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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 11 months

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I think we knew that a federal indictment of former president Donald Trump would elicit a collective primal scream from the right-wing fever swamp — and they have not disappointed.

In true Trump-era fashion, the response from most elected Republicans has been a collective whine about "unfairness" and the "weaponization" of the "deep state." Some have even gone so far as to at least hint around that it's a nice little country we have here, be a shame if anything happened to it. I would expect nothing less. This is how they roll.

There are, notably, a few dissenters from that party line.

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney put out a statement saying that Trump "brought this on himself" and it's "consistent with his other actions offensive to the national interest," which is true. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a 2024 GOP hopeful, said "these facts are devastating," which is also true. But they, and a handful of others, are outliers among GOP elected officials.

One very significant former GOP official has come out swinging, however:

There are a number of Trump defenses out there. But the main talking point, which we can assume was coordinated, is that this is a political prosecution engineered by President Biden to take out his most threatening political rival. And their main proof of this is that the Department of Justice (DOJ) declined to prosecute Hillary Clinton. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina probably articulated this the best, including the deployment of some very emotional righteous indignation:

He's not saying it's ok, he's just saying that Hillary Clinton got off so that cancels out Trump's crimes. Or something.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wi. says that Trump refused to prosecute Clinton but Joe Biden sent in a SWAT Team to torment Trump:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sounded the same theme:

“Is there a different standard for a Democrat secretary of state versus a former Republican president? I think there needs to be one standard of justice in this country. Let's enforce it on everybody and make sure we all know the rules.”

It wasn't a perfect defense of Trump but as long as he makes sure to condemn Hillary Clinton is probably good enough for the moment.

As much as I loathe the idea of re-litigating "but her emails," I'm sorry to say that it's necessary. There was almost no pushback to this talking point from the media, probably because they didn't get the Clinton story right in the first place. A few have since stepped up to point out that Clinton didn't refuse to cooperate with the government, as Trump did, although Trump and his accomplices will no doubt cry inanely about her "bleaching the emails" and "smashing the phones" and that will be enough to sustain the argument. Trump may even say "Russia, if you're listening" again. But those allegations are just plain silly and always have been. And the fact that she didn't obstruct the investigation is only part of the story.

As it happened, Clinton copied all work emails to the State Department system so they had them. The Justice Department inspector general issued a report in 2018 about the FBI Investigation and determined that the people tasked with marking documents as classified had not done so clearly. Moreover, only three email chains "contained any classification markings of any kind," and they were low-priority "call sheets" marked with the lowest priority of classification, which had info and details for Clinton to refer to when talking to a foreign leader. There were no nuclear secrets or war plans among them, needless to say.

The State Department under Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo did two separate investigations and found in 2019 that there was "there was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information" and that Clinton bore no "individual culpability."

And let's dispense with the "magnanimous" Trump defense. Trump tried desperately to get the DOJ to investigate Clinton (and many others he considered his political enemies.) His White House counsel told him that the DOJ operated independently and if he ordered it there would be tremendous unrest from career officials and massive political blowback. That didn't stop him. He conspired with Matthew Whittaker, then an assistant to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to get Sessions to assign a Special Counsel to investigate Clinton. In the end, they succeeded in getting Sessions to assign John Huber, a US Attorney in Utah to look into all the allegations against Clinton, including the bogus "Uranium One" scandal which had also already been dismissed. That investigation didn't turn up anything either.

Notably, when Bill Barr became Attorney General he looked into all of it and also came up with nothing. If anyone thinks that Barr wouldn't have prosecuted Clinton if he could have doesn't recall just how much he hates her guts. The evidence just wasn't there. So, the FBI, the DOJ Inspector General, two State Department probes, a Clinton-hating attorney general and a U.S. Attorney assigned to review all the evidence found that Clinton committed no crimes. (I'm not even counting the 10 Benghazi investigations which were the genesis of the email scandal —- and also came up empty.)

I know your eyes have glazed over by this point and you wonder why in the world anyone should care about this. And frankly, we shouldn't have to. It's long settled ancient history. But the right's "whatboutism" and the media's continued unwillingness to acknowledge that, once the FBI determined there was no crime, there was no crime, I fear that a lot of people who aren't already down the right wing rabbit hole will be persuaded that this is a partisan prosecution simply because of the words "classified documents."

When former FBI Director James Comey held that first notorious press conference in the summer of 2016, in which he larded with inappropriate personal judgments about Clinton, he laid out the criteria the Justice Department uses when it decides whether to prosecute classified documents cases. He said:

“In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.”

