Part XXI: The Decline and Fall of Donald J. Trump

The Decline and Fall of Donald Trump. 

__________ 

Make America Great Again?

__________ 

 

WITH EACH passing day, we draw closer to the next presidential election. It’s not saying anything Americans don’t know that these will not be the sunniest hours in our nation’s great history. Then again, if we listen to Donald Trump and his toadies, we already know who’s going to win. 

In fact, at a rally in South Carolina on February 23, Donald promised he was headed for a “gigantic win” in the GOP primary on Saturday. He would finish off Republican challenger Nikki Haley – “Birdbrain,” as he likes to call her now. Then he’d be coming after “Joe Biden and the radical left Democrats” like a “freight train” in November. The Democrats had no chance, he assured fans. 

Unless. 

“The only way it can end where they win is a rigged election, because what they did in 2020 is disgraceful,” he shouted, “and look what happened to our country.” His fans cheered, and in their hearts (but definitely not their brains) they knew that only “election interference” could stop the Orange God.

Is this Trump's fate?

(The correct phrase should be “the rule of law.”)

  

As in every other section of this story, we will pile high the ludicrous statements you must believe to keep blind faith in Donald burning bright. We will report the endless stream of  lies spun by the mendacious former president. We will revel in the legal woes of his deceitful surrogates, and track daunting developments in court, which threaten to destroy Team Trump, root, branch, and leaf. Also nuts. 

This tree has a lot of nuts. 

As good Americans, those of us who have a grip on reality must do our best to aid the confused in the search for the truth. We must help free the MAGA folk from the clutches of the political equivalent of the Hale-Popp cult. We must help them slip off their matching Nike sneakers, before it’s too late. 

You won't have to kill yourself when a comet comes along.
You'll just have to pay $399 for these babies.

  

Let’s start with opinion polls. In aggregate, such polls provide a solid picture of where the nation might be headed. 

My favorite polling operation (proven most accurate over time), FiveThirtyEight, chart’s President Biden’s approval/disapproval ratings. The last time his “approval” rating was higher than “disapproval” was August 22, 2021. At that time, 47.9% of Americans thought he was doing a good job, vs. 46.4% who did not. 

This morning (3/21/24), when I check the polls at RealClearPolitics, another excellent polling site, Biden is underwater, with an average approval rating of only 40.3%, and a disapproval rating of 56.3%. 

If you show those numbers to your MAGA type, the result will be spontaneous shouts of, “Lock him up!” 

Or, “Hang Mike Pence!” 

The dilemma arises when you show them contradictory information, anything that might destabilize their blind faith. 

 

The last seven years! 

For the poor souls who love Donald, you can delicately remind them that Donald’s unfavorable numbers have been higher than his favorable numbers for – um – the last seven years! According to FiveThirtyEight, on January 2, 2023, Mr. Trump himself was mired in the depths of unfavourability, at 55.6%. 

Only 39.6% of Americans pined for his return. 

In fact, the gap between his “favorable” and “unfavorable” marks had, until the summer of 2023, been consistently greater than Biden’s. 

Yet, to listen to Mr. Trump, he is headed for a landslide victory in November. And here we confront his mindboggling narcissism. None of the poll aggregations have ever indicated that he’d win in a landslide, not in 2016, and definitely not in 2020, nor this November. Those polls have been right. Hillary Clinton was expected to win the popular vote in 2016, by 3.2 points. She did win, but the final margin was only 2.1 points, slim enough to allow Trump to eke out a victory in the Electoral College. Biden thumped Trump four years later, just as the polls predicted. 

No sane pollster in 2020 ever predicted a “landslide” win for the incumbent, but his silly followers believe it happened, like children believe the Easter Bunny brings them candy in baskets every spring.

The polls clearly showed Biden with a sizeable lead in 2020.

 

RealClearPolitics has kept track of polls for twenty years. It was impossible to ignore, if you dare to take a peak, that at no point during his first term in office did Don’s approval rating, on average, hit 50%. After one week in the White House, his “approval” rating would never be higher than his “disapproval” rating, and you can look it up. 

Does that mean Donald can’t win in 2024? This blogger is not blind, deaf, dumb, or a drooling fool. He can read and interpret opinion polls, and not make idiotic or emotional claims. He’s not Trump. Of course, Trump can win. If the election were held today there’s a good chance he would. This morning (3/21), when I check polling averages, Trump has a +2.0 lead on Biden (46.7% to 44.7%.). For this liberal blogger, that’s a brutal fact. But facts are facts, brutal or not. 

(Trump supporters routinely choose to ignore that truth.) 

 

So, can Biden win? 

Of course he can; and the election won’t have to be rigged. It wasn’t rigged in 2020. Nor was it rigged in 2016 – when Trump howled that it was – and then in some mysterious fashion prevailed. 

 

The year of decision does not start with a bang. 

Here at this richly researched blog, we never give voice to howls of, “Lock him up!” Or lock anybody else up either. 

We are big fans of justice – Miranda rights read to you at the time of arrest –  a lawyer appointed if you cannot afford one – juries of one’s peers – and the right to call witnesses on your behalf. If you can’t prove crookery in court, we have to assume prosecutors didn’t have sufficient evidence.  

We cannot see the future, but we do know this. Trump’s best legal strategy in all four indictments he faces is to delay. If he can hold out until he’s president again, he may be able to stifle all the cases moving forward against him now. 

That makes this his make or break year. Can he prove he really believed the 2020 election was stolen – and he wasn’t just plotting to overturn the results of a fair vote? Will a jury find him guilty of fraud in the same kind of case that sent his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to jail for thirteen-and-a-half months? Will any of his alleged accomplices take plea deals in the Florida classified documents case or the Georgia state election fraud case? The year of decision does not start with a bang. 

 

January 2, 2024: Once again, where rigged voting is concerned, we learn that in the 2020 presidential election, there wasn’t any. According to Ken Block, whose company was tasked with tracking down proof of massive fraud, they couldn’t. He told the man who paid him what he found – a heaping plate of nothing. He told the man’s chief of staff, too. In fact, Mr. Block had examined claims made by others of voter fraud, found them false, and relayed those findings, as well. 

Who hired him? 

President Donald J. Trump. 

Now Block sounds warning: 

My company’s contract with the campaign obligated us to deliver evidence of voter fraud that could be defended in a court of law. The small amount of voter  fraud I found was bipartisan, with about as many Republicans casting duplicate votes as Democrats.

 

This is a crime of privilege: Those with two homes sometimes take two bites of the electoral apple.

 

There were also small numbers of deceased voters. Still, nothing emerged that could provide a solid basis for a legal challenge to an election result in any of the states we evaluated.

 

“If voter fraud had impacted the 2020 election, it would already have been proven,” Mr. Block now says. “Maintaining the lies undermines faith in the foundation of our democracy.” And Donald doesn’t care. 

 

Stopping “bags of crap” at the polls. 

