The Donald Trump Score Card

Interpretation: Article II, Section 1, Clauses 2 and 3 | The National Constitution Center

excerpt:

"Finally, the Electoral College system was meant to channel the energies of the major political figures who had thoughts of achieving the highest office. If the choice of the president was restricted to those who had a proven record of service, a signal would be sent to all the hopefuls to pursue a serious political career and avoid engaging in what Alexander Hamilton dismissively referred to as “the little arts of popularity.”"

 

It wasn't effective at keeping an 'art of popularity' like Trump out of the White House.

Trump lost by about 3 million votes in 2016 yet still won the presidency by the electoral vote.

Moreover, he tried to take advantage of the liabilities of the Electoral College system to overthrow a fair election in 2020.

A popular vote system would have made him an even bigger loser in 2020 (7 million popular vote deficit), and it would have been near impossible to overthrow such a margin in a popular vote election.

 

https://thehill.com/regulation/cour...-share-transcripts-complicates-investigation/

excerpt:

"Justice Department officials this week renewed their demands for the House Jan. 6 committee’s interview transcripts, saying the panel’s refusal to share its work has hindered federal prosecutors’ own investigation into last year’s attack on the Capitol.

Department leaders sent a letter on Wednesday to Timothy Heaphy, the chief investigative counsel for the select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, expressing frustration over the panel’s refusal to grant access to its trove of witness interviews, according to documents filed in federal court Thursday.

“The Select Committee’s failure to grant the Department access to these transcripts complicates the Department’s ability to investigate and prosecute those who engaged in criminal conduct in relation to the January 6 attack on the Capitol,” the letter reads. “Accordingly, we renew our request that the Select Committee provide us with copies of the transcripts of all the interviews it has conducted to date.”"

 

Watergate prosecutor explains statute that could keep Trump from running for office

excerpt:

"On MSNBC Friday, Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks revealed the statute she believes would be most appropriate for punishing former President Donald Trump for encouraging the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Specifically, she argued he could be prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. § 2383 — the crime of "rebellion or insurrection" against the United States — because the penalty for this crime goes further than prison time.

"Putting aside, maybe, how some of us personally feel about whether or not he should be indicted, do you think based upon what you have heard so far through the course of these hearings, that there will be an indictment of Donald Trump for at least obstruction?" asked anchor and former prosecutor Katie Phang.

"I will try to put aside what I think should be the case, and just talk about what I think are the best crimes to indict him for and whether he should or shouldn't, I will leave to other people," said Wine-Banks. "But I think it would be horrible not to act on what is now blatantly obvious to anyone who is watching the hearing. My favorite crime would be 2383, not the seditious conspiracy which is 2384. The reason is that the penalty for 2383 is not just jail, it is being barred from ever holding federal office again. And for me, that would be a more important goal than jailing the former president."

However, Wine-Banks noted, there are a variety of other statutes the former president could be vulnerable to charges under.

"There is, of course, as you mentioned, obstruction of Congress, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, so many things just based on Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony, just hers, for those few hours laid out all of those crimes," said Wine-Banks. "And then you have many more besides that.""

 

Keith Lee, who was the leader of the 'Trump Train' of vehicles that tried to run the Biden bus off the road, was one of the rioters at the Capitol.

Trump praised those involved in the 'Trump Train' incident.

Article from February 2021.


Del. Plaskett says Jan. 6 rally didn't have permit to march to the Capitol until Trump stepped in

excerpt:

"Plaskett used one of Trump’s tweets against him, pointing to how the former president praised MAGA fans who reportedly tried to run a Biden campaign bus off the road in Texas on Oct. 30.

People in several trucks formed a so-called "Trump Train," and surrounded the bus on Interstate 35. Witnesses said the group of Trump trucks was trying to get the bus to slow down and run it off the road.

Plaskett displayed a Trump tweet with video of the incident. "I LOVE TEXAS!" Trump had added. The portion where the "Trump Train" tried to run the bus off the road could not be seen.

After the FBI announced it was investigating the incident, Trump posted a subsequent tweet: "In my opinion, these patriots did nothing wrong."

Plaskett said the leader of that caravan, Keith Lee, was among those who stormed the Capitol.

"These are the people that President Trump cultivated who were standing by," she said."

 

Trump wanted armed supporters allowed into Jan. 6 rally and to lead Capitol charge, aide says - Roll Call

excerpt:

"As the day began on Jan. 6, Cipollone warned Hutchinson outside the executive mansion not to allow Trump to go to the Capitol.

“Please make sure we don’t go up to the Capitol, Cassidy. Keep in touch with me. We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen,” Cipollone said, according to Hutchinson. Cipollone had previously told Hutchinson he was concerned about possibly obstructing justice, defrauding the electoral count or that it would look like the White House was “inciting a riot.” The former top White House lawyer also has refused to testify.

Hutchinson recalled a few days prior to the riot day being “scared” and “nervous” about the prospect of what could happen after she talked with her boss, Meadows, and Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s then-attorney, who made many unfounded election fraud claims. Giuliani told her shortly before the infamous day that Jan. 6 would be a “great day” and that “we’re going to the Capitol,” adding that the television- and optics-obsessed Trump would be there looking “strong” with his supporters and that Meadows knew all about planning for Jan. 6."

 

Donald Trump, John Eastman and the Silence of the Justice Department

excerpt:

"What makes Judge Carter’s account so powerful is that it is linked tightly to record evidence, that it tells the story in an end-to-end fashion crisply and efficiently, and that it thus assembles the evidence into a coherent account of the big picture. I cannot do Carter’s account justice; please do read it. For present purposes, let me just say that it leaves the fair-minded reader in no doubt that the events that took place between Joe Biden’s defeat of Trump at the polls and congressional certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6 were an all-out effort by the lame duck president to seize and retain power in unapologetic defiance of the law using extra-constitutional means—up to and including violence directed against a coordinate branch of government.

Such a story requires no denunciation from the judge. His account of it alone constitutes its own denunciation, at least it should to decent citizens of a functioning democracy."

 

Pdf download of the opinion of Judge Carter for the Eastman vs. Thompson case.

The first nine pages provide a succinct summary of the events leading up to Trump's insurrection at the Capitol.


https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840.260.0.pdf

 

Can you imagine what it must have been like to be one of Trump's top aides & advisors? Daily meetings would find them trying to review procedures and make policies while attempting to rein in a bratty 6-year-old. Then, after the meeting, they had to face the press and other government people and tell them how Trump was the greatest president of all time....... while praising him to the skies. Must have been nearly impossible to face that on a constant basis.

 

The Florida HQ for Trump's would-be coup

excerpt:

"Between the lines: Florida leads the nation in arrests related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and the Tampa Bay area leads the rest of the state.

• A Seffner man most recently pleaded guilty to his role in the attack, including pepper spraying police officers."
  
  

 

The Florida HQ for Trump's would-be coup

excerpt:

"What we know: Trump arrived in the Sunshine State after sunset on Dec. 23, seemingly out of options after more than 60 legal challenges filed by his campaign had been tossed or rejected, per the Palm Beach Post.

• Just after Trump's motorcade left Palm Beach International Airport, his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was seen leaving the tarmac and told The Palm Beach Post that other "challenges" were in the works.
• A few hours later, Trump tweeted that the Justice Department should appoint a special counsel to investigate already debunked election fraud claims.

Zoom in: From Mar-a-Lago over the next nine days, Trump pressed Justice Department officials to say the election had been stolen, the committee revealed.

• Other "patently absurd" allegations came too, Justice Department leaders testified, until Trump left Mar-a-Lago abruptly, returning to Washington the morning of Dec. 31."
  
  
  
  

 

The Florida HQ for Trump's would-be coup

excerpt:

What they're saying: "I'm sure Ms. Post is spinning in her grave," Les Standiford, author of "Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago, and the Rise of America's Xanadu," told Axios via email, noting that Post envisioned Mar-a-Lago as "a center of diplomacy and a symbol of U.S. beauty and promise."

• "She, incidentally, reveled in inviting a wide range of guests, many who might not have otherwise had the opportunity to experience such splendor," he wrote. "The thought of the place being turned into a club open only to those with unimaginable wealth would have been anathema to her."
  
  

 

Trump's left-behinders aren't seen inside of Mar-a-Lago or his other mansions.

Yet his out-of-luck supporters keep supporting him and the RNC to the tune of $250 million in donations in the months following his 2020 election loss.

 

These people are not very bright, are they...

 

Article about Keith Lee.


Before the Capitol Riot, Calls for Cash and Talk of Revolution (Published 2021)

excerpt:

"Keith Lee, an Air Force veteran and former police detective, spent the morning of Jan. 6 casing the entrances to the Capitol.

In online videos, the 41-year-old Texan pointed out the flimsiness of the fencing. He cheered the arrival, long before President Trump’s rally at the other end of the mall, of far-right militiamen encircling the building. Then, armed with a bullhorn, Mr. Lee called out for the mob to rush in, until his voice echoed from the dome of the Rotunda.

Yet even in the heat of the event, Mr. Lee paused for some impromptu fund-raising. “If you couldn’t make the trip, give five to 10 bucks,” he told his viewers, seeking donations for the legal costs of two jailed “patriots,” a leader of the far-right Proud Boys and an ally who had clashed with the police during an armed incursion at Oregon’s statehouse.

Much is still unknown about the planning and financing of the storming of the Capitol, aiming to challenge Mr. Trump’s electoral defeat. What is clear is that it was driven, in part, by a largely ad hoc network of low-budget agitators, including far-right militants, Christian conservatives and ardent adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Mr. Lee is all three. And the sheer breadth of the movement he joined suggests it may be far more difficult to confront than a single organization."

 

Fact Check: Is Cassidy Hutchinson "on record" about Trump job after Jan 6?

excerpt:

"However, we cannot find evidence that Hutchinson said on record after January 6, 2021, that she would be working with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

The closest these claims came to is an article published by Bloomberg (paywalled) on January 15, 2021, detailing Trump's plans to fly to Mar-a-Lago on the morning of Joe Biden's inauguration. The report names Cassidy Hutchinson among a group of Trump aides who "may work for him after the White House."

The sources cited in the article were "people familiar with the matter" who "asked not to be identified because he hasn't made them public and might change his mind.""

 

Why am I not surprised he's big trump supporter?

Robert E. Crimo Seen Attending Trump Rally Dressed as Where's Waldo

Robert "Bobby" Crimo, the man accused of killing six people and injuring at least 38 more in a mass shooting Illinois, posted videos and images online featuring former president Donald Trump, and attended a rally dressed the character from the children's books Where's Waldo.

Crimo, 22, who was taken into custody on Monday in connection to the Fourth of July shooting, was also found to have uploaded a number of disturbing posts and imagery on various social media and websites.

As noted by NBC News, the suspect's online posting did not overtly reference politics or political figures, except for two posts about Trump.

 

He's creepy enough looking without dressing up

 

Nice face tattoos...

 

There’s been a lot of speculation about one tat in particular.

Some have suggested 47 is a reference to Agent 47, the protagonist in the Interactive game Hitman, others it’s July 4th backwards, 7th month. 4th
day. Which I suspect is just a coincidence.