Showing posts with label J6. Show all posts
Showing posts with label J6. Show all posts

April 5, 2023

Stage Four Legal Cancer: Trump admitted he committed a much bigger crime than stealing the documents

 By Hal Brown

These are the words he used:

Click image above to go to tweet

“God bless you all. I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” he said, adding that the only crime he’s committed is trying “to defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.”

Jack Smith might ask the jury that if Trump literally stood on a gallows, put a noose around Mike Pence's neck, and opened the trapdoor under his feet, and then said he didn't commit a crime because he was defending the nation, did this justify what he did.

Trump, it has been pointed out by some in the media, already admitted he took the documents (saying that he could do so because he could declassify them just by thinking the thought) even though taking any documents, top secret or not, is against the law. (See "Trump appears to concede he illegally retained official documents'")

This will make things easy for Jack Smith to indict on the Mar-a-Lago documents case. It shows that Trump knew all about taking the documents, supposedly thinking he had a right to do so, and once he was disabused of this false belief or claim, still refused to return them. This is obstruction, a serious felony. Add all this together we have Michael Jordan levels of several game winning slam dunks for Jack Smith.

This is one of the two cases Smith is working on. From what we know it is seems to be easy to win. 

The other federal case is Trump's involvement and legal culpability in the January 6th insurrection. This may include things he did on the days prior to January 6th, but centers around how he incited the audience at his rally earlier in the day to march to the Capitol and engage in a violent attempt to stop Mike Pence from certifying the election of President Biden.

His statement is an admission of culpability in committing a crime, really crimes, far more significant than the admission in the documents case. It is an admission that he is aware he has committed crimes related to everything he did in an attempt to remain in power despite losing the election. This goes far beyond just trying to find the extra votes in Georgia through fraud. It involves inciting, aiding, and abetting the Jan. 6th insurrection, and an attempt to undermine the Constitution and the peaceful transfer of powers.

These are the only "crimes" that could be what he said would involve his "fearlessly" defending the nation from those seeking to destroy it.

A jury hearing and reading the many hyperbolic claims that Trump made without him as president the country would be destroyed ought to be persuaded to take him at his words. 

In the "only crime I committed" statement he is admitting that he knew what he did to remain in power was a crime.

Jack Smith isn't the only prosecutor for whom Trump has offered up a prosecutorial ammunition on a silver platter. Not only does Fani Willis have a tape of Trump asking Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to recalculate the state's vote in his favorbut Trump said it was an "absolutely PERFECT (sic) call."

Aside from the fact that Trump has to contend with high profile four cases against him he also has two civil suits, ones from Eric Swallwell and from Rep. Bennie Thompson about the insurrection. 

Trump has two years where he'll be slogging though one legal tarpit after another. Through this period he will be trying to put on his warrior face as a fearless presidential candidate.

He's set up this Superman image of himself in his iconography (see the illustration of some of his digital trading cards) and his self-aggrandizing rally speeches and rhetorical like  "I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution” from his CPAC speech.

Trump will have to strike a pose of being the aggrieved victim without looking like he is experiencing the least bit of fear. Lindsay Graham can get tearful on his behalf, but don't expect Trump's eyes to moisten let alone shed a tear. I have my doubts if his tear ducts are even functional.

No matter how stressed out or anxious he may be feeling - or not be feeling (see below for two previous blogs about what Trump may or may not feel) it is important to note that denial is a primitive defense mechanism. It is brittle and the one most easily to shatter when hit by the ball-peen hammer of reality.

As his legal woes metastasize like various types of cancer from the equivalent of a squamish cell lesion which is uncomfortably treated but easily cured to the aggressive and deadly brain cancer known as glioblastoma which took John McCain's life. 

We may not know for some time what Jack Smith will charge Trump with, if anything. However, if it is something akin to inciting a resurrection in an attempt to overturn an election sticking with the cancer metaphor, for Trump this will be the near equivalent of having to try to survive a stage four malignancy.

Related blogs:

Nobody knows for certain how Trump feels except Trump

and

Michael Cohen and others claim to know what's in Trump's headspace. They don't.


Addendum: It isn't just American tabloids which have fun with their covers about Trump. Below is the UK Daily Mirror.
They also have an article about Melania and Ivanka not being seen at his post-arraignment Mar-a-Lago speech which they call a rant.

Excerpt:

Donald Trump's wife Melania and daughter Ivanka were nowhere to be seen as the former President lashed out at prosecutors and the judge after his historic arrest.

