As the evidence piles up that Donald Trump was front and center in a coup to retain his Presidency his response has been to remain front and center in the “Republican” party. In effect he is establishing himself as the leader of what he defines as the real America. He is the Jefferson Davis of the twenty first century. He controls the “Republican” Party and he sees himself leading his troops again to regain power which he claims was stolen from him.
For those who have forgotten he more than hinted at violence in his 2016 election against Hillary Clinton where he claimed that if he didn’t win the election it would have been rigged. He warned that “The Second Amendment People” could respond in the event that he was robbed of victory. In the 2020 clash against against Biden to this day he states that the election was stolen from him and what was hinted at against Hillary culminated on January 6 2020. While the Judicial System dithers he is moving to consolidate his position as the leader of the America that he wants to "Make Great Again".
To any legal mind there is more than probable cause, just with the facts out there, to initiate an investigation into Trump’s role in the attempt to thwart the result of a legitimate election. Barbara McQuade a former Federal Prosecutor has produced a “Model Prosecution Memo” that outlines the case for Trump to be tried for “Conspiracy to defraud the United States” and “Obstructing an Official Proceeding”. Federal Judge Carter in litigation where the January 6 House Committee was demanding e mails from Trump’s Lawyer, who provided the phony argument for Pence to overturn the election, stated that Trump in all probability had committed crimes. So what is stopping the Justice Department from at least seating a Grand Jury to evaluate if there is enough evidence to lay a charge?
THE DILEMMA OF WHETHER TO PROSECUTE TRUMP
The current Attorney General of the United States of America, Merrick Garland, is a pedantic cautious jurist who is also obsessional not to appear to be involved in a political prosecution. He has the thought processes of an Appellate Judge not a prosecutorial litigator. He has however vowed that without fear or favor to investigate the insurrection regardless of who was involved. So far he doesn’t appear to believe he has enough to include Trump and those around hum. The question is what will it take? Jay H. Ell is under the impression is that he needs public acceptance that this prosecution is valid and a referral from a legitimate source. It is common cause that the population were persuaded by hearings that Nixon was guilty of crimes. Only a short while earlier he had won reelection by a landslide winning forty nine of the fifty states. There is much going that might arouse awareness of criminality even for a cult like figure like Trump. But more later of what might lead the Justice Department to live up to the American mantra that no man is above the law.
Should the "Trump Old Party”, (TOP), win the 2022 midterms, as they are favorites to do, the leader will have at least a fifty - fifty chance to become President in 2024. The dilemma is do you attempt to lock up the man who has a following of forty percent of the American voters? Would Lincoln’s Attorney General risked indicting Jefferson Davis?
The public would like to forget about January 6 and move on. So would the “Republican Party”. Their leaders are on tape following January 6 condemning Trump. Also his presence as the deliverer of abortion ensures him the support of the Evangelical base. The reason why January 6 cannot be just forgotten is not only because of the January 6 Investigation but because of Trump himself. He, who as the leader of the “Republican” Party, has as his central policy for the 2022 midterms that the 2020 election was stolen from him. So Trump is dictating the agenda for the 2022 midterms - abortion and that he is the rightful President. Furthermore every candidate craves his endorsement so he is positioned to have his followers be the winners of the "Republican" Primaries where the base is overrepresented. Trump risks setbacks by his activism but he is an always been an overconfident erratic gambler.
However while Trump maneuvers politically the mountain of legal challenges plod ominously on. In addition the January 6 House Committee are going gang busters and are about to go public with their findings. The House Committee is in a position to make a criminal referral to Merrick Garland.
LITIGATION AGAINST TRUMP
The narrative will ultimately be told by the Public Hearings of the January 6 House Committee starting in June. Meanwhile Trump is occupied legally as well as politically Besides the glut of civil cases, there are charges or investigations in several areas relating, to the insurrection itself, interference in election results, financial improprieties, sexual misconduct, abuse of power as in the cases of his former attorney Michael Cohen and Lieutenant Colonel Vindman. Almost half these cases occurred when he was President.
Not included in this infamous list are the seven hundred charges arising out of the January 6 assault on the Capitol. Several of the defendants have stated that it was because Trump instructed him/her to go to the Capitol that they broke the law. When the defendants pleas and statements are read in the court he sounds like an unindicted co conspirator in their crimes. Not that Trump escapes litigation for the January 6 insurrection. About a dozen Congresspeople are suing him, as are a number of capitol police officers while the District of Columbia Attorney General is reviewing whether to prosecute him for inciting a riot.
There are two cases in New York that essentially cover the same material, namely that he and his company defrauded banks and insurance companies, not paying taxes and not declaring payments to employees. The purely criminal case investigated by the Manhattan State Attorney has already charged the Trump Chief Financial Officer. However it appears that the new State attorney is hesitating to indicte Trump in spite of protestations from the prosecutors who did the research and evaluation. The Civil Case is under the aegis of the New York State Attorney and the Judge there has indicated that he is not buying Trump’s delaying tactics. He has already fined him a hundred and ten thousand dollars. Trump has unhappy associations with NY prosecutors they had him fined and made him close his Charitable Foundation which he was using as a slush fund. In addition they settled with him for twenty - five million dollars for his fake university,
Of the two case involving election interference the one that has to be giving Trump nightmares is in Fulton County Georgia where another fearless prosecutor has already convened a Grand Jury to assess whether Trump should face charges of attempting to overturn the Georgian State election. The key recorded phone call has been broadcast to the world. Trump has put up candidates in the Georgian Primaries against the Georgian Secretary of State and Governor whom he claims refused to award the election to him. Trump has also designated a dicey Senatorial candidate in Georgia where the stakes are high.
