#Electoral College Certification

[deadpresidents]

Hypothetically what do you think would have happened if the january 6 rioters had gotten to pence or pelosi before they got safe?

At this point, I almost dread answering questions like this anymore because I know the kind of hate mail it will unleash for the next few days, but it's important to keep talking about what happened on January 6, 2021 since so many people are trying to normalize it. That includes many people whose lives were in danger that day, as well as the former President who tried to hold on to power by encouraging his supporters to launch a violent insurrection and is now referring to those who have been brought to justice for attempting a coup as "patriots" and "hostages".

I genuinely believe that there were people in that crowd who would have killed Vice President Pence, Speaker Pelosi, and certain Congressional leaders if they had reached them on January 6th. I think there are people in that crowd who were ready to hold lawmakers hostage. Why else did they have handcuffs and zip ties? To help the Capitol Police maintain order? (Oh yeah...that's right, thanks for reminding me: they violently attacked the police -- some even beat police officers with the "Blue Lives Matter" flags that they brought with them.) Now, I do not think that everybody who was at the Capitol on January 6th -- or even the majority of those who took part in the insurrection -- were willing to go that far. I think a lot of them got swept up in what was happening and went with the flow. That doesn't excuse what they did. The flow that they got swept up in was still a fucking insurrection, and anyone who took part in that deserves to be held accountable. But I think there were certain elements embedded throughout that crowd that were much more organized and prepared to fully execute their plans for a coup after disrupting the certification of the Electoral College votes.

I actually think Vice President Pence was probably in more danger than even Speaker Pelosi or some of the Democratic leaders because Trump was so actively calling him out in the days and hours before the insurrection. I think that's why Pence is so adamant now about not supporting Trump. I mean, think about how disgustingly loyal and subservient Pence was to Trump throughout those four years until basically the first few days of January 2021. But even as other Republican leaders are crumbling and offering their allegiance to Trump again in 2024, Pence is standing by his decision not to endorse or support Trump, and I think that's because he realizes that Trump absolutely almost got him (and his family, who were with him in the Capitol on that day) killed on January 6th. Shit, even Mitch McConnell has folded and endorsed Trump again despite the fact that Trump has spent the last three years not only insulting him but also making racist attacks and questioning McConnell's wife's loyalty to the United States all because Elaine Chao had the audacity to resign from Trump's Cabinet in the wake of the insurrection. Yet Mike Pence -- who spent the better part of four years following Trump around like Paul Heyman follows Roman Reigns...

...THAT same Mike Pence is steadfastly refusing to endorse Trump because he has personal experience about how real of an existential threat Trump is. Some of those people at the Capitol were very serious about following through on their chants to "Hang Mike Pence", and not only does Pence realize that, but he also knows now that Trump -- who refused to take actions that would have helped clear the Capitol more quickly -- said "he deserves it" when hearing about those chants.

That's what is so scary about the insurrection, its aftermath, and the Trump Republican Party's redefinition of what happened that day. It almost worked. They stormed the United States Capitol and invaded both chambers of Congress. They carried Confederate flags into the United States Capitol -- even the fucking Confederate States of America didn't successfully invade Washington, D.C. and plant their flag in the Capitol. They were willing to hurt and probably kill some of America's elected leaders. And the people who helped plan and instigate the events of January 6th have spent the three-plus years since then learning from their mistakes and figuring out how to be successful next time. And guess what? "Next time" is only a few months away.

#History #Insurrection #January 6 #January 6th Insurrection #Traitors #Donald Trump #President Trump #Mike Pence #Vice President Pence #2020 Election #Electoral College Certification #U.S. Capitol #Storming of the Capitol #Capitol Riot #Politics #MAGA Insurrection #Trumpism #Trump Cult #Congress #Shitshow at the Fuck Factory #I'm impressed by my own ability to squeeze a WWE reference into that answer

[filosofablogger]

Because "Good Faith Can No Longer Be Assumed"

When I saw the title of Robert Reich’s newsletter yesterday morning, my jaw dropped (it’s been dropping a lot lately … might need to get it wired back into place soon!)  As I read, I realized that somewhere in the back of my mind, I have had this concern but with so many more immediate concerns, it had been pushed to the back of my mind … as Scarlett O’Hara says in Gone With The Wind, “I won’t…

View On WordPress

#Electoral College certification #electoral integrity #House Speaker Mike Johnson #Representative Elise Stefanik #Robert Reich

[mariacallous]

Two days before the January 6 insurrection, the Trump campaign’s plan to use fake electors to block President-elect Joe Biden from taking office faced a potentially crippling hiccup: The fake elector certificates from two critical battleground states were stuck in the mail.

So, Trump campaign operatives scrambled to fly copies of the phony certificates from Michigan and Wisconsin to the nation’s capital, relying on a haphazard chain of couriers, as well as help from two Republicans in Congress, to try to get the documents to then-Vice President Mike Pence while he presided over the Electoral College certification.

The operatives even considered chartering a jet to ensure the files reached Washington, DC, in time for the January 6, 2021, proceeding, according to emails and recordings obtained by CNN.

The new details provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the chaotic last-minute effort to keep Donald Trump in office. The fake electors scheme features prominently in special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal indictment against the former president, and some of the officials who were involved have spoken to Smith’s investigators.

The emails and recordings also indicate that a top Trump campaign lawyer was part of 11th-hour discussions about delivering the fake elector certificates to Pence, potentially undercutting his testimony to the House select committee that investigated January 6 that he had passed off responsibility and didn’t want to put the former vice president in a difficult spot.

These details largely come from pro-Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who was an architect of the fake electors plot and is now a key cooperator in several state probes into the scheme. Chesebro pleaded guilty in October to a felony conspiracy charge in Georgia in connection with the electors’ plan, and has met with prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, who are investigating the sham GOP electors in their own states.

Chesebro is an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal election interference indictment against Trump.

CNN has obtained audio of Chesebro’s recent interview with Michigan investigators, and exclusively reported earlier this month that he also told them about a December 2020 Oval Office meeting where he briefed Trump about the fake electors plan and how it ties into January 6.

An attorney for Chesebro declined to comment. A spokesman for the special counsel’s office did not reply to a request for comment for this story.

‘A high-level decision’

Emails obtained by CNN corroborate what Chesebro told Michigan prosecutors: He communicated with the top Trump campaign lawyer, Matt Morgan, and another campaign official, Mike Roman, to ferry the documents to Washington on January 5.

From there, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and a Pennsylvania congressman assisted in the effort to get the documents into Pence’s hands.

“This is a high-level decision to get the Michigan and Wisconsin votes there,” Chesebro told Michigan prosecutors. “And they had to enlist, you know, a US senator to try to expedite it, to get it to Pence in time.”

Chesebro also discussed the episode with Wisconsin investigators last week when he sat for an interview with the attorney general’s office as part of a separate state probe into the fake electors plot, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

Wisconsin prosecutors asked about the episode “extensively,” the source said, noting Chesebro discussed how a Wisconsin GOP staffer flew the certificate from Milwaukee to Washington and then handed it off to Chesebro.