January 5: The former president reacts angrily to a speech by current President Joe Biden, blaming him for inciting the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress. Donald says that Antifa people and F.B.I. agents in the crowd were “leading the charge.” Which no evidence whatsoever supports. 

For fun, you can study what some of the leaders of the attack, like Stewart Rhodes, had to say. On January 6, he posted:

 

 

And the evidence in this regard is massive. The rioters that day were, virtually without exception, Trump’s people. 

And they believed they were rioting in his name. 

(We may see it again – only worse – if he loses in November. See below.) 

 

Same day: At a rally in Mason City, Iowa, Donald tells his loving supporters that they must be ready to “guard the vote,” and stop “bags of crap” from going to the polls in all coming elections. We are curious, of course, how his supporters will decide which voters are “bags of crap,” and which voters want to make America Great Again, and can be allowed to pass unmolested in their stylish red caps. 

Naturally, the former president rambles on obsessively about how the 2020 election was stolen, so that you have to wonder if he talks about this fiction in his sleep. Then he sounds an ominous note. “We’re not going to let it happen again,” he says. “You should all stay in those voting booths. You should stay there and watch it. If you see bags of crap coming into the voting areas, you’ve got to stop it. You can’t let it happen, because these guys are crooked as hell. They know how to cheat.” 

He suggests that his supporters be prepared in November to go into Democratic cities to “guard the vote.” 

“We will fight for America like no one has ever fought before,” he promises. “2024 is our final battle.” 

Only it’s not. There will be midterms in 2026. If Trump loses in 2024, he could run again in 2028, when he’d be 82. You could have a new and less crazy GOP nominee, if you preferred. Republican lawmakers in state houses, and governors, and in Congress can speak up for causes in which they believe. There is no “final battle” as long as we have free and fair elections, and we do. 

Trump is lying, and his words have a cancerous effect. 

 

January 6, 2024: It’s 4:17 a.m. and the bleary-eyed blogger can’t sleep. So he checks out a story about one of the defendants in the Georgia case, alleging election fraud by Trump and his co-conspirators – including Harrison Floyd III. It turns out Floyd attempted to barrel past F.B.I. agents after they arrived at his apartment recently, to serve a subpoena in a separate federal indictment. That’s the other case related to Team Trump’s efforts to steal the 2020 election. Floyd was wanted for testimony. 

He’s not charged in that case. But when local police came to arrest him, on an assault charge, for ramming into the feds, Floyd, an Iraq War veteran, admitted he had considered grabbing one agent’s gun. 

You can watch video of him getting arrested, if you like. Floyd is clearly shaken, huffing, and puffing, and standing in his doorway in his skivvies. (Later, he is allowed to dress.) Keen-eyed observers notice that the subpoena, which can be seen as officers leaf through the pages, asks for all of Floyd’s contacts with Trump, Trump lawyers, and any comments linked to Ruby Freeman or Shaye Moss. He is also asked about communications with Stephen Lee and Trevian Kutti, two others charged in the Georgia case.

 

FUN FACT WITH (ALLEGED) FELONS: Floyd told arresting officers that he didn’t believe the federal agents were who they said they were. Their suits were “horrible,” he said, and they looked like characters from “Sanford and Son.” 

 

January 8: The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York has denied Donald Trump’s claim that he should be granted immunity from E. Jean Carroll’s second lawsuit, accusing him of defamation. 

Carroll has already won a $5 million judgement against Donald, regarding his defamatory comments, while he was president, after which he defamed her again, when he was no longer president. 

So, she’s suing him again. 

 

Could a president sell pardons? 

January 9: Today former President Trump showed up in court to watch a hearing before a federal appeals court. Donald’s lawyers were insisting that he has immunity from prosecution for crimes he might have committed while president, because he was never impeached and removed from office. 

The three judges proved skeptical – although, to their credit, none of them mimicked Trump’s lawyer, John Lauro, using a Darth Vader voice. 

Judge Florence Pan had to ask, however: “In your view,” barring impeachment, “could a President sell pardons” at the very end of his term, and waltz out the White House, waving a thick wad of thousand dollar bills, before Congress could act? 

(I added the “wad” part – she only asked about selling pardons.)

 

Could he – not that Donald would ever stoop so low – order Seal Team 6 to assassinate Joe Biden at 11:45 a.m., on Inauguration Day, with fifteen minutes left in office. And could he order some of his cult members to hang Mike Pence from a peach tree, and could he dance around on Pennsylvania Avenue, and say, “Well, can’t touch me now. I was president when I ordered those cold blooded murders, but Congress didn’t have time to impeach and remove me, so I’m home free!” 

This blogger is no lawyer, but this seemed like thin legal gruel. If you can’t charge a president with a crime, unless he or she is impeached and removed from office, then what if thirty-four senators from his or her own party refuse to convict? Was Lauro saying that immunity would prevail? Suppose Trump killed an attractive young female aide, after he grabbed her private parts, and she said she’d tell. Could he order an unscrupulous toady (Stephen Miller comes to mind) to cut up the body with a bone saw, weight the parts, put them in plastic bags, and dump them in the Potomac River? Suppose that crime was not discovered for a full year, after the president left office. 

Was Lauro saying, a hypothetical Trump could not be charged? 

Well, yes, Lauro admitted. Not unless hypothetical Donald was first hypothetically impeached and hypothetically removed from office. 

Although, in that scenario, Congress would have to hypothetically reconvene, using its time travel skills. To be blunt, Team Trump’s legal position seemed ludicrous to me, and to the judges, as well. 

Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, two years older than Mr. Trump, first appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, was skeptical. Wouldn’t it be “paradoxical,” she wondered, if the U.S. Constitution required every president to take an oath requiring him to “faithfully execute the laws,” yet the position Lauro was trying to map out would permit a president to break the same laws with impunity, unless impeached? 

Even better, the judges pointed out that during Trump’ second impeachment, his lawyers said, in essence, “Hey, no need to impeach Donald now! He can be held liable in court for any crimes he might have committed while president.” 

Again, this blogger is no lawyer, but it would appear Donald is screwed. Naturally, he walked out of court and lied, and said he thought the hearing went great, and he might kill all his old political foes for fun, if he were ever elected again. 

(I exaggerate, of course, but only a little.) 

Trump listens to the three judges.

  

“The gravest threat to democracy that we’ve ever seen.” 

Same day: If you follow current events zealously, which can lead to depression and heavy drug and/or alcohol use, you know who Ty Cobb is. 

Not the baseball player. 

This Ty Cobb is Donald’s former lawyer, a man who helped save his fat ass during the Mueller investigation. Cobb now warns that we should take his old boss seriously when he speaks about being a dictator if reelected, but only on “Day 1.” Also, when he talks about revenge, and his acolyte haters talk about “retribution” if he wins. Or when his current lawyers argue that in a second term Donald would be immune from prosecution, no matter the crimes, so long as Congress didn’t impeach and remove him from office. (With this band of Republicans in Congress, you couldn’t get a vote to impeach if Trump ordered Hillary Clinton beheaded on the House chamber floor.) 

