The Big Lie’s Big Footprints
The idea of everything having to do with the end of Donald J. Trump’s presidency fitting into a neat package is an understandable desire. A vision for an America Made Great Again by way of keeping the Autocrat-in-Chief in power certainly was shared by the many individuals and organizations currently subject to investigations by law enforcement and the congress.
Let’s call it “the Grand Unifying Theory” of the Big Lie. I think it’s an unattainable quest.
The problem with thinking of the events of January 6, 2021 in this manner is that it drives a desire for fantasies of an apocalyptic reckoning whereby revelations equal justice, i.e. the good guys triumph and the bad guys fade into the dustbin of history.
This type of delusional thinking knows no ideological boundaries. Q cultists believe something will happen leading to Hillary Clinton’s arrest and the end of child sacrifices by the liberal cabal. A broad swath of progressive activists have high hopes of seeing The Former Guy arrested and his minions imprisoned.
A steady drip, drip, drip of reporting accompanied by conjecture about impending consequences leads to frustration (when nothing happens) and conspiracy theories.
Why, say wags on the left, aren’t Trumpist refuseniks headed to the slammer for not cooperating with the House Select Committee? A Roger Stone perp walk –the thinking goes– would wake the seemingly indifferent masses up, leading people to demand action.
What’s up with the cone of silence surrounding the Justice Department’s investigations? Can’t they do better than prosecuting a bunch of scruffy types while the suits behind the scenes go unscathed?
There are suggestions of big things to come, but I’m not staying up nights obsessing about these possibilities.
The ex-President’s increasingly erratic behavior, the willingness of some elected officials (a certain turtle-like creature comes to mind) to defend the lone voices from the right calling foul, and assorted legal documents surfacing, are all prescient of a disruption of the Roy Cohn-inspired defiance coming out of Mar-a-Lago.
I also happen to think that what we’re learning points to dead ends when it comes to bringing down the kingpins of the Trump family crime syndicate.
Yesterday, Rachel Maddow and others pointed to phony electoral vote certificates from seven states that were submitted to Congress as part of the failed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Groups of Trump supporters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin sought to replace the valid presidential electors from their state — who had been chosen by voters in free and fair elections — with bogus slates of pro-Trump electors.
These signed, notarized documents were sent to the National Archives as part of a scheme to have new “evidence” appear when Republicans in Congress were able to at least pause certification of the electoral vote. Many of them were identically formatted, providing evidence of coordination.
Rudy Giuliani’s name gets mentioned as a strategist, which makes sense when you consider just how lame this effort was. Many for-real Trump electors in those states were approached and refused to affix their signatures to these forgeries.
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What has become increasingly obvious to me is that there were many –not necessarily coordinated– efforts to keep Trump in the White House.
Sometimes they clashed with each other, like when the planned refusal to accept electoral votes from certain states, was disrupted by gangs of goons storming the Congress. A lot of these schemes were untethered from reality, like almost everything having to do with the Mr. Pillow Guy’s crusades…. Talk about your useful idiots…
The clattering of chowderheaded conspiracies makes sense when you look at the other accomplishments (or lack thereof) of the Trump administration. Most of the time, nobody was in charge. Instead loyalists (many of whom lacked basic competency) responded to the angry bellowing of the former president in different ways, each of them seeking to get a result leading to praise from Dear Leader.
The one really stupid thing involving participation by the former president –the phone call to Georgia asking them to find nearly 12,000 votes– actually seems like it might lead to an indictment.
From Daily Kos:
On Monday evening, Rachel Maddow dropped another bombshell in an exclusive report: "We can report exclusively tonight that attorneys for former President Donald Trump have now met in person with the Fulton County district attorney's office in Georgia."
That meeting occurred a month ago. Within days, Trump had his spokesperson send a rather bizarre tweet. The defeated former guy complained: "All the Democrats want to do is put people in jail.... They are destroying people's lives, which is the only thing they are good at." Trump went on to whine that district attorneys, attorneys general, and "Dem Law Enforcement" are "out of control..."
…The potential smoking gun in the Georgia case is the taped Jan. 2 phone call in which Trump sought to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes—just enough to give the former president a victory in Georgia. On the tape, Trump also implicitly threatened Raffensperger and his lawyer by saying their failure to find the extra votes would be “a criminal offense” and “a big risk.” Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Trump’s lawyers were also on the call, and could be subpoenaed by a grand jury.
Willis confirmed to AP that the investigation’s scope also includes—but is not limited to—a November 2020 phone call between U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Raffensperger; the abrupt resignation of the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Byung J. Pak, on Jan. 4, 2021; and comments made during the December 2020 Georgia legislative committee hearings on the election.
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