The firsthand account from Chesebro’s perspective helps fill in the narrative behind the effort to hand-deliver elector slates to Pence, which is vaguely referenced in Smith’s federal indictment.

Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include conspiring with Chesebro and others to obstruct the January 6 certification proceeding. Before Chesebro’s guilty plea in Georgia, his attorneys reached out to Smith’s team. As of this week, he has not heard back from federal prosecutors, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

Federal investigators have spoken with several individuals involved in the scramble with the phony elector certificates, according to a source familiar with the matter. This includes interviews with Trump staffers who were tapped to fly the papers to DC, and some fake electors who knew of the planning.

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not reply to a request for comment.

Asked about the episode, a spokesperson for Johnson pointed to his previous comments, where he said, “my involvement in that attempt to deliver spanned the course of a couple seconds,” and that, “in the end, those electors were not delivered.”

‘Day-by-day’ coordination

According to the recordings of Chesebro’s sit-down with Michigan prosecutors, he explained how a legal memo he wrote for Wisconsin transformed into a nationwide operation, where Trump lawyers were “day-by-day coordinating the efforts of more than a dozen people with the GOP and with the Trump campaign.”

On January 4, 2021, Morgan sent an email to Chesebro and Roman asking for confirmation that all of the Trump elector slates had been received by Congress, according to the documents obtained by CNN.

Roman responded that the Michigan certificate had been mailed on December 15 but was still “in transit” at a US Postal Service facility in DC. Wisconsin’s certificate also had apparently not arrived.

Chesebro told prosecutors that Morgan was “freaked out” when the campaign realized the phony certificates from Michiganwere still in the mail.

That same day, Morgan weighed in over email asking Chesebro and Roman to rethink how they would deliver the certificates to Pence.

“As I thought about this more, a courier will not be able to access the Capitol to deliver a sealed package,” Morgan wrote on January 4, according to emails obtained by CNN “You will probably need to enlist the help of a legislator who can deliver to the appropriate place(s). I strongly recommend you guys discuss a revised delivery plan with Rudy (Giuliani) to make sure this gets done the way he wants.”

‘Can we charter a flight?’

Roman was concerned the Wisconsin documents wouldn’t reach Washington in time.

“Can we charter a flight? The only available commercial from MKE (Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport) to DCA (Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) arrives at 2130 tomorrow night,” Roman wrote to Chesebro on January 4 at 11:24 p.m.

The job of physically flying the elector documents to Washington fell to two people: A Trump campaign staffer and a Wisconsin GOP official, according to the emails and what Chesebro told prosecutors.

The Wisconsin GOP official who had that state’s elector documents landed after 10 a.m. on January 5 at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, according to the emails.

Trump campaign aide Michael Brown flew with the Michigan certificates to Washington National Airport with a scheduled arrival around 1 p.m., according to emails obtained by CNN.  A source familiar with the matter told CNN that Brown flew to DC from Atlanta, because the Trump staffers who had custody of the Michigan ballots were in Georgia for the Senate runoffs.

The campaign booked and paid for Brown’s flight on Southwest Airlines, the source said. Federal campaign finance records indicate that a pro-Trump super PAC paid the airline on the day of Brown’s flight for travel related to election “recount” efforts.

Trump Hotel meetup

The emails show that Brown and the Wisconsin GOP official were instructed to meet Chesebro at the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington to hand off the fake elector certificates. Chesebro said in an email that he’d keep the ballots in his hotel room safe until it was time to pass them along.

Wisconsin Republican Party officials were annoyed at the request to courier the fake elector certificates to Washington. “Freaking trump idiots want someone to fly original elector papers to the senate President,” a Wisconsin GOP official wrote to then-state party chairman Andrew Hitt on January 4, according to the January 6 committee report.

Hitt – who has provided information to federal investigators about the efforts to get the fake elector certificates to Washington, according to a source familiar with the matter – told the January 6 committee that the couriering ended up being overkill, because the original documents that the state party had mailed to Washington actually made it in time.

Getting the certificates inside the Capitol

The documents still had to be hand-delivered to Pence’s Senate office in the Capitol.

The electors plot – as envisioned by Chesebro and other Trump allies – was that Pence could reject Biden’s legitimate electors and recognize Trump’s “alternate electors” on January 6, while lawmakers tallied the electoral votes from each state. Per federal law, the certificates need to be physically presented on the floor of Congress during the joint session, while lawmakers tally the electoral votes.

Chesebro told investigators that Roman connected him with an aide for a Pennsylvania GOP lawmaker that he believed was Rep. Scott Perry to turn over the documents. Chesebro wasn’t certain which congressman the staffer worked for – and the January 6 report says a staffer for a different Pennsylvania Republican, Rep. Mike Kelly, helped shuttle the documents that day.

“I had the Wisconsin stuff. [Trump campaign aide] Mike Brown had the Michigan stuff. We walked to the Longworth Office Building, and the guy with Perry, or whatever his name is, and some other fellow, that were like staff members of the House, took them and said, ‘We’re going to walk them over to the Senate and give it to a Senate staffer,’” Chesebro told Michigan prosecutors, according to the audio obtained by CNN.

“I don’t know why logistically we didn’t take it directly to Johnson. But that’s how we did it,” he added.

Kelly and Perry’s offices did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

Brown did not comment for this story. CNN previously reported that he testified in June to Smith’s grand jury in the Trump election subversion probe.

CNN previously reported that Roman sat for a proffer interview with Smith’s team before Trump was indicted.  He was also indicted in the sweeping Georgia election racketeering case, in connection with the fake electors scheme, and has pleaded not guilty.

Roman’s attorney did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The details from Chesebro put a finer point on how members of Congress, including a sitting US senator, were involved in making sure the electoral certificates for Trump ended up in Pence’s hands.

The January 6 committee first revealed last year Johnson’s involvement in trying unsuccessfully to deliver the fake elector certificates to Pence, who announced on the morning of the joint session that it would be unconstitutional to do what Trump wanted and unilaterally overturn the election results.

The committee revealed text messages during their hearings last year that Johnson aide Sean Riley sent to Pence aide Chris Hodgson, saying that Johnson “needs to hand something to VPOTUS please advise.”

“What is it?” Hodgson asked.

“Alternate slates of electors for MI and WI because archivist didn’t receive them,” Riley responded.

“Do not give that to him,” Hodgson said.

‘F**k these guys’

In his Michigan interview, Chesebro also dished on some of the internal disagreements among the Trump lawyers, campaign officials and other allies, who clashed over the purpose of the electors’ plan and how far to take things on January 6.

Chesebro has maintained – then, and now – that the plan was a lawful move to preserve Trump’s legal rights.

Even before the Trump electors met in their state capitals on December 14, 2020, to cast their fake ballots and sign the certificates, Chesebro heard about concerns from some of the electors about possible legal jeopardy, according to emails and text messages reported by the Detroit News and obtained by CNN.

Chesebro added hedging language for the faux certificates from Pennsylvania and New Mexico in response to those concerns. He proposed to Roman and Morgan that they add the contingency caveats to the paperwork for all seven states in the plan. But Roman rejected the idea, according to the emails.

“F**k these guys,” Roman texted Chesebro on December 12, 2020.

By this time, the Trump campaign had essentially cleaved in two. Top officials who had managed day-to-day activity for Trump up to the election, including in court, say they ceded responsibility to Rudy Giuliani and others, such as Chesebro, according to congressional testimony transcripts. Roman effectively switched teams to work under Giuliani’s structure, according to the testimony from Morgan and others.

A spokesperson for Giuliani did not reply to a request for comment.

‘It really went south on me’

Chesebro told Michigan investigators that his own emails show that Morgan remained deeply involved, including in the final hours before January 6, to ensure that the certificates reached DC.

“I don’t have a really warm feeling toward, at least, the top Trump lawyers that did this, hid from me what they were doing and then lied to Congress about me. So, it’s been really difficult,” Chesebro said.

In his congressional testimony, Morgan said he knew of the elector plan but wanted to distance himself from the effort, delegating the work to others, including those under Giuliani.

Morgan told the January 6 committee last year that he initially believed the electors were only meant to be used as a contingency. The electors, he believed, should meet in their state capitals and cast their electoral votes but “not necessarily submit” the certificates to Congress unless “we prevailed” in court.

Morgan told the committee that the plan changed in December, saying it morphed from a “cast-and-hold” operation and had “shifted to cast-and-send.” And that’s when Morgan told the committee that he backed out, testifying that he directed an aide to “email Mr. Chesebro politely to say, ‘this is your task. You are responsible for the Electoral College issues moving forward.’”

“This was my way of taking that responsibility to zero,” Morgan told the committee, later adding that he “moved on” after that email was sent.

Morgan explained that he was concerned that the new plan to try to count the fake electors on January 6 “would make the Vice President’s life harder, and I didn’t want to be a part of that.”

“Mr. Morgan stands by his congressional testimony,” his defense attorneys told CNN in response to his emails and Chesebro’s statements to investigators.

Ultimately, on the eve of the joint session of Congress, Morgan helped get the ballots in place, according to the emails and according to Chesebro, who blamed his legal troubles squarely on the Trump campaign’s legal team.

“I could have avoided all this,” Chesebro vented to Michigan prosecutors. “It’s been a real lesson in not working with people that you don’t know and are not sure you can trust, because it really went south on me.”

[anonymous-dentist]

Some fun facts about myself, because I’m in the mood for it:

I’m asexual! It all just seems deeply unpleasant to me. I even took a class on sex and sexuality for my first college degree, it was kinda just. Funny lol

I’m bi! I have a preference for men, but sometimes I see a woman and I go awooga awooga heart eyes wolf whistle, yk?

I’m autistic! Big surprise there!

I also have ADHD. Big surprise there.

I ALSO have two separate anxiety disorders. Big surprise there.

I have one college degree, and I’m planning on going to school for a paralegal certification in the fall if all goes according to plan

I graduated at number two in my high school senior class of about 600-something people (I would’ve been number one if I didn’t get that one bad test grade in college algebra lol)

I’ve been writing since I was 6 years old, which is crazy!!

I was first published at 11 in the town newspaper for winning a writing competition. What the fuck

Out of all 50 states, I’ve spent 1+ hours in maybe 30 of them. I’ve personally lived in three, and they’re three of the most mid states in the Union!

I learned to count by coloring in US electoral maps in 2004 (age 4)

I learned to read by reading my dad’s biographies in his library (age 3-4)

I can’t ride a bike, but I CAN skateboard. I have a longboard, but I live on a hill rn so I can’t skate as much as I want to rip

I LOVE CATS. But dogs TERRIFY me, they’re evil!!

I’ve taken the equivalent of three years of French language education, and I’m teaching myself Spanish very very slowly. I want to become bilingual in Spanish so I can communicate with the pretty heavy Hispanic population in my area of the country

I have a signed photo of Richard Nixon in my room that my dad gave me on my first birthday

My favorite tv show is Doctor Who, my favorite video game is Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright, my favorite album is Will Wood’s Normal Album, my favorite book is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and my favorite movie is the Evil Dead 2

Outside of writing, my hobbies are photography and baking!

My favorite animal is the panda because they’re God’s gift to the planet, God Bless Pandas

I have a southern accent :)

#about a.d. #that’s more info about me than I’ve ever given

[soberscientistlife]

The mayor of Wyoming, Kent Vanderwood has been charged along with fifteen others for "their role in the alleged false electors scheme following the 2020 U.S. presidential election," The incoming Republican mayor of Wyoming is one of 16 people who signed a fake Electoral College certificate declaring former President Donald Trump the winner in what some allege was a coordinated effort to degrade the election results in favor of Trump across a handful of swing states—per the Michigan Attorney General GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Dana Nessel.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Special counsel Jack Smith has informed former President Donald Trump by letter that he is a target in his investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

Trump also confirmed the development in a post on his Truth Social platform.

The letter, which sources said was transmitted to Trump's attorneys in recent days, indicates that yet another indictment of the former president could be imminent -- though it is not immediately clear what kind of charges he could ultimately face.

Target letters are typically given to subjects in a criminal investigation to put them on notice that they are facing the prospect of indictment.

Multiple sources tell ABC News that allies, aides and attorneys for the former president have been working to determine if anyone else received a target letter from the special counsel regarding the election probe.

"We can't find anyone," a source said Tuesday afternoon.

An attorney for Trump's former personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, told ABC News that the former New York City mayor had not received a letter as of Tuesday afternoon.

Trump previously received a target letter from Smith before he was indicted by a grand jury in Florida for his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House and his alleged efforts to obstruct the government's investigation.

Smith took control of the sprawling Justice Department investigation into the failed efforts by Trump and his allies to thwart his election loss upon his appointment as special counsel in November of last year, and in recent months dozens of witnesses have appeared to testify before a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C.

According to sources, prosecutors have questioned witnesses specifically about the efforts to put forward false slates of so-called false electors that were to have cast electoral college votes during the certification for Trump in key swing states that he lost to President Joe Biden.

Investigators have also sought information on Trump's actions and his state of mind in the days leading up to and on Jan. 6, 2021, when thousands of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol, temporarily disrupting the certification and causing lawmakers and former Vice President Pence to flee the building.

Trump was indicted last month on 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials, after Smith's prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information ranging from U.S. nuclear secrets to the nation's defense capabilities. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The former president has also pleaded not guilty to a 34-count indictment from the Manhattan district attorney charging him with falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election.

#us politics #news #republicans #conservatives #donald trump #abc news #trump administration #department of justice #2020 election probe #election interference #georgia election investigation #capitol riot probe #capitol riot investigation #target letter #jack smith #Rudy Giuliani #truth social #2023 #2020 election

[pennsyltuckyheathen]

PA Republicans who submitted fake Electoral College documents should be facing charges.  It’s not about politics it’s about the law.  

#CorruptGOP #PARepublicans #FakeElectors #BigLie #Election2020 #TrumpInsurrection #LoserTrump #TraitorTrump

[truth-has-a-liberal-bias]

The “Independent Legislature Theory” Explained, in Relation to the Jan. 6th Insurrection

...

The “independent legislature theory” embraces the idea that the state legislatures can simply pick their own electors, either through sham findings of “fraud’ or in open defiance of the popular vote. And nobody can take them to court or stop them, because they have the “independent” power to do as they please.

On January 6, 2021, this was the theory that the Republican coup plotters actually attempted to put into effect.

In the run-up to the coup attempt, pro-Trump legislators in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin submitted alternate slates of electors—on the theory that the legislature could invalidate the popular vote and declare Trump the winner.

The coup was to take place on January 6, the day set for a joint session of the US Congress to certify the Electoral College vote. Trump’s fascist mob was unleashed to storm the US Capitol and compel Congress to halt the certification.

Working in tandem with far-right Republican representatives and senators who raised objections to the duly certified elector slates from certain states won by Biden, Trump’s fascist foot soldiers were to create the conditions, if necessary by kidnapping and killing elected officials, for Trump to declare an emergency and maintain power as de facto dictator. The fake elector slates submitted by Republican state legislatures were to be used to give the coup a pseudo-legal cover.

The North Carolina case itself arises from a brazen instance of partisan gerrymandering on the part of the state legislature, which the state’s own Supreme Court struck down as illegal.  While the case has attracted national attention because of the invocation of the “independent legislature theory,” it is also highly revealing as a case study of an anti-democratic conspiracy by state government officials to subvert the will of the state’s citizens. [,,,]

Full story here from World Socialist Web Site

#Republicans #insurrection #treason #traitors #politics

[ridenwithbiden]

Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana was elected to be the next speaker of the House on Wednesday.

He's a staunch social conservative who introduced a bill similar to Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law.

He also moonlights as a Liberty University professor and spearheaded efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Following three failed GOP speakership bids in the three weeks since Kevin McCarthy's ouster, the House elected Rep. Mike Johnson of Lousiana on Wednesday to be the next speaker of the House.

He won with the unanimous support of House Republicans.

Johnson, a relatively unknown 51-year-old congressman first elected in 2016, is a staunch social conservative and evangelical Christian who already served in party leadership as the vice chair of the House GOP conference.

He may have been the best man for the job simply because he has no major enemies — he has good relationships with members of the hard right flank of the conference, and he's collegial and low-profile enough for more vulnerable lawmakers to accept.

The Louisiana Republican became the party's nominee after House Majority Whip Tom Emmer's candidacy was derailed by former President Donald Trump, who called Emmer a "RINO" as dozens of hardliners made clear they were not ready to support his candidacy. Emmer was ultimately the party's nominee for just over four hours before he withdrew on Tuesday.

Last week, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio was the party's nominee, losing support with each successive floor vote until he was voted down by the conference on Friday. Before that, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was briefly the nominee.

As the speaker, Johnson will be second in line to the presidency behind Vice President Kamala Harris. Here's what you need to know about him.

Last year, he introduced a bill similar to Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law

Last October, Johnson led over two dozen of his colleagues in introducing the "Stop the Sexualization of Children Act of 2022."

The bill is essentially the national version of Florida's Parental Rights in Education Law — dubbed "Don't Say Gay" by critics.

The bill prohibits federal funds from being used to promote "any sexually-oriented program, event, or literature for children under the age of 10" and bans federal funding from being used for drag shows or "Drag Queen Story Hour."

But the bill's definition of "sexually-oriented material" includes "any topic involving gender identity, gender dysphoria, transgenderism, sexual orientation, or related subjects."

That's led the Human Rights Campaign to condemn the bill as the "latest cruel attempt to stigmatize and marginalize the community."

He played a bigger role than most House Republicans in Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Like most of his GOP colleagues, Johnson voted against certifying the electoral college results from Arizona and Pennsylvania, even after a mob ransacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

But Johnson was also the lead organizer of an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of Texas's lawsuit asking the court to halt the certification of the vote in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

The day after President Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election, Johnson said he called Trump and encouraged him to "keep fighting."

On the morning of January 6, he tweeted that Republicans "MUST fight for election integrity, the Constitution, and the preservation of our republic!"

On Tuesday, ABC reporter Rachel Scott tried to ask Johnson whether he stood by those efforts, leading the Republicans gathered around him to drown out her question with laughter and booing.

Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina even told Scott to "shut up."

He's among the Republicans opposed to sending US aid to Ukraine.

Johnson has continually voted against sending US aid to Ukraine and was among the original 57 Republicans who first did so in May 2022.

"We should not be sending another $40 billion abroad when our own border is in chaos, American mothers are struggling to find baby formula, gas prices are at record highs, and American families are struggling to make ends meet, without sufficient oversight over where the money will go," he said at the time.

That means his ascent to the speakership could imperil the future of US aid to the war-torn country, which continues to rely on American assistance in its war against Russia.

McCarthy, while careful to state that he opposes a "blank check" for Ukraine, was generally supportive of sending aid. The Louisiana Republican would be the first congressional leader to be opposed to Ukraine aid.

He's made more than $100,000 moonlighting as a professor at Liberty University, an evangelical college

There's little publicly-available information about Johnson's activities at Liberty University, and Insider has reached out to the university for further details.

But according to his financial disclosures, he's made a decent chunk of change on the side teaching online courses, including more than $26,000 in 2019 and 2020 and more than $29,000 in 2021 and 2022, for a total of $111,885.

According to a biography on the website Answers in Genesis, Johnson has taught "Constitution and free enterprise" at the university's Helms School of Government.

Liberty University is a private evangelical Christian university in Lynchburg, Virginia founded by televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr.

His son, Jerry Falwell Jr., previously ran the university until he resigned amid a sex scandal in 2020. Falwell had been a prominent Trump backer within the evangelical community.

He's in a "covenant marriage," which makes it harder for him to get divorced.

Johnson is one of the few Americans in a "covenant marriage," a legal arrangement that makes it harder for couples to get a divorce.

He married his wife Kelly in 1999, and both of them voluntarily opted into the arrangement.

Under Louisiana state law, couples sign a document in which they agree to seek marital counseling before getting a divvorce. Additionally, couples can only get divorced on a limited set of grounds, including for adultery, if one partner committed a felony or faces imprisonment, or physical or sexual abuse.

"My wife and I both come from traditional Christian households," Johnson told ABC in 2005. "My own parents are divorced. As anyone who goes through that knows, that was a traumatic thing for our whole family. I'm a big proponent of marriage and fidelity and all the things that go with it, and I've seen firsthand the devastation [divorce] can cause."

"I think that it would be a pretty big red flag if you asked your mate or your fiancé, 'Let's do a covenant marriage,' and they said they don't really want to do that," Kelly Johnson told the outlet.

[deadpresidents]

So....Trump forced off the ballot, obviously going to appeal, but what do you think the odds are of the clown getting kicked off ballots nationwide as a result of this?

I have no confidence that this Supreme Court will uphold Colorado's decision to remove Trump from the ballot. Let's not forget that Trump appointed three of the justices on the Court and one of the other justices is married to a woman who was apparently quite active herself in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. I'd be shocked if they uphold the ruling, and I don't think it means much of anything unless they do.

Listen, I think the Colorado ruling is legally correct. Trump doesn't need to be convicted of any crime in general or specifically committing an insurrectionary act to be disqualified from the ballot. The disqualification is for violating his Constitutional oath, and there's not much of an argument about the fact that actively attempting to overturn the results of an election and subvert the Congressional certification of the Electoral College results is a clear violation of the Presidential oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution." But, honestly, I don't think this is that big of a political victory for Trump's opponents. It gives Trump's extremist supporters in Congress the opportunity to find tit-for-tat ways to disqualify the Biden campaign for whatever bullshit reason they try to dig up, and it just causes more confusion. Also, Trump's not going to win Colorado anyway; Democrats haven't lost Colorado since 2004.

My hope is that the Supreme Court acts quickly on the Special Counsel's requests to expedite the ruling about Trump's criminal charges because getting those trials underway while voters still have an opportunity to cast their ballots for another Republican candidate is very important. If Trump is able to run out the clock and delay the criminal trials, he WILL win the nomination and if he wins the general election, we're going to be in a very scary situation. We're on the edge of a very dangerous existential challenge to our democratic republic, and I don't know if this country survives another Trump term, especially since the next one will have no guardrails built-in to it and since he's been actively and openly talking about getting retribution against his perceived enemies.

#2024 Election #Politics #Supreme Court #Donald Trump #President Trump #Colorado #Presidency

[buzzdixonwriter]

The War Came To Me

(I wrote this four years ago to someone I know.  I’m posting it here and now because the situation grew even more dire in those intervening years.  As a courtesy to the original recipient, I’m removing their name and any identifying information, but the message still stands and so do I.)

Why should I believe anything any Republican has to say?  The GOP spits on vets and tells 'em it's mana from heaven. They betray the best interests of their constituents, they do not believe in rule of law except when they can use it as a cudgel against those they dislike, they sold out every value they've ever claimed to possess to prop up this toad as long as it keeps them in power one election, one year, one month, one day, one hour, one second longer.

I remember having a conversation with a Republican several years ago when Trump was peddling his schtick about Obama's birth certificate. This Republican sounded almost gleeful over Trump doing this, making Obama respond to an outrageous racist demand, a demand never made on any other president of the United States.

Boy, do I remember that conversation...

And the poison that Trump spewed into the American political system then, the GOP supported it. Oh, the party used all the mealy-mouthed legalisms -- "Well, I don't know, could be interesting to find out" -- but that was a God damned* racist dog whistle and the GOP knew it and the GOP let Trump blow it as hard as he could.

The GOP let Trump climb on the stage in 2008 as a faux candidate so he could promote The Apprentice; okay, fine, maybe they thought he’d at least going to make a real attempt at securing the nomination.

Nope, just hype.

But then the GOP let him on the stage again knowing he was bogus, because he would stir up the white evangelical base the GOP. 

I know these white evangelicals, I grew up among them, I understand their thinking, and while all of them may not be hateful bigots, I'm hard pressed to think of one that isn't a white supremacist.

The Nixon and the GOP made their deal with the devil by catering to that crowd, a complete rejection of everything the Republican party used to stand for.

Then the GOP let Trump on the stage a third time, and this time with alt-right money and white evangelical churches openly supporting him and the Russians dropping their turds, he squeaked by a narrow electoral college win, losing the popular vote by the biggest margin of any candidate who won the presidency.

All this might have been endurable if the GOP put a leash on him and kept him from filling the cabinet with corrupt cronies who systematically looted the country.

But they didn't.

Behavior that would see any Democrat impeached or indicted, they turned a blind eye to. We can literally count the number of Republicans who stood by their principles on the fingers of one hand.

I have skin and bone and blood in the game. Soon-ok never used to get hassled by racists...until Trumo. I have Latino and African-American family members who face an increase in white hostility, gay and transgender friends and acquaintances more anxious about their personal safety than three years ago.

My mother-in-law died from covid early in the pandemic.  For that, I don't blame Trump directly, because even the best efforts to keep a disease out will eventually fail, and once a disease gets inside a community, some people will catch it and among them some die.

But not 63,000 in under 4 weeks, which is when Soon-ok’s mother died isolated in a hospital. She might have caught covid anyway even under the best testing and isolating conditions ala South Korea, but there wouldn’t been another 63,000 deaths in a month’s time (400,000 for the duration of Trump’s presidency).  

That's a screw up of several orders of magnitude.

She died alone and frightened and gasping for air.

I'm not forgetting that.

Ever.

So kindly stop telling me to back away from it.  That's not going to happen. The war came to my doorstep; I didn't want it but here it is.

  © Buzz Dixon

  *  God damned here used in its strictest theological context.

#politics #Trump #January 6 #insurrection #sedition #covid

[madamspeaker]

The sixth of January is the date prescribed in United States law for Congress to count the electoral votes in the presidential election. It is an occasion of high drama with specific requirements: the security of the mahogany boxes containing the states’ Electoral College certificates; the timing of the joint session of Congress, called to order at 1 p.m.; the precise rules that spell out that the debate on objections to the count shall proceed “clearly and concisely.”

On January 6, 2021, my daughter Alexandra brought her two sons to the Capitol to witness this historic occasion of a peaceful transfer of power. My grandsons did witness history that day, just not the history anyone expected.

The former president had long planned for the nullification of the election, sowing doubt about the results even before ballots were cast and challenging the results in the courts. So before the joint session, we prepared for the possibility of objections to the Electoral College votes by Republican members of Congress. It was clear that the results from Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin would be the targets. Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland strategized with members of Congress from those states about how we would respond to and defeat the objections on the House floor, based on the facts and the laws.

The joint session on January 6 was called to order at 1 o’clock by the vice president. The first Republican objection to a state electoral vote came with Arizona. During that debate, at about 2:15 p.m., my security detail rushed to the speaker’s chair and told me that I had to leave immediately. We left so fast that I didn’t even have time to bring my cellphone with me.

Having failed to overturn the election results in the courts or in Congress, the president had resorted to insurrection in the Capitol. A violent mob—enflamed by the “Stop the Steal” rally held by the former president—had marched to the Capitol, broken through the outer police barrier, and reached multiple entrances to the building. Smashing in windows and breaking down doors, they stormed inside, seeking to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.

More than 2,000 rioters made it inside the building. Some in the mob were yelling “Hang Mike Pence”—angry that the vice president refused to follow the former president’s diabolical order to overturn the election results. At the same time, the massive crowd swarmed outside my office chanting “Nancy, Nancy, Nancy,” even screaming about wanting to put a bullet in my head.

I was awed by the courage of the Capitol Police and the D.C. Metropolitan Police, defending our temple of democracy and protecting the people inside. Sadly, 140 police officers were injured by rioters. Many sustained long-lasting physical and emotional scars. Some officers later lost their lives.

I feared for those law-enforcement heroes, as I feared for my members, the congressional staff, the workers who maintain the Capitol, the press, and the others who were present that day. Their stories are harrowing—and demonstrate extraordinary courage.

Because of COVID, not all members could participate on the House floor. Jason Crow of Colorado was in the gallery with a group of members and journalists when the building was breached. A former Army Ranger, he snapped into action, telling them to leave their belongings behind, get down on the floor, and crawl toward a secure doorway where they could escape. As the mob outside pounded on the doors—some say it sounded like a battering ram—he even prepared them to use their pens as weapons, if needed. Jason, of course, was the last to leave the gallery.

I would learn, in heartbreaking detail, about what my own team endured on that day. These young staffers—some of the most civic-minded, patriotic folks you’ll ever meet—nearly came face-to-face with the rioters. For two and a half hours, they crouched in a small conference room with the door locked and barricaded, the lights off and in complete silence. As the savages tried to force their way in, my staff was forced to reckon with the possibility that they might never see their loved ones again.

Congressional leadership was taken to Fort McNair. As I left the Capitol, I kept asking if the National Guard had been called, a power reserved for the executive branch. While the governor of every state in the union has the power to call up their own National Guard, the District of Columbia’s National Guard is under the control of the Defense Department—and, ultimately, of the commander in chief.

When I got to Fort McNair, it was clear that no one had deployed the National Guard to the Capitol. As Senator Chuck Schumer and I watched the television coverage of the unfolding insurrection, we began to place urgent calls to the administration.

I contacted Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, who could not have been more casual. In response to our pleas to dispatch reinforcements, he said: “Well, I have to report to my boss. That takes time. I don’t know what we can do.” His answer was horrifying.

While the Pentagon dragged its feet, Chuck, Representative Steny Hoyer, and I called the governors of Virginia and Maryland to ask them for help. Virginia law enforcement and National Guard troops began arriving in D.C. around 3:15 p.m., and Maryland was cooperative too.

Chuck, Senator Mitch McConnell, and I then contacted McCarthy’s boss, Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, to plead for more reinforcements. Mitch insisted that the National Guard “get there in one hell of a hurry, you understand?” I demanded an answer: “Just pretend for a moment it was the Pentagon or the White House or some other entity that was under siege.” Still, Miller delayed.

Hours later, the Capitol was finally cleared. While it was suggested that we continue the certification from Fort McNair for security reasons, it was always our goal to return to the Capitol that night to finish the count. The whole world had seen the vile “Stop the Steal” venom the president was pushing, and the violence that it had caused. It was essential that we continue our duties in the Capitol of the United States, for the American people and the world alike to see.

At 9 p.m., I returned to the speaker’s chair, took up the gavel, and called the House to order. I read a brief statement: “To those who engaged in the gleeful desecration of this, our temple of democracy … justice will be done.” And I vowed that Congress would “be part of a history that shows the world what America is made of.”

The House resumed debate on the Arizona objection, before the most astonishing thing happened. Even after barricading themselves in their offices, hiding under desks and chairs, and witnessing so much pain and trauma, an overwhelming majority of House Republicans voted against the election results in Arizona—including Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise, who had listened at Fort McNair as Mitch, Chuck, and I pleaded for the National Guard.

Thankfully, 303 members of the House voted against the objection, and it failed. If you can believe it, the Republicans then decided to bring up a challenge to the votes from Pennsylvania. The Senate rejected the Pennsylvania objection without debate, but the House suffered through two more hours of debate before the objection was finally voted down.

Late that night, Vice President Pence officially recorded the votes from all the states and declared Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election. As we shared the podium in the House during the joint session, I thanked and commended Pence for having the courage to do what was right, for honoring his oath of office to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” I also recognized the courage and commitment of the members and staff, who returned to the chambers that night and stayed until about 4 a.m., when we finally adjourned the January 6 session.

I remember the first time I saw the United States Capitol. I was 6 years old, and my family was traveling to Washington to see Daddy sworn in for his fifth term in Congress. As we approached our destination, my brothers were beaming as they said, “Nancy, look, look, there’s the Capitol!” And there it was: a magnificent white dome, towering and imposing, shining in the sun.

But more important than the beauty of the building is the majesty of what it represents. Long seen as a symbol of freedom and democracy around the globe, the Capitol dome was built by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. When some suggested that he halt construction to save steel and manpower for the war, Lincoln said no. He knew that finishing the dome would demonstrate America’s strength and resolve.

January 6 was another perilous moment for our democracy. It was an attack not just on the Capitol, but on our Constitution. And some who carried out the assault under Lincoln’s dome were carrying the Confederate flag. But on that dark night, Congress again projected America’s strength and resolve. Now, three years later, we are called on to do the same.

The threat to our democracy is real, present, and urgent. The parable of January 6 reminds us that our precious democratic institutions are only as strong as the courage and commitment of those entrusted with their care. We all share a responsibility to preserve American democracy, which Lincoln called “the last best hope of earth.”

#nancy pelosi #madam speaker

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Adam Zyglis, Buffalo News

* * * *

Susan B Glasser: In the hours after Johnson’s unexpected ascension on Wednesday, the press and the political commentariat feasted on examples of the previously little-known congressman’s ideological extremism: his calling gay people “dangerous” and “deviant” threats to the American way of life; his sponsorship of a national abortion ban and warning that those who performed an abortion would, at least in Louisiana, end up doing hard labor; his insistence that, if only women would bear more “able-bodied workers,” there would be no need to cut back Medicare and Social Security. His climate-change denialism, his belief in creationism over evolution, and his promotion of “covenant marriage” were all examined. It was pointed out that Johnson, after only six years in Congress, was the least experienced Speaker in a hundred and forty years, and the most hard-right House leader anyone could remember.

But none of those were the reasons for his rise, which had less to do with his stealth brand of political extremism than with his stellar record of support for Trump’s unprecedented effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Many members of the House Republican Conference—two-thirds of them, in fact—had voted to back Trump’s lies about the election. But few had worked as actively to foist bogus conspiracy theories about 2020 on the American public as did Johnson, a constitutional lawyer who enlisted dozens of fellow-members to support a Texas court case seeking to cancel the election results in battleground states. Johnson even promoted the bizarre falsehood, also amplified by Trump, that Dominion voting machines had been rigged because they came from “Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela.” (One thing that always bothered me about this: Didn’t anyone ever point out to them that Chávez died in 2013, seven years before the election that he somehow stole?) Johnson’s role, little noted at the time, was such that the Times later called him “the most important architect” of the campaign to block congressional certification of the Electoral College results and thus overturn Trump’s defeat.

On Tuesday, it had looked like the Speakership might go to Minnesota’s Tom Emmer, but the Republican whip turned out to have a fatal black mark on his résumé, at least as far as House Republicans were concerned: his vote on January 6, 2021, to certify President Joe Biden’s election. After five rounds of voting in the Republican Conference on Tuesday, Emmer defeated Johnson, a hundred and nineteen votes to ninety-seven votes. But then Trump weighed in. No way he wanted an election enabler as House Speaker. In a Truth Social post, Trump warned against the “tragic mistake” of choosing a “globalist rino” like Emmer. Enough Republicans then refused to go along with Emmer in a prospective House floor vote—where the Republican majority is so slim that a Speaker candidate can lose no more than four members of his own party—that he was soon forced to give up his bid. (“It’s done. It’s over. I killed him,” Trump reportedly bragged in a phone call with members.) It says everything about today’s House G.O.P. that Johnson lost the race against Emmer but then won the job anyway.

[The New Yorker]

#Adam Zyglis #Buffalo news #MAGA #American Authoritarianism #The New Yorker

[meret118]

Trump campaign operatives scrambled to fly copies of the phony certificates from Michigan and Wisconsin to the nation’s capital, relying on a haphazard chain of couriers, as well as help from two Republicans in Congress, to try to get the documents to then-Vice President Mike Pence while he presided over the Electoral College certification.

#Trump #Coup

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

On the first day of the new Congress, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) delivered one of the nominating speeches for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who was seeking the House Speakership. Jordan bemoaned a “government that has been weaponized” against the American people and called for greater accountability. The next day, during a second round of failed votes for McCarthy, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), the leader of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, voiced a similar sentiment but in opposing McCarthy: “Washington is broken… We have an administration that has contempt for the American people.” Though the two men were on different sides in this battle royal, they were united in hypocrisy, for each of these decriers of abusive power had been collaborators in Donald Trump’s public crusade to promote the lies about the 2020 election that led to the January 6 insurrectionist attack on the Capitol and in Trump’s devious plotting to overturn the election and upend American democracy.

Their roles in the House GOP’s crapshow illustrated a profound fact largely overlooked in this hullabaloo: The political chaos that brought the House of Representatives to a standstill was being perpetuated by a party that two years earlier had tried to sabotage the republic and had championed falsehoods and conspiracy theories that led to seditious violence in the very chamber where the Speakership fight was now occurring. Of the 222 Republicans currently in the House GOP caucus, 119 had on January 6, 2021, after the Trump-incited riot, affirmed the false charge of a stolen election by voting to block certification of Joe Biden’s victory. This group included most of the anti-McCarthy bloc, among them Reps. Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and Ralph Norman, who in January 2021 texted then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows that Trump should consider “Marshall Law” to remain in office. And this group included McCarthy.

The GOP civil war in the House was being fought over whether to elevate an election denier who had helped spread the Big Lie that spurred violence to a position that is second in the line of presidential succession. Yet McCarthy’s participation in that assault on democracy was not an issue. For Republicans, it was a prerequisite.

Though most Republicans elected to the new Congress share culpability for January 6 and the failed effort to blow up the 2020 election, Perry and Jordan stand out for their significant participation in Trump’s anti-constitutional and arguably criminal caper.

The House January 6 committee’s report details Perry as a key conspirator in one of Trump’s plots to reverse the election. After the 2020 election was called, Perry was a prominent cheerleader of Trump’s fraudulent claim the election had been stolen from him. He was one of 27 Republican House members who signed a letter requesting that Trump “direct Attorney General Barr to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate irregularities in the 2020 election.” He attended a December 21 Oval Office meeting with at least 10 other congressional Republicans to discuss a strategy for objecting to the electoral college votes on January 6. And with 125 other House Republicans, he supported Texas’ lawsuit that called for throwing out the votes of Pennsylvania and three other states.

But Perry outdid other GOP election deniers with his behind-the-scenes scheming to corrupt the Justice Department.

In late December 2020, after Barr resigned (having told Trump privately and stated publicly there was no evidence of any significant electoral fraud), Trump relentlessly leaned on the Justice Department—mainly, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and his deputy, Richard Donoghue—to affirm his baseless assertion that the election had been rigged. They resisted and repeatedly told Trump the allegations of fraud were untrue. Trump was not getting what he wanted from the department.

This is where Perry came in. He found a Justice Department official named Jeffrey Clark who was running the Environment and Natural Resources Division. Clark had nothing to do with investigating the allegations of election fraud, but he was willing to echo and legitimize Trump’s false charges. Perry introduced Clark to Trump, arranging a meeting between the two in the Oval Office on December 22. As the January 6 Committee noted, “Clark’s contact with President Trump violated both Justice Department and White House policies designed to prevent political pressure on the Department.”

Perry also sent numerous text messages to Meadows urging that Clark be promoted within the department, presumably to a position in which he could compel the Justice Department to assist Trump’s bid to retain power. In one message, Perry referred to the upcoming certification of the electoral vote and declared, “11 days to 1/6… We gotta get going!”

Though Rosen and Donoghue ordered Clark to have no further contact with Trump, Clark continued to meet with Trump and Perry. Perry also directly confronted the Justice Department about its refusal to back up Trump’s false allegations. He called Donoghue on December 27 and assailed the FBI and the department for not finding evidence of election fraud. He added that “Clark would do something about this.”

That night, Perry emailed Donoghue material alleging that election authorities in Pennsylvania had counted 200,000 or so more votes than had been cast—a claim that he and Trump raised publicly. No such thing had happened. Perry was spreading disinformation in an attempt to disenfranchise the voters of his own state.

Meanwhile, Clark—Perry’s man at the Justice Department—was pushing an underhanded plan to keep Trump in power. This included proposing to send a letter to the state legislature of Georgia—and those of other swing states—that falsely declared that the Justice Department had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia.” The letter recommended that the state legislature call a special session to evaluate potential election fraud. The draft of this letter referred to the fake electors that Trump and his campaign had organized.

When Rosen and Donoghue refused to sign this letter, Trump moved to boot Rosen and replace him with Clark. At a combative Oval Office meeting on January 3, Rosen, Donoghue, White House counsel Pat Cipollone and others strenuously opposed Clark’s appointment and told Trump it would lead to massive resignations at the department. Only then did Trump retreat on appointing Clark acting attorney general. This attempt to enlist the Justice Department for a coup was over.

The Trump-Clark scheme, in which Perry was a major plotter, was cited by the House January 6 committee in its final report as one basis for its criminal referral of Trump and others. And apparently Perry had some concerns for his own legal safety. According to the committee, after January 6, he reached out to White House staff and asked to receive a presidential pardon. (He did not receive one.)

In August, the FBI seized Perry’s cell phone, presumably as part of its investigation of the Trump-Clark operation. Perry claimed he was told he was not the subject of an investigation. The January 6 committee subpoenaed Perry, but he refused to show up for a deposition, and the committee subsequently referred him to the House Ethics Committee for sanction for failing to comply with the subpoena.

