Trump's Crime Spree

 

If only he stopped BEFORE grabbing women’s privates, this country wouldn’t be in a constitutional crisis with overtones of insurrection and civil war.

But as we know, if a criminal gets away with one crime, he won’t stop committing crimes until he is charged, convicted, and sentenced.

It’s getting difficult to keep up with our former president’s ongoing crime spree, but here’s just a snapshot of what the Big MAGAt will be facing.

Trump's 1/6 and election crime spree:

1. Seditious conspiracy

2. Incitement of insurrection

3. Obstruction of an official government proceeding

4. Conspiracy to defraud the US

Other crimes uncovered by the 1/6 hearings:

5. Wire Fraud (“Official Election Defense Fund”)

6. Witness tampering

 

But wait, there’s more.

Already howling mad MAGAts are pacing nervously, waiting to be told what they’re supposed to think and believe.

In the meantime, here are some facts for them to ignore:

The Wall Street Journal is reporting on the warrant and inventory of what was taken from Mar-a-Lago.

Here is what they list:

One set of docs marked TOP SECRET/SENSITIVE COMPARTMENTED INFORMATION (TS/SCI), the highest level of classification. (Did Trump give nuclear weapons secrets to Putin or the Saudis? If so, he violated the Espionage Act of 1917.)
Four sets of docs marked TOP SECRET Three sets of docs marked SECRET.
Three sets of docs marked CONFIDENTIAL .
20 boxes of other items including binders of photos, a handwritten note, info on the president of France, and the clemency order for Roger Stone.
Plus documents that exist that are so sensitive they can’t even BE LISTED on the inventory.

The August 8, 2020 FBI’s search warrant for Mar-a-Lago specified:

18 USC 2071 — Concealment, removal or mutilation
18 USC 793 — Gathering, transmitting or losing defence information
18 USC 1519 — Destruction, alteration or falsification of records in Federal investigations

These are crimes number 7,8,and 9, not counting the Espionage Act of 1917.

But wait, there’s more.