“I think you have to take Trump seriously,” Cobb warns, “because he poses the gravest threat to democracy that we’ve ever seen.” 

Reacting to Team Trump’s argument of an unindictable president – named Don – Cobb tells a CNN host, “I think the, you know, lack of accountability that he desires – which Putin has, the ayatollah has, Xi has – as you alluded to, you know, I think that he may want an America that is like that.” 

 

FUN FACT: In other court news, Judge Judy has endorsed Nicki Haley to be the next GOP nominee for President of the United States! 

I think we can all agree this clinches victory for Haley – which does mean, at least, that Donald will get a pardon if he’s convicted in any of his multiple criminal indictments. Haley has already made that promise, if she’s elected, and he loses in court. Donald will never have to see the inside of a jail. 

Yay, Donald! 

(Polls show Haley has almost zero chance of winning the primaries.)

 

Trump now calls Haley "Birdbrain."
She was his U.N. ambassador.

 

January 10: It’s a good day for democracy! President Biden does not suggest that he might order the assassination of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and then claim absolute presidential immunity. 

Nor does he tell reporters, “Well, if I have the CIA put a bomb under Rep. James Comer’s automobile, and blow him up, I have the absolute power to pardon myself. So that would be cool.” 

Who said he had immunity from any charges as president, unless first impeached, and also said he could pardon himself? 

This buffoon:

  

January 12: Team Trump whiffs in court again, after suing The New York Times and three of the paper’s reporters. Their alleged sin: Publishing a Pulitzer Prize-winning series about Donald’s finances. 

Such as: Paying zero income taxes, year after year. 

Trump was demanding $100 million in damages. His crack team of lawyers managed to get him 0 dollars. Plus, the judge ordered Trump to reimburse the paper and the reporters $392,648 for legal expenses. 

 

“Not just for the republic itself, but also the president.” 

January 15: Iowa caucus goers are set to go crowd meetings and pick the GOP nominee they want to see run for president in 2024. Trump is expected to score an easy win. Meanwhile, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah has said he will back Donald in his third run, as he did in 2016 and 2020. 

This is interesting because emails and phone communications from January 2021 show what Sen. Lee thought about the attack on Capitol Hill, and Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the last election. In an exchange of messages with Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell, Sen. Lee warns, beforehand, that “January 6” is a “dangerous idea.” Then he adds, “Not just for the republic itself, but also the president.” 

In a series of voice mails he also begs National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien not to resign his post until Biden takes over. Lee has just received a call from Rudy Giuliani, who he describes as “walking malpractice.” He knows what Rudy is up to – and it involves overturning the results of the 2020 election. 

But Lee is all in on Trump 2024, which shows you the level of character we can expect in the modern GOP.

 

It’s now March 21, and we are 1,234 days 

out from the last presidential election. 

 

Trump is still lying and insisting he won. No case in any court, state or federal, has shown significant voter fraud occurred in 2020. 

NOT A SINGLE COURT.

 

FINALLY, we have a case of real voter fraud! This one comes from Atlantic City, New Jersey, normally a Democratic bastion. In fact, Craig Callaway, a former city council member and political organizer, is already planted firmly in jail, as a result of a sex blackmail and bribery conviction. 

Now he has been hit with fresh felony charges. The first story I saw didn’t mention which party he belonged to; but anytime you catch people screwing with free and fair elections it’s a boon for all of us honest types. This also sounds like the most organized example of voter fraud I’ve heard of in five years. Now it must be proven in court – although, for Callaway, it doesn’t sound good. 

I end up having to check other sources to find out that Callaway is African American – which means, likely a Democrat. 

Then, I find this: He is described as the “former Atlantic City council president and Democratic operative.” 

U.S. Attorneys accused Callaway and other unnamed subordinates of paying Atlantic City residents between $30 and $50 to act as authorized messengers and request mail-in ballots for voters whom they had never met. Prosecutors allege that those ballots were later cast without the actual voters’ knowledge.

 

The charges appear to stem from work Callaway did for Rep. Jeff Van Drew’s 2022 reelection campaign. There’s no indication Van Drew (R-02) knew about the alleged scheme.

 

So, I’m feeling pretty smug, about uncovering the kind of voter fraud story that Team Trump lawyers never can. And I do try to be fair about what I find. Then, as I’m editing this post, I finally notice the (R-02) after Van Drew’s name. Goddam! Callaway was cheating to help a Republican stay in office. 

WTF! 

(There is no evidence that Van Drew knew about the scheme; and the alleged schemer is a Democrat. So we’ll put this in blue, as in “blue states.”) 

(If found guilty, I do hope Callaway gets put away for a long time.) 

 

February 5: Allen H. Weisselberg, the former Chief Financial Officer for the Trump Organization, is in jam again. 

He’s working on a plea deal to admit perjuring himself during the business fraud trial, when he said he knew nothing about the bizarre mismeasurements of the Trump penthouse in New York City. Those were the “”measurements” that turned an ample living space of 11,000 square feet into a 30,000 square foot monster, so that Donald Trump could claim a much higher valuation on his property. Proof again, that Donald only hires people who he knows will lie for him when asked. 

(Or people who can’t tell a ruler from a yardstick.) 

 

February 6: Speaking of voter fraud, and election fraud, and spousal fraud, Donald J. Trump took another judicial kick in the crotch on Tuesday. The former president and his high-priced legal team had thrown up a claim that a president couldn’t be sued for defamation, or charged for any crimes committed while president because…um…the Founding Fathers said that would be a terrible idea. 

To say that a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was unimpressed with Team Trump’s claims would be a gross understatement. In a 57-page ruling, they blew the former president’s legal arguments to teeny-tiny bits. Noting that a district court had already denied Mr. Trump’s contention that he was immune from prosecution, the panel affirmed that decision. 

They further explained: 

For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as president no longer protects him against this prosecution.

 

Unless the U.S. Supreme Court intercedes, the former president is screwed. He’s going to find himself on trial soon, facing serious criminal charges. 

(Innocent until proven guilty, Donald!) 

 

If you haven’t been following along with developments in Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s indictment, the one charging Trump with conspiracy to commit election fraud, this latest court ruling lays out the basic charge. I have dropped most of the case citations and added paragraph breaks to make it easier to follow. 

According to this latest court decision: 

The Indictment alleges that former President Trump understood that he had lost the election and that the election results were legitimate but that he nevertheless was determined to remain in power. He then conspired with others to cast doubt on the election’s outcome and contrived to have himself declared the winner.

 

The Indictment charges that he and his co-conspirators allegedly advanced their goal through five primary means:

 

First, “they used knowingly false claims of election fraud” to attempt to persuade state legislators and election officials to change each state’s electoral votes in former President Trump’s favor. For example, he and his allies falsely “declared that more than ten thousand dead voters had voted in Georgia”; “that there had been 205,000 more votes than voters in Pennsylvania”; “that more than 30,000 non-citizens had voted in Arizona”; and “that voting machines ... had switched votes from [Trump] to Biden.”

