Trump and Pence: "You're Too Honest"

Our most recent book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and Trump's disregard for law.

From the J6 indictment:

 On several private phone calls in late December and early January, the Defendant repeated knowingly false claims of election fraud and directly pressured the Vice President to use his ceremonial role at the certification proceeding on January 6 to fraudulently overturn the results of the election, and the Vice President resisted, including:

a. On December 25, when the Vice President called the Defendant to wish him a Merry Christmas, the Defendant quickly turned the conversation to January 6 and his request that the Vice President reject electoral votes that day. The Vice President pushed back, telling the Defendant, as the Vice President already had in previous conversations, "You know I don't think I have the authority to change the outcome."

b. On December 29, as reflected in the Vice President's contemporaneous notes, the Defendant falsely told the Vice President that the "Justice Dept [was] finding major infractions."

c. On January 1, the Defendant called the Vice President and berated him because he had learned that the Vice President had opposed a lawsuit seeking a judicial decision that, at the certification, the Vice President had the authority to reject or return votes to the states under the Constitution. The Vice President responded that he thought there was no constitutional basis for such authority and that it was improper. In response, the Defendant told the Vice President, "You're too honest." Within hours of the conversation, the Defendant reminded his supporters to meet in Washington before the certification proceeding, tweeting, "The BIG Protest Rally in Washington, D.C, will take place at 11.00 A.M. on January 6th. Locational details to follow. StopTheSteal!"

d. On January 3, the Defendant again told the Vice President that at the certification proceeding, the Vice President had the absolute right to reject electoral votes and the ability to overturn the election. The Vice President responded that he had no such authority, and that a federal appeals court had rejected the lawsuit making that claim the previous day.

DeSantis Screws Up Again ... and Again

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  The early stages of the 2024 race have begun.

So far, DeSantis keeps stumbling.

Politico Playbook:

DeSantis said that if elected president, he might pick ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., noted vaccine conspiracy theorist, to lead the FDA or CDC.

It was a statement bound to get media attention. DeSantis knew that; the whole point of saying it was to “own the libs.” But it also left the soft belly of his campaign exposed on the right.

Former VP MIKE PENCE was quick to spot the opportunity with an attack aimed to appeal to the Christian conservative voters whose support DeSantis desperately needs.

"When I am President, I will only consider Pro-Life Americans to lead the FDA, CDC, or HHS,” Pence said. “[P]ro-abortion Democrats like RFK Jr. would not even make the list."

— FIGHT NO. 2: DeSantis’ staff attacked Rep. BYRON DONALDS (R-Fla.), a Trump endorser and the sole Black Republican in the state’s congressional delegation, after he mildly criticized Florida’s widely panned new teaching standards on slavery. Said Donalds: “[T]he attempt to feature the personal benefits of slavery is wrong & needs to be adjusted.”

Cue DeSantis spox JEREMY REDFERN: “[S]upposed conservatives in the federal government are pushing the same false narrative that originated from the @WhiteHouse.” Not to be outdone, DeSantis aide CHRISTINA PUSHAW compared Donalds to VP KAMALA HARRIS.

Ewan Palmer at Newsweek:

A Ron DeSantis 2024 campaign worker who was reportedly fired for retweeting a fan-made video about the governor which featured a symbol associated with Nazis had previously praised the impact of white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

Nate Hochman, a communications staffer, is said to have allegedly retweeted the controversial meme video from the Ron DeSantis Fancams Twitter account which ended with the 2024 hopeful's face imposed over what appeared to be a circular symbol known as the "sonnenrad."

Hochman, as first reported by Semafor, was let go after allegedly retweeting the since-deleted video featuring the ancient symbol which had been appropriated by the Nazi Party and is still used today by white supremacist groups.

Hochman, Axios reported, not only retweeted the video from his own account but had actually made the clip himself and posted it from the Ron DeSantis Fancams profile. Joey Hannum, a former aide for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, had also speculated that the Ron DeSantis Fancams Twitter account was being used by Hochman as a "sock-puppet operation."

...

Hochman, a former fellow for the Claremont Institute and the National Review who has previously written for outlets such as The New York Times, was previously seen as a rising star in the conservative movement.

 

 

Abortion Politics One Year After Dobbs

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. Abortion was a big issue in the 2022 midterm. It will probably be a big issue in 2024.

Steven Shepard at Politico:

The boost Democrats received from the abortion issue from last year’s midterm elections through downballot races so far in 2023 has been well documented. And the latest round of polling shows that momentum continues.

In addition to holding the majority, supporters of abortion rights are more motivated by the issue than opponents — a major shift from before Dobbs. According to Gallup, 33 percent of voters who identify as “pro-choice” say they would only support a candidate for office who agreed with their position, while just 23 percent of “pro-life” voters say the same thing.