Even more charges are to come from SDNY and Georgia.

~~~~~~~
Ruh, roh!

Cue howling mad MAGAts:

"But Hillary's emails!"
"But Hunter Biden's laptop!"
"But gas prices!"
"But leftists HATE America!"
"But Black criminals!!!"

And now this:

“But whatabout Obama’s 30 million documents?”

Let’s give them a couple more facts to ignore, shall we?

The Washington Post reports:

In its statement, NARA said that it obtained “exclusive legal and physical custody” of Obama’s records when he left office in 2017. It said that about 30 million pages of unclassified records were transferred to a NARA facility in the Chicago area and that they continue to be maintained “exclusively by NARA.”

Classified records from Obama are kept in a NARA facility in Washington, the statement said.

“As required by the [Presidential Records Act], former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA stores the Presidential records of his Administration,” the statement said.

 

The poor pitiful, victimized, traumatized and bewildered MAGAts. They can’t even blame the Black Guy for any crimes.

Party of "Law and Order"

 

In September 2016 Trump declared,“If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment? The mob takes the Fifth.”

On August 10, 2020 Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment rights 440 times and declined to answer questions from the New York attorney general. And of course he whined, "witch hunt". He's only warming up. Count on him taking the Fifth like a mob boss for the following pending charges:

18 U.S. Code § 1924 - Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material

18 U.S. Code § 1505 - Obstruction of proceedings before departments, agencies, and committees

18 U.S.C. § 371 - Conspiracy to Defraud the US

MAGAts are outraged at the “politicized FBI” acting on a warrant approved by a judge Trump appointed. 

And they’re still angry over the FBI refusing to interfere with the election, rightfully denying Trump’s demand to “Just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen".

Now "back the blue" and "law and order" MAGAts are howling, "Defund the FBI!"

Trae Crowder reacted to the radical Right’s reaction:

“There’s something real juicy about Mr. Lock-Her-Up getting busted for mishandling classified shit...These people are immune to irony and allergic to self-awareness.”

Take Mike Pence...please.

On 10-28-16 Mike Pence sanctimoniously tweeted:
“Donald Trump and I commend the FBI for reopening an investigation into Clinton’s personal email server because no one is above the law.”

Upon learning the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago for classified documents Trump illegally seized, the whiny hypocritical asshole tweeted his sanctimonious reversal of his previous sanctimonious tweet from 2016:

"I share the deep concern of millions of Americans over the unprecedented search of the personal residence of President Trump. No former President of the United States has ever been subject to a raid of their personal residence in American history...After years where FBI agents were found to be acting on political motivation during our administration, the appearance of continued partisanship by the Justice Department must be addressed...Yesterday's action undermines public confidence in our system of justice and Attorney General Garland must give a full accounting to the American people as to why this action was taken and he must do so immediately."

“Unprecedented”? No former president ever sent an armed violent mob to the Capitol to kill Mike Pence and overturn an election.

And it was NOT a "raid". Most Black people can tell him the difference between a search and a raid. Doors are kicked in and weapons are drawn in a raid. Always with the "Victim Card", these pearl-clutching, far Right types.

He may as well have written, “No one is above the law, except for Donald Trump”.

That is what MAGAts truly believe.

Are you one of them?

Here’s a quick quiz to find out:

Q: Did Biden defeat Trump in a fair 2020 election?

A: No.

Q: Show us the evidence Trump won.

A: But Trump, along with his loyal lieutenants and co-conspirators Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman said so.

(There is no evidence. They tried and failed to show it in 60 courts.)

Q: Do you still believe Trump over his DOJ, his Attorney General, Homeland Security and his White House Counsel, as well as all the state AG’s and election certifications?

A: Yes. Trump doesn’t lie. Everyone not loyal to him does.

And there’s your answer.

"You aint gonna learn what you don't wanna to know."

Airtight

 Justice Arrives August 8, 2022:

18 U.S. Code § 1924 - Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material

More Justice Coming Soon:

18 U.S. Code § 1505 - Obstruction of proceedings before departments, agencies, and committees

923. 18 U.S.C. § 371 - Conspiracy to Defraud the United States

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

18 U.S. Code § 1924 - Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material

Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.

(b)

For purposes of this section, the provision of documents and materials to the Congress shall not constitute an offense under subsection (a).

(c)

In this section, the term “classified information of the United States” means information originated, owned, or possessed by the United States Government concerning the national defense or foreign relations of the United States that has been determined pursuant to law or Executive order to require protection against unauthorized disclosure in the interests of national security.

=

18 U.S. Code § 2071 - Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally

(a)

Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

(b)

Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.

(a)

=

18 U.S. Code § 1505 - Obstruction of proceedings before departments, agencies, and committees

Whoever, with intent to avoid, evade, prevent, or obstruct compliance, in whole or in part, with any civil investigative demand duly and properly made under the Antitrust Civil Process Act, willfully withholds, misrepresents, removes from any place, conceals, covers up, destroys, mutilates, alters, or by other means falsifies any documentary material, answers to written interrogatories, or oral testimony, which is the subject of such demand; or attempts to do so or solicits another to do so; or

Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress—

Shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both.

=

923. 18 U.S.C. § 371 - Conspiracy to Defraud the United States

The general conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371, creates an offense "[i]f two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose. (emphasis added). See Project, Tenth Annual Survey of White Collar Crime, 32 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 137, 379-406 (1995)(generally discussing § 371).

The operative language is the so-called "defraud clause," that prohibits conspiracies to defraud the United States. This clause creates a separate offense from the "offense clause" in Section 371. Both offenses require the traditional elements of Section 371 conspiracy, including an illegal agreement, criminal intent, and proof of an overt act.

Although this language is very broad, cases rely heavily on the definition of "defraud" provided by the Supreme Court in two early cases, Hass v. Henkel, 216 U.S. 462 (1910), and Hammerschmidt v. United States, 265 U.S. 182 (1924). In Hass the Court stated:

The statute is broad enough in its terms to include any conspiracy for the purpose of impairing, obstructing or defeating the lawful function of any department of government . . . (A)ny conspiracy which is calculated to obstruct or impair its efficiency and destroy the value of its operation and reports as fair, impartial and reasonably accurate, would be to defraud the United States by depriving it of its lawful right and duty of promulgating or diffusing the information so officially acquired in the way and at the time required by law or departmental regulation.

Hass, 216 U.S. at 479-480. In Hammerschmidt, Chief Justice Taft, defined "defraud" as follows:

To conspire to defraud the United States means primarily to cheat the Government out of property or money, but it also means to interfere with or obstruct one of its lawful governmental functions by deceit, craft or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest. It is not necessary that the Government shall be subjected to property or pecuniary loss by the fraud, but only that its legitimate official action and purpose shall be defeated by misrepresentation, chicane or the overreaching of those charged with carrying out the governmental intention.

In summary, those activities which courts have held defraud the United States under 18 U.S.C. § 371 affect the government in at least one of three ways:

1.   They cheat the government out of money or property;

2.   They interfere or obstruct legitimate Government activity; or

3.   They make wrongful use of a governmental instrumentality.

Hopeful Signs

 

This summer has brought us hopeful signs for justice and democracy in our country.

The U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol has done an excellent job in establishing the factual narrative of Trump’s coup.

The sworn testimony from Trump’s own people confirms his intent to strong arm state officials and the Justice Department into corrupting the election. They reveal his plan to send illegal electors and his House toadies to overturn the election.

And chillingly, they also reveal his personal attempt to lead his armed mob to storm the Capitol.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has finally made it clear the Justice Department is actively investigating Trump and his inner circle of seditionists.

This is all good news, but we still have a long way to go.

There must be indictments and convictions for the guilty. If there are no severe consequences for their crimes and abuses of power, their fascist inclinations will only be encouraged. The groundwork for someone worse than Trump will be set.

The rest is up to we the people. Americans need to wake up to the radical Right’s ongoing war on our democracy and rule of law. We cannot let any of them be above the law.

This can only happen if the Republican Party is defeated soundly for siding with Trump and party over Constitution and country.

American fascists will prevail if we fail in any of three critical fronts in defending our republic.

1. Trump must be indicted and convicted.

2. Massive voter turnout is needed to assure the Republicans lose seats in 2022.

3. Massive voter turnout in 2024 will be needