Part X - Felonious Sex Crimes and Political Violence (Steps 833-875)

  

Part X: Felonious Sex Crimes and Political Violence.

(Steps #833 – 875.) 

__________ 

“All right, folks, now just to note: Newsmax has accepted the election results as legal and final.”  

Eric Bolling

__________

E. Jean Carroll, in an older picture.

  

WITH the former president of the United States now facing three indictments, the court battles continue. 

Losses for Trump and his allies keep piling up. 

We pick up our numbering again, desperately hoping to lead the MAGA true believers, step by simple step, to the Truth.

___ 

 

“Mr. Trump forcibly digitally penetrated Ms. Carroll.” 

833. August 7, 2023: We learn that the former president needs some new lawyers – and not the kind who are going to get sanctioned and/or indicted. A federal judge throws out Donald’s countersuit against E. Jean Carroll, who sued him for defamation after he repeatedly called her a liar. The central issue was her claim that Donald raped her in a dressing room in New York City almost thirty years ago. 

The jury (in what was a civil case) found Trump guilty of “sexual assault,” but not rape, and awarded Ms. Carroll $5 million in damages. 

834. Donald has millions of dopes who donate to his 2024 presidential campaign, which actually means they end up paying his legal bills. So he sued Carroll for damaging his pristine, do-no-wrong reputation. The former president wanted her to pay damages to him, but the judge told him no. 

His lawyer, Alina Habba, called it a “flawed decision,” and said she and Donald’s other legal wizards would appeal. 

835. Ms. Habba has already been sanctioned by one judge for filing a stupid lawsuit; so now she may be going for two. 

(In that first case, Habba and Trump had to fork over $937,000.)

Money down the drain.

  

836. “The difference between Ms. Carroll’s allegedly defamatory statements – that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as defined in the New York Penal Law – and the ‘truth’ – that Mr. Trump forcibly digitally penetrated Ms. Carroll – are minimal,” Judge Lewis A. Kaplan wrote in Monday’s ruling. 

“Both are felonious sex crimes.” 

 

837. With Donald, there’s always proof somewhere that he changes his mind more often than a toddler changes direction in a playroom stocked with shiny toys. Back in the day, when he was president, and hated the free press for reporting on everything he said – he made it clear what he thought about defamation laws in this country. He wanted to make it easier to sue people – for example, reporters he didn’t like.

 

“We are going to take a strong look at our country’s libel laws, so that when somebody says something that is false and defamatory about someone, that person will have meaningful recourse in our courts,” he told reporters gathered at the end of a White House cabinet meeting.

 

“Our current libel laws are a sham and a disgrace and do not represent American values or American fairness.”

Habba, second from left, brings the cleavage.

Kari Lake denies another election – in Ohio. 

August 8, 2023 (Special Election Day): In an attempt to trick the people of Ohio, GOP lawmakers decide to hold a special election, at a cost of $25 million. Voters will have one decision to make, to vote “yes,” or “no” on Issue 1. If Issue 1 passes, the way the state constitution is amended will change, altering a system that had been in place for over a century. No longer will citizens decide on adding amendments by majority rule. If Issue 1 is adopted, it will require 60% of voters to approve an amendment. 

838. First, we should note that Issue 1 gets trampled; 57% of voters choose “no.” Only 43% vote “yes.” 

And, coming in November, will be an issue to amend the Ohio Constitution and protect a woman’s right to choose.

 

839. How, you may wonder, does this relate to the general topic of stolen elections? Thanks for asking. Kari Lake, Imaginary Governor of Arizona, had previously visited Ohio in an effort to drum up support for the “yes” side. As is her unvarying style, she refused to accept election results. Lake claimed the election was rigged – which is kind of amusing – since elections in Ohio are currently run by Republican elected officials. 

840. Kari never said the 2020 election in Ohio was rigged, when Trump carried the state by eight points. 

841. Nor was the election rigged in 2022, when J.D. Vance won a six-year term in the U.S. Senate. 

(Only elections that Republicans lose are rigged.)

Vance wins - election not rigged!

A First Amendment defense? 

842. August 9, 2023: The former president makes an appearance on Newsmax, and tells host Eric Bolling all about how wrong it is he’s being indicted for trying to steal the last presidential election. Bolling’s job is not to ask probing questions, but to let viewers listen to Trump rant, and fill their heads with pudding. At one point, Donald angrily insists, “I believe I won that election by many, many votes, many, many hundreds of thousands of votes. That’s what I think.” 

(What Donald “thinks” does not equal proof in court.) 