Another probe which has to unsettle the forty fifth President is one that has been taken up by the US Justice Department. Merrick Garland accepted a referral from the National Archives to investigate whether Trump, in taking fifteen boxes containing Presidential and Governmental records to Mar - O - Lago some of which contained classified information, broke the law.
All in all not a pretty resume for a former leader of the democratic world. However if he gets a makeover in 2024 he firmly believes he will make all of this go away.
But the big issue is whether Trump will be tried for conspiracy by the Attorney General of the United States. Jay H. Ell believes central to that depends on a referral from the January 6 House Committee.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING THE JANUARY 6 INSURRECTION.
The January 6 investigating committee are going at it full steam. They have to be more than mindful of their responsibility but are supremely confident that they have the “goods”. Liz Cheney, one of the two Republicans on the House Committee, has claimed that the Committee has enough evidence for a referral to the Justice Department for criminal sedition. The plan is to hold public hearings beginning in June to outline the conspiracy and Trump’s role.
James Raskin states that the hearings will contain explosive revelations that will blow the roof off the House of Representatives. Jay H. Ell believes that the unprecedented delivery of subpoenas to the five Republican Congressmen in the House is to let the world know that they were given a chance to tell their story.
The Committee have interviewed nearly a thousand witnesses and are tieing it all together. They have a plethora of documents, emails, tape recordings, tweets and the like - literally tens of thousands pieces of paper. While this investigation could go on forever and there is still more to uncover the Committee are more than aware that the midterms are coming up and if the “Republicans” take the House which they are poised to do they will disband the investigation to concentrate on the role Nancy Pelosi played in failing to prevent January 6, (for real).
The Committee have delved expansively. They appear to be about to unveil an overwhelming conspiracy with the former President front and center. The areas they have covered include the direct involvement of Trump to persuade the State law makers to declare the election for him one way or another; the collusion directly or indirectly with the violent far right groups like the Oath Keepers and his inner circle; the repeated messaging to him that the election was valid and the assessment given by his inner circle including his up till then faithful Attorney General that there was no fraud. The infamous attempt to replace the Acting Attorney General with a lowly placed official. The latter who would write to the States that the Justice Department was investigating alleged corruption in their elections.
The contact between him and or his Chief of Staff with the nerve center at Willard Hotel planning the insurrection, the drawing up of the list of speakers for January 6, the collusion between Republican members of Congress, his rallying speech at the Eclipse and his lie that he would go with them and the final pressure he put on Pence via the crowd has all been scrutinized in detail.
The cockamamie scheme dreamed up by his newest best lawyer, John Eastman, that Vice President Pence, claiming uncertainty as to which party of electors to accept, could single handedly change the election outcome by sending the vote there and then to the Assembly where the byzantine Constitution would give the "Republicans" the advantage. Another option was that Pence would just nominate the alternate set of "Republican" electors from the States that Biden had won. Eastman proposed yet another choice to settle the “dispute” - send the decision back to Republican State legislatures to reevaluate the results.
Then another subject of scrutiny is the financing and planning of the rally itself which will show who else was involved in the conspiracy.
There is one piece of evidence that they have no handle on not that it is necessary to prove their case - the details of Trump’s final one on one conversation with Pence which simply had to be a repeat of the pressure and the abuse he had directed towards him when witnesses were present.
The limited amount of argument the Committee produced to Judge Carter was enough for him to conclude that this was a coup looking for legislation to legitimize it. So if only a fraction of the conspiracy has been revealed this should make for riveting television.
The telling of this complicated story succinctly and clearly is a task the Committee is leaving to writers with experience in such materials. Aaron Sorkin of West Wing fame must be an ideal candidate.
AMERICA’S DEMOCRACY
Those outside America must be wondering what kind of lunacy lies in the democratic workings in supposedly the leading nation of the democratic free world. Part of the problem lies in the adherence to the outdated constitution. The Senate has fifty Democrats and "Republicans" where the Democrats received forty - four million more votes. Jay H. Ell has discussed the outsize roll the Supreme Court can play which contains nine members some of whom have gained nomination by outright manipulation. Most of the Republican Court nominations have been made by Presidents who though they never had the majority of votes won the electoral College which disproportionately favors the tiny rural states. The States too set their own regulations as to voting several making it harder for minorities to vote. The latter are disproportionately Democrat.
Having explained the above there is an unbelievable reverence afforded to the Office of the President who is not elected or answerable to the Party caucus, He cannot be removed by a vote of no confidence and other than Nixon no President has been removed as a result of illegal activities. Historically there was a divide amongst the Founding Fathers whether the head of state should be a king or not. They opted instead for a Presidency which they assumed would have almost G-d appointed reverence. Indicting a President has never happened. President Ford pardoned Nixon for any possible charges and even the Watergate prosecutors today agree that his argument, “To heal a nation” was valid. This is the background to the decision that Merrick Garland has to decide.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
It appears that the January 6 Committee is going to make a referral to Merrick Garland. He should have no choice but to proceed criminally. This travesty is not going to go away. The absurdity that Trump won the election and that January 6 was no big deal is just that - absurd. Whatever the outcome of criminal proceedings the alternative not to proceed criminally is both morally and legally outrageous. The integrity of America as a democracy is at stake.
JUST IN PASSING
George Carlin: They will do anything for the unborn but once you are born your’e on your own
If Mitch McConnell cared half as much about democracy in the USA as he does about Ukraine we all would be in a better place.
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