After his appearance at court on Tuesday, April 4, loudmouth Trump returned to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida where he addressed friends, family and supporters and lavished praise on members of his family.



Blogs are also posted on Booksie and Medium.




Thanks for reading. Scroll down to make comments and share on social media. The archives and tags are on the bottom. 

February 19, 2023

J6 Committee top investigator lays out a provable case that Trump led a conspiracy to overturn election

 By Hal Brown

The Raw Story summary -

Trump's Jan. 6 conspiracy 'potentially broader' than final House report described: lead investigator

 - of The New York Times article -

Timothy J. Heaphy Led the House Jan. 6 Investigation. Here’s What He Learned.

The top staff investigator for the House inquiry on the Capitol attack opened up about his biggest takeaways and why proving intent is the key to a criminal charge against former President Donald J. Trump.

 - doesn't do it justice (no pun intended).

Unfortunately you have to subscribe to The New York Times to read the revealing and unnerving interview with Timothy J. Heaphy (Wiki profile), the former U.S. attorney who served as the top staff investigator for the Jan. 6th Committee. 

Asked by Luke Broadwater, author of the article (profile), when the J6 Committee realized they would be breaking new ground, Heaphy said it was when the J6 Committee saw how early the multipart plan to stop the transfer of power started to take shape:

The world had seen the violence of the Capitol and how awful it was. But how we got there, and how methodical and intentional it was — this ratcheting up of pressure that ultimately culminates in the president inciting a mob to disrupt the joint session — that was new. 

 Below, the emphasis in red is mine:

When we started to see intentional conduct, specific steps that appear to be designed to disrupt the joint session of Congress, that’s where it starts to sound criminal. The whole key for the special counsel is intent. The more evidence that we saw of the president’s intent, and others working with him, to take steps — without basis in fact or law — to prevent the transfer of power from happening, it started to feel more and more like possible criminal conduct.

Heaphy was asked by Broadwater to address the failures of law enforcement to prevent the attack on the Capitol and the workings of the J6 Committee, which he did, but the meat of interview as far as I am concerned in how former the former president is implicated in being the leader of an illegal conspiracy. This is in scattered almost wlly-nilly through the interview. 

Another excerpt: 

There’s evidence that the specific intent to disrupt the joint session extends beyond President Trump. There is a cast of characters that includes the ones you mentioned (i.e. John Easton and Jefferey Clark). I think you could look at [Rudolph W.] Giuliani, and Mark Meadows. I think that the Justice Department has to look very closely at whether there was an agreement or conspiracy.

As far as I am concerned, the only reason we need to know how far beyond Trump the conspiracy extended, besides bringing the conspirators to justice, is to make an airtight care against the leader of the conspiracy.

There is only one person who must, absolutely must, suffer the consequences for trying to treasonously sabotage our democracy. I don't care whether everyone else goes free, makes a fortune selling tell-all books and getting gigs on Fox News as long as Donald Trump gets one or more fair trials for the felonies there is enough evidence to indict him for having committed.

If he is found innocent because a jury or juries think a case hasn't been made beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed crimes and he walks free, I will have no choice but to deal with my disappointment and anger. I will have to live with my belief, my lack of having a reasonable doubt, that he really did the equivalent of committing a murder on Fifth Avenue and got away with it.

A footnote to history is that Trump is the only president to have said things about getting aways with committing felonies. Another, lest we forget, is "grabbing" line from the Access Hollywood tape. Of course there also are the "perfect" phone calls he made, to Zelensky and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. 

Addendum:

To understand the meaning of reasonable doubt one must grasp that such a finding does not mean that the person being tried is innocent.

Under U.S. law, a defendant is considered innocent until proven guilty. Reasonable doubt stems from insufficient evidence. If it cannot be proved without a doubt that the defendant is guilty, that person should not be convicted. Verdicts do not necessarily reflect the truth, they reflect the evidence presented. A defendant’s actual innocence or guilt may be an abstraction. (Reference)

A moment of snark:

I meant this to be a serious blog but when someone posted a cartoon on another Raw Story article I didn't resist my impulse to make an illustration to go with it.

The sheriff's badge was added to the picture of Lucy. I didn't enlarge Trump's ass though a number of people used photo manipulation to make it even bigger.




