |
270. 2:24 p.m.: Trump remains unmoved – or perhaps he was moved by fury. He decides to supercharge the mob. He tweets: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”
271. At 2:25 p.m. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, after consultations with Pentagon leaders, tells his staff to prepare to move the “emergency reaction” force to the Capitol. They could arrive in twenty minutes.
272. A minute later, Tim Giebels, head of the security detail guarding Mr. Pence, urges him to leave the Capitol. Pence refuses, fearing images of his motorcade escaping would encourage attackers. He and his family are taken down a safe stairway, to a subterranean area that the mob is unlikely to reach.
273. Meanwhile, rioters break through the doors of the East Rotunda. At almost exactly that same moment, Trump misdials the number for newly elected Sen. Tommy Tuberville. He wants the lawmaker from Alabama to throw up additional objections to the counting of the votes. Trump gets Sen. Mike Lee of Utah instead. Lee hands the phone to Tuberville. “Coach, how’s it going?” Trump asks.
“Not very good, Mr. President,” Tuberville replies. “As a matter of fact, they’re about to evacuate us.”
“I know we’ve got problems,” Trump says.
“Mr. President, they just took our vice president out,” the senator adds abruptly. “They’re getting ready to drag me out of here. I got to go.”
274. Senators begin to evacuate their chamber. The blogger’s daughter, watching events unfold on TV from her home in Portland, Oregon, texts him, “Are you watching this?”
275. Trump’s defenders will argue at his second impeachment trial that the president did not know how dire the situation was.
(Trump is watching goddam TV!)
(The blogger’s family can see what’s happening, but he can’t????)
276. At 2:35 p.m. rioters just outside the House chamber break windows and pound on the door. Plainclothes officers and Secret Service agents draw their guns.
Republican lawmaker confronts rioters.
277. 2:38 p.m.: Trump finally does something, the bare minimum. He tweets: “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”
278. Members of the House begin evacuating. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy phones Trump. He demands Donald call off the rioters.
“You know what I see, Kevin? I see people who are more upset about the election than you are. They like Trump more than you do,” the president replies.
“You’ve got to hold them,” says McCarthy. “You need to get on TV right now, you need to get on Twitter, you need to call these people off.”
(To this day, no evidence of serious voter fraud has ever been found.)
279. Hundreds of angry “patriots” are overwhelming police lines in front of the Capitol. Commander Robert Glover later describes the pitched battle that plays out. “They were using pretty much anything they could as a weapon at that point.” Bear spray, pieces of bike racks. Flagpoles. Fire extinguishers. “It was the first time in my career I didn’t think we were going to go home. I was concerned that this was actually going to become a gun battle.”
280. 2:44 p.m.: Rioters have now swarmed down hallways and up stairways inside the Capitol. They batter at doors to the Speaker’s Lobby. Windows are smashed and Ashli Babbitt tries to climb through the opening. She is shot and killed by an officer charged with protecting lawmakers’ lives.
281. Even Rudy
Giuliani, who helped fire up the mob, realizes the situation has spiraled
out of control. At 2:52 p.m. he tweets:
To all those patriots challenging the fraudulent election,
POTUS wants you to EXPRESS YOUR OPINION PEACEFULLY,
We are the law and order party,
You are on the right side of the law and history.
Act with respect for all.
282. The first F.B.I. Swat team arrives to reinforce police lines. More than 500 officers from a variety of federal agencies join battle.
283. Don Jr. sends White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows a second plea. Get his father to act! “This is one you go to the mattress on. They will try to fuck his entire legacy on this if it gets worse.”
(It gets worse; and Don Jr. knows his dad could stop it.)
284. Members of the mob have taken over the floor of the Senate. Jacob Chansley, soon to become famous as the “QAnon Shaman,” calls on fellow rioters to say a prayer in this “sacred place.” “Thank you, heavenly father,” he intones, “for this opportunity to stand up for our God-given, unalienable rights. … Thank you for filling this chamber with patriots that love you and that love Christ.”
(In reality, the “patriots” have been played for suckers. Chansley will be sent to prison.)
 |
Chansley in horns. |
285. 3:04 p.m.: The D.C. National Guard is activated.
286. At 3:14 p.m. heavily reinforced police units begin clearing rioters from the Capitol Rotunda. White House aide Ivanka Trump tries a tweet of her own: “American patriots, any security breach or disrespect for our law enforcement is unacceptable. The violence must stop immediately. Please be peaceful.”
