The Donald Trump Score Card

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...th-keepers-call-jan-6-they-tried-reach-trump/

excerpt:

"The statement of offense describes what happened.

“At approximately 5:00 p.m., Wilson, Rhodes, and others left the Capitol grounds and walked together to the Phoenix Hotel. … At the Phoenix Hotel, Rhodes gathered Wilson and other co-conspirators inside of a private suite. Rhodes then called an individual over speaker phone. Wilson heard Rhodes repeatedly implore the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power. This individual denied Rhodes’s request to speak directly with President Trump.”

It seems safe to assume that the investigators are aware of the identity of the individual who spoke with Rhodes. Who that person is makes an enormous amount of difference in determining the brightness of any line linking the Oath Keepers and the White House.

Before digging into the question, it’s useful to note that what’s already understood about connections between Trump allies and extremist groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys is itself striking. A few weeks after the riot, the New York Times reported that the FBI was investigating communication between someone at the White House and a member of that latter group. (The Proud Boys’ leader, Enrique Tarrio, had toured the White House in December 2020, which a Trump administration spokesperson said was part of a publicly available process.) That communication was distinct from the Proud Boys’ known interactions with Trump’s longtime adviser Roger Stone, something that was well-documented even before the riot.

Stone, in fact, is a natural place to start when considering who the Oath Keepers might have believed to be an effective conduit to Trump. Members of both the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys had acted as personal security for Stone before the riot. On Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, Oath Keeper members reprised that role in Washington. That included accompanying Stone to a rally on the evening before the riot and staying with him at his hotel on Jan. 6 itself.

On Telegram, Stone denied being on the call, and described a report on MSNBC about it as a “smear.” The Washington Post attempted to contact Stone’s attorney to ask whether he was the individual who communicated with Rhodes and did not receive a response for publication. It’s worth noting that Stone was known to be in contact with the leaders of extremist groups, however. A March report from The Post about a documentary film crew that was with Stone on and after Jan. 6 included a photo showing Stone using an encrypted messaging app a week or two after the riot. Visible are messages from both Rhodes and Tarrio."

 

A summary of Meadows' involvement in Trump quest to overthrow the election.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/09/inside-mark-meadowss-final-push-keep-trump-power/

excerpt:

"Meadows, 62, had taken the job as chief of staff on the principle that his most important task would be “to tell the most powerful man in the world when you believed he was wrong,” he wrote in his memoir, “The Chief’s Chief.”

But instead of echoing the administration’s own Justice Department to tell Trump that his claims of a stolen election were wrong, Meadows went to extraordinary lengths to push Trump’s false assertions — particularly during a crucial three-week period starting with his trip to Atlanta and culminating in the violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

A review of Meadows’s actions in that period by The Washington Post — based on interviews, depositions, text messages, emails, congressional documents, recently published memoirs by key players and other material — shows how Meadows played a pivotal role in advancing Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. In doing so, Meadows “repeatedly violated” legal guidance against trying to influence the Justice Department, according to a majority staff report of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Meadows granted those peddling theories about a stolen election direct access to the Oval Office and personally connected some with the president, according to congressional reports and interviews with former White House officials. He pressed the Justice Department to investigate spurious and debunked claims, including a bizarre theory that an Italian operation changed votes in the United States — an allegation a top Justice official called “pure insanity,” according to email correspondence released by congressional investigators. He also pushed the Justice Department, unsuccessfully, to try to invalidate the election results in six states through federal court action.

Now Meadows’s actions are at the center of probes by both the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack and the Justice Department, which is examining whether to press contempt-of-Congress charges against him and is conducting its own inquiry into the events surrounding the insurrection. North Carolina officials, meanwhile, are looking into whether Meadows himself potentially committed voter fraud by registering to vote in 2020 at a mobile home he reportedly never stayed in."

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/09/inside-mark-meadowss-final-push-keep-trump-power/

excerpt:

"The text messages, which have been revealed in court filings, committee documents and media reports, provide a vivid illustration of how Meadows made it a personal mission to try to help overturn the election.

Meadows texted about his “love” for a proposal aimed at allowing state legislatures to keep Trump in office. He said in a text message that he “pushed” a plan for Vice President Mike Pence to reject electoral votes. And he texted conservative activist Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, that the effort to overturn the election was “a fight of good versus evil. … Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. … I have staked my career on it.”

For Meadows, the three weeks leading up to the storming of the Capitol marked an apex of a political career devoted first to pushing Congress further right and then to enabling Trump.

Now, depending on what Meadows knows and whether he decides to share it, his next steps could help determine whether prosecutors seek to press charges against Trump and others for the events leading up to the storming of the Capitol.

After his election to Congress in 2012, Meadows, a former restaurant owner in rural North Carolina and later a real estate developer, earned a reputation as a hard-right combatant while chairing the House Freedom Caucus. He fashioned himself as an outsider who would take on party leaders he deemed insufficiently conservative.

Meadows initially supported Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) for president in 2016 before switching to Trump.

After Trump tapped Meadows as chief of staff in March 2020, some White House officials soon concluded that he was the wrong man for the job. Grisham, in her memoir “I’ll Take Your Questions Now,” described Meadows blocking those who gave Trump sound advice. She wrote that Trump was “increasingly prone to delusion and conspiracy, and it looked to me that Mark Meadows was milking that for all it was worth. Why? Probably because that was how he stayed in power.”"

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/09/inside-mark-meadowss-final-push-keep-trump-power/

excerpt:

"In the months leading up to the 2020 election, Meadows brought into Trump’s circle a parade of lawyers and other backers who believed the election might have been stolen.

Among them was Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who served as counsel for the Right Women, a political action committee run by Meadows’s wife, Debra. That group’s support helped elect some of the most pro-Trump members of Congress, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (Colo.). Mitchell was also friends with Ginni Thomas, another Meadows ally. Mitchell declined to comment. Ginni Thomas could not be reached for comment.

Mitchell, in a radio interview that aired in February 2021, said that she told Trump and Meadows in September 2020, “I thought that there was going to be a massive effort to steal the election.”

The day after the election, Meadows called Mitchell and asked her to go to Georgia, where Trump’s initial lead was shrinking as Democrat-heavy absentee ballots were counted. Ginni Thomas, meanwhile, urged Meadows to listen to what Mitchell was saying, texting him a few days after the election to allege that “Biden and the Left is attempting the great Heist of our History.”

“I will stand firm,” Meadows responded a minute later. “We will fight until there is no fight left.”

But on Dec. 1, 2020, Attorney General William P. Barr personally told him to drop the fight, according to Barr’s account in his memoir, “One Damned Thing After Another.” In an Oval Office meeting, Barr told the president, as Meadows sat across from him, “We have looked at the major claims your people are making, and they are bulls---.”

Barr wrote in his memoir he then offered his resignation, prompting Trump to say “Accepted!” Meadows asked Barr to remain through the end of the administration, but he left a month before Inauguration Day.

Meadows labored “mightily to cure or head off the President’s frequent bad ideas or his impulsive mistakes,” Barr wrote. But after Trump lost, Meadows was “like a lion tamer without a whip and chair.”"

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/09/inside-mark-meadowss-final-push-keep-trump-power/

excerpt:

"Around the same time, Meadows fixated on an allegation that became known as “Italygate,” in which an Italian defense contractor supposedly worked with the CIA to remotely change votes from Trump to Biden. Meadows sent Rosen a link to a YouTube video about the alleged conspiracy.

There was no evidence to support the claim, prompting Rosen to tell Meadows in a phone call that it was “another one that’s debunked,” according to Rosen’s Senate interview. But Meadows said “there’s more to it” and asked him to meet with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and a purported witness. Rosen refused, noting to Donoghue that Giuliani was free to walk into a local FBI office to make his claim. Giuliani could not be reached for comment.

“Pure insanity,” Donoghue responded, referring to the Italy allegations. Donoghue did not respond to a request for comment.

Rosen said in his Senate interview that he explained his dismissal of the matter to Meadows, who at first accepted it.

“But then he called me back and he said Mr. Giuliani is insulted that you think he should have to walk into an FBI office,” Rosen said.

On New Year’s Eve, Meadows became more directly involved in the effort to persuade Pence to cooperate with Trump’s last-ditch plan to stay in power.

By that time, Pence’s then-Chief of Staff Marc Short said in an interview, the vice president’s office had already rejected the idea pushed by some Trump lawyers that Pence could refuse to certify Biden’s electoral college victory when Congress met on Jan. 6.

“I have no doubt that Mark was aware that our office position was that the vice president did not have extraordinary powers and that instead we interpreted the constitutional role of the vice president as pretty straightforward,” Short said.

Nonetheless, Meadows forwarded a memo from a Trump campaign lawyer, Jenna Ellis, that outlined a plan in which Pence could decline to certify the outcome from certain states and send the matter back to legislatures that could select alternate electors. Meadows asked that the memo “be shared with the vice president,” Short said. Ellis did not respond to a request for comment."

 

The Jan. 6 committee is fortunate that it received some information from Meadows before he stopped cooperating. His name surfaces repeatedly in the various schemes to try to overthrow the election.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/09/inside-mark-meadowss-final-push-keep-trump-power/

excerpt:

"In his memoir, “Integrity Counts,” Raffensperger wrote that he was reluctant to speak to the president. Trump had sued him in an effort to decertify the results of the Georgia election and thus, Raffensperger wrote, he did not think it was “appropriate” to have a one-on-one call. But Meadows was “insistent,” Raffensperger wrote, and so he agreed as long as others from his office joined on a call, which would be recorded. Mitchell, who had spent weeks in Georgia investigating fraud claims, was also included.

On the call, the president told Raffensperger: “I just want to find 11,780 votes” to win the state. That has led Democrats to assert that Trump was seeking to interfere with an election.

Meadows also jumped in repeatedly. After Trump claimed baselessly that 5,000 dead people had voted, Meadows objected to Raffensperger’s statement that only two such ballots had been found. “I can promise you there are more than that,” Meadows said.

After pushing back against the White House for three weeks, Rosen heard that Trump was trying to replace him with Jeffrey Clark, the assistant attorney general for the civil division, who had told Trump that if he was named attorney general, he would take action that might overturn the election, according to a filing by the Jan. 6 committee. Meadows played an “important role in that effort,” the filing said. Clark could not be reached for comment; his lawyer did not respond to a request for comment."

 

Jim Jordan was involved in schemes, even though he said he couldn't remember if he called Trump on Jan. 6.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/09/inside-mark-meadowss-final-push-keep-trump-power/

excerpt:

"On Jan. 5, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) texted Meadows about the plan.

“On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all — in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence,” Jordan wrote. Jordan did not respond to a request for comment.

“I have pushed for this. Not sure it is going to happen,” Meadows responded at 7:30 a.m. on Jan. 6, according to a footnote in a recent court filing.

Pence, however, had already told Trump he did not have the authority to reject the result.

Meadows, therefore, focused on plans for the Save America rally that would be held on the morning of Jan. 6. A Meadows aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, said in a deposition that a Secret Service official told Meadows in early January that there were “intel reports saying that there could potentially be violence on the 6th.” She said Meadows then privately discussed the intelligence with the official and she was “not sure … what he did with that information internally.” Hutchinson did not respond to a request for comment."

 

Numerous people were calling Meadows to tell Trump to stop the riot.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/09/inside-mark-meadowss-final-push-keep-trump-power/

excerpt:

":At 2:02 p.m., as pro-Trump rioters surrounded the Capitol and prepared to break inside, Meadows aide Ben Williamson texted his boss that Trump should “put out a tweet about respecting the police over at the Capitol — getting a little hairy over there.” Williamson then found Meadows in his office and repeated the message, Williamson said in a deposition. Meadows went to find Trump, but a timeline of events underscores how long it took for Trump to condemn the insurrection.

At 2:24 p.m., Trump tweeted that Pence did not have the “courage” to “do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” Then, at 2:38 p.m., reflecting the idea from Williamson, Trump tweeted that people should “support our Capitol Police” and be peaceful.

Some of those closest to Trump flooded Meadows with calls and texts beseeching the chief of staff to get Trump to call off the rioters.

The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., texted Meadows: “He’s got to condemn this shit ASAP. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough.”

“I’m pushing it hard,” Meadows responded. “I agree.”

Fox News host Sean Hannity texted Meadows: “Can he make a statement? Ask people to peacefully leave the [Capitol].” Another Fox New host, Laura Ingraham, texted: “Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.” Republican members of Congress began frantically emailing Meadows. “Mark, he needs to stop this now,” one said. “TELL THEM TO GO HOME,” said another.

An organizer of the Save America rally texted Meadows that things “have gotten crazy and I desperately need some direction. Please,” according to the Jan. 6 committee report, which does not say how Meadows replied.

Meadows was with Trump much of that afternoon, according to depositions given to the Jan. 6 committee, but Meadows’s response during much of this crucial time has not been publicly revealed. At 4:17 p.m. Trump put out a video in which he told rioters to go home and continued to claim the election was stolen."

 

Jim Jordan seems to be having selective amnesia?

 

They go to the jail house and he goes to the club house.

 

Why would Trump have said that the Secret Service prohibited him from marching with protesters if he (as Meadows claims) was only talking metaphorically about joining the march on Jan. 6.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/09/inside-mark-meadowss-final-push-keep-trump-power/

excerpt:

"In his memoir, Meadows rejected the claim that Trump incited the riot, writing that his words at the rally actually were “more subdued than usual.” Meadows wrote that Trump ad-libbed a line about walking with protesters to the Capitol and told him afterward he had been speaking “metaphorically.” Trump recently told The Post that he wanted to go but was stopped by his Secret Service agents.

Yet Meadows did not write in his memoir about what he did during the storming of the Capitol, what he told Trump during the insurrection, or any other actions during one of the most tumultuous afternoons experienced by any White House chief of staff in recent history.

Earlier this year, Meadows returned to Georgia at an event with Republicans.

He told the audience that he had just talked to Trump, who told him to convey a message: “We cannot give up on election integrity.”"

 

Trump nominated Esper as defense secretary.

After Esper made comments critical of Trump in a recent book, Trump marginalized Esper as a lightweight and said that he knew it from the start.

Yet he nominated Esper.


Mark Esper officially nominated by Trump to be Defense Secretary

 

Michigan Army Vet Who Signaled Support for 'Boogaloo' Movement Pleads Guilty to Storming the Capitol on Jan. 6

excerpt:

"A Michigan man who shared a picture of himself wearing military-type gear affixed with a “Boogaloo” patch before joining the violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.

Steven Thurlow, 50, appeared to proudly declare his allegiance to the boogaloo movement in a picture posted before Jan. 6.

“Ahhhh, nothing like a new pair of 511’s and fresh set of level IV Sapi’s in the plate carrier to go ‘peacefully protest’ with,” the caption reads. As the complaint against Thurlow explains, a Level IV “SAPI” plate is a “high-level ballistic body armor plate that is rated to withstand a direct hit by a high muzzle velocity armor piercing bullet.”

Thurlow is dressed in camouflage military-style gear and is wearing a gas mask, a weapon appearing to be slung over his shoulder. The photo also shows a prominently-displayed patch with the word “Boogaloo” on it."

 

Trump-loving Texas sisters who participated in Capitol riot as a family affair plead guilty

excerpt:

"Two sisters who joined their parents and brother in the January 6 riot have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of parading at the U.S. Capitol.

Kristi and Kayli Munn, of Borger, Texas, entered the plea Friday to the charges. Their brother Joshua Munn made a similar plea April 28. The siblings were charged along with their parents Thomas and Dawn Munn, while a sixth family member, a minor child, was uncharged.

During a telephone interview less than three weeks after the riot, Kristi Munn “admitted to going to the U.S. Capitol to see President Trump speak and to express her First Amendment rights to object to the electoral college results, but denied going inside the Capitol or participating in any violence, vandalism, or any other criminal activity at the Capitol,” the FBI alleged.

But video shows the Munn family members crawling through a window at 2:25 p.m. on the day of the riot, the FBI stated. And as Raw Story reported last July, there was this from Kristi Munn’s "

 

Some of Trump's people who formulated schemes to overthrow the election are in or near their retirement years. Some were pardoned by Trump. They are on a crusade to promote a twisted world view of what they think is right, in contrast to younger professionals who haven't yet become corrupted.


How the Jan. 6 panel broke through Trump allies’ stonewalling

excerpt:

"Some of the select panel’s most crucial information has come from Trumpworld staffers, who were often in the room or briefed on sensitive meetings, even if they weren’t central players themselves. It’s a classic investigative strategy that’s paid dividends for select committee investigators, many of whom are seasoned former federal prosecutors.

“We are definitely taking advantage of the fact that most senior-level people in Washington depend on a lot of young associates and subordinates to get anything done,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the select committee. “A lot of these people still have their ethics intact and don’t want to squander the rest of their careers for other people’s mistakes and corruption.”"

 

Republicans In Michigan Have Replaced Election Officials Who Certified Biden's Win
Consider This from NPR
May 4, 20225:01 PM ET

Republicans In Michigan Have Replaced Election Officials Who Certified Biden's Win : Consider This from NPR

excerpt;

"Bipartisan members who serve on state and county boards of canvassers in Michigan have an important job: certifying the results of elections, making them official.

In 2020, Former President Trump and his allies urged them not to certify as part of his campaign to undermine and overturn the presidential election, even though Joe Biden won Michigan by more than 154,000 votes.

Since then, local GOP leaders have replaced many of the canvassers who upheld their oaths and voted to certify the results for Biden — even canvassers who are members of their own party.

Michelle Voorheis, a Republican canvasser in Genessee County until last year, is one of them. She says she wasn't re-nominated because she pushed back against false allegations of election fraud."

 

"I only hire the best people" ~ Donald J. Trump

 

Giuliani, Powell, Stone, Flynn, Manafort, Meadows, Lindell, Bannon.

 

Flynn, Manafort, Stone, and Bannon were pardoned by Trump.