 

For any MAGA folks reading along, all of those claims have been debunked – by recounts, by Republican governors and/or election officials, and by judges of various state and federal kinds. 

Second, then-President Trump and his co-conspirators “organized fraudulent slates of electors in seven targeted states attempting to mimic the procedures that the legitimate electors were supposed to follow.” 

(No one disputes the fact that alternate slates were created.)

 

 

Third, then-President Trump and his co-conspirators pressed officials at the Department of Justice “to conduct sham election crime investigations and to send a letter to the targeted states that falsely claimed that the Justice Department had identified significant concerns that may have impacted the election outcome.”

 

If you love Trump, but this sounds to you as if your Orange Hero was trying to “weaponize” the Department of Justice you would be correct; and this we already know. Top officials at Trump’s DOJ, including Attorney General Bill Barr, his replacement, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, and eight other assistant AG’s, can testify to the truth of the third accusation in the Jack Smith indictment. So, we can see why the former president was anxious to have the court rule that he was immune from being tried for any crimes. 

Fourth, then-President Trump and his co-conspirators attempted to convince then-Vice President Mike Pence to “use his ceremonial role at the January 6 certification proceeding to fraudulently alter the election results.” When the Vice President rebuffed them, [Mr. Trump] stirred his base of supporters to increase pressure on the Vice President. Ultimately, on the morning of January 6, 2021, he held a rally in Washington D.C. where “he repeated knowingly false claims of election fraud to gathered supporters” and “directed them to the Capitol to obstruct the certification proceeding and exert pressure on the Vice President to take the fraudulent actions he had previously refused.”

 

Fifth, and finally, from the January 6 rally, thousands of his supporters, “including individuals who had traveled to Washington and to the Capitol at [his] direction” swarmed the United States Capitol, causing “violence and chaos” that required the Congress to temporarily halt the election certification proceeding. At that point, he and his co-conspirators “exploited the disruption by redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud and convince Members of Congress to further delay the certification.”

 

We already knew that Team Trump had lost a case on December 1, 2023, when a district court “rejected” his 

claim of executive immunity from criminal prosecution, holding that “[f]ormer Presidents enjoy no special conditions on their federal criminal liability.” (United States v. Trump). [That court] concluded that the “Constitution’s text, structure, and history do not support” the existence of such an immunity, and that it “would betray the public interest” to grant a former President “a categorical exemption from criminal liability” for allegedly “attempting to usurp the reins of government.”

 

Lawyers for the former president had argued that he was immune from prosecution for all “official acts undertaken as President, a category, Trump contends, that includes all of the conduct alleged in the indictment.” 

This was another point of argument on which Team Trump hoped to hang an immunity hat. But the three judges weren’t buying that, either. 

It is true: the courts have ruled that presidents are immune from “civil liability” in regard to their “official acts, defined to include any conduct falling within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility.” On the other hand, “Both sitting and former Presidents remain civilly liable for private conduct.” 

 

See, for example, President Bill Clinton. In 1998, he was forced to give a deposition as part of  a lawsuit filed by Paula Jones, alleging sexual harassment, prior to his election to the highest office in the land. 

If you have forgotten – as this blogger did – Ms. Jones dropped her suit, but only after it was agreed she would receive $850,000. The president, however, did not apologize or admit guilt. 

(Yes. Bill was probably guilty.)

No president should be above the law.

 

 

Now, back to Donald and his immunity claim: 

“When considering the issue of Presidential immunity,” however, the three judges explain, “the Supreme Court has been careful to note that its holdings on civil liability do not carry over to criminal prosecutions.” 

Former President Trump’s claimed immunity would have us extend the framework for Presidential civil immunity to criminal cases and decide for the first time that a former President is categorically immune from federal criminal prosecution for any act conceivably within the outer perimeter of his executive responsibility.

 

In fact, Trump’s lawyers were arguing that neither federal nor state prosecutors, nor state or federal courts could sit in judgment “over a President’s official acts.” 

The judges were polite enough not to refer to such claims as “mumbo jumbo.” But in legal terms, they were saying that they were. Several examples were cited, including the seminal case of Marbury v. Madison (1803), in which courts enjoined members of the executive branch to cease and desist, because actions already taken contravened existing law or ignored statutory requirements. 

Chief Justice John Marshall - 1803.

 

“No officer of the law may set that law at defiance with impunity.” 

We know that former President Trump doesn’t like to read – unless someone hands him a glowing article about himself. But if he were reading along, at this point, he’d be sweating profusely. 

The three judges point out that the Supreme Court has unequivocally explained: 

No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance with impunity. All the officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law and are bound to obey it [emphasis added unless otherwise noted]. It is the only supreme power in our system of government, and every man who by accepting office participates in its functions is only the more strongly bound to submit to that supremacy, and to observe the limitations which it imposes upon the exercise of the authority which it gives.

 

In plain English, the structure of the U.S. Constitution makes it clear. The president is bound by law, regarding his conduct, and cannot ignore the law when it suits his purposes. In the case before the appeals court “former President Trump’s actions allegedly violated generally applicable criminal laws, meaning those acts were not properly within the scope of his lawful discretion.” 

Yeah. 

He’s not immune from prosecution. 

Of course, if you wanted to dive deep into an ocean of idiocy, and ignore what the judges said, you could go to “X” (formerly known as Twitter) and see what apologists for Mr. Trump, and Trump himself, had to say. According to Trump, “the prospect of potential post-Presidency criminal liability would inhibit a sitting President’s ability to act “fearlessly and impartially,” citing the “especially sensitive duties” of the President and the need for “bold and unhesitating action.” 

(The blogger might call it “unthinking and illegal action,” but that’s just him.) 

 

“No former officeholder is immune.” 

Unambiguous evidence suggests that former presidents are well aware they could face prosecution for crimes committed in office. President Gerald Ford felt it necessary to pardon his predecessor, Richard M. Nixon, who would beyond doubt have been brought to court otherwise for his crimes. 

(Forty members of his administration were indicted, and many went to jail.) 

 

Trump himself clearly understood he might end up in court, when, during the Mueller investigation, he claimed he could pardon himself. 

Still, the torpedo that sinks Mr. Trump’s legal claim – that he cannot be prosecuted at all – because he had been impeached, but not convicted – came when the appeals panel pointed out that during his second impeachment, his own lawyers argued the opposite. Charged for inciting an insurrection, but tried only after he left office, “his counsel argued that instead of [a] post-Presidency impeachment, the appropriate vehicle for investigation, prosecution, and punishment is the courts, as [w]e have a judicial process and an investigative process . . . to which no former officeholder is immune.” 

(Read that again if you love Donald J. Trump.) 

(Twice, more, if you still miss it.)

 

You might even say, the three judges delivered a “burn” to Trump and his team, noting that the district court had observed: “Every President will face difficult decisions; whether to intentionally commit a federal crime should not be one of them.” 

The President has a constitutionally mandated duty to take care that the laws “be faithfully executed.” As part of this duty the president is responsible for investigating and prosecuting criminal violations. It would be “a striking paradox” if now, the courts were to declare that the person responsible for taking care that the laws be followed, could defy those laws with impunity. 

 

“An unprecedented assault on the structure of our government.” 

In the case of Mr. Trump, the judges make note, without saying so directly, that he stands accused of violating the most fundamental rules of a functioning democracy. 

The Indictment alleges that the assertedly official actions at issue here were undertaken by former President Trump in furtherance of a conspiracy to unlawfully overstay his term as President and to displace his duly elected successor. That alleged conduct violated the constitutionally established design for determining the results of the Presidential election as well as the Electoral Count Act of 1887, neither of which establishes a role for the President in counting and certifying the Electoral College votes.

 

Rather, “Upon the expiration of the time for which he is elected, a former president returns to the mass of the people again and the power of the Executive Branch vests in the newly elected President.” It is the duty of any president to follow “the legal procedures for determining election results” and to “ensure that executive power vests in the new President at the constitutionally appointed time.” When Mr. Trump “maintains that the post-2020 election litigation that his campaign and supporters unsuccessfully pursued was in keeping with his duty to uphold the law, he is in error,” the three judges explain. “Former President Trump’s alleged conduct conflicts with his constitutional mandate to enforce the laws governing the process of electing the new President.” 

Finally, the ruling cites precedent to bolster the case. “The public has a strong interest in the foundational principle of our government that the will of the people, as expressed in the Electoral College vote, determines who will serve as President.” 

Former President Trump’s alleged efforts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election were, if proven, an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government. He allegedly injected himself into a process in which the President has no role – the counting and certifying of the Electoral College votes – thereby undermining constitutionally established procedures and the will of the Congress.

 

The judges are also cognizant of the danger of further aggrandizing presidential power, already so potent.  

As Justice Robert Jackson warned in a 1952 ruling, 

Executive power has the advantage of concentration in a single head in whose choice the whole Nation has a part, making him the focus of public hopes and expectations. In drama, magnitude and finality his decisions so far overshadow any others that almost alone he fills the public eye and ear. No other personality in public life can begin to compete with him in access to the public mind through modern methods of communications. By his prestige as head of state and his influence upon public opinion he exerts a leverage upon those who are supposed to check and balance his power which often cancels their effectiveness. 

(See, for example: President Trump neutering Sen. Ted Cruz.) 

(Or reducing Sen. Tim Scott to a “Stepin Fetchit.”) 

 

“The most fundamental check on executive power.” 

The three judges explain the danger, should any president be granted complete immunity from crimes he might commit: 

We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power, the recognition and implementation of election results. Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the Executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have their votes count.

 

…We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.

 

We even learn, by reading this court decision, that in Great Britain – from which the Founding Fathers copied most of their principles regarding government  and law – impeachment could lead to a variety of criminal penalties. These included “fines, imprisonment, and even execution.” 

(Donald would be freaking out, if that last were still true.) 

 

Summing up matters, after citing various supporting examples of the Founding Fathers’ thinking, the panel explains that they are rejecting Trump’s immunity claim. “Accordingly, the order of the district court is AFFIRMED.” 

 

FUN FACT: According to The New York Times, Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign, said the former president “respectfully disagrees” with the decision and would appeal. 

If what Cheung says is true, it would be the first time Trump ever “respectfully disagreed” with any decision that didn’t go his way – including when he was a child, and mom ordered him to eat his lima beans.

Nixon needed a pardon to ensure he stayed out of jail.

 

February 8, 2024: Tim Parlatore, former Trump lawyer, says he expects the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the immunity case. 

And then rule against Donald. 

Former White House lawyer Ty Cobb also says he expects the Supreme Court to take the matter under review. Then he expects the court to rule unanimously against the former president. 

Even Clarence Thomas! 

(The blogger believes that, at best, Trump might lose, 7-2.) 

(Thomas, and Justice Samuel Alito might be two.) 

 

Same day: Former Trump Economic Advisor Peter Navarro is ordered to report to prison. Navarro will – barring final appeals – have four months in lockup to consider why he chose not to testify about the January 6 insurrection. 

 

No honor among thieves. 

Same day: During a court hearing on his decision to declare bankruptcy, Rudy Giuliani says part of his problem stems from the fact the Trump 2020 campaign and the Republican National Committee have failed to pay him $2 million he is owed for his fine legal work, trying to help overturn the results of the election. 

Giuliani said he could prove two poll workers committed voter fraud.
A jury hit him for $148.2 million, because he lied.

 

February 9: It appears Team Trump is finally going to score a court victory. The U.S. Supreme Court appears reluctant to allow Colorado to kick the former president off the ballot in the Republican primary – which might have led to his being kicked off in the general election. The blogger will not be surprised by this development. He is surprised by Mr. Trump’s reaction. Suddenly, Donald says listening to court deliberations has been “a beautiful thing.” 

Trump? Trump likes what a court is doing? Amazing. 

Previously, he has complained that the nine justices on the court lacked courage, and has spent most of the last three years describing judges in lower courts, who are holding hearings regarding his many alleged crimes, as “lunatics,” and worse. 

(His fans will fail to grasp the danger of his attacks on the judicial branch.) 

 

February 14: Donald sends Melania a heartfelt Valentine’s Day message – in the form of a campaign email. So sweet! 

“Dear Melania,

 

I LOVE YOU. Even after every single INDICTMENT, ARREST, and WITCH HUNT, you never left my side. You’ve always supported me through everything. I wouldn’t be the man I am today without your guidance, kindness, and warmth.

 

You will always mean the world to me, Melania!

 

From your husband with love,

Donald J. Trump

 

Readers were then directed to a website where they could leave their own Valentine’s Day message or donate to his reelection campaign. 

Donald's one true love.

 

True the Nothing. 

February 15: Sometimes, you get the feeling that the election deniers are like terrible poker players, bluffing, when everyone at the table who isn’t drunk realizes they’ve got nothing. Not even a pair of fours. 

Once again, a right-wing news outlet is forced to admit that they’ve been selling nonsense regarding what happened in the 2020 election. This time, Newsmax is compelled to publish a story about True the Vote – which pushed all kinds of claims that ended up in the dopey film “2,000 Mules.” 

If you’ve never watched that film, all kinds of wild claims are made, regarding ballot harvesting and human “mules” carrying boxcar loads of bogus ballots to drop off boxes. True the Vote said they had massive evidence to back up such claims. Election officials in Georgia went to court to get their hands on all that proof of crimes. 

(Let’s go – let’s catch these illegal-voting rascals!) 

 

Now, Newsmax (where hosts routinely bought and reamplified such lies) has to report that True the Nothing can’t provide any evidence at all. Like, zip. They can’t offer names of sources. They claim they have confidentiality agreements to protect those names. But they can’t provide copies of any agreements. “Once again,” says a Georgia official, “True the Vote has proven itself untrustworthy and unable to provide a shred of evidence for a single one of their fairy-tale allegations.” 

Where Newsmax comes in, as we have previously noted, the company had to settle one defamation case, filed by a worker for Dominion Voting Systems. The right-wing outlet currently faces a massive lawsuit, filed by Dominion itself, which is scheduled to go to trial in September 2024. 

So Newsmax is trying to report the truth and make it sound like they give a shit about getting stories right. 

Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion in damages; and this blogger is guessing Newsmax may settle, much like Fox News did. Fox, of course, lost $787.5 million, the price of a whole shitload of lies. 

 

February 16: The fraud case aimed at the Trump empire in New York doesn’t exactly fit the general thread of our story – of election stealing attempts, perpetrated by then-President Donald J. Trump. 

But there’s a high degree of satisfaction in seeing Donald take a haymaker to the nose. The judge rules that Trump’s fraudulent business practices merit penalties in the sum of $354 million and a three-year ban on conducting business in the state. Donald also owes interest on that sum – another $100 million. 

Then we add in the two judgments against him in the defamation cases of E. Jean Carroll, $5 million for the first, $83.3 million for the second, because Trump just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. 

That pushes the tab to just over $542 million.

Ms. Carroll, back in the day.

 

 

“To improperly overturn the 2020 presidential election results.” 

February 18: Once again, a Republican picks up his metaphorical assault rifle and blows a giant hole through the “Stolen Election” Myth. The latest “shooter” is Andrew Hitt, who had a minor role in the effort to overturn results in the 2020 election. Hitt was then head of the Wisconsin Republican Party. He agreed, after being pressured, to serve as one of ten fake electors for that state. (The real electors, of course, cast votes for Biden, who won the state’s popular vote.) Now, in an interview with 60 Minutes, Hitt tells Anderson Cooper that he and the other nine fakes “got specific advice from our lawyers that these documents [the fake electoral certificates] were meaningless unless a court [emphasis added] said they had meaning.” 

And, of course, no court ever said anything of the sort. Biden won the popular vote in Wisconsin, so the certificates Hitt and others signed should never have been created, let alone signed, as they were, and sent. Why did Hitt go along with the plan? He was “scared,” he said. “It was not a safe time.” 

(Get it? He was afraid of the Trump nuts.) 

 

Last December, Hitt and the others avoided criminal charges by agreeing, first, to sign a statement acknowledging that Biden won the state’s vote in the last presidential election. They further agreed that they would never serve as electors – neither fake, nor real – in any future election involving Donald J. Trump. Finally, and most importantly, they admitted that their actions were “part of an attempt to improperly overturn the 2020 presidential election results.” 

(So: Who was behind that attempt?) 

 

February 19: If you are paying close attention, you may already know that Team Trump lawyers are trying to sully the reputation of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. It has been alleged, for example, that she hired a lover to work on the case against Trump and his eighteen co-conspirators – and that her lover, and she, benefited financially from such an arrangement. 

God knows Trump would never stoop so low as to try to benefit financially from…well, everything he does. 

For example: He’s now selling gold sneakers for $399 a pair. Not to mention, he has milked donors for something like $50 million to pay his own legal fees. 

Anyway, no telling what will happen to DA Willis. There is talk that the judge may remove her from the case. 

(At the very least, DA Willis is guilty of boneheaded behavior.) 

 

Still, no one should imagine this would leave “Mr. Gold Sneaker Salesman” in the clear. Four of Trump’s co-conspirators have already taken plea deals, including two Trump lawyers who got felony raps. 

Another defendant, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, is said to be cooperating under a plea agreement in a federal election fraud case – in which “Sneakers” is currently the only defendant. 

So, how does this making of dollars, in the face of legal problems, really work? Meadows is keeping mum about his court battles. While he’s at it he’s getting paid $847,000, as a senior partner at the Conservative Partnership Institute, a non-profit group with headquarters in Washington D.C. It’s a sweet salary; and it’s going to end if it turns out he has been helping the feds build a case against the Orange God. In fact, Mr. Trump sent out a none-to-subtle warning in a social media post on October 24. Would Meadows really take a plea deal? “Some people would make that deal,” Mr. Sneakers mused, “but they are weaklings and cowards, and so bad for the future [sic] our Failing Nation. I don’t think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows?” 

(Cue the death threats – if it turns out he does.) 

 

What else do we know about Meadows, and where he stands? According to Robert Draper, who has written about the matter, Trump’s old chief of staff was granted limited immunity in the federal case, alleging election fraud by the former president. Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of the District Court in D.C. agreed to the deal – believing that Meadows would otherwise plead the Fifth to every query. We know Meadows testified before a grand jury for six hours in March 2023. Draper also says he has had access to 2,319 text messages that attorneys for Mr. Meadows handed over to the House January 6 committee, in December 2021. And if you wonder why these court cases are only advancing to the trial stage now – “ELECTION INTERFERENCE,” as Donald and his pals like to scream – consider how hard it has been to pry evidence lose from the grip of a powerful cadre of criminals – men and women lacking principles. 

Meadows, for example, rose through Republican ranks in Congress by claiming that Barack Obama would be sent “home to Kenya or wherever it is.” 

He likes to portray himself as a devout Christian, and he may well be. But in 2014, after his congressional chief of staff Kenny West was accused by female staffers of inappropriate behavior, Rep. Meadows at first refused to remove him. Then he did, but kept paying him his salary. According to Draper, the House’s Office of Congressional Ethics opened an investigation. Meadows and West refused to cooperate – which you might notice is also a Team Trump trend. Congressman Meadows was fined $40,000 (representing the amount West was improperly paid.) 

Other details from the story may prove important in coming trials, related do Donald J. Trump. Mike Mulvaney, who served as White House chief of staff before Meadows, said “the worst piece of advice” he ever gave President Trump, was to pick Meadows as his replacement. Mark, he says, couldn’t bring himself to tell the boss anything he didn’t want to hear. In a similar vein, Alyssa Farah Griffin, the former White House communications director, told investigators, “Meadows didn’t know what was going on in 90 percent of the building.” Then she added, “Meadows always told the president what he wanted to hear. And when he didn’t have the answer that the president wanted, he would go out and try to make that answer a reality.” 

The “good news,” for Meadows, and maybe all of Team Trump? You might spin out a defense to convince a jury that: 

A)    President Trump didn’t try to steal the election, in a criminal sense, because he believed people like Meadows, who always told him he won. 

B)     Meadows, himself, might be protected from criminal charges, by claiming, “Hey, I didn’t know what was really going on 90 percent of the time.” 

Call it the  ← “I’m with Stupid →” defense. 

I should also note that Mr. Draper has offered up several examples to indicate who knew what on January 6, 2021, as violence exploded on Capitol Hill. If you are still a big Trump fan, this goes to a separate matter – where it helps to be oblivious of the truth, if you want to keep believing in your boy Don. 

That is: Who really did the rioting on January 6, and did President Trump get plenty of warnings about stopping it? 

We do know all of the following messages went to Meadows himself that day: 

Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) texted, “The president needs to stop this ASAP.” 

Meadows: “We are doing it.” 

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tx.): “Fix this now.” 

Meadows: “We are.” 

Donald Trump Jr.: “He’s got to condem this [expletive].” 

Meadows replied: “I am pushing hard. I agree.” 

Sean Hannity: “Can he make a statement?” 

Meadows: “On it.”

 

Both Cassidy Hutchinson, Meadows’ top aide, and White House Chief Counsel Pat Cipollone, have testified that when they beseeched Meadows to convince the president to call off the rioters, he replied, “He doesn’t want to do anything.” 

(The rioters were serving the purpose Trump hooped they would.)

Meadows - pointing at the other felons.

  

Presidents’ Day: We would be remiss if we failed to note that a panel of 154 presidential historians and political scientists is out with new rankings for the Presidential Greatness Project. Ranked “best,” Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and George Washington hold the top three spots, as usual, although Washington has dropped from second to third. 

I’ll leave it up to my loyal readers (if any) to check out the list. But just for fun let’s look at the bottom five presidents, as adjudged by experts on that topic. Finishing in this order, we have: 

41. William Henry Harrison 

42. Franklin Pierce 

43. Andrew Johnson 

44. James Buchanan 

45. Donald J. Trump

 

It seems like a cheap shot to rank Harrison so low, considering the fact that he died after a month in office. But you have to be impressed by the fact that Trump beat out the worst of the worst.

Buchanan finally escapes last place after 163 years.

 

FUN FACT: In an effort to cement his status at the bottom, over Presidents’ Day weekend, Donald decided to comment on the untimely death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who was serving time in a Siberian prison camp. Navalny had escaped death before, including an attempt by agents of Vladimir Putin to kill him, by painting his underwear with a deadly nerve agent. (They had gained control of his luggage while he was on a flight.) Navalny recovered, but continued to protest, even after that near fatal experience. So Putin had him arrested, and jailed under increasingly harsh conditions. 

Putin always takes care of his critics.

So, what did the purported leader of the free world have to say? Did Trump stand up for human rights round the globe? Did he condemn the murderous Russian autocrat? Nope. He made Navalny’s death all about himself. 

“The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country,” he squealed on Truth Social, his very own social media site. He was a poor victim, just like Navalny, with “Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges” all out to get him – just because he tried to break 91 laws.

 

See if you can spot a few differences. 

Trump does not have to worry about having poison spread in the seams of his undies – unless Melania catches him cheating again. 

He has billions of dollars – or claims he does – and has been able to hire the best lawyers to shield him in court. (So far, they suck at their jobs, but still, he has what should be a top legal team.) 

He has his own media site, and can spread whatever tall tales he likes, because in this country most of us treasure free press and free speech. 

He has been able to drag out his court fights for three years; and if he can drag the cases out until he wins reelection, who knows. 

He is not locked up tight already, as he would be, were he in Russian, and were he to bravely criticize Putin. 

Joe Biden has not ordered his plane to be blown up mid-flight, as Putin did to rid himself of another political foe. 

No one has thrown Donald, in all his fat flesh, off a fifth floor balcony, as happened to yet another Putin critic. 

Trump got to eat cake with his lawyer, Alina Habba.

  

February 20: Seven Team Trump lawyers learn another hard lesson, regarding lying in service to Donald J. Trump. The U.S. Supreme Court rejects their challenge to a lower court order, requiring them to repay the State of Michigan for filing a stupid lawsuit claiming election fraud in that state in 2020. 

The bill for filing a suit without merit: $150,000, with Sidney Powell, L. Lin Wood and others coughing up the dough. (On a “positive note,” an appeals court did previously reduce the bill by $25,000.) 

Still, let’s be clear. The claims made in Michigan were worse than garbage. Biden won in 2020 by 154,000 votes. 

(And we’re not counting the money wasted to pay the Seven Dwarfs of the Legal Profession to work that original suit up, or the costs of fighting the loss all the way up through the federal courts.) 

 

Same day: Former Trump economic advisor Peter Navarro is still battling to delay his jail sentence, no doubt hoping for a Trump win in November, and a Golden Pardon as reward for keeping evidence out of court. 

The judge who has been overseeing his case has tired of his legal shenanigans. As Politico explains:

 

A federal judge threatened Tuesday to hold former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro in contempt of court for defying her order to return dozens – and perhaps hundreds – of presidential records to the National Archives.

 

“It is clear that Defendant continues to possess Presidential records that have not been produced to their rightful owner, the United States,” U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote in a six-page opinion after reviewing a subset of records Navarro had argued were his personal documents and did not need to be returned to the government.

 

Navarro has until March 21 to produce the records. Since he earned his initial jail sentence after refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena, related to an investigation into the events of January 6, 2021, you figure Navarro has some juicy material no one on Team Trump wants revealed. 

Navarro was a stalwart in playing the “Stolen Election” Game, once preparing a 36-page report that President Trump insisted proved he could not have lost the last presidential election. No one has ever proved that claim with evidence in court. 

Navarro plays the victim card for reporters.

 

Not really busloads at all. Maybe a carpool. 

February 21: The MAGA faithful are not known for being avid readers of the Washington Post; but we do get valuable insights into the “Stolen Election” Game, if we read what Post reporters find out. 

Today, we have an article on Don Bolduc, who ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate from New Hampshire in 2022. Bolduc got clobbered in the end, but did leave an interesting trail as an election denier Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It all depended on what voters he was hoping to woo. 

Citing an interview done with the Concord Monitor, the Post notes that Bolduc changed his position to meet the expectations of his listeners. 

In August, he told a cheering audience of Republican primary voters that “Trump won the election.” In September, after winning that primary, he went on cable news to say that “President Biden is the legitimate president of this country” and that “the election was not stolen.”

 

Then he flipped back the other way. In a general election debate in October, Bolduc suggested that there was, in fact, rampant fraud in his state.

 

“We need to make sure that school buses loaded with people at the polls don’t come in and vote,” he said. Some in the audience chuckled. “You can laugh about it,” he added, “but people in New Hampshire aren’t laughing about it.”

 

That claim, which involved thousands of Massachusetts people being bussed into New Hampshire to vote, has never held up. 

In any case, as the Post explains, Bolduc sat down with the Monitor last week and admitted what most purveyors of the “Stolen Election” Myth secretly know. “I do believe there was fraud,” he said. “That’s something that can’t be disputed, but at the end of the day, I played a political game, right? So then I decided no more political games. I’m going to say what I honestly believe, and that is the election wasn’t stolen [emphasis added].” 

(Thanks. We already had that figured out.) 

 

As always, this blogger is avid in searching for the truth. Could it be that there were busloads, and he just missed the caravan? 

It did turn out that Scott Kudrick, a Massachusetts business owner, with property in New Hampshire, was found guilty of voter fraud! 

Aha!! 

Sadly, for the believe-anything MAGA folk, Kudrick voted illegally in the Republican primary in 2020, despite not living in New Hampshire. He was sentenced to spend 180 days in jail – with that sentence suspended, if he stayed out of trouble for two years, and was fined $4,960. Five other scofflaws were listed in the story about Kudrick, with double voting in two states in 2016, 2018, and 2022. 

New Hampshire is part of the Interstate Voter Crosscheck Program, a multi-state effort to curtail voter fraud. 

So: Hardly enough to worry about. Not really busloads at all. 

Maybe a carpool. 

At any rate, I end up going down another rabbit hole, and try to find out where different double-vote criminals stand on the political spectrum; but it’s often unclear. Then I find another case, where the criminal, Robert Bell, voted Republican twice, and proudly admitted doing so in an interview with Project Veritas, a right-wing media operation. That was how he ended up getting caught. 

(Project Veritas supposedly wants to clean up the way America votes.) 

 

Mr. Chesebro, meet Mr. Badger. 

February 27: If you are keeping track, Trump lawyers continue to be pummeled by the courts. You had in 2018, for example, one of the first. Michael Cohen went to jail for paying off three women who slept with Donald, to keep them quiet during the 2016 campaign. More recently, we have Trump lawyers who pled guilty to crimes (Sidney Powell), gave up their licenses to practice law (L. Lin Wood), got stuck with the bill for bringing forward stupid lawsuits (see above), and admitted to rampant lying when insisting the 2020 election was stolen, (Jenna Ellis). You have another lawyer get sued for defamation – claiming two poll workers stole tens of thousands of votes, and lose $148.2 million for lying (Rudy Giuliani). Then you have lawyers pleading the Fifth when under investigation (Dr. John Eastman) and lawyers getting hit with the “crime-fraud” exception. That is, a lawyer (Evan Corcoran) can be forced to testify about interactions with a client, if a judge believes that client (Donald) may be plotting fresh crimes and frauds. 

And, of course, you have lawyers who lose monster damage suits, costing Donald tens of millions of dollars (Alina Habba). 

(You may be noticing a trend.) 

 

Today, we give you Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who needs no introduction, a man who has already confessed to one felony. Having been indicted in the Georgia election fraud case, Chesebro knew the evidence against him was damning (as it is for Donald). So he copped to a felony, and avoided six more. We know that in court, with a conservative judge in charge, Chesebro admitted to his crimes, and agreed to testify truthfully when asked about the plot to steal the 2020 election for Trump. 

(For Trump, got it?) 

 

Kenneth was up to his nostrils in that plot – an architect if you will. If Fani Willis, the Fulton County Georgia district attorney can stop letting her interest in having sex with employees get in her way, “Cheese” will have to spill the beans on his fifteen co-conspirators down South. Originally, there were nineteen, including Donald, but four have pled guilty (Powell, six misdemeanors; Ellis, one felony, “Cheese” himself, and a non-lawyer, Scott Hall, also one felony.) 

We might as well mention that another Trump lawyer in the Georgia case, Ray Stallings Smith III, faces a barrage of thirteen felonies. When asked to testify in Rudy Giuliani’s defamation case, Mr. Smith pled the Fifth roughly four hundred times. 

 

“They should appoint electors instead.” 

After agreeing to the plea deal, “The Cheese” was asked to come north, to Michigan, where the plot to steal the 2020 election had also been in fevered play, and testify truthfully about what he knew. Since he was one of the architects of the plot, you figure he knew plenty, too. Investigators began by asking if he had ever used Twitter (now “X”), or any other social media formats under fake names. 

Oh, no, never, “Cheese” assured his questioners. From now on, he was going to tell the truth!

No more felonies for him!

Chesebro already has one felony.

 

Then CNN did something interesting – which is why having a free press is good. They held the powerful to account. They managed to identify a Twitter account, listed under the name “BadgerPundit,” and show that Mr. Pundit was Mr. Chesebro, one and the same. The MAGA faithful will see the initials “CNN,” and decide every syllable in this post is a cog in a machine for lies, and start mumbling about “Fake News.” 

And gunfire. 

Only lawyers for “The Cheese” have already admitted that “BadgerPundit” was their client’s account, but insist it wasn’t really so bad. He was “spitballing” ideas at the time, ideas, such as: How can we overturn the results of the 2020 election? 

“The Cheese” has tried to argue lately that he viewed the creation of sets of fake electors in several states (including both Georgia and Michigan) as parts of a contingency plan, to have ready if other Trump lawyers could prevail in any of dozens of court cases filed in an attempt to overturn the results of the vote. 

There were 62 cases in all, including cases that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, and Team Trump lawyers piled up 61 defeats, and one tie. And that tie was later changed to a defeat, by a judge Donald J. Trump had appointed himself. 

So: 0 for 62. 

In any case, Chesebro/Badger wrote on November 7, 2020, that there was an obvious way for Trump to still win, even though he lost by seven million votes. “You don’t get the big picture,” Cheese Badger assured his followers. “Trump doesn’t have to get courts [emphasis added] to declare him the winner of the vote. He just needs to convince Republican legislatures that the election was systematically rigged, but it’s impossible to run it again, so they should appoint electors instead.”  

You know: Ignore the people’s votes. 

Also, the courts. 

(If you don’t see the danger here, you are too dumb to vote.) 

BadgerPundit?

 

When questioned by Michigan investigators, Mr. Chesebro said he always believed Vice President Mike Pence would have to count the electoral votes, if the courts kept ruling against Team Trump’s efforts to prove significant voter fraud. But it turns out that Mr. Badger tweeted at least fifty times, after Trump lost the election, saying that Mr. Pence could count whatever electoral votes he liked, including the fake ones Cheese Badger and others were trying to line up. 

In fact, The Atlantic had reported on a story in September 2020, explaining how a source admitted there was an idea afloat – that alternate electors could be used to overturn any Trump loss. Mr. Chesebro told Michigan investigators he had never heard of that story or that dastardly plan. Yet, on the day the story was published, Cheese Badger tweeted about it and defended the plot. 

As CNN explains: 

“Chesebro appears to have pursued a legally perilous path in his dealings with Michigan authorities,” said Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University, who reviewed the posts for CNN. “The Twitter posts strongly suggest Chesebro committed the crime of making false statements to investigators… his entire cooperation agreement may now fall apart.”

 

It appears Chesebro “hid highly important evidence in the form of these social media posts from the investigators,” Goodman said, adding that it could put Chesebro “at great legal risk.”

 

We can also report that Mr. Chesebro has testified as part of investigations involving plots in Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada, to submit fake electoral votes. 

 

February 28: Today we learn that Rudy Giuliani’s penalty in the defamation case against the two Georgia poll workers was reduced by a judge to only $145,969,000. So a rare “win” for Team Trump lawyers, for sure! 

The two plaintiffs, Ruby Freeman, and her daughter “Shaye” Moss, had faced an avalanche of death threats after Rudy (and Donald) lied about them stealing votes. But the judge ruled that the money they won in another lawsuit, against right-wing cable news channel OAN, should be counted towards the damages they suffered. 

Now we know how much OAN paid for lying about the “Stolen Election.” That tab: $2,331,000. 

(And OAN is facing more lawsuits in court.)