(Dad is still uselessly watching TV.)
287. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are on the phones, calling for help. They are informed that the National Guard has been activated. The Guard troops, however, are prepared for traffic duty. Now the new mission must be explained, and extra equipment issued, before they are sent into a “volatile combat situation.”
288. Acting
Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller releases a statement saying,
Chairman [Mark] Milley [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and I just spoke separately with the Vice President and with Speaker Pelosi, Leader McConnell, Senator Schumer and Representative Hoyer about the situation at the U.S. Capitol. We have fully activated the D.C. National Guard to assist federal and local law enforcement as they work to peacefully address the situation.
(No one mentions any input or help offered by the president.)
289. In an interview later, Miller will pose this question: “Would anybody have marched on the Capitol, and overrun the Capitol, without the president’s speech? I think it’s pretty much definitive that wouldn’t have happened. It seems cause-and-effect.”
3:47 p.m.: Police finally clear the Rotunda.
290. Pictures are showing up on Twitter, of a gallows set up in front of Capitol Hill, indicating someone is soon going to be dangling from a noose.
291. After a long delay, at 4 p.m., National Guard forces begin arriving. Combined with D.C. Metropolitan police, Capitol Hill police, and assorted agents from the F.B.I., the Justice Department, and other federal agencies, they start clearing the halls inside the Capitol Building, and the area surrounding.
292. President-elect Biden appears on television at 4:05 p.m. He calls on Trump “to go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege.”
“A landslide election and everyone knows it.”
293. 4:17 p.m.:
Police officers on the front lines send out this call: “We’ve got another
officer unconscious.” Trump makes his first TV appearance since the riot exploded.
Speaking from the Rose Garden, he proves unrepentant. “I know your
hurt,” he begins, speaking to his loyalists who have stormed Congress. “I know
your pain,” he adds. “We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a
landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side, but you
have to go home now.”
There’s never been a time like this, where such a thing
happened, where they could take it away from all of us, from me, from you, from
our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands
of these people. We have to have peace. So go home, we love you. You’re very
special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are
so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home in
peace.
Enraged afresh, a wave of rioters attempts to storm the west terrace doors of the Capitol. The crush is so great, fighting so fierce, that a Trump supporter named Roseanne Boyland is trampled to death.
(Like Babbitt, Boyland dies in service to Trump’s lies.)
294. 4:45 p.m.: A conference call to Secretary Miller takes place. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, and Sen. Chuck Schumer are on the line. They want to know how long Miller thinks it will be before the Capitol can be secured, searched, and the “people’s business” of counting the electoral votes may resume.
A few hours, he tells them.
295. Gen. Milley will later testify that he took two or three calls from Vice President Pence during the riot. Mr. Pence’s requests were “unambiguous.” Get the National Guard down here. Get the military down here right now.
296. Meadows called, as well, but with a craven request. “We have to kill the narrative that the vice president is making all the decisions,” he told the general.
“I remember it distinctly,” Milley will say. He refused. “I don’t do political narratives,” he testified.
297. Meanwhile, a brutal battle for control of a tunnel entrance to the Capitol rages for two hours. At 5:02 p.m. the first 154 members of the National Guard arrive to help clear the building and grounds.
298. Save for their first morning call, Pence and Trump don’t speak all day.
299. Mitch McConnell never talks to the man in the White House, either. Later, one of his aides explains, “What would have been the point? Trump wasn’t going to be helpful.”
300. At 6:00 p.m. Washington D.C. is placed under curfew. Trump has not spoken to the mayor all day.
301. The president vents again in a tweet: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & peace. Remember this day forever!”
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Boxes holding the electoral votes. |
“Pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy.”
303. All three of
Trump’s picks to lead the Department of Defense weigh in on their old boss, and
his responsibility for the day’s debacle.
According to former Sec. of Defense James Mattis,
Today’s violent assault on our Capitol, an effort to
subjugate American democracy by mob rule, was fomented by Mr. Trump. His
use of the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our
respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose
names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice.
304. Former Sec. of Defense Mark Esper echoes Mattis’s disdain: “The perpetrators who committed this illegal act were inspired by partisan misinformation and patently false claims about the election.”
