The case against the Twice-Impeached President

It determines if America wins, not whether the Coward Trump wins

I’m skipping the usual dining format as the situation requires.

A week from today, he goes on trial in the Senate. A majority will convict him of his high crimes, but it will fall short of the higher threshold to convict. He will call it a fake impeachment. But he will win nothing. The GOP will win nothing The country will win nothing when the votes are counted.

The winners will emerge in the weeks and months ahead.

The evidence against Trump is undeniable yet the majority of the GOP will deny it.

1) He’s a recidivist. He has committed the crime of inciting violence against others since at least 2016.

2) “Federal jurisdiction in rioting cases arises when the rioter engaged in the prohibited act and traveled between states or countries to do so, or used interstate or foreign commerce such as mail, telephone, radio, or television to communicate or broadcast prior to their overt acts”. And it’s a crime for anyone to:

Incite a riot;

Organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot; or

Commit any act of violence in furtherance of a riot; or

Aid or abet any person in inciting or participating in or carrying on a riot or committing any act of violence in furtherance of a riot.
(FindLaw)

3) At numerous rallies since 2016, he encouraged his followers to assault members of the media, audience hecklers and political opponents. He has encouraged police to rough up detainees while making arrests which they’re legally prevented from doing. He assembled an armed force from multiple agencies and sent them to Portland, Oregon where - without visible badges or IDs - they were picking up people off streets away from any demonstrations and subjecting them to intense questioning before releasing them. This was tantamount to kidnapping them.

He also utilized the National Guard to assault and sweep peaceful protestors and media off the streets of Washington DC, to stage a photo op. Members of our military leadership were so alarmed to see the military assaulting American citizens that they quickly made public pronouncements making it clear that the military was not to do that again.

4) When right wing hate groups began holding marches and demonstrations in Charlottesville and other cities and counter-demonstrators showed up, leading to tense encounters and street fights, he has blamed both sides, claimed there were ‘very fine people on both sides’ and on very rare occasions, has condemned the violence belatedly after his initial responses drew public criticism. His absent and soft denunciations have drawn public attention and media reports have indicated these hate groups and others were emboldened by his words to continue similar displays of hate and violence. That intensified markedly after George Floyd was killed by police, provoking marches and rallies in hundreds of US cities and in foreign countries.

He’s been quick to criticize acts of violence against property by BLM protestors and others in the few cities where they weren’t peaceful while ignoring or encouraging the violence by hate groups confronting peaceful BLM protestors

5) And after encouraging tens of thousands of citizens including groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, he got QAnon supporters to show up in Washington DC on January 6 to protest the final affirmation of the presidential vote count and he led a rally where he encouraged them to fight, to march on the Capitol Building and indicated he’d go there with them. Then he disappeared and watched the mob’s siege and riot at and in the Capitol Building.

6) While the riot was ongoing, he made at least two phone calls to Congress members to encourage them to delay or overturn the votes of US states. While pleas for backup forces to stop the rioters poured in from Capitol police and lawmakers, he took no action, unlike his previous decisions to pursue demonstrators in Portland and near the White House several months earlier. Several hours passed before people further down the chain of command ultimately got forces there who could clear out the rioters.

7) The rioting mob was drawn there after he spent several weeks declaring the mail-in voting being done to protect the public would be fraudulent, predicted Democrats would try to steal the election and within 12 hours after polls closed on Election Day, began insisting the election was rife with fraud, even before the outcome was clear.

He had attorneys pursue more than 5 dozen court cases to block or overturn results in several states, most of them quickly dismissed because they lacked merit or actual evidence. He rebuked media outlets that announced the results and provoked his supporters to show up at polling places where they sometimes harassed or threatened poll workers and maintenance staff.

And after an election with the largest turnout in US history where polling monitors and Secretaries of States and AGs declared it one of the most glitch free elections ever, with examples of fraudulent or wrongly cast votes well under 100 nationwide - even after some recounts - polling indicates that he successfully convinced nearly 3/4s of his supporters nationwide that the Democrats had stolen the election.

