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RSN: FOCUS: Bess Levin | January 6 Hearing: Trump an Even More Brazen Criminal Than Previously Thought

 

 

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26 June 22

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Donald Trump. (photo: Getty Images)
FOCUS: Bess Levin | January 6 Hearing: Trump an Even More Brazen Criminal Than Previously Thought
Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
Levin writes: "At this point in history, some 19 months after the 2020 election and 17 months after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, it’s difficult to imagine yet further evidence coming out incriminating Donald Trump in his plot to steal a second term."

The former president apparently insisted that a DOJ official “Just say [the election] was corrupt, and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”

At this point in history, some 19 months after the 2020 election and 17 months after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, it’s difficult to imagine yet further evidence coming out incriminating Donald Trump in his plot to steal a second term. And yet, somehow, it does! That’s largely thanks the work of the House’s January 6 committee, whose public hearings may not change the minds of die-hard Trump supporters—who would believe Trump if he said Joe Biden stole a pair of triplets from a Scranton-area hospital in 1977 who were later seen changing Trump ballots to Biden ones—but it may help the work of the Justice Department. Which many are hoping will prosecute the ex-president over his attempt to burn democracy to the ground because he’s incapable of uttering the words “I lost.”

On Thursday, during the committee’s fifth public hearing, that evidence came from former DOJ officials who relayed first-person accounts of Trump‘s relentless attempt to use them to overturn the results of the election. For instance, former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue told the panel that Trump begged him to investigate numerous baseless voter-fraud claims. Informed by acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen that the “DOJ can’t and won’t snap its fingers and change the outcome of the election,” Trump, according to Donoghue, responded: “Just say it was corrupt, and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”

Just say it, and I’ll take care of the rest, wink, wink! It would be funny that the president of the United States was doing such a spot-on parody of a mafia boss if not for the whole “democracy at stake” bit.

Also on Thursday, Rosen testified that not only was Trump completely transparent about his illegal plot, he wouldn‘t shut up about it for one single, solitary day, except for a couple exceptions, including on Christmas, when he was presumably annoying other people with it.

Thanks to Donoghue’s contemporaneous notes, we also know that even after Trump was informed that the most batshit crazy conspiracy theory he dug up on the internet and wanted to use to overturn the election—the one about Italian satellites changing Trump votes to Biden ones—was patently false, he still wouldn’t let it go.

In other January 6 committee revelations, it turns out some of Trump’s most ardent supporters in his plot to stay in power seemingly had a small inkling that what they were up to may not have been entirely legal in, like, the criminal definition of the word.

All in all it sounds pretty bad, but don’t take our word for it!

The Supreme Court’s conservative death squad hands down horrifying gun ruling

The Supreme Court’s current slate of conservative justices talk a big game about protecting the sanctity of human life when it comes to banning the national right to an abortion, which they’re expected to do within in the week. But like most people who want the medical procedure outlawed, or at a minimum banned at the federal level, they‘re quite obviously full of shit. How do we know this? Because of the insane gun ruling the court just issued which will almost certainly lead to more dead Americans.

As was expected, in a 6–3 decision, the court on Thursday struck down a New York state law stating that anyone who wants to carry a concealed gun in public must have a permit to do so, and that to obtain a permit, they must prove “proper cause.” The ruling will have a ripple effect on at least six other states where people don’t want to worry if the guy behind them at Starbucks or sitting across from them on mass transit is carrying a deadly weapon, including Washington, D.C. While the opinion, authored by archconservative Clarence Thomas, so generously offers that state officials can prohibit weapons in “sensitive places,” in his dissent Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out that Thomas’s entire ridiculous basis for striking down the New York law was that it doesn’t have any precedent prior to the early 19th century, so what’s to stop him from blocking, say, New York governor Kathy Hochul from banning guns on the R train, because it didn’t exist hundreds of year ago? “I fear that the court’s interpretation ignores these significant dangers and leaves states without the ability to address them,” Breyer wrote.

Meanwhile, Thomas’s insistence on looking to [checks notes] 17th-century history to dictate laws today means future gun regulations—the kind that seem very much necessary in a country where mass shootings occur on a near daily basis—are on the line.

Per Slate:

It is difficult to overstate the consequences of Thomas’ decision. In a single opinion, the justice has abolished the ability of courts to consider the real-world impact of firearms when evaluating limitations on their sale and use. No longer may cities and states enact new restrictions motivated by, for example, a surge in mass shootings, and cite the need to protect their residents as justification. All these facts are now immaterial. Any government attempting to impose gun control must scour the history books for some historical analogue. Of course, that analogue might not exist, because modern technology has made guns vastly more powerful and deadly, and the exponential growth in population creates new challenges that were not present hundreds of years ago. And even if the government can find an analogue, it must pass Thomas’ Calvinball test, which dismisses all historical evidence in support of gun restrictions.

Thomas’s ruling will undoubtedly make life more dangerous for millions of people, which he apparently has no problem with, though strangely, we didn’t hear any complaints from him when Congress passed a bill earlier this month providing more security for the court’s justices after a man brought a gun to Brett Kavanaugh’s house. Curious!

And speaking of hypocrisy so thick you could choke on it:

Surprise: The antiabortion, antigay, pro-asshole guy likes that more people can carry guns in public now


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