305. Even Miller feels a need to reassure the country that he’s not one of the nuts. He condemns the “acts of violence against our democracy,” which we have all witnessed during this terrible day. He and the Department of Defense will continue to perform their duties “in accordance with our oath of office, and will execute the time-honored peaceful transition of power to President-elect Biden on January 20.”
306. Trump’s closest allies have learned nothing as a result of the day’s tragic events. At 7:02 p.m., Rudy Giuliani calls Sen. Tuberville and again presses him to delay the counting of the votes.
In days to come – and
then months – and years – Trump and the
MAGA faithful will convince themselves that the attack on Congress wasn’t their
work. Or if it was, it was justified. They will turn a blind eye to his dereliction of duty on
January 6, but on that awful day the world had watched. Trump’s own aides and
family watched. In real time, they expressed shock and dismay.
307. Ireland’s Foreign Minister Simon Coveney describes what transpired as “a deliberate assault on Democracy by a sitting President & his supporters attempting to overturn a free & fair election!”
308. Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy’s far-right Lega Nord, tells reporters he supported many of the president’s policies, but “going to parliament and clashing with the police is quite a different matter. That’s not political vision, that’s madness.”
309. “Unbelievable scenes from Washington D.C.,” the prime minister of Sweden, Erna Solberg, agrees. “This is a totally unacceptable attack on democracy. A heavy responsibility now rests on President Trump to put a stop to this.”
310. French President Emmanuel Macron issues a statement:
When, in one of the world’s
oldest democracies, supporters of an outgoing president take up arms to
challenge the legitimate results of an election, that one idea – that of “one
person, one vote” – is undermined.
Today, France stands strongly, fervently and resolutely with the American people and with all the people who want to choose their leaders, determine their own destinies and their own lives through free and democratic elections.
311. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada is equally clear. “What we witnessed,” he says, “was an assault on democracy by violent rioters, incited by the current president and other politicians.”
By 8 p.m., the Capitol Building has been cleared, and members of Congress return to finish counting the votes.
312. Plenty of Republicans, including loyal members of the Trump administration, understand exactly what has transpired. “I just spoke with Vice President Pence, Trump’s national security advisor, Robert O’Brien, tweets. “He is a genuinely fine and decent man. He exhibited courage today as he did at the Capitol on 9/11 as a Congressman. I am proud to serve with him.”
314. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) rips the president. “We witnessed today the damage that can result when men in power and responsibility refuse to acknowledge the truth. We saw bloodshed because a demagogue chose to spread falsehoods and sow distrust of his own fellow Americans.”
315. “We gather due to a selfish man’s injured pride, and the outrage of supporters who he has deliberately misinformed for the past two months and stirred to action this very morning. What happened today was an insurrection incited by the President of the United States,” says Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).
316. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) accuses the president of spending the crisis “cowered behind his keyboard. Lies have consequences,” he adds. “This violence was the inevitable and ugly outcome of the president’s addiction to constantly stoking division.”
317. Even Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) releases a statement calling on Donald to concede. “It’s past time for the president to accept the results of the election, quit misleading the American people, and repudiate mob violence.”
Midnight comes and goes, with lawmakers still in session.
(Trump proved worse than useless all f**king day.)
January 7, 2021: In the early morning hours, around 3 a.m., both houses of Congress finalize the electoral count, thereby assuring the nation that Joseph R. Biden Jr. will become the next President of the United States.
“You’re challenging the Constitution.”
318. Matthew Pottinger, Trump’s Deputy National Security Advisor, will later explain that our enemies loved to watch the president deny defeat. It served their narrative – that U.S. democracy doesn’t work.
On the morning after the riot, he said, White House advisors had already crafted a conciliatory speech for the president to deliver. The day passed. Trump balked. At that point, “You’re not just challenging the election, you’re challenging the Constitution [emphasis added],” he said.
We know the president finally gave a speech calling for calm on the evening of January 7. Even then, it required multiple takes. We also know that Trump repeatedly pounded the podium in anger. Finally, he made it clear. He would not say “the election is over,” and he never has.
(You know in your heart, if he loses in November, he’s going to stoke violence again.)
319. January 7-8, 2021: A cascade of condemnation begins to build. Pottinger resigns. So does Sarah Matthews, Assistant White House Press Secretary. She knew that her job on January 7, would require her to defend Trump’s statements on January 6. She considered his actions “indefensible” and resolved to quit.
