July 24, 2019: The Day Robert Mueller Made It Clear Trump Was a Liar

 

7/24/19: Robert Mueller testifies for nearly six hours in front of two congressional panels. He refuses to go beyond what the report he has submitted says. For example, he refuses to say if the president “took the Fifth” in answering written questions. Mueller is precise, measured in response, even dull. 

Almost as soon as he completes his time on the stand, the partying at the White House begins. There are no “bombshells” in the televised testimony. The president will later call Mueller’s performance the worst in all the storied history of congressional hearings. 

Total exoneration, baby!

Mueller testifies under oath - something you never saw Trump do.

 

*

____________________ 

“I gather you think knowingly accepting foreign help in an election is an unethical thing to do?” 

Rep. Adam Schiff

____________________

 

 

IF YOU WATCHED all six hours of testimony – and took notes – you know the president was not exonerated. 

Dull or not, the facts Mueller laid out were damning. 

It will require a special blog post to address this topic; but a few highlights should suffice till then. First, Mueller slapped away the idea that he had hired a team of “angry Democrats” to frame Trump. In twenty-five years with the Justice Department he had never inquired about the political leanings of any of his hires. “It just isn’t done,” he told a Republican lawmaker who questioned him. He hired lawyers he felt could do the best work, men and women he knew for “integrity,” above all. 

In six hours of questioning, not one Republican member of either committee used the word “integrity” to describe Donald R. Trump. 

Meanwhile, Democrats focused on massive evidence of obstruction of justice. We learned, for example, that Trump called Attorney General Jeff Sessions at home and tried to get him to un-recuse himself and fire Mueller. Trump ordered White House Counsel Don McGahn to get rid of Mueller, too. 

“Did the president ask McGahn to lie?” one questioner asked Mueller. The Special Counsel often answered with one word. 

“Yes,” he said. 

Dull? Okay. But the Special Counsel had just said the president lied – and lied in a failed attempt to obstruct justice.

 

When Louis Gohmert (R-Texas) had his turn to speak and rambled on for five minutes and tried to make Mueller sound like he was on trial, Mueller’s response was, “I take your question.” Nothing more. 

Mueller had his dignity to consider. 

Gohmert was a clown. 

Jim Jordan (R-OH) spent his five minutes asking why Mueller never charged Josef Mifsud, a secondary figure in the investigation, as if something nefarious must have been afoot. 

The real problem: Mifsud has disappeared. 

Neither Jordan nor any other Republican wanted to know why the following members of Team Trump were now convicted felons: Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, General Michael T. Flynn, Michael Cohen, George Papadopoulos – and probably Roger Stone – currently under indictment for witness tampering and scheduled for trial this fall. 

 

“I hope this is not the new normal, but I fear it is.” 

Mueller was also asked, “Isn’t it true that an unsuccessful attempt to obstruct justice is still a crime?” 

“Correct,” he said. He did not elaborate because the statement stands as made. 

Rep. Mike Johnson had the closing five minutes for the Republican side during the first hearing and tried to insist that President Trump had never mislead anyone and cooperated fully.

 

In the second session, Val Demings, a Florida Democrat and former police chief of Orlando, asked Mueller why his team never asked Trump to sit down, face to face, and testify under oath. 

Mueller explained that the president and his lawyers had stalled the investigation for over a year. It was important to turn the report over to Attorney General William Barr, so he might make the decision about what to do next. 

Mueller admitted that Trump left several questions, submitted in writing by investigators, blank. 

“Did he plead the Fifth?” Demings wanted to know. 

Mueller refused to answer. “I’m not going to get into that,” he replied. He was sticking to what was in the report.

 

The rest of her questioning went pretty much like this: 

“Trump did not answer follow up questions?” Demings asked, trying a different tack. 

“No.” 

“Many questions he didn’t answer at all?” 

“True.” 

“His answers were often contradictory and incomplete?” 