And because there are more “pro-choice” voters than “pro-life” ones, the numbers break out like this: 17 percent of the total electorate is composed of “pro-choice” voters who would only support candidates who favor abortion rights, while 10 percent of all voters are “pro-life” and would only vote for abortion-rights opponents.

Dating back to 1996, abortion-centric “pro-life” voters outnumbered “pro-choice” ones in every Gallup poll until 2022, and there’s been no change since that first flipped last May.

A new Monmouth poll out this week underscores how fundamental abortion rights have become for Democrats. Among all Americans, abortion and women’s rights (19 percent) ranked third behind freedom of speech (26 percent) and gun rights (21 percent) when asked about the specific types of rights they worry about losing. But for Democrats, abortion and women’s rights (36 percent) was far and away the rights they see as most under threat, easily ahead of freedom of speech (14 percent) and voting rights (12 percent).

Jeremy White et al. at Politico:

Through it all, few have been more aggressive than Newsom in forcing the issue and inserting California into state-level standoffs. In the months after decrying national Democrats’ anemic response, he bought billboards in red states advertising California as an abortion haven, moved to cut off Walgreens for succumbing to Republican pressure on abortion medication (The outcome was more complicated.) and responded to a Texas law authorizing payouts to people who sue abortion providers by pushing a California version for guns, hoping to force a legal reckoning.

Abortion access may be settled law in the state Newsom leads, but he always has an eye on the bigger picture. The governor has raised money for President Joe Biden and his own PAC by lambasting Republicans like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on abortion restrictions. When a Texas judge blocked approval of an abortion drug, Newsom let his donors know California was stockpiling pills — and asked for $20 to “fight back everywhere rights are under attack.”

Rachel Bade at Politico:

Former President Donald Trump avoids talking about the matter almost entirely. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban in the middle of the night in April, and has barely spoken about it since. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) originally waffled on whether he’d support a nationwide abortion ban. And former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has been vague about how she’d handle the issue as president.

Then there’s former Vice President Mike Pence.

More than any other Republican candidate, the former vice president has staked his pitch to voters on his unabashed “pro-life” stance.

While some Republicans — including Trump and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — say that in a post-Roe America, abortion policy should be left up to the states, Pence has endorsed a nationwide ban on the medical procedure at 15 weeks of gestation.

While some Republicans say the party shouldn’t weigh in on banning widely used abortion drugs, Pence’s 501(c)(4) group Advancing American Freedom has filed an amicus brief supporting a challenge to the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, the most widely used abortion pill in the country.

The GOP Field

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  The early stages of the 2024 race have begun.

Will a divided primary field help Trump as it did in 2016?  Nate Cohn at NYT: 

With Mike Pence and Chris Christie bringing the field up to 10 candidates this week, it’s easy to wonder whether the same conditions might be falling into place again. Despite high hopes at the start of the year, Ron DeSantis has failed to consolidate Trump-skeptic voters and donors alike. Now, the likes of Mr. Pence and Mr. Christie — as well as Tim Scott and Nikki Haley — are in the fray and threatening to leave the Trump opposition hopelessly divided, as it was seven years ago.

In the end, Mr. Pence or Mr. Christie might well break out and leave the opposition to Mr. Trump as fractured as it was in 2016. But it’s worth noting that, so far, the opposition to Mr. Trump has been far more unified than it ever was back then. It’s not 2016, at least not yet.

So far this cycle, polls have consistently shown Mr. DeSantis with the support of a majority of Republican voters who don’t support Mr. Trump. Nothing like this happened in that past primary, when at various points five different candidates could claim to be the strongest “not-Trump” candidate, and none came even close to consolidating so much of the opposition to Mr. Trump. Ted Cruz got there eventually, but only after a majority of delegates had been awarded and it was down to him and John Kasich.

Morning Consult:

• DeSantis’ support is stagnant after launch: DeSantis trails Trump by 34 percentage points among GOP primary voters (22% to 56%), similar to his standing before he launched his campaign on May 24. A fourth of potential primary voters reported hearing something negative about DeSantis over the past week, the highest share since tracking began in late November.
• Pence, Christie enter the 2024 race with meager support: Former Vice President Mike Pence, who filed paperwork to seek the GOP’s 2024 nod, is backed by 7% of potential Republican primary voters, similar to his standing since tracking began in December. Just 1% of the party’s prospective electorate supports former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in advance of his campaign launch.
• Few primary voters know who Burgum is: Roughly 4 in 5 potential GOP voters (78%) have either never heard of or formed no opinion about North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who is expected to launch a presidential campaign this week.

Seventeen Findings

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.   Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.  

 The findings of the January 6 Committee:

This Report supplies an immense volume of information and testimony assembled through the Select Committee’s investigation, including information obtained following litigation in Federal district and appellate courts, as well as in the U.S. Supreme Court. Based upon this assembled evidence, the Committee has reached a series of specific findings,[19] including the following:

1.  Beginning election night and continuing through January 6th and thereafter, Donald Trump purposely disseminated false allegations of fraud related to the 2020 Presidential election in order to aid his effort to overturn the election and for purposes of soliciting contributions. These false claims provoked his supporters to violence on January 6th.
2. Knowing that he and his supporters had lost dozens of election lawsuits, and despite his own senior advisors refuting his election fraud claims and urging him to concede his election loss, Donald Trump refused to accept the lawful result of the 2020 election. Rather than honor his constitutional obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” President Trump instead plotted to overturn the election outcome.
3. Despite knowing that such an action would be illegal, and that no State had or would submit an altered electoral slate, Donald Trump corruptly pressured Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes during Congress’s joint session on January 6th.
4. Donald Trump sought to corrupt the U.S. Department of Justice by attempting to enlist Department officials to make purposely false statements and thereby aid his effort to overturn the Presidential election. After that effort failed, Donald Trump offered the position of Acting Attorney General to Jeff Clark knowing that Clark intended to disseminate false information aimed at overturning the election.
5. Without any evidentiary basis and contrary to State and Federal law, Donald Trump unlawfully pressured State officials and legislators to change the results of the election in their States.
6. Donald Trump oversaw an effort to obtain and transmit false electoral certificates to Congress and the National Archives.
7. Donald Trump pressured Members of Congress to object to valid slates of electors from several States.
8. Donald Trump purposely verified false information filed in Federal court.
9. Based on false allegations that the election was stolen, Donald Trump summoned tens of thousands of supporters to Washington for January 6th. Although these supporters were angry and some were armed, Donald Trump instructed them to march to the Capitol on January 6th to “take back” their country.
10. Knowing that a violent attack on the Capitol was underway and knowing that his words would incite further violence, Donald Trump purposely sent a social media message publicly condemning Vice President Pence at 2:24 p.m. on January 6th.
11. Knowing that violence was underway at the Capitol, and despite his duty to ensure that the laws are faithfully executed, Donald Trump refused repeated requests over a multiple hour period that he instruct his violent supporters to disperse and leave the Capitol, and instead watched the violent attack unfold on television. This failure to act perpetuated the violence at the Capitol and obstructed Congress’s proceeding to count electoral votes.
12. Each of these actions by Donald Trump was taken in support of a multi-part conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 Presidential election.
13. The intelligence community and law enforcement agencies did successfully detect the planning for potential violence on January 6th, including planning specifically by the Proud Boys and Oath Keeper militia groups who ultimately led the attack on the Capitol. As January 6th approached, the intelligence specifically identified the potential for violence at the U.S. Capitol. This intelligence was shared within the executive branch, including with the Secret Service and the President’s National Security Council.
14. Intelligence gathered in advance of January 6th did not support a conclusion that Antifa or other left-wing groups would likely engage in a violent counter-demonstration, or attack Trump supporters on January 6th. Indeed, intelligence from January 5th indicated that some left-wing groups were instructing their members to “stay at home” and not attend on January 6th.[20] Ultimately, none of these groups was involved to any material extent with the attack on the Capitol on January 6th.
15. Neither the intelligence community nor law enforcement obtained intelligence in advance of January 6th on the full extent of the ongoing planning by President Trump, John Eastman, Rudolph Giuliani and their associates to overturn the certified election results. Such agencies apparently did not (and potentially could not) anticipate the provocation President Trump would offer the crowd in his Ellipse speech, that President Trump would “spontaneously” instruct the crowd to march to the Capitol, that President Trump would exacerbate the violent riot by sending his 2:24 p.m. tweet condemning Vice President Pence, or the full scale of the violence and lawlessness that would ensue. Nor did law enforcement anticipate that President Trump would refuse to direct his supporters to leave the Capitol once violence began. No intelligence community advance analysis predicted exactly how President Trump would behave; no such analysis recognized the full scale and extent of the threat to the Capitol on January 6th.
16. Hundreds of Capitol and DC Metropolitan police officers performed their duties bravely on January 6th, and America owes those individual immense gratitude for their courage in the defense of Congress and our Constitution. Without their bravery, January 6th would have been far worse. Although certain members of the Capitol Police leadership regarded their approach to January 6th as “all hands on deck,” the Capitol Police leadership did not have sufficient assets in place to address the violent and lawless crowd.[21] Capitol Police leadership did not anticipate the scale of the violence that would ensue after President Trump instructed tens of thousands of his supporters in the Ellipse crowd to march to the Capitol, and then tweeted at 2:24 p.m. Although Chief Steven Sund raised the idea of National Guard support, the Capitol Police Board did not request Guard assistance prior to January 6th. The Metropolitan Police took an even more proactive approach to January 6th, and deployed roughly 800 officers, including responding to the emergency calls for help at the Capitol. Rioters still managed to break their line in certain locations, when the crowd surged forward in the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s 2:24 p.m. tweet. The Department of Justice readied a group of Federal agents at Quantico and in the District of Columbia, anticipating that January 6th could become violent, and then deployed those agents once it became clear that police at the Capitol were overwhelmed. Agents from the Department of Homeland Security were also deployed to assist.
17. President Trump had authority and responsibility to direct deployment of the National Guard in the District of Columbia, but never gave any order to deploy the National Guard on January 6th or on any other day. Nor did he instruct any Federal law enforcement agency to assist. Because the authority to deploy the National Guard had been delegated to the Department of Defense, the Secretary of Defense could, and ultimately did deploy the Guard. Although evidence identifies a likely miscommunication between members of the civilian leadership in the Department of Defense impacting the timing of deployment, the Committee has found no evidence that the Department of Defense intentionally delayed deployment of the National Guard. The Select Committee recognizes that some at the Department had genuine concerns, counseling caution, that President Trump might give an illegal order to use the military in support of his efforts to overturn the election.

The J6 Hearing

  In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.   We now know that Trump fired up the mob against Pence after learning about the violence at the Capitol.  Was he trying to get them to kill Pence, or did he just not care one way or the other?  There was danger all around. And last night's hearing showed that he did nothing to stop the violence.

‘There were calls to say goodbye to family members’ — A White House security official revealed in interviews with the Jan 6 committee that members of VP Mike Pence's security detail feared for their lives as rioters took over the Capitol pic.twitter.com/7ikTTe0tRi

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) July 22, 2022

We asked a security professional who had been working in the White House complex on January 6th what was meant by the comment that the Secret Service agents did not "sound good right now."

The professional discusses what they heard from listening to the incoming radio traffic: pic.twitter.com/lDn8sNMaYR

— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) July 22, 2022

The Select Committee obtained never-before-seen footage of the President recording an address to the nation on January 7th.

One day after he incited an insurrection based on a lie, Trump still couldn’t say the election was over. pic.twitter.com/YjdpT02I6U

— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) July 22, 2022

The Secret Service on January 6

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.   We now know that Trump fired up the mob against Pence after learning about the violence at the Capitol.  Was he trying to get them to kill Pence, or did he just not care one way or the other?  There was danger all around.

 Hugo Lowell at The Guardian:

The Secret Service’s account about how text messages from the day before and the day of the Capitol attack were erased has shifted several times, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security told the House January 6 select committee at a briefing on Friday.

At one point, the explanation from the Secret Service for the lost texts was because of software upgrades, the inspector general told the panel, while at another point, the explanation was because of device replacements.

The inspector general also said that though the secret service opted to have his office do a review of the agency’s response to the Capitol attack in lieu of conducting after-action reports, it then stonewalled the review by slow-walking production of materials.

Ken Klippenstein at The Intercept:

The Secret Service has emerged as a key player in the explosive congressional hearings on former President Donald Trump’s role in the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to prevent the 2020 election results from being certified. That day, then-Vice President Mike Pence was at the Capitol to certify the results. When rioters entered the building, the Secret Service tried to whisk Pence away from the scene.

“I’m not getting in the car,” Pence reportedly told the Secret Service detail on January 6. “If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off.” Had Pence entered the vice presidential limo, he would have been taken to a secure location where he would have been unable to certify the presidential election results, plunging the U.S. into uncharted waters.

“People need to understand that if Pence had listened to the Secret Service and fled the Capitol, this could have turned out a whole lot worse,” a congressional official not authorized to speak publicly told The Intercept. “It could’ve been a successful coup, not just an attempted one.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the January 6 committee, called Pence’s terse refusal — “I’m not getting in the car” — the “six most chilling words of this entire thing I’ve seen so far.”

The Proud Boys Were the Tip of the J6 Spear

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.   We now know that Trump fired up the mob against Pence after learning about the violence at the Capitol.  Was he trying to get them to kill Pence, or did he just not care one way or the other?  There was danger all around..

 

A confidential witness for the FBI told federal agents that members of the far-right group the Proud Boys “would have killed” then-Vice President Mike Pence during the Capitol riot “if given a chance,” according to a House investigator. https://t.co/2DtNkyeYSg

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) June 16, 2022

J6 Danger

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.   We now know that Trump fired up the mob against Pence after learning about the violence at the Capitol.  Was he trying to get them to kill Pence, or did he just not care one way or the other?  There was danger all around.

 Frank Figliuzzi at MSNBC:

Speaking about the threats to Pence on Jan. 6 and the shouts by rioters to hang him, Raskin said, “The vice president's Secret Service agents – including one who was carrying the nuclear football – ran down to an undisclosed place in the Capitol." Those agents, who Raskin said he suspects were reporting to Trump’s Secret Service agents, were trying to whisk Pence away from the Capitol. At that point, Raskin said, Pence "uttered what I think are the six most chilling words of this entire thing I've seen so far: 'I'm not getting in that car.'" According to Raskin, Pence "knew exactly what this inside coup they had planned for was going to do.”

The nation needs to know whether its vice president did or did not trust the Secret Service to do the right thing for democracy and uphold the oath taken by its agents to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution

Last year, Fred Kaplan wrote at Slate:

What about the mob? What could they do, had they grabbed the Football? First, it’s very unlikely that they could have grabbed it. The Secret Service agents around Pence would almost certainly meet any such attempt with deadly force. There would have been a dozen or more dead rioters scattered on the bloodied floor near the staircase where Pence, his family, and his entourage had gathered. If the mob’s survivors kept mauling and overpowering Pence and the others, they might not have thought to grab the Football, which is locked in a metal case tucked inside an ordinary-looking satchel. Even if they had grabbed the satchel, bashed the lock, and opened the case, they wouldn’t have known what to do with the stuff inside. Had they figured it out, the officers in the Pentagon would have known the signals were coming from an unauthorized source.

Could the mob have taken the Football and sold it to the Russians or some other adversary? It would be worth millions of dollars. Despite the militias’ self-image as “patriots,” it’s not out of the question. According to a U.S. District Court affidavit, Riley June Williams, the Pennsylvania woman accused of breaching the Capitol and stealing Pelosi’s laptop on Jan. 6, intended to give the computer “to a friend in Russia, who then planned to sell the device to SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service.”

Whatever might have happened if the mob had caught up with Pence, we all escaped a disaster scene, almost certainly a bloodbath, and possibly a national security compromise by a much closer margin than we have known.

 

Trump Sicced the Mob on Pence

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection. 

The committee plays a video illustrating the impact Trump's criticism of Pence on January 6 had in making the insurrectionists very angry at the VP pic.twitter.com/28Zhs7lG3f

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 16, 2022

Trump on Ukraine and Other Things

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses foreign influence and Trump's attack on democracy.  Russia helped Trump through 2020.  As Russia began its latest invasion of Ukraine, Trump lavished praise on Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. 

During his first impeachment, he falsely accused Ukraine of interfering in the 2016 election.

Josh Dawey at WP:

Former president Donald Trump mused Saturday to the GOP’s top donors that the United States should label its F-22 planes with the Chinese flag and “bomb the s--t out of Russia.” He also praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as “seriously tough,” claimed he was harder on Vladimir Putin than any other president, reiterated his false claims that he won the 2020 election, urged his party to be “tougher” on supposed election fraud, disparaged a range of prominent party opponents and called global warming “a great hoax” that could actually bring a welcome development: more waterfront property.

“And then we say, China did it, we didn’t do it, China did it, and then they start fighting with each other and we sit back and watch,” he said of labeling U.S. military planes with Chinese flags and bombing Russia, which was met with laughter from the crowd of donors, according to a recording of the speech obtained by The Washington Post.

...

 Trump made an ominous call for the party to be more loyal in backing up his claims about fraud.

"The vote counter is often more important than the candidate,” he told the crowd, saying he had learned that from radio show host Mark Levin. “ … We have to get a lot tougher and smarter at the polls.”

...

 He also viciously mocked Republicans who didn’t back him in his crusade to hold power after he lost the 2020 election. “Stupid, corrupt Mitch McConnell,” he said of the Senate minority leader, before labeling former vice president Mike Pence a “conveyor belt — like corn” for opening and counting the electoral college votes as the Constitution requires.

Gabby Orr at CNN:

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday condemned Republican “apologists” who have used positive language to describe Russian President Vladimir Putin amid his invasion of Ukraine, according to a source who was in the room as Pence spoke to top GOP donors.

“There is no room in this party for apologists for Putin. There is only room for champions of freedom,” Pence said. The line received applause from donors who were gathered for a Republican National Committee retreat in New Orleans, the source said. The event was closed to the press.

Pence’s speech came just days after former President Donald Trump described Putin as “genius” and “savvy” for launching a full-scale invasion in Ukraine, where civilian casualties continue to pile up despite global condemnation of the Russian leader’s actions.

 

"Legitimate Political Discourse"

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie. 

Jonathan Weisman and Reid J. Epstein at NYT:

The Republican Party on Friday officially declared the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and events that led to it “legitimate political discourse,” and rebuked two lawmakers in the party who have been most outspoken in condemning the deadly riot and the role of Donald J. Trump in spreading the election lies that fueled it.

The Republican National Committee’s voice vote to censure Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois at its winter meeting in Salt Lake City culminated more than a year of vacillation, which started with party leaders condemning the Capitol attack and Mr. Trump’s conduct, then shifted to downplaying and denying it.

On Friday, the party went further in a resolution slamming Ms. Cheney and Mr. Kinzinger for taking part in the House investigation of the assault, saying they were participating in “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

After the vote, party leaders rushed to clarify that language, saying it was never meant to apply to rioters who violently stormed the Capitol in Mr. Trump’s name.

“Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger crossed a line,” Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chairwoman, said in a statement. “They chose to join Nancy Pelosi in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens who engaged in legitimate political discourse that had nothing to do with violence at the Capitol.”

But the censure, which was carefully negotiated in private among party members, made no such distinction, nor is the House committee investigating the attack examining any normal political debate. It was the latest and most forceful effort by the Republican Party to minimize what happened and the broader attempt by Mr. Trump and his allies to invalidate the results of the 2020 election. In approving it and opting to punish two of its own, Republicans seemed to embrace a position that many of them have only hinted at: that the assault and the actions that preceded it were acceptable.

 

“Legitimate political discourse” does not describe what I saw on January 6th. I’ve been @gop since the day I turned 18, but I’m out today. I love my country & liberty too much to abide either of the major parties’ nonsense.

— Janice Rutherford (@JanRutherfordCA) February 4, 2022

Former VP Pence: "President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone. Frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president." pic.twitter.com/gC6deDgadD

— CSPAN (@cspan) February 5, 2022

Trump History Updates

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.

 Jamie Gumbrecht and Jessica Small at CNN:

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis released to CNN on Friday new evidence showing how US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials were pressured by Trump administration officials to alter scientific guidance and prevented from communicating directly with the public.

In new excerpts of transcribed interviews, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the former director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said she was made aware that then-President Donald Trump was angered by a February 25, 2020, briefing during which she warned the public about the dangers of the coronavirus. Messonnier says in the transcript she had calls with former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield and former US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar after the briefing, and that she was "upset" after her conversation with Azar.

In the transcripts, other CDC officials described how requests to hold briefings about mask guidance and pediatric Covid-19 cases and deaths were denied. When asked about a CNN report that CDC officials felt "muzzled," Dr. Anne Schuchat, CDC's former principal deputy director, said, "That is the feeling that we had, many of us had."

CDC officials also appeared to take issue with invoking a public health authority to expel migrants.

Further, several interviews described efforts by the administration to alter or influence the agency's guidance and weekly scientific reports, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which typically are not shared outside the agency before they're published.

New evidence supports the hypothesis that the insurrection was the paramilitary wing of a plot to stage a coup. Libbey Cathey at  ABC:

In a memo not made public until now, then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows emailed to Vice President Mike Pence's top aide, on New Year's Eve, a detailed plan for undoing President Joe Biden's election victory, ABC News' Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl reports.

The memo, written by former President Donald Trump's campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis, is reported for the first time in Karl's upcoming book, "Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show" -- demonstrating how Pence was under even more pressure than previously known to overturn the results of the 2020 election. 

Ellis, in the memo, outlined a multi-step strategy: On Jan. 6, the day Congress was to certify the 2020 election results, Pence was to send back the electoral votes from six battleground states that Trump falsely claimed he had won.

The memo said that Pence would give the states a deadline of "7pm eastern standard time on January 15th" to send back a new set of votes, according to Karl. 

Then, Ellis wrote, if any state legislature missed that deadline, "no electoral votes can be opened and counted from that state."

Such a scenario would leave neither Biden nor Trump with a majority of votes, Ellis wrote, which would mean "Congress shall vote by state delegation" -- which, Ellis said, would in turn lead to Trump being declared the winner due to Republicans controlling the majority of state delegations with 26.

Axios reprints a Jonathan Karl interview in which Trump did not denounce calls to hang Mike Pence:

Jonathan Karl: "Were you worried about him during that siege? Were you worried about his safety?"

Trump: "No, I thought he was well-protected, and I had heard that he was in good shape. No. Because I had heard he was in very good shape. But, but, no, I think — "

Karl: "Because you heard those chants — that was terrible. I mean — "

Trump: "He could have — well, the people were very angry."

Karl: "They were saying 'hang Mike Pence.'"

Trump: "Because it's common sense, Jon. It's common sense that you're supposed to protect. How can you — if you know a vote is fraudulent, right? — how can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress? How can you do that? And I'm telling you: 50/50, it's right down the middle for the top constitutional scholars when I speak to them. Anybody I spoke to — almost all of them at least pretty much agree, and some very much agree with me — because he's passing on a vote that he knows is fraudulent. How can you pass a vote that you know is fraudulent? Now, when I spoke to him, I really talked about all of the fraudulent things that happened during the election. I didn't talk about the main point, which is the legislatures did not approve — five states. The legislatures did not approve all of those changes that made the difference between a very easy win for me in the states, or a loss that was very close, because the losses were all very close."

 

 

The Paramilitary Wing of the Coup Plot

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.

Josh Dawsey, Jacqueline Alemany, Jon Swaine and Emma Brown at WP:

As Vice President Mike Pence hid from a marauding mob during the Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol, an attorney for President Donald Trump emailed a top Pence aide to say that Pence had caused the violence by refusing to block certification of Trump’s election loss.

The attorney, John C. Eastman, also continued to press for Pence to act even after Trump’s supporters had trampled through the Capitol — an attack the Pence aide, Greg Jacob, had described as a “siege” in their email exchange.

“The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened,” Eastman wrote to Jacob, referring to Trump’s claims of voter fraud.

Eastman sent the email as Pence, who had been presiding in the Senate, was under guard with Jacob and other advisers in a secure area. Rioters were tearing through the Capitol complex, some of them calling for Pence to be executed.

 Josh Marshall nails it:

These exchanges capture something we suspect and know in some way. But here we’re getting the details, the documentary evidence. Eastman didn’t recoil when the President’s rally descended escalated to violence. He clearly saw the inside coup plot and the insurrectionists on the street as part of the same effort. This isn’t surprising to most of us. The insurrectionists were laying siege to Pence in the Capitol because Pence wasn’t going along with the plan. And the answer was to go along with the plan. He recognized the insurrection as the paramilitary wing of the coup plot he was part of and as the Capitol was under siege used it as a cudgel to force Pence’s hand.

The Plot Against America, in Six Parts

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.

From CNN:

John Eastman, a conservative lawyer working with then-President Donald Trump's legal team, outlined in a two-page memo a scheme to try to persuade then-Vice President Mike Pence to subvert the Constitution and throw out the 2020 election results on January 6. The memo was obtained by The Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, the authors of "Peril," and which was subsequently obtained by CNN.

PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL January 6 scenario

7 states have transmitted dual slates of electors to the President of the Senate. The 12th Amendment merely provides that “the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.” There is very solid legal authority, and historical precedent, for the view that the President of the Senate does the counting, including the resolution of disputed electoral votes (as Adams and Jefferson did while Vice President, regarding their own election as President), and all the Members of Congress can do is watch.

The Electoral Count Act, which is likely unconstitutional, provides:

If more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State shall have been received by the President of the Senate, those votes, and those only, shall be counted which shall have been regularly given by the electors who are shown by the determination mentioned in section 5 of this title to have been appointed, if the determination in said section provided for shall have been made, or by such successors or substitutes, in case of a vacancy in the board of electors so ascertained, as have been appointed to fill such vacancy in the mode provided by the laws of the State; but in case there shall arise the question which of two or more of such State authorities determining what electors have been appointed, as mentioned in section 5 of this title, is the lawful tribunal of such State, the votes regularly given of those electors, and those only, of such State shall be counted whose title as electors the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide is supported by the decision of such State so authorized by its law; and in such case of more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State, if there shall have been no such determination of the question in the State aforesaid, then those votes, and those only, shall be counted which the two Houses shall concurrently decide were cast by lawful electors appointed in accordance with the laws of the State, unless the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide such votes not to be the lawful votes of the legally appointed electors of such State. But if the two Houses shall disagree in respect of the counting of such votes, then, and in that case, the votes of the electors whose appointment shall have been certified by the executive of the State, under the seal thereof, shall be counted.

This is the piece that we believe is unconstitutional. It allows the two houses, “acting separately,” to decide the question, whereas the 12th Amendment provides only for a joint session. And if there is disagreement, under the Act the slate certified by the “executive” of the state is to be counted, regardless of the evidence that exists regarding the election, and regardless of whether there was ever fair review of what happened in the election, by judges and/or state legislatures. So here’s the scenario we propose:

1. VP Pence, presiding over the joint session (or Senate Pro Tempore Grassley, if Pence recuses himself), begins to open and count the ballots, starting with Alabama (without conceding that the procedure, specified by the Electoral Count Act, of going through the States alphabetically is required).

2. When he gets to Arizona, he announces that he has multiple slates of electors, and so is going to defer decision on that until finishing the other States. This would be the first break with the procedure set out in the Act.

Philip Rotner at The Bulwark:

The problem with this is that it wasn’t true: Pence didn’t have multiple slates of electors from Arizona, unless Eastman is referring to something Pence might have received over the transom or stumbled upon on Twitter. But random flotsam doesn’t count. The Twelfth Amendment is quite clear on this: The Vice President shall open “the certificates” signed and certified by the states, not just anything he might chance to pick up off the street. Arizona, like every other state, had “signed” and “certified” a single slate of electors, reflecting the results of the state’s election.