320. Jerome M. Marcus, who had worked to reverse election results in Pennsylvania, quits the president’s legal team. Trump, he announces, “has used the lawyer’s services to perpetrate a crime[.]”
321. Former White House Press Secretary Mick Mulvaney, serving as envoy to Northern Ireland, also quits in protest. “I can’t do it,” he tells reporters, explaining his decision. “I can’t stay.”
322. Former White House communications director, Alyssa Farah, had stepped down in December, when she saw trouble brewing. She told Politico she knew there was no evidence of fraud on a scale to have tipped the election. People around her made it clear that was not “the message” they wanted to put out.
Then, the riot, she says, “was really the boiling point.” She adds: “The president and certain advisers around him are directly responsible,” for the attack.
“No more crazy people.”
323. Some of Trump’s most craven sycophants will later change their stories; but in the wake of the attack, they were stunned. We won’t know this for over a year, until a Select Committee in Congress begins investigating; but Sean Hannity sends White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany a five-part plan for talking to the president. “No more stolen election talk,” he advises.
324. Hannity also urges McEnany to keep a variety of advisors away from the defeated president. “Key now. No more crazy people,” as he puts it.
325. “Yes 100%,” McEnany replies.
(They know what the real problem has been.)
 |
Hannity and Trump. |
326. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos resigns her cabinet post in protest of the president’s failures.
327. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao quits.
328. Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia sends Mr. Trump a letter. He asks him to convene a full cabinet meeting of those still left. “I believe it is important to know that while President, you will no longer publicly question the election results – after Wednesday, no one can deny this is harmful.”
“Preying on their patriotism.”
329. Former White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly is one of several voices to call for enacting the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. That amendment allows a vice president and a majority of the cabinet to declare a president no longer fit to perform his or her duties due to sickness or incapacity.
Or in this case, if a president is a nut.
330. Kelly is supported by former Director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, who warns against the danger still represented by Mr. Trump.
In an interview on CNN, Gen. Kelly unloads on his old boss. “What happened on Capitol Hill yesterday is a direct result of his poisoning the minds of people with the lies and the fraud,” Kelly fumes.
331. Gen. Colin Powell tells reporters that while he is opposed to the idea of invoking the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, as far as Donald goes, you “can’t not have concerns” about his fitness for office.
332. The president’s second National Security Advisor, Gen. H. R. McMaster, says that the United States is in its current fix because “the sad reality [is] that President Trump and other officials have repeatedly compromised our principles in pursuit of partisan advantage and personal gain.”
333. By this time, Trump’s third National Security Advisor, John Bolton, has written an entire book about what a dangerous liar the president is. “I don’t think he’s fit for office,” Bolton says.
334. The Wall Street Journal, owned by longtime Trump backer Rupert Murdoch, agrees. Editors call for Trump to resign or be impeached.
335. Former Speaker of the House John Boehner is frank in assessing the challenge facing his party. “The GOP must awaken. The invasion of our Capitol by a mob, incited by lies from some entrusted with power, is a disgrace to all who sacrificed to build our Republic.”
336. Many of those who came to hear Trump speak on the morning of January 6, were in fact “patriots,” Rep. Liz Cheney admitted. But in firing them up, the president was “preying on their patriotism.”
“Trump is a political David Koresh.”
337. Billy Piper, former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader McConnell, likened the lame duck president to the religious cult leader who died with 75 followers in a fiery cataclysm at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas in 1993. “Trump is a political David Koresh,” Piper said.
338. We already knew that Trump called three top Georgia election officials and pressed them to find 11,780 votes. On January 9, we learn he put in a call to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. What Trump asked the lead investigator in charge of running down rumors of election irregularities, was to “find the fraud.”
If she did, Trump promised, she would be “a national hero.” Also, she could help him steal a second term.
(He didn’t say that last part. The blogger did.)
339. This exchange on social media between Tim Murtaugh, communications director for the 2020 Trump campaign, and Matthew Wolking, a campaign spokesman, is later revealed. Murtaugh comments on the president’s refusal to concede. “Also shitty,” he adds, “not to have even acknowledged the death of the Capitol Police officer.” (Officer Brian Sicknick died of a heart attack the day after the riot.)