8) He also contacted state officials pleading with them to reverse the results or find more votes for him. He publicly berated elected officials in his own party for their refusal to break the law and conceded to his requests and demands. And his denunciations of his own Vice President - who had no power to overturn the vote confirmation process - had the insurrectionist mob angrily seeking to lynch the VP and the 80 year old Speaker of the House on January 6th.

9) The question is not whether he incited the mob, but when hasn’t he incited violence during his term in office? He is a consistent, repeat offender.

10) And while we’re not going to re-litigate his first impeachment trial, it remains pertinent to observe that since the Spring of 2019, he considered Joe Biden to be his toughest potential opponent, tried to strong arm the president of Ukraine to launch a frivolous investigation of Hunter Biden, illegally delaying major military aid, with a phone call similar to the recent one to the Georgia AG.

That, too, is an example of his repeat offenses. All driven by the same motive, to defeat Joe Biden by hook or crook. Consider the mysterious laptop that supposedly showed up at a NYC repair shop where Hunter Biden supposedly left it. And the way no evidence emerged from that, then the laptop was supposedly mailed across the country and disappeared. Consider the appointment of a new Postmaster General who dismantled machines and disrupted mail flows after it became clear the pandemic would cause a massive increase in mailed votes.

His efforts to limit voting, to advance conspiracies about Hunter Biden and about the conduct of the actual voting display far more than the conventional norms of politicking. He has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to break laws, promote social discord, and to encourage violent groups who hate Blacks, Jews, Muslims, immigrants and women to continue their acts of violence.

11) That’s the gist of the case against Donald Trump. And the majority of Senate Republicans seem poised to block his conviction. Their principal defense rests on a single sentence in that last rally speech where he used the word ‘peacefully’. While neglecting all the speeches and actions that he unleashed over months and years prior.

12) The majority of American adults can already see the evidence and believe he’s guilty. And after Senate Republicans betray the Constitution and vote to acquit him, they will face public judgment multiple times. As investigations conclude and prosecutions begin for hundreds of the rioters, the Gang of Trump Toadies will be judged over and over again. As random acts of violence spawned by pro-Trump hate groups occur, the Gang of Trump Toadies will be judged again.

As the new vaccine rollout starts to permanently limit the pandemic so schools and businesses reopen and people can interact more normally again, that will also reduce political tensions and the approval ratings of the Gang of Toadies will fall further.

13) Already, tens of thousands of voters have left the Republican Party. Major GOP funder Sheldon Adelson has died and another major funder, the NRA, is bankrupt due to their own law violations. Under the weight of public pressure, a growing number of corporate funders have indicated they won’t be donating to the Gang of Toadies who fought to overturn the election results. With more horrifying details coming out from the prosecutions to come, their base will shrink, more funders will bail out, the Gang of Toadies will be punished for abandoning the Constitution and defending all who would kill our democracy, cops and lawmakers.

14) Whether Trump aims to play kingmaker with his new PAC, or make a ludicrous run himself again at the age of 78, after 4 years of investigations, depositions, and prosecutions, he’ll be a shadow of the influencer that he is today. And the final nail in his political coffin will come - it may even bring the GOP to its extinction - when the evidence comes out about who funded or invented the conspiracy theories of QAnon.

Instead of ludicrous conspiracy theories, there is the most likely place where a small group of real conspirators exist. Instead of micro-targeting voters with ads, like occurred in 2016, maybe someone determined that micro-targeting with conspiracy theories would drive more Trump supporters to the polls.

It’s too early to see who did that but I predicted after the 2016 election that others would copy the Cambridge Analytica approach or refine the approach further. I remain convinced that this occurred. Was it done by a billionaire, by some group like Emerdata, or a foreign government?

I have no evidence to determine who might be involved or whether it even occurred. But my journalistic Spidey senses indicate that’s the missing puzzle piece that researchers and investigators need to look for.

And already, the failing Republican Party is pursuing more than 100 legislative attempts to suppress future voting. They’ve now surrendered the Constitution, surrendered in the war against Covid and can’t even figure out how to expand their base so they aim instead to shrink the votes of Democrats. Especially non-white Democrats.

They’re not just Anti-Americans. They're acting like the People’s Temple party, ready to take their last fateful drink.

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This just seems apropos though it’s clearly Not Safe For Work.