 

843. If you’re paying strict attention, it’s noteworthy how Trump phrases this claim. He’s now hedging his comments – to say, “that’s what I think.” He’s clearly looking at using a First Amendment defense in his forthcoming trial, related to the Jack Smith federal indictment. If he expresses his views as an opinion (as here), it may help. He can claim he didn’t try to overturn the 2020 election results illegally, because he really, really, really, really believed he won.

 

844. Bolling doesn’t care if what Trump has said is twaddle. But he has to come back after a commercial break. “All right, folks, now just to note: Newsmax has accepted the election results as legal and final.”  

The channel is already being sued for defamation, after spreading the lie that Dominion Voting Systems were critical to rigging the election. So Bolling has to avoid stepping on another legal land mine. 

 

“Force is the first law?”

845. August 12, 2023: Speaking alongside Trump at the Iowa State Fair on Saturday, Rep. Matt Gaetz had another great idea on how to save America. And save Donald’s lard ass, and maybe his own. 

Gaetz told a crowd that Democrats were “weaponizing” the justice system. He said they were going after “patriotic Americans who love this nation.” He and Donald, he added, were having a wonderful time at the fair – corndogs and such – and schmoozing with the crowd. “But we know that only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington D.C.” For good measure, he warned the MAGA faithful that the government was coming for them, too!! 

Maybe some Iowan in a Trump baseball cap will be indicted for making a butter sculpture of a cow, but this blogger doubts it.

Beware the butter cow!

 

846. Plus, Matt might want to remember what Adolf Hitler once said, when stirring the Nazi mobs: “Force is the first law.” 

It’s also worth remembering, that during the January 6 Committee hearings, three different witnesses (all under oath), who worked in the Trump White House, said that in the waning days of Donald’s presidency, Gaetz had a request. Fearing he could be charged for breaking the law to try to keep Trump in office – and for a matter involving alleged sex trafficking of a minor – Matt requested a blanket pardon. 

847. Matt, however, denies it – but not under oath. 

 

848. Out in Arizona, a Maricopa County judge allows a defamation lawsuit against Ms. Lake to move forward. Kari had boldly insisted, as her defense against defamation, that any lies she told about her 2022 defeat in the race to become governor were covered by the First Amendment. 

(In Kari Land, lying – defamation if you will – would be “free speech.”) 

 

849. Nope, said the judge. Kari had repeatedly claimed that Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer had helped sabotage her chances. In a lengthy ruling, Judge Jay Adleman said it was clear that claims made by Lake and her campaign were not, as her lawyers claimed, “mere rhetorical hyperbole.” 

Lake had insisted that “improper 19-inch ballots” were used to damage her chances of winning, and claimed 300,000 “illegal, invalid, phony or bogus” were counted. Judge Adleman ruled that such statements “may be discerned by a factfinder [at a coming trial] as either true or false when considered in the light of any available evidence. These statements constitute assertions of fact [emphasis added] that are actionable under prevailing Arizona law.” 

850. In other words, Kari will have to prove her statements were true and show that she did not act with “actual malice.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that people who are considered public figures, like Richer, cannot sue for defamation unless they can prove by clear and convincing evidence that the statements were made with actual malice. In general, that means the person making the statement knew it to be false or that the statement was made with a reckless disregard for the truth.

 

Since poor Kari has repeatedly failed to prove she was cheated out of a win in court, chances she can prove it now are slim.

 

851. Mr. Richer – a Republican, like Ms. Lake – said he was relieved by the court’s decision. “My family and I have faced endless and vile threats, including calls for our execution, and I’ve lost important personal relationships and seen my reputation severely damaged by [the] defendants. 

 “Working as a public servant should not lead to death threats, harassment or defamation,” he added. 

 

855: In months to follow, Ms. Lake was regularly floated as a possible vice presidential candidate on the Trump 2024 ticket. Two lying peas in a pod – two shameless individuals, unconcerned if their lies lead to death threats aimed at others. 

Liars lying together: Ms. Lake.

August 12, 2023: Candidate Trump spends his day “truthing” on his personal vanity social media site, Truth Social (similar to the old Soviet newspaper, Pravda, which meant in Russia, “truth”). 

856. Donald wanted to attack the Georgia prosecutor who he had heard was likely to have a grand jury indict his ass in the coming week.

 

I hear that RACIST Fulton County (Atlanta) District Attorney “Phoney” Fani Willis, who weakly presides over one of the deadliest communities in the U.S., with thousands of murderers, violent criminals & gang members roaming the streets while going untried, free, & are treated with “kid gloves,” is using a potential indictment of me, and other innocent people, as a campaign and fundraising CON JOB, all based on a PERFECT PHONE CALL, AS PRESIDENT, CHALLENGING ELECTION FRAUD – MY DUTY & RIGHT! 