340. Wolking replies: “That is enraging to me[.]” Then: “Everything he said about supporting law enforcement was a lie.”
Murtaugh understood:
You know what that is, of course. If he acknowledged the dead cop, he’d be implicitly faulting the mob. And he wouldn’t do that because they’re his people [emphasis added]. And he would also be close to acknowledging that what he lit at the rally [on January 6] got out of control. No way he acknowledges something that could ultimately be called his fault.
341. January 12, 2021: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has a trip planned to Europe to talk with allies. Luxembourg announces it no longer wants to meet. Jean Asselborn, Minister of Foreign Affairs, calls Trump a “political pyromaniac.”
352. Pompeo has a meeting scheduled in Brussels, with representatives of the European Union. They also cancel.
“We’re very lucky that the vice president isn’t a maniac.”
With Trump’s time in office dwindling to a few final days, we continue to learn about machinations behind the scenes. In a tense phone call prior to the January 6 certification of the electoral vote, the president chastised Vice President Pence. Two people briefed on the call say that Pence told his boss he had no power to stop the vote, nor any inclination to ignore the Constitution.
“You can either go down in history as a patriot,” Trump raged, “or you can go down in history as a pussy.”
343. Having been pressed relentlessly for days, Pence had asked his lawyers to consult with J. Michael Luttig, “a former appeals court judge revered by conservatives” and other constitutional scholars. Judge Luttig made it clear there was no constitutional path the vice president could follow to void electoral votes. Reached for comment later, the judge told reporters it had been “the highest honor of my life” to play a role in preserving the U.S. Constitution.
344. Joe Grogan, Trump’s former domestic policy adviser, sums up the situation, post January 6. “We’re very lucky that the vice president isn’t a maniac,” he says.
345. In the land of cacti and triple-digit temperatures, Arizona Republicans begin fighting among themselves. Trump loyalists, like GOP Party Chair Kelli Ward, want to censure the governor, for not overturning the 2020 vote. As Politico reports, reasonable members of the GOP are not amused. “The craziness from the state Republican Party … it’s pretty embarrassing,” says Kirk Adams, former Speaker of the House in Arizona, and former chief of staff to [Gov. Doug] Ducey. We have been fed a steady diet of conspiracy theories and stolen election rhetoric and, really, QAnon theories from the state Republican Party since before the election, but certainly after.”
346. Former GOP Congressman Evan McMullin
tweets:
Rand Paul warns that if Senate Republicans convict Trump, a third of the party will break off. So be it. The GOP faces an inescapable choice between a future of extremism, treachery and losses, or of truth, principle and leadership. Both paths are difficult, but only one is good.
“The degree of fear that’s been created.”
347. On a vote of 232 to 197, with nine Republicans and one former Republican voting in favor, and four abstaining, Lame Duck Don gets impeached a second time. Rep. Cheney, third-ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, issues a blistering statement. “Much more will become clear in coming days and weeks,” she says, “but what we know now is enough. The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.”
348. Rep. Adam Kinzinger votes to impeach. “There is no doubt in my mind that the President of the United States broke his oath of office and incited this [January 6] insurrection.”
349. “It cannot be ignored that President Trump encouraged this insurrection,” Rep. John Katko agrees.
350. Rep. Tom
Rice releases a
statement explaining his vote. He’s not sure the
president’s speech on January 6 “amounted to incitement of a riot, but any reasonable person could see
the potential for violence.”
Once
the violence began, when the Capitol was under siege, when the Capitol Police
were being beaten and killed, and when the Vice President and the Congress were
being locked down, the President was watching and tweeted about the Vice
President’s lack of courage.
…It
is only by the grace of God and the blood of the Capitol Police that the
death toll was not much, much higher.
351. Rep. Pete Meijer, 33, of Michigan, becomes the target of death threats when he votes to impeach. He explains to reporters that one fellow Republican told him that he or she wanted to vote to uphold Biden’s electoral win. Concern “about the safety of that individual’s family” dissuaded him or her from taking the risk.
“That is where the rhetoric has brought us,” Meijer says. “That is the degree of fear that’s been created.”
With extremist right-wing groups still threatening violence if the January 20 inauguration proceeds, 25,000 U.S. troops remain positioned in Washington D.C., to keep the peace.
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American soldiers guarding the Capitol. |
Not “the American way.”
352. During debate on Articles of Impeachment, Rep. Matt Gaetz rises to insist that the pro-Trump folks on January 6, were tricked into smashing up the Capitol by leftist plants in the mob. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy shoots down that lie as soon as it spills from Gaetz’s lips. Trump, he says, bears “responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.