Assuming they have proof of the charges in the Trump indictment, there can be little doubt that they met three of those four criteria, (the fourth being disloyalty to the United States which I believe to be true as well.) So when you see these Republicans emitting their epic whines about how unfair all this is because Hillary didn't get indicted, keep in mind that it wasn't for lack of Trump trying to get it done. It was because, unlike him, she didn't break the law. And even Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, Mike Pompeo and Bill Barr couldn't find a way to make it so.

In case you were wondering, yes the House Republicans are considering a new investigation into —- you guessed it —- her emails. Because of course they are.

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tomorrowusa · 7 months

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«It’s not that Republicans don’t stand for anything. It’s that they stand for things that are unpopular and divisive, and it’s therefore in their interests to talk about anything else.»

— Journalist Aaron Rupar writing in his Substack "Public Notice" last year.

Nikki Haley prefers not to talk about how she wants a nationwide ban on abortion. Ron DeSantis doesn't like people reminding him in public that he'd like to kill Social Security. And Mike Pence won't say too much about the homophobic legislation he pushed as governor of Indiana.

We need to remind people regularly about what the GOP really stands for.

Never miss an opportunity to let people know where Republicans are on the abortion issue.

What GOP presidential candidates are saying about abortion a year after Dobbs

And their positions on protecting our planet range from meh to atrocious.

US Republican positions on climate change shock environmentalists

Don't let Republicans change the subject. And don't worry about being repetitious, repetition is how people learn things.

#republicans #the gop #abortion #climate change #gun safety #election 2024 #aaron rupar

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dontmean2bepoliticalbut · 1 year

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#us politics #twitter #tweet #republicans #conservatives #gop #gop platform #gop policy #civil war 2 #american civil war #secession #sean hannity #fox news #blue states pay for red states #aaron rupar #vaush #vaush good #@vaushv #rep. marjorie taylor greene

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chrysocomae · 1 year

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One of the suspended journalists is back on Twitter

#twitter #aaron rupar #elon musk

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filosofablogger · 1 year

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This 'Man' Is NOT A Hero!!!

Two weeks ago, I was horrified by the murder of a Black homeless man, Jordan Neely, by a white man on a New York subway train. But then, horror turned to rage when I saw some of the reactions, with people calling Mr. Neely’s murderer a “hero” and then when a GoFundMe account was established for his legal defense, it quickly amassed over $2 million!!! WHAT THE SAM HELL is wrong with people in…

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#Aaron Rupar #Daniel Penny #Jordan Neely murder #Kid Rock #New York subway murder #Noah Berlatsky #Thomas Zimmer #white supremacy

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campaaronapollo · 1 year

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I wrote about Elon Musk's purge of journalists, as well as how social media works, from Twitter at my blog HexHive.

#Elon Musk #Twitter #Journalists #Purge #Aaron Rupar #Social Media #Free Speech #Freedom of Speech #MuskPurge #HexHive #Blog #Blog Post #Technology #Platform

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satoritech · 1 year

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Aaron Rupar’s Twitter account suspended along with list of other journalists who cover Elon Musk after jet tracker drama

JOURNALIST Aaron Rupar was among reporters who were suspended from Twitter on Thursday in the latest controversy to surround Elon Musk’s social media platform.The suspension of Rupar and other members of the n Read Full Text

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#Aaron Rupar’s Twitter account suspended along with list of other journalists who cover Elon Musk after jet tracker drama #News #Tech #Top #UK #US

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tomorrowusa · 2 years

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Aaron Rupar on Twitter.

How does somebody get to be lieutenant governor of the second largest state without knowing about fire codes? 🔥 🚒

One reason we have school fire safety regulations nowadays is a notorious 1958 fire in Chicago which killed 95 students and 3 nuns.

How Regulation came to be: Our Lady of the Angels

Republicans will make bizarre and downright unsafe proposals rather than offend their big donors at the NRA by addressing the real problem.

#dan patrick #texas #lieutenant governor #assault weapons apologist #nra stooge #gun safety #election 2022 #republicans #shool shootings #fire safety #fire codes #chicago #our lady of the angels #aaron rupar

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dontmean2bepoliticalbut · 2 years

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#us politics #2022 #twitter #tweet #aaron rupar #jesse kelly #conservatives be like #republicans be like #Republicans #conservatives #gop #fascists be like

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 7 months

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 29, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

“What a day we are having…. As a former director of emergency management, I know a disaster when I see one,” Representative Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) said yesterday in the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, overseen by the Republican-led House Oversight Committee chaired by James Comer (R-KY).