“True.” 

Did he give answers that “contradicted other evidence?” 

“Yes.” 

Could the Special Counsel say that “the President was credible?” 

Mueller: “I can’t answer that question.” 

Is it fair to say, she asked, that Trump’s answers “showed that he wasn’t always being truthful?” 

“I would say, generally.” 

Those are the exact answers Mueller gave – what pundits were saying made for “boring” TV. 

Mueller wasn’t a TV prosecutor. He was a real prosecutor, with decades of enforcement experience. He was laying out facts. He did not need to showboat, like GOP lawmakers trying to make absurd points. All the evidence anyone might need to begin impeachment was there in the Mueller Report.

 

The best exchange of the day may have come when, during afternoon hearings, Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair of the House Intelligence Committee, asked Mueller a series of simple questions. 

“I gather you think knowingly accepting foreign help in an election is an unethical thing to do?” Schiff inquired. 

“And a crime,” Mueller interjected, his stoic manner momentarily animated. 

“And unpatriotic?” Schiff added. 

“True.” 

“And wrong?” 

“True,” Mueller said again, displaying a trace of disgust, no doubt with the current occupant of the Oval Office.

 

Republicans, and Trump’s avid fans, who purport to love this country far more than his opponents, should try to remember a time when their Orange God ever said we need to protect elections from Russian interference. Mueller might not have stirred the masses with his answers; but he was perfectly clear when he said Russian interference in our elections was “among the most serious” challenges he had seen in all his years in law enforcement. 

Russia, he said in answer to a question from Rep. Will Hurd, the only member of his party to ask about Russians all day, did interfere in the 2016 election. 

They would interfere again. They were, he warned, still interfering “as we speak.” 

A Democrat asked the Special Counsel if he thought this was the “new normal,” that politicians would accept help from foreign powers to win future elections. “I hope this is not the new normal,” Mr. Mueller replied, “but I fear it is.”

BLOGGER’S NOTE (5/11/22): Team Trump blocked testimony by Don McGahn for nearly two more years, until the courts beat down the last challenge, and he went before Congress in June 2021. McGahn told lawmakers that Trump kept pressing him to have Mueller removed as Special Counsel, that he felt “trapped” by the president’s orders, and that he was prepared to resign if pressed to break the law. 

That should tell you something.

December 11, 2019: Lev Forgets a $1 Million Check - 70 Inspector Generals Issue Warning

 

12/11/19: The House of Representatives takes up articles of impeachment for discussion and “markup.” As before, Republican and Democratic lawmakers appear to be looking at entirely different evidence.

 

____________________ 

Forgetting a check for $1 million from a Russian bank account.

____________________

  

Let’s go with court documentation. Federal prosecutors have informed a judge that Lev Parnas, who worked with Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine, lied about assets to get a lower bail and should be jailed until trial. At the time of his first hearing in October, Parnas claimed he and his wife had assets of $450,000. 

Somehow, they forgot a check for $1 million, received in September, from a Russian bank account.

 

* 

DURING DEBATE Wednesday night over the structure and wording of the impeachment articles, Rep. Louie Gohmert decides to defend freedom by naming the whistleblower. Most news media sources refuse to repeat the name – which Gohmert revealed in reading off a list of witnesses he believed should be forced to testify before the House votes on the two articles. 

Louie doesn’t care if the whistleblower’s name is revealed because Louie is the president’s lapdog and has no problem fomenting civil war. 

Again, the battle lines are likely to break along party lines. If you like Trump and think the whistleblowers should not be protected, you might want to read the warning letter penned by 70 Inspector Generals, representing agencies across the federal government. 

If you’re a conservative, and truly fear Big Government, as conservatives used to claim, you should not forget that whistleblowers are often instrumental in revealing the crimes and machinations of corrupt officials.

 

* 

IN BONUS NEWS, President Trump holds a Hanukkah Party at the White House, which is a fine idea. It is not a fine idea to allow 12/11/19: The House of Representatives takes up articles of impeachment for discussion and “markup.” As before, Republican and Democratic lawmakers appear to be looking at entirely different evidence.

 

____________________

 

Forgetting a check for $1 million from a Russian bank account.

____________________

 

 

Let’s go with court documentation. Federal prosecutors have informed a judge that Lev Parnas, who worked with Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine, lied about assets to get a lower bail and should be jailed until trial. At the time of his first hearing in October, Parnas claimed he and his wife had assets of $450,000.

 

Somehow, they forgot a check for $1 million, received in September, from a Russian bank account.

 

*

 

DURING DEBATE Wednesday night over the structure and wording of the impeachment articles, Rep. Louie Gohmert decides to defend freedom by naming the whistleblower. Most news media sources refuse to repeat the name – which Gohmert revealed in reading off a list of witnesses he believed should be forced to testify before the House votes on the two articles.

 

Louie doesn’t care if the whistleblower’s name is revealed because Louie is the president’s lapdog and has no problem fomenting civil war.

 

Again, the battle lines are likely to break along party lines. If you like Trump and think the whistleblowers should not be protected, you might want to read the warning letter penned by 70 Inspector Generals, representing agencies across the federal government.

 

If you’re a conservative, and truly fear Big Government, as conservatives used to claim, you should not forget that whistleblowers are often instrumental in revealing the crimes and machinations of corrupt officials.

 

* 

IN BONUS NEWS, President Trump holds a Hanukkah Party at the White House, which is a fine idea. It is not a fine idea to allow Pastor Robert Jeffress to speak. First, Trump calls Jeffress a “tremendous faith leader.” 

Jeffress returns the favor, calling Donald “the most pro-faith president in history.” 

Unfortunately, Pastor Jeffress has insulted almost every other religion represented at the party, except Zoroastrians. We have made note of this before, but he believes Mormons are a cult. He has labeled the Catholic Church “the genius of Satan.” As for Islam, you figure he doesn’t like Muslims, whose religion he calls “evil,” “violent” and “false.” Jeffress doesn’t like Hindus or Buddhists either. But this is a Hanukkah event. You’d have to assume an Evangelical firebrand, who has made it clear he believes all Jews will someday burn in Perdition, might not be the choice of “the most pro-faith president in history” to speak. 

Then again, Trump doesn’t really know much about religion. Or history, or government, or science. 

Or anything else. to speak. First, Trump calls Jeffress a “tremendous faith leader.” 

Jeffress returns the favor, calling Donald “the most pro-faith president in history.” 

Trump doesn't care about religion - Jeffress, right, hates most religions.

Unfortunately, Pastor Jeffress has insulted almost every other religion represented at the party, except Zoroastrians. We have made note of this before, but he believes Mormons are a cult. He has labeled the Catholic Church “the genius of Satan.” As for Islam, you figure he doesn’t like Muslims, whose religion he calls “evil,” “violent” and “false.” Jeffress doesn’t like Hindus or Buddhists either. But this is a Hanukkah event. You’d have to assume an Evangelical firebrand, who has made it clear he believes all Jews will someday burn in Perdition, might not be the choice of “the most pro-faith president in history” to speak. 

Then again, Trump doesn’t really know much about religion. Or history, or government, or science. 

Or anything else.

November 21, 2020: Republicans: Trump Shaking the Core of Democracy

 

11/21/20: A weekend calm settles over the White House. At 8 a.m., Trump manages to participate in a “Virtual 2020 G20 Summit,” from the White House Situation Room. Let’s hope none of the other world leaders made fun of the lame duck by fake “quacking” under their breathe.

 

We learn, however, that within thirteen minutes the president lost interest in the Zoom-style meeting. He went back to tweeting about how he was being cheated out of a second term.

 

When other G20 leaders broke for a special session on the global pandemic, Trump decided not to participate at all.

 

Instead, he called on his Secret Service detail and off they went to his private resort in Potomac Falls, Virginia for another round of golf: Round # 311 since Trump took office – and swore he would be too busy working for the American people as president to ever play golf.

 

Like that bum, Obama (333 rounds in two full terms).

Trump can't face facts.

 

 

*

 

VARIOUS “fake news” organizations spend time compiling examples of growing concern in Republican circles.

 

This is sometimes known as, “reporters going out to find quotes.”

 

____________________

 

“It is difficult to image a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American President.”

 

Sen. Mitt Romney

____________________

 

 

Sen. Lamar Alexander, chair of the influential Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, tells reporters,

 

If there is any chance whatsoever that Joe Biden will be the next president, and it looks like he has a very good chance, the Trump Administration should provide the Biden team with all transition materials, resources, and meetings necessary to ensure a smooth transition so that both sides are ready on day one. That especially should be true, for example, on vaccine distribution.

 

Three Republican members of the U.S. House go on record. When asked about Trump’s efforts to overturn election results, Rep. Kay Granger, a veteran Texas lawmaker, tells CNN she has “great concerns about it,” adding, “I think that it’s time to move on.” Granger insists Trump should be transparent about the situation. “I think it’s time for him to really realize and be very clear about what’s going on,” she said. 

When asked if Trump should concede, Fred Upton, a senior Michigan Republican who was targeted by Democrats but won reelection by 16 points, said, “Yeah. I think it’s all said and done.” 

What about voter fraud in his home state? “No one has seen any real identification of any real fraud,” Upton said. 

Even more to the point – long term – Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, said he worried that Trump’s claims were shaking the core of democracy. “What I have a real issue with is making unfounded claims of fraud and illegitimacy,” Kinzinger said. “And that has a real damaging effect.”

 

Referencing the president’s ploys to convince Michigan election officials to do his bidding, and just give him the state’s electoral votes, Sen. Mitt Romney is brutally honest: 

Having failed to make even a plausible case of widespread fraud or conspiracy before any court of law, the President has now resorted to overt pressure on state and local officials to subvert the will of the people and overturn the election. It is difficult to image a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American President.

 

Stephen Saltzburg, who served in the Justice Department during the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, and now serves as a professor at the George Washington University School of Law, told ABC that what was happening was a scandal. “If any other president were to have ever attempted what this president has been doing, people would begin to look at conspiracy to violate election laws.” 

 

It’s very dangerous that we’re undermining the system. 

Reporters for The Hill applied a little shoe leather and tracked down a number of concerned Republicans. 

“This is delusional,” Mark Braden, the former chief counsel at the Republican National Committee admitted. “I’m a professional Republican so it’s not easy for me to have to deal with my friends on this. Look – voter fraud occurs. I’ve seen it. It happens. But you have to be realistic about the size and scope of it.”

 

Republican lawyers told reporters that Trump’s “early legal challenges on voter fraud were defensible and reasonable, even if they had no chance of changing the outcome of the election.” Now, they admit to being “disturbed by the dark turn things have taken,” and worry that Trump’s claims were “undermining democracy and misleading millions of his own supporters [emphasis added].”

 

Braden, for one, had no use for the bizarre argument put forward earlier this week, by Rudy Giuliani and the rest of Trump’s current legal team. “The Venezuelans didn’t screw around with the voting machines,” he grimaced.

 

That’s 100 percent total nonsense. I don’t know what’s going on here. It’s very dangerous that we’re undermining the system. Democracy isn’t a God-given right. It’s a fragile process. The two most important things are that the person with the most lawful votes wins, and that the people who voted for the losing side also believe their candidate lost. This is undermining that idea and it’s a dangerous thing.

 

Sen. Ben Sasse mocked the president’s attorneys making an allegation of “grand fraud” but so far refusing to make the claim in front of a judge. “When Trump campaign lawyers have stood before courts under oath, they have repeatedly refused to actually allege grand fraud because there are legal consequences for lying to judges,” Sasse explained.

 

Support for the president’s scorched earth defense of his “victory,” was beginning to wear thin. The editorial board at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which endorsed Trump twice and is owned by billionaire GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson, said the president was doing a “disservice to his more rabid supporters by insisting that he would have won the Nov. 3 election absent voter fraud.”

 

The editorial board at the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post called on Mr. Trump to “stop the stolen election rhetoric” and to “get Rudy Giuliani off TV.”

 

Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio) described the recent Giuliani press conference as “embarrassing,” and said comments from Sidney Powell undermined voters’ confidence in the democratic process. He argued that the president’s lawyers needed to hold “real investigations” focused on “real claims. Not whatever it was Sidney Powell was talking about.” 

Gonzalez was aghast. “I mean the Sidney Powell claims were, I don’t even know how to describe it, I mean they were beyond the pale,” he told The Hill. “If you’re going to allege that communists’ money and Hugo Chavez rigged the Dominion voting system to overturn millions of votes over decades, you better have sufficient proof, and I didn’t see anything that was even close to that.” 

“So, that was disappointing because at the end of the day, what we really need to do is build confidence in our electoral process,” he continued. “That’s what we have to do, because this will now be the second election in a row where one side of the aisle is going to be heavily disputing your outcome, and that’s not healthy.”

 

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, GOP strategist Karl Rove, who has been close to the top brass at the Trump campaign, was frank. “This election won’t be overturned,” he said. 

Jonathan Turley, the constitutional scholar who defended the president during impeachment hearings in the House may regret what he said at the time. That is, he did not think Trump’s conduct involving his pressure on Ukraine merited removal from office. “They’re claiming to have evidence,” he said of the president’s legal team now, “but that evidence has not been filed. They’ve filed a large number of affidavits stating voting irregularities, but they haven’t filed anything to support these sweeping claims about an international conspiracy. That’s what’s breathtaking.”

 

Reporters kept asking. Top Republicans started to answer. Rep. Liz Cheney said it was time for Trump’s legal team to start producing evidence. 

She explained: 

America is governed by the rule of law. The President and his lawyers have made claims of criminality and widespread fraud, which they allege could impact election results. If they have genuine evidence of this, they are obligated to present it immediately in court and to the American people.

 

I understand that the President has filed more than thirty separate lawsuits. If he is unsatisfied with the results in those lawsuits, then the appropriate avenue is to appeal. If the President cannot prove these claims or demonstrate that they would change the election result, he should fulfill his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States by respecting the sanctity of our electoral process.

 

He should. But of course, this is Donald Trump, so he hasn’t. For eighteen straight days, and counting, he has devoted his main efforts as president to claiming he was electorally screwed.

 

Meanwhile, the usual sycophants could be trusted to slobber in defense of a president who had not provided any evidence yet in court. Asked on Thursday if his state should delay certifying the election, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar told CNN: “I believe it should.” Gosar said the “state has the ability” to name its own electors to the Electoral College if results aren’t certified as part of the “system set up by our founders.”

 

When asked if he supported the idea of the legislature naming its own electors, Gosar said: “I do.”

 

(When last we checked, Arizona returns showed Joe Biden with 1,672,143 votes, to Trump’s 1,661,686.) 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Since I’m not suffering from any mental illness, I’m having trouble getting past some of the dangerous claims that the Trump campaign and Trump sycophants and Trump himself have already made. One favorite was a story that the U.S. Army had raided the office of a Spanish election software company Scytl in Frankfurt, Germany. There they supposedly seized several computer servers that had evidence of voting irregularities in the recent U.S. election. 

 

“Those allegations are false.” 

First, that story took a major hit when the U.S. Army denied having raided any offices of any company in Frankfurt. When asked by the Associated Press about the purported raid, and the Army’s “seizure” of mythical servers, an Army spokesperson replied tersely, “Those allegations are false.” 

Second, Scytl announced that it did not have any offices or servers in the city, although it did do work there in 2019 for the European Parliament. 

Still, this was Team Trump, where no matter how absurd the charge, that charge will be believed and spread through the ether. Social media users Saturday began sharing reports that the servers, the ones U.S. military said it didn’t confiscate, would reveal wrongdoing in the U.S. election. Right-wingers hinted that the servers housed information from Dominion Voting Systems.

 

Who helped get this tall tale moving? None other than Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas. Louie is best known for insisting in the spring of 2015, that a plot was afoot in the Obama administration to use U.S. soldiers to invade Texas. Somehow secret tunnels connected to abandoned Walmart stores were involved. (The U.S. Army denied that far-fetched claim, too.) 

In his remarks on the current story, Gohmert acknowledged that the information about the alleged raid in Frankfurt came only from a “German tweet in German,” and he admitted, “I don’t know the truth.” 

He’d still be happy to spread the rumor! 

The New York Times noted that Gohmert talked to Charlie Kirk, a star in the right-wing blogosphere. Kirk bought the story. Lin Wood, another right-wing name on Twitter, amplified the tale, noting, “Biden & his criminal cronies are not going to sleep well tonight. Well, Biden might, because he probably forgot the name Scytl. His co-conspirators know name well. They also know the name Paragon, company which purchased Scytl in 10/20.” 

In other words, the story was flawed at its heart, but Trump and his looniest allies were happy to spread it, regardless.

December 31, 2020: Trump Allies Plan Challenge to Electoral Vote Count

 12/31/20: The latest, last-ditch effort to save Lame Duck Don’s useless ass has come into focus. On January 6, the certified electoral votes of the fifty states and District of Columbia will be accepted by Congress, tallied, and the result announced: 306 votes for Joe Biden, 232 for Trump. 

Biden then becomes the 46^th President of the…. 

Ah, not so fast! Those votes can be challenged. (See the election of 1876, when Samuel Tilden got stiffed.)

 

To contest the certified electoral votes of a state, in Trump’s case, you would need one chucklehead in the House of Representatives and one dunderpate in the Senate to lodge protest. In the House, Rep. Louis Gohmert, is one of dozens of chuckleheads who has said he would be thrilled to step to the fore. 

Loony Louis has an interesting, one-man-rule kind of theory about how we count the electoral votes. That is: the VP can decide on a whim what to do. Ohio cast its 18 electoral votes for Trump? Sure. Mike Pence counts them. Pennsylvania cast its 20 for Joe Biden? Pence doesn’t feel like counting those. 

“Under the Constitution, he has the authority to conduct that proceeding [the tally of the electoral votes on January 6] as he sees fit,” Gohmert argues. “He may count elector votes certified by a state’s executive, or he can prefer a competing slate of duly qualified electors. He may ignore all electors from a certain state. That is the power bestowed upon him by the Constitution.”

 

____________________ 

“Adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.” 

Senator Ben Sasse

____________________

  

Republican fools in the Senate are slightly harder to find, but there are several to pick from. Elected every six years, senators can show a bit more courage and count on most voters to forget if they let Dictator Don down. 

No matter. One skull that is numb in the Senate will suffice. And that skull is supplied by none other than Missouri up-and-comer, Sen. Josh Hawley. He has made clear. He will protest the vote! 

So far, Sen. Hawley admits he isn’t entirely sure. Should he protest the votes of several states? Or should he contest the electoral votes from one? If he chooses to protest votes in six or more battleground states, he stands a chance of antagonizing millions of voters, and more than a few GOP colleagues. 

If he challenges votes in only one state, what’s the point? Trump would have to overturn the votes of Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Nevada, or some other combination, and have those votes handed to him, or this challenge won’t matter.

 

Either way, both the House and Senate will have two hours to debate. Will they vote to accept the slates of certified electors, pledged to Biden, and already submitted by the states? Or will they vote to accept a slate of electors, say in Pennsylvania, this new slate pledged to vote for Lame D., instead? 

To say that this parliamentary parlor trick stands no chance of success, is an understatement on par with saying Donald J. Trump has no chance to win the next men’s New York City Marathon. Team Trump has already filed more than 60 court challenges to election results. In all, probably 150 judges have been involved in saying, in multiple ways, that the current vote counts are fair and accurate. In Georgia, whose 16 votes went to Biden, and whose votes Trump craves for himself, court challenges led to three statewide counts. Those found, in order: 

1. Joe Biden won.

2. Joe Biden won again.

3. Okay, for slow learners, Biden still won.

 

Just to be safe, with Trump supporters clamoring about massive voter fraud, election officials did a signature check in Cobb County to test how the system had worked. Biden won 56% of 387,000 votes in Cobb County, so an audit of 15,000 absentee ballots would surely turn up, according to Trump fans and the president himself, 300,000 dead people who voted. 

Alas, only two (2) signature mismatches were found. 

Two.

 

* 

NO MATTER. Sen. Hawley is expected to stand up in the U.S. Senate on January 6, and claim that the votes of at least one, if not all of the following states, should be challenged and awarded to Donald J. Trump: Pennsylvania. Michigan. Wisconsin. Arizona. Nevada. And, yes, Georgia. 

Will this stunt do the American people any good? No. But it might allow Sen. Hawley to leap to the fore when it comes to heading the GOP ticket in 2024. 

To overturn the certified votes of any of the challenged states, you would need majorities in both houses of Congress to agree. The Democrats in the House have the votes locked up to block this undemocratic ploy. 

 

This vote “will be the most consequential I have ever cast.” 

If all the Republicans in the Senate had skulls that were numb, they could vote in favor of the challenge. Many Republican senators have proven that they do not have numbed skulls and have made clear they will vote against Sen. Hawley’s lame-ass plan. 

It’s not often that Senate Leader Mitch McConnell shows any courage. In a phone call today, however, he blasted Hawley’s announcement that he would challenge the vote. “I’m finishing 36 years in the Senate and I’ve cast a lot of big votes,” he told a reporter. “And in my view, just my view, this will be the most consequential I have ever cast.” 

It seems likely that Hawley will fail even to get a majority of Republican senators’ votes. Every Democrat is going to vote to accept the certified results. (And, dear Trump fans – if any of you read this blog – and to be frank, I sometimes wonder if some of you read at all – remember that Arizona and Georgia have Republican governors who have said their elections were fair.) 

Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, has insisted that his state’s votes were counted fairly. He says Trump lost. If challenges are issued to the Pennsylvania results, he promises to respond in detail and at length. He has called the president’s efforts to throw out his state’s vote, “completely unacceptable.” The outcome has been “clear. Joe Biden won the election.”

 

Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, has been blunt, warning that “the president and his allies are playing with fire.” 

“Let’s be clear what is happening here,” he says. “We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who think there’s a quick way to tap into the president’s populist base without doing any real, long-term damage. But they’re wrong – and this issue is bigger than anyone’s personal ambitions. Adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government,” he said. 

Only now we know. Guys like Gohmert and Hawley and Trump do. The gun may be loaded with blanks. Even if they fire on January 6, they can’t do any real harm. But now we know. If Trump had a gun loaded with real bullets, he’d shoot democracy right between the eyes.

 

Fortunately, most Republican senators believe that Mr. Biden won and the election was fair. Those likely to vote down Hawley’s challenge include Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, Sen. Roy Blount of Missouri, Sen. Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia, and Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio. “I think,” Portman told reporters, “we need to respect this process the Founding Fathers established, and we must respect the will of the voters. The orderly transfer of power is a hallmark of our democracy.” 

Well, before Trump.