As for Jim Jordan, the January 6 committee declared he was “a significant player in President Trump’s efforts.” It noted:

"He participated in numerous post-election meetings in which senior White House officials, Rudolph Giuliani, and others, discussed strategies for challenging the election, chief among them claims that the election had been tainted by fraud. On January 2, 2021, Representative Jordan led a conference call in which he, President Trump, and other Members of Congress discussed strategies for delaying the January 6th joint session. During that call, the group also discussed issuing social media posts encouraging President Trump’s supporters to ‘march to the Capitol’ on the 6th."

The committee’s report points out that Jordan was in touch with Meadows and Trump in the days before the January 6 riot. On January 5, he texted Meadows that Vice President Mike Pence should “call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.” That is, Jordan was urging an unconstitutional action to achieve a Trump power-grab that would thwart the peaceful transfer of power.

On January 6, Jordan spoke with Trump at least twice, and, according to the committee, “he has provided inconsistent public statements about how many times they spoke and what they discussed.” He also spoke to Rudy Giuliani at least twice in the hours after the riot, as Giuliani continued to encourage members of Congress to block the certification of the election. In the following days, the committee noted, Jordan discussed with White House staffers the prospect of presidential pardons for members of Congress.

Like Perry, Jordan was subpoenaed by the January 6 committee and refused to cooperate, earning a referral to the House Ethics Committee—as did McCarthy. The committee wanted information from McCarthy regarding his conversations with Trump and Pence on and about January 6. He, too, would not cooperate.

As the McCarthy drama has played out, critical participants have been election deniers who not long ago sought to undermine democracy and whose actions led to the domestic terrorism of January 6. McCarthy’s foes, his defenders, and McCarthy himself all were part of the efforts to subvert the Constitution following Biden’s victory. Moreover, whatever happens with McCarthy, these enemies of democracy will end up with important positions in the House. Jordan is expected to become chair of the Judiciary Committee. Perry will likely remain chair of the House Freedom Caucus, which will continue as a band of extremists and plague whichever Republican becomes speaker. This absurd speakership fight is a reminder that Republicans who tried to annihilate the constitutional order and who bolstered conspiracy theories and lies that ignited violence have attained power and influence. The guilty have been rewarded.

#us politics #news #mother jones #2023 #118th congress #us house of representatives #speaker of the house #2020 election #trump's big lie #capitol riot #capitol riot investigation #house select committee #rep. kevin mccarthy #rep. jim jordan #Rep. Scott Perry #conservatives #republicans #gop #rep. andy biggs #rep. paul gosar #rep. lauren boebert #rep. matt gaetz #house freedom caucus #rep. ralph norman #mark meadows #jeffrey clark

[mariacallous]

About 18 hours after Fulton County District Attorney (DA) Fani Willis revealed the indictment of former president Donald Trump, his ex-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and 17 others, Meadows attempted to remove his prosecution from Georgia state to federal court. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones, who on Wednesday, ruled he has jurisdiction and set an expeditious hearing for August 28th at which Meadows can present evidence and legal argument to support his position. The DA can do the same at the hearing to oppose, and her written brief in response to the removal petition is due on August 23rd.

So how likely is it that Meadows will succeed? A look at the applicable law suggests that he will have a very steep hill to climb if he is to be successful in removing the case. In this analysis, we explain why.

In their request for removal, Meadows’ lawyers argue that because the charges against him concern his tenure as Trump’s Chief of Staff, the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause entitles him to remove the case to federal court. According to his attorneys, the conduct that DA Willis cites in the indictment, including “contacting state officials on the President’s behalf,” falls within the normal scope of Meadows’ duties in the White House.

But the background law is not favorable to these claims. That is because the allegations and the public record suggest that Meadows’ conduct — namely, his own and his support of Trump’s pressuring of election officials in Georgia — was political in nature and not one that was, or could ever be, undertaken in an official White House Chief of Staff capacity.

To explain why, let’s take a look at the law.

Under Section 1442(a), “any officer … of the United States” may remove to federal court a criminal action brought against them in state court if the prosecution is “for or relating to any act under color of such office.” This law is “designed to provide federal officials with a federal forum in which to raise defenses arising from their official duties.”1 Under Section 1442(a), removal is authorized if the defendant is an “officer of the United States” and has “raise[d] a colorable federal defense.”2 The requirement of a “colorable federal defense” has been given a “broad reading” and does not require the defendant to prove the “ultimate validity” of his defense “at the time of removal.”3

A federal official is not immune from state criminal prosecution “simply because of his office and his purpose,” but instead must meet two conditions:4 1) the federal official must have been engaged in conduct authorized by federal law or the Constitution; and 2) the official must have done no “more than what was necessary and proper” to effectuate his federal duty.5

In other words, a federal officer must actually act pursuant to federal authority, and their conduct must bear an objectively reasonable relationship to achieving a federal goal.

Meadows appears to have no “colorable federal defense” based on the Supremacy Clause or otherwise to support removal. For that to be the case, Meadows would in essence need to prove that overturning the results of a lawful election might possibly be defined under the law as a legitimate federal goal. Simply put, the executive branch has no role to play in counting or tabulating ballots — or certifying results — in presidential elections. As one federal judge recently found in a related context while denying absolute immunity to Trump, “President Trump cites no constitutional provision or federal statute that grants or vests in the President (or the Executive Branch) any power or duty with respect to the Certification of the Electoral College vote … That is because there is none.”6 Of course, Meadows was part of the very executive branch to which the judge was referring.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein recently echoed this point in denying Trump’s removal request in connection with his ongoing prosecution in New York state: “Not every act of or on behalf of a federal officer is an act under color of office.” Like other courts, to consider the question, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit — the federal court with jurisdiction over federal cases brought in Georgia and that would be hearing this matter on any appeal — has additionally recognized that an officer who acts out of “any personal interest, malice, actual criminal intent, or for any other reason than to do his duty” will have no entitlement to such immunity.

Because neither the Constitution nor applicable federal statutes vest the president with any official responsibility here, Meadows’ repeated interference with the administration of the Georgia election took him outside the perimeter of his office (and past the scope of authorized official acts). There are good, self-evident reasons why our legal system does not give the sitting president (or officers in the executive branch he oversees) a role in counting, tabulating, or certifying the election for his successor — an election in which the sitting president may be a candidate.

And here is where the conduct of attempting to overturn a lawful election went even beyond that. Indeed, the allegations here illustrate the reasons that we don’t want — and the law does not allow — presidents and their chiefs of staff officially to engage in state electoral activity.

The DA’s allegations and the public record evidence overwhelmingly suggest that this was a political act on behalf of a failed candidate and not a set of activities that were — or could ever be — even colorably undertaken in an “official” capacity, as removal requires. Any claim that what Meadows did was in furtherance of official federal business, rather than in pursuit of personal political gain, is unlikely to stand.