Moskowitz wasn’t wrong. After a hearing that lasted more than six hours, highlights of which Aaron Rupar of Public Notice reposted on social media, Neil Cavuto of the Fox News Channel was unimpressed. He said that although Comer had promised to present “a mountain of evidence” against President Biden, “none of the expert witnesses today presented…any proof for impeachment…. The way this was built up, ‘where there’s smoke there would be fire,’... but where’s there’s smoke today, we just got a lot more smoke.”

The Republicans on the committee repeatedly talked about the volume of evidence they have uncovered, but they were never able to link their piles of evidence to the president. Under questioning, their own witnesses said there was not enough evidence to impeach President Biden.

It seemed as if Republicans have become so accustomed to being able to say anything they want to on right-wing media without being challenged they thought a congressional committee would operate the same way. When the Democrats pushed back, they seemed flummoxed.

Comer lost control of the hearing as Democrats on the committee, thoroughly prepared, came out swinging. Representative Shontel Brown (D-OH) noted that “[t]he DOJ and FBI under former President Trump spent 5 long years looking into these Republican conspiracy theories, and debunked them. Repeatedly.” Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said, “The majority sits completely empty handed with no evidence of any presidential wrongdoing, no smoking gun, no gun, no smoke.”

Representative Summer Lee (D-PA) called out the Republicans by name for holding a sham impeachment hearing instead of funding the government and working for their constituents. She noted that 217,583 people living in the districts of the Republicans on the committee would lose their paychecks because of the Republican shutdown.

Most notably, the Democrats called out the places where witnesses or committee members had deleted words in quotations that changed their meanings. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) emphasized that the four Republican witnesses said they had not presented any first-hand witness accounts of crimes committed by President Biden, while the committee was blocking the testimony of witnesses who could testify to actual facts. She also noted that members of Congress could say anything they wanted because they are covered by the Constitution’s Speech and Debate clause protecting them,

Democrats also called out the many ways in which the Republicans were trying to discredit President Biden with speculation during an impeachment hearing to distract from the very real legal troubles of former president Trump. Representatives Mike Garcia (D-CA) and Gerry Connolly (D-VA) called out the Republicans for focusing on allegations about Hunter Biden and ignoring the very real issues involving Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who could not get a security clearance until Trump demanded he be given one, worked on Middle East issues in the White House, and then received a $2 billion investment from the Saudis shortly after Trump left office.

Most dramatically, Representative Greg Cesar (D-TX) asked the members of the Oversight Committee to raise their hands if they believe that both Hunter and Trump should be held accountable if they are found guilty on any of their indictments. The Democrats all raised their hands. The Republicans did not.

One senior republican aide told CNN’s Melanie Zanona: “This is an unmitigated disaster.”

It did not get better after the hearing ended. A fact-check by CNN’s Daniel Dale, Marshall Cohen and Annie Grayer tore apart the committee’s “evidence.” Although Comer said in his opening remarks that the committee has uncovered how “the Bidens and their associates…raked in over $20 million between 2014 and 2019,” all but about $7 million went to Hunter Biden’s business associates, who according to the Washington Post had “legitimate business interests,” and there is no evidence that President Biden himself received any of this money.

Comer’s accusation that money was wired to Joe Biden’s Delaware address did not note that the money was a loan, and it went to Hunter Biden’s bank account. Hunter Biden’s lawyers say that he used the Bidens’ Delaware home as his address at the time.

Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) claimed that documents released Wednesday from 2020 showed that the Department of Justice was protecting President Biden. But in 2020 Trump, not Biden, was president, and the official who urged Biden senior’s name be kept off a search warrant did so because there was no legal basis to include him in a search warrant concerning a business involving his adult son.

And on it went.

Charlie Sykes of The Bulwark wrote: “The charitable view is that the first hearing was a dumpster fire inside a clown car wrapped in a fiasco. To put it mildly, the GOP did not bring their best.”

At the end of the day, it seemed as if Democrats had flipped the script that has worked so well for so long on right-wing media. Rather than being on the defensive themselves, they put Republicans on the defensive. And because their hits were based in reality, rather than a false narrative, they left the Republican committee members with few options today other than to take to social media, once again, to boast of all the evidence they have accumulated against President Biden.