 

December 31, 2022

Protecting New York City on New Year's Eve

 Protecting New York City on New Year's Eve
By Hal Brown
Update: Thankfully there was only one violent incident on New Years Eve in Times Square.  Story here.
Pictured: NYC Police flag with DOJ seal added

After reading this article in The New York Daily News ....

...it hit me that had the Capitol been protected the same way Times Square is protected on New Year's Eve I doubt the insurrectionists would have been able to invade the building. 

I have no doubt that there are many people out there, some who may have been in the mob on January 6 and some who would have liked to have been there who have thoughts about doing something violent to express their outrage that the coup failed. 

We know that two MAGA men planned to attack the Knoxville, TN FBI office but were arrested before they could follow through. One of the men  was the fourth rioter to enter the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

There is no certification of an election to try to thwart on New Year's Eve. There is only an opportunity for would-be MAGA terrorists to make a huge statement to show to the nation on a night of celebration their outrage that, as they believe, the election was stolen and that Biden is president rather than Donald Trump.

There is an enormous law enforcement challenge about how to prevent violence during the country's most watched New Year's Eve celebration. 

Not only does law enforcement have to protect Times Square but I have no doubt that they are well-aware that would-be terrorists know that with the concentration of law enforcement in a several block area there are violent extremists who might think of buildings to target that they believe would be more vulnerable and have real or symbolic meaning to these people.

I am confident that for months the task force threat assessment team has been closely monitoring the activity of would-be terrorists. I am also confident that they are doing a better job than those who should have known that there would be a violent insurrection on January 6th.

I also don't take as gospel the assurance, or reassurance, coming from NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell because any so-called credible threats, if they exist, might still be under investigation. I believe that this team, as opposed to those assessing the threat of violence preceding January 6th, have a broader and more realistic definition of what constitutes a credible threat.

There may be people who want to try to do something destructive to a building that they think represents the criminal justice system in New York which they may rightfully think is Trump's enemy. Some of them may have hinted at this in ways that could have been picked up by law enforcement and then either given up or tried to "go dark" as they actually worked on a serious plan. We can only hope they didn't elude law enforcement. 

The New York City Police Counterterrorism Bureau  will doubtlessly be working with the federal law enforcement anti-terror team which was augmented after J6. Here's Attorney General Merrick B. Garland's Domestic Terrorism Policy Address which describes the National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism

Making the New Year's Eve challenge even more difficult, as if it isn't arduous enough, is that routine policing has to go on with the added burden of protecting businesses from opportunistic burglars who may think stores elsewhere in the city won't be as protected as they'd be on a typical night.

Recent blog posts:

October 21, 2022

Will Trump comply with J6 subpoena? Don't be surprised if he does.

By Hal Brown

Archives of previous editions >>




It's hard to believe you haven't heard this news:


What we saw:
If he read HUFFPOST this is what Trump would see:


There still seems to be a presumption among those making predictions that he will defy the subpoena. I base my own prediction on an assessment of the personality of the man.

I still maintain that there's a reasonable chance Trump will end up testifying before the January 6th Committee despite the following reporting:

"Trump also appears to have become more aware about the pitfalls of testifying in investigations, with lawyers warning him about mounting legal issues in criminal inquiries brought by the justice department and a civil lawsuit brought by the New York state attorney’s office."
Trump is a man who has always been guided by his own grandiose beliefs in his being the smartest person in the room. The "room" as he defines it is the country, hell, the world if not the cosmos.


It is one thing to say that Trump is aware of "the pitfalls of testifying" and quite another to say that's he's convinced that the so-called pitfalls described by lawyers who he probably believes aren't nearly as intelligent as he is ought to be heeded.
He knows that if he wants to have the eyes of the nation riveted on him, whether in prime time or during the day, he will push his demand for live coverage of his testimony however it is given. He may agree to testify in a deposition as long as it is televised live. The key is that he wants to feel that he is in control and have a huge TV audience will be the major influence on his decision. He wants a Superbowl size audience that he can brag about.

He also thinks by insisting on going live, no matter the actual venue, he will be pitching a curveball to the committee believing that they are bluffing and don't really expect him to testify.

He will be daring them to demand that however he appears be done behind closed doors. He knows that even those who aren't members of his cult will want transparency and that he can accuse them of trying to pull a fast one by keeping his testimony secret.

The massive narcissistic part, or put another way, the egomaniacal aspect of his malignant and sociopathic narcissism thinks he will be able to outwit members of the J6 Committee and their lawyers.

He thinks he can showboat his way through a hearing and he desperately wants a nationally televised megaphone.


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