“Some say the riots were caused by antifa. There is absolutely no evidence of that,” McCarthy continues.
He notes that it is not “the American way” to contest a fairly decided election. “Let’s be clear, Joe Biden will be sworn in as president of the United States in one week because he won the election.”
(McCarthy will later forget that he said any of this and kiss Donald’s ass.)
353. January 15, 2021: Newly minted U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville, the former Auburn football coach, has a new plan for keeping Trump in office. He suggests we lower the political temperature by delaying Mr. Biden’s inauguration until the COVID-19 crisis abates. “We probably could have had a swearing-in and inauguration later after we got this virus behind us a little bit,” Coach Senator tells baffled reporters.
The Twentieth Amendment, however, sets January 20 as the day, and noon as the time, for a president to be sworn in.
This somehow escapes Coach Senator’s feeble intellectual grasp.
FUN FACT: Tuberville is later asked by a reporter to name the three branches of government. He’s a member of one, so you figure he only needs two more. He gives it his best: “Executive, the Post Office, and a poodle.”
Ha, ha. I’m joking. But he really does blow it. “You know, the House, the Senate, and the executive,” he guesses.
(Correct answer: legislative, executive, judicial.)
January 19, 2021: With one day remaining in the presidency of Donald Trump, you might imagine that serious evidence of widespread election fraud would have been uncovered – in Georgia, for sure.
Nope. Nothing.
354. Bobby Christine, Acting U.S. District Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, a recent Trump appointee, has announced that his office will not pursue two challenges to election results filed by Team Trump’s lawyers. In a recording later obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Christine can be heard telling staff members “there’s just nothing to them.”
355. We know his former boss, Byung J. “BJay” Pak, also a Trump appointee, was forced to resign just before the Georgia senate runoff election. Pak’s sin? He failed to find election fraud that wasn’t to be found.
January 20, 2021: Good riddance, Donald J. Trump! Zero days left. At noon Joe Biden takes office as President of the United States. QAnon hearts are breaking, as reality strikes twelve times.
No one can be more disappointed, watching Mr. Biden sworn in, than Mike Lindell, of MyPillow fame. He had been insisting that “Reinstatement Day” was coming. Even in the wake of the attack on Capitol Hill, with the electoral votes tallied and final, Lindell assured supporters that Orange Jesus would show up on January 20, 2021, to mark the start of a second term.
We now know that when that didn’t happen, Mike wasn’t worried. Now he promised Trump would return to office on March 4, the original date set by the Founding Fathers for presidents to take office. When that date passed, Mike claimed Trump would be resurrected, politically, on August 13, 2021.
When nothing unusual transpired that day, Mike tried again. Trump would be back as president by Thanksgiving 2021. The U.S. Supreme Court was going to issue a blockbuster ruling.
And nothing happened again.
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Lindell and Trump: Delusional Buds. |
Lesson from Cervantes?
As we said, to introduce Part I of this saga, the Spanish writer Miguel Cervantes once laid down a rule of sorts, in all cases where one might hope to achieve understanding. That is, one should follow, “Experience, which neither lies nor deceives.”
The blogger has put forward as much evidence as possible, to show a reader what experience clearly shows.
Unfortunately, we know that Lindell is the kind of weird prophet so often found to distort the truth in MAGA circles. Facts are not facts. Facts are obstacles, littering the path of “patriots” who love Donald more than they ever grasp the import of the first ten amendments to the Constitution. No claim, no matter how farcical – for example, insisting that diabolical government agents can steer hurricanes to hit Florida – can be disproven. A mysterious figure known as “Q” fuels endless, idiotic QAnon conspiracy theories. If a hundred lifelong Republicans warn that Donald is a threat to democracy, the MAGA believer sweeps all their words away, labeling them RINO’s, or “Republicans in name only.” All warnings by the free press, even stories quoting former Trump cabinet members, his former vice president, and politicians who worked to help him win in 2020, about the dangers they see in a second term, should Donald win one, are disregarded as the bleatings of the “Enemies of the People.”
Court after court, recount after recount, and defamation trial after defamation trial have shown us that Donald lost the 2020 election. He has been lying to his supporters about it ever since, and experience shows us that he will keep lying, on all kinds of other issues, if he regains a seat in the Oval Office.
Because lying is just what Donald does.
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