The hearing was designed to give the extremists of the Freedom Caucus one of their demands, likely in the hope that they would agree to pass a stopgap funding bill that would at least make it look like the House Republicans were trying to fund the government. But today, when House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) brought to the floor an extreme bill that would have made 30% cuts to food assistance, housing, education, funding for border agents, and so on, and insisted on closing the border while funding the government for only another 30 days, 21 extremists voted with the Democrats to kill it by a vote of 198 to 232.

This was a harsh blow not only to McCarthy but to all the Republicans in swing districts. House leaders forced them all to vote for a measure chock full of enormously unpopular cuts and then snatched away the prize of funding the government. Such a political disaster speaks very poorly of McCarthy, who should have never put members of his conference in such a position. Losing 21 of his members in this vote is an embarrassment. The loss weakens the party for 2024: the Democratic ads will pretty much write themselves.

And the members refusing to fund the government simply don’t appear to care, either about their colleagues or their constituents.

At any point, McCarthy could bring up before the House the bipartisan measure already passed by the Senate. Democrats would then likely make up the votes he would lose in his own conference. But the extremists would then challenge his speakership, and that is apparently a challenge he is unwilling to brave.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #clown car #House Republicans #corrupt GOP #GOP lies #government shutdown #cruelty #do your job

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foreverlogical · 1 year

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Donald Trump, who led a seditious conspiracy against the United States government, has yet another new lawyer. If you're wondering what sort of person would agree to represent Donald Trump despite a history of Trump-allied lawyers going to prison, facing potential disbarment, never getting paid, and/or becoming national laughingstocks, meet Joe Tacopina. Tacopina's been doing his best to become an Important Television Lawyer, now that he's in Trump's employ. It hasn't been going well.

Actually, we're going to need to revise that. "Hasn't been going well" is when you hold a big important press conference and your hair dye starts dribbling down your head like your brain just blew a head gasket and it's going to be a very, very expensive repair. Tacopina's more a fan of the "What if I intentionally pierced the veil of my client's dodgy corporate shell company during a televised interview?" sort of Bad Day Haver.

CHUCK TODD: You keep saying it was personal funds. That was not what Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to. These were funds repaid by the Trump Org TACOPINA: That's personal TODD: So everything w/ the Trump Org is Trump's personal funds? You realize the door you're opening there? pic.twitter.com/CiPJBNjQWs— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 26, 2023

WHOOPS. BIG HUGE WHOOPS. One of the things you do not want to do, when you are defending your new client from many crimes and civil lawsuits and possible exorcisms or what have you, is stipulate on camera that the shell company your client hides his money in is actually his "personal funds," blowing up the distinction between the two and making it easy for litigants to scrape money out of both places instead of just one. That is a Lionel Hutz bad court thingy right there.

Even worse, imagine blowing up a significant part of your own defense in an interview with Chuck Todd. That's like being clubbed to death by a Teletubby.

Don't worry, Joe can fix this. He went to big-time lawyer school, he knows how to win back a jury.

TACOPINA: What was he supposed to put in his personal ledger? "Payment for hush money to quiet an affair that I claim I never had so my family doesn't get embarrassed"? CHUCK TODD: How about the truth? Shouldn't it be the truth? pic.twitter.com/XGcWV0Y0J7— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 26, 2023

Your honor, of course my client committed business fraud, which I have now explained is indistinguishable from personal fraud because it's the same set of books. It was either engaging in fraud or admitting he cheated on his pregnant wife with a porn star, and who among us has not yada yada whatever?

The weekend has not gone well for Trump in general. Here's a friendly legal tip: Just because Joe Tacopina wants to be on television doesn't mean Joe Tacopina should be on television. He's not great at it.

OMG I missed Al Sharpton destroying Joe Tacopina on MSNBC yesterday "What was the intent of the payment? ... if we were in court I would ask you to read back your statement. She came forward two weeks before the election, which meant you were reacting to the election!" pic.twitter.com/hKbRIGTN1b— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 26, 2023

Then there's the House Republican efforts to immunize Donald Trump from every last damn crime Donald Trump has ever done. There's no way to argue that without sounding stupid, but House Republicans have a whole bench of people for whom "sounding stupid" is their own personal art form.

JAKE TAPPER: Are you arguing that people who commit business crimes aren't committing crimes? COMER: We're talking about a federal election crime TAPPER: My understanding is that he's being investigated for falsifying business records (This interview did not go well for Comer) pic.twitter.com/SuF8AaxkfG— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 26, 2023

Rep. James Comer ought to try out being Trump's lawyer for a month or two. He can't possibly do worse than any of the others.

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