Backwards or Forwards We Go, Pt. 2

In late September, George Clooney’s documentary about the college wrestling sexual assaults will debut, which should keep Representative Jim Jordan distracted from the midterm fray.

Also beginning on September 18th, Ken Burns begins a 3 part documentary titled ‘The US and the Holocaust’ which bears relevance to the rising fascism of the Trump Crime Cabal.

A Reuters-Ipsos poll a week ago indicated 58% of the adults surveyed think Trump’s MAGA movement undermines American democracy. That includes 25% of Republicans.

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Yes, there’s a lot of election deniers running for office. People who might have an impact on the 2024 presidential race. IF. THEY. WIN.

The report from States United Democracy Center, which has closely tracked the progress of election-denying candidates across the US, finds that 18 of 26 races for governor this year include at least one candidate who has cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

One-third of all races for attorney general include at least one such candidate, and 12 out of 27 races for secretary of state – an office that is typically charged with election administration – include election-denying candidates.

Those candidates are running for all three top statewide positions in at least three states.

But there’s a whole lot more competing for the public’s attention.

The Congressional January 6 committee has conducted around 1,000 interviews. From the details they made public, the Department of Justice has picked up the ball and is running hard with it. The difference is the DOJ can issue secret grand jury subpoenas that have more teeth than the Congressional subpoenas. There’s greater enforcement options for those who refuse to appear and for those who appear and lie.

Can issue? How about ‘has issued’? Though the DOJ generally won’t pursue indictments against active candidates in the November elections, there’s plenty of Trump appointees, Trump White House staff, Trump campaign personnel, former Trump attorneys and others who’ve actively pushed the Big Lie about the Election Trump’s still trying to steal.

And the DOJ just issued at least 40 subpoenas in recent days. Marcy Wheeler has sleuthed out this partial who’s who list of subpoenaed individuals:

You can see what they’re after from this fresh round of subpoenas at Marcy’s place. In addition the DOJ seized Epshteyn’s and Roman’s phones, just as they previously seized the phones of Rudy Giuliani and others. Mike Lindell of My Pilllow also just had his phone seized yesterday, purportedly due to a voting machine breach by Trump activists in Colorado, including the county clerk, Tina Peters who was just re-arrested for violating the terms of her bail.

Also, on September first, the DOJ did this:

WASHINGTON — Kellye SoRelle, the general counsel for the far-right organization the Oath Keepers, was arrested Thursday in Texas after she was indicted on four charges in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, the Justice Department said.

A federal grand jury indicted SoRelle on four counts: conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, obstruction of justice and misdemeanor entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds. She has not been charged with seditious conspiracy, as other Oath Keepers have.

The FBI seized her phone a year ago and they’ve determined she was engaged in an encrypted chat with the other Oath Keepers during their insurrection effort.

Notably, Trump and his family, and Ginni Thomas have not been subpoenaed yet and it’s likely they won’t get theirs till after the midterm election, but the testimony all the subpoenas seek clearly is about who was coordinating with Trump and the insurrectionists and who was part of the efforts to set aside the votes in key swing states.

Trump is sweating it now as the posse closes in, though he hopes to win both houses of Congress so a Republican majority can investigate and impeach Biden, even though they lack the votes to convict him. He won’t be able to stop the DOJ investigation from reaching conclusions and indictments before 2024 but he can continue to lie, fundraise and dismiss the investigation as political gamesmanship. He’s also working hard to keep all the insurrectionists on board, publicly offering pardons to them all, a rather blatant F. U. to the hundreds of cops injured or dead because of Trump’s violent supporters.


And he’s finding it harder and harder to obtain competent legal help. Via the NYTimes last Saturday:

A dark joke has begun circulating among lawyers following the many legal travails of former President Donald J. Trump: MAGA actually stands for “making attorneys get attorneys.”

Over six years and nine major investigations by Congress, the Justice Department and local prosecutors, as Mr. Trump has managed to avoid removal from the presidency and indictment, it has become clear that serving as one of his lawyers is a remarkably risky job — and one that can involve considerable legal exposure. Time after time, his attorneys have been asked to testify as witnesses to potential crimes — or evaluated as possible criminal conspirators themselves.

Not only have well-known lawyers been disbarred or at risk (Giuliani, Eastman, Cippolone and Philbin) but the story defines another 17 lesser known lawyers across the country facing additional scrutiny and possible legal actions because of their efforts to aid Trump’s election theft scam. And on top of that, they also risk not getting paid by Trump. Why would any competent attorney now take on those risks?

And then there’s the pardoned General Michael Flynn, busy fundraising and trying to turn the US into an extremist theocracy, along with the pardoned Roger Stone. These unlikely holy warriors both have Russian ties, both lied illegally and were convicted before Trump gave them Get Out Of Jail Free cards. The Associated Press has paired with PBS to investigate Flynn and PBS Frontline will begin airing it October 18th just 17 days before Election Day. They outlined considerable detail in a report on September 7th that deserves your further attention.

And for an added reminder, here’s what Flynn was pushing shortly after Trump’s election in 2016: Nuclear secrets anyone?

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The point is, there’s a whole lot of bad publicity on the way that will further undermine Trump’s support between now and Election Day.

The January 6 Committee is under no rules about its hearings and can pile on at any time. So can state and local prosecutors in Georgia, New York and elsewhere. And even though the DOJ and FBI will attempt to keep its activities out of the news, many Trump supporters are so ego-addicted, they’ll readily volunteer fresh information completely unaware that their words keep draining more support from Trump and his minions especially from independent voters crucial to election outcomes.

Once George Clooney has weighed in later this month, that’s when to start paying attention to the polls. Ken Burns’ documentary will also provide considerably more emphasis on the question: what kind of country do we really want to be? The 3 part series will air from the 18th till early October.

And since we’ve never experienced so much legal action and disinformation and sporadic acts of violence around a midterm election before, it’s likely prognosticators won’t find a lot they can count on by the first week of October.

Yes, I know inflation is the big wedge that can influence the outcome and usually does. But these are unparalleled events. And the GOP has created multiple wedges against it, most notably the abortion decision (Senator Graham, thanks for your timely reminder!), the violence Trump has unleashed and still goads on, and his three year effort to steal the 2020 election.

And the best news is we don’t have to twitter. We don’t have to take up arms against our fellow citizens. Only the minority of voters has to resort to tricks and violence and lies and thefts.

If we want a continuation of the social democracy we have, imperfect as it is, we just have to register. And vote. We have to show up.

It’s really not complicated at all because we remain the voting majority.

Pass it on.