Back to the coup: 

3. At the end, he announces that because of the ongoing disputes in the 7 States, there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed in those States. That means the total number of “electors appointed” – the language of the 12th Amendment -- is 454. This reading of the 12th Amendment has also been advanced by Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe (here). A “majority of the electors appointed” would therefore be 228. There are at this point 232 votes for Trump, 222 votes for Biden. Pence then gavels President Trump as re-elected.

4. Howls, of course, from the Democrats, who now claim, contrary to Tribe’s prior position, that 270 is required. So Pence says, fine. Pursuant to the 12th Amendment, no candidate has achieved the necessary majority. That sends the matter to the House, where the “the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote . . . .” Republicans currently control 26 of the state delegations, the bare majority needed to win that vote. President Trump is re-elected there as well.

Ned Foley at ElectionLawBlog:

Had Pence done any of what Eastman’s memo suggested, the plot would not have prevailed because the House of Representatives under Speaker Pelosi’s leadership would have caused the Twelfth Amendment’s joint session to come to a halt incomplete.... With a stalled and incomplete count because of a standoff between Pence and Pelosi, the Twentieth Amendment becomes the relevant constitutional provision (not discussed in Eastman’s two-page memo, but the relevant part of the analysis in my Loyola Law Review article and the Atlantic essay). From the House and Pelosi’s perspective, because the counting of electoral votes remains incomplete, if that condition continues all the way through until noon on January 20, then Pelosi is in a position to assume the role of Acting President (and entitled immediately to receive the nuclear football, with its launch codes). 

The coup, continued: 

5. One last piece. Assuming the Electoral Count Act process is followed and, upon getting the objections to the Arizona slates, the two houses break into their separate chambers, we should not allow the Electoral Count Act constraint on debate to control. That would mean that a prior legislature was determining the rules of the present one — a constitutional no-no (as Tribe has forcefully argued). So someone – Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, etc. – should demand normal rules (which includes the filibuster). That creates a stalemate that would give the state legislatures more time to weigh in to formally support the alternate slate of electors, if they had not already done so.

6. The main thing here is that Pence should do this without asking for permission – either from a vote of the joint session or from the Court. Let the other side challenge his actions in court, where Tribe (who in 2001 conceded the President of the Senate might be in charge of counting the votes) and others who would press a lawsuit would have their past position -- that these are non-justiciable political questions – thrown back at them, to get the lawsuit dismissed. The fact is that the Constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the ultimate arbiter. We should take all of our actions with that in mind.

For GOP Pols, Trump Trumps Family

I missed out on the @georgepbush swag yesterday: The koozie says "this is the only Bush that likes me. This is the Bush that got it right. I like him" - Donald Trump #txlege pic.twitter.com/pFTzQCmoRG

— Scott Braddock (@scottbraddock) June 3, 2021

Mike Pence’s own brother (GOP Rep. Greg Pence) is opposing the Capitol riot commission https://t.co/kpT7V7EZqt

— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) May 19, 2021

Failure to Convict

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.

Lloyd Green at The Guardian:

The fact is, GOP senators who bucked Trump on impeachment offer cautionary tales for those who dare to cross him. By Saturday night, at least three had received home-state smackdowns.

The Louisiana GOP censured Bill Cassidy while the chairs of the North Carolina and Pennsylvania parties upbraided their renegade senators. Richard Burr “shocked” Tar Heel Republicans while Pat Toomey “disappointed” those in the Keystone state. Both had already announced they will not seek re-election.

But not all those who are leaving the Senate followed suit. Rob Portman of Ohio and Richard Shelby of Alabama fell into line. One more time.

Trump risked turning Pence into a corpse and ultimately went unpunished. That hangman’s noose was built to be used

What was once the proud party of Lincoln and Reagan is now a Trump family rag – something to be used and abused by the 45th president like his bankrupt companies, namesake university and hapless vice-president, Mike Pence.

If the impeachment trial established anything, it is that Trump risked turning Pence into a corpse and ultimately went unpunished. That hangman’s noose was built to be used.

Yet even the former vice-president has remained mum and his brother, Greg Pence, a congressman from Indiana, voted against impeachment. Talk about taking one for the team.

In the end, devotion to a former reality show host literally trumped life itself. The mob belongs to Trump – as the Capitol police can attest. So much for the GOP’s embrace of “law and order”. When it mattered most, it counted least.

Like Moloch, Trump has elevated human sacrifice and personal devotion into the ultimate test. His indifference to Covid’s ravages was a harbinger of what came next, his raucous and at times violent rallies mere warm-up acts.

When Trump mused about shooting some on Fifth Avenue and getting away with it, he wasn’t joking. He was simply stating a fact.