 

“Republicans should never let honesty be mistaken for weakness.” 

857. Meanwhile, Trump is sure to add another name to the list of people he hates, after they testify under oath. Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan says he has been “requested to testify before the Fulton County grand jury on Tuesday.” He adds that he is looking “forward to answering their questions around the 2020 election.” Then, he notes, “Republicans should never let honesty be mistaken for weakness.” 

858. Journalist George Chidi has also been asked to testify. On December 14, 2020, he stumbled into a meeting of sixteen Republicans pretending to be Georgia’s real Electoral College voters. What, in fact, he interrupted that day was what had been meant to remain secret: a meeting of Georgia’s alternate slate of electors (fakes, really), who would pledge their votes to the Orange Dumpling from Mar-a-Lago, in hopes of bamboozling the fools who love Trump more than they love the rule of law. 

 

“A national security threat to the United States of America.” 

859. Elsewhere, we can report a brief touch of hope. GOP presidential candidate Will Hurd shows up in Iowa to campaign. In a radio interview he describes the former president as “a national security threat to the United States of America,” and says, “we need to be honest about that.”  

 

Addendum: Multiple Death Threats. 

August 13, 2023: With former President Trump continuing to attack judges, prosecutors and witnesses who might indict, try, or testify against him in multiple investigations, worries abound. 

860. In Georgia, where a fresh indictment seems likely, state election official Gabriel Sterling speaks his mind. He’s afraid there will be violence. “It’s not going to mean organized things,” he said Sunday. “It’s not going to be a bunch of conspirators together. It’s going to be one probably mentally unstable individual who’s going to be radicalized through this process and that’s my biggest concern through this.” 

Sterling is a Republican. 

Trump is what worries him most. 

861. We won’t know this until later, but Fani Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney, will become the target of non-stop death threats. On October 30, 2023, Arthur Ray Hanson II, an Alabama man and fan of Trump, will be arrested for threatening both Willis and Sheriff Pat Labat, who takes the infamous mug shot of Trump. 

“When you charge Trump on that fourth indictment, anytime you’re alone, be looking over your shoulder,” Hanson allegedly warns Ms. Willis. 

As for Labat, Hanson had this to say: “If you take a mug shot of the president and you’re the reason it happened, some bad (expletive)’s gonna happen to you,” and “You gonna get (expletive) up you keep (expletive) with my president.” 

 

862. As these cases play out against Trump (innocent until proven guilty, of course), death threats have become a common element. In the same way, we learn that another right-wing genius, James W. Clark, decided he was going to send bomb threats to Arizona election officials, because it was pissing him off to see Republicans keep losing state elections. 

In the wake of Trump’s loss in 2020, Clark warned that if the attorney general did not resign “her” office within 48 hours an “explosive device impacted in her personal space will be detonated.” 

863. Besides being morally wrong, Clark was factually wrong. The attorney general at the time was a Republican gentleman. 

 

864. Nor was Clark the only Trump-loving nut to have gone after Arizona officials. Mark A. Rissi, of Hiawatha, Iowa, has previously pleaded guilty to threatening both AG Mark Brnovich and Clint Hickman, of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. First, in December 2021, had come this cheery voicemail greeting:

 

This message is for Attorney General Mark Brnovich . . . . I’m a victim of a crime. My family is a victim of a crime. My extended family is a victim of a crime. That crime was the theft of the 2020 election. The election that was fraudulent across the state of Arizona, that the Attorney General knows was fraudulent, that the Attorney General has images of the conspirators deleting election fraud data from the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors computer system. Do your job, Brnovich, or you will hang with those [expletive] in the end. We will see to it. Torches and pitchforks. That’s your future, [expletive]. Do your job.

 

Then, a few months later, came a message for Mr. Hickman:

 

Hello Mr. Hickman, I am glad that you are standing up for democracy and want to place your hand on the Bible and say that the election was honest and fair. I really appreciate that. When we come to lynch your stupid lying Commie [expletive], you’ll remember that you lied on the [expletive] Bible, you piece of [expletive]. You’re gonna die, you piece of [expletive]. We’re going to hang you. We’re going to hang you.

 

Both Brnovich and Hickman are Republicans.

 

And we’re not done yet!

 

 

865. Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will be overseeing one of the four trials involving Mr. Trump, was allegedly threatened by a Texas woman, Abigail Jo Shry. “You are in our sights, we want to kill you,” Shry reportedly said in one voice mail. “Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, b****.”

 

 

Trump has never condemned those making death threats.

 

866. So, let’s end this post with a list of just some of the people who have been threatened with death, simply for doing their jobs – but crossing Donald J. Trump, as he describes it, in some way.

 

1. Richard Barron, Fulton County, Georgia election official (singled out by Trump).

2. Jocelyn Benson, Michigan Secretary of State.

3. Seth Bluestein, deputy to Al Schmidt (below), who got anti-Semitic threats.

4 . Kathy Boockvar, Pennsylvania Secretary of State; like many on this list, she had to go into hiding.

 

5. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (as described above).

6. Dr. Eric Coomer, security director for Dominion Voting Systems.

7. Judge Tanya Chutkan (as described).

8. Judge Arhtur Engoron, who presided in the New York fraud trial against Mr. Trump

 

9. Ruby Freeman, low-level Georgia poll worker.

10. Jordan Fuchs, deputy to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

11. Jena Griswold, Colorado Secretary of State.

12. Allison Greenfield, Judge Engoron’s law clerk

13. Clint Hickman, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (as above).

14. Katie Hobbs, then-Arizona Secretary of State.

15. Ralph Jones, Fulton County registration chief.

16. Four Colorado judges who ruled that Trump was ineligible to run for office after inciting the January 6 attack on Congress

 

17. Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia.

18. Kemp’s wife (not previously mentioned in any of my posts).

19. Kemp’s daughter

20. His other daughter

21. And…his other daughter

22. Christopher Krebs, head of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity unit (a Trump appointee).

 

23. Sheriff Pat Labat (as above).

24. Antonio Luna, employee of the Maricopa County, Arizona Elections Department.

 

25. Staci McElyea and other workers in the Nevada Secretary of State’s office.

26. Rep. Pete Meijer, who voted to impeach Trump.

27. Gen. Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

28. Shaye Moss, low-level Georgia poll worker, who got racist threats, as did her son.

 

29. Ms. Moss’s 14-year-old son.

30. Vice President Mike Pence.

31. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

32. Secretary Raffensperger’s wife, who also got sexualized threats.

33. Secretary Raffensperger’s daughter.

34. Stephen Richer

35. Richer’s family

36. Al Schmidt, Philadelphia city commissioner, a Republican singled out by Trump.

37. Schmidt’s wife.

38. Schmidt’s children.

39. Also, the other Philadelphia commissioner.

40. And the other, other city commissioner.

 

41. A senior election official for the City of Philadelphia.

42. Leslie Stahl, interviewer on 60 Minutes.

43. Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer for Georgia Secretary of State.

44. Janice Winfrey, Detroit city clerk.

45. Milwaukee’s city election commissioner, Claire Woodall-Vogg.

46. Unnamed Arizona voting official (now wearing body armor).

47. Unnamed young Georgia poll worker.

48. Unnamed members of the Fulton County, Georgia voter education and outreach staff.

 

49. Unnamed workers at twelve Georgia polling places, prior to a special election, (bomb threat).

 

50. Twenty-three members of the Georgia grand jury that recommended indicting Trump. (The vote was 23-0.)

 

51. Unnamed Michigan electors, who voted to certify electoral votes for Biden.

52. Unnamed workers at the Vermont state election office.

53. Unnamed F.B.I. agents in Cincinnati (an armed man shows up at their office and is killed in a shootout).

 

54. President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

 

 

ABC News has previously done an interesting story, featuring 54 acts of violence, inspired by Trump.

 

867. The Reuters News Agency tracked down two dozen threateners and found that most were unrepentant. 

868. Also unrepentant, this guy: 

Support for political violence should be unacceptable.

 869. BLOGGER’S NOTE: No true American should be happy to hear that so many of Trump’s enemies have been threatened, or that in the case of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, that he had been badly injured in a hammer attack at his home, by a Trump-believing election denier. 

870. In the same way, no sane person could be happy to know that a weirdo with an AR-15 managed to nearly kill Trump, himself, while he was speaking at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. 

872. Or happy that the assassin had done research online, apparently considering other targets, including President Biden. 

873. Or happy when a second would-be assassin – again, with an AR-15 – set up position near a Trump golf course in Florida, and prepared to open fire when the target in a golf cart presented. That’s two more nuts to add to our tale. 

 

874. As a good liberal, then, allow me to say that I do not believe every nut case with enough dollars should be able to get his or her or they’s hands on military-grade firepower. 

“They’s” as in transgender individuals – who Team Trump campaign ads are focusing on as some sort of godawful threat to democracy, and the American Way of Life (as defined in 1950.)

 

875. Finally, we should add that when Trump makes a joke about Nancy Pelosi’s injured husband, that’s what makes the man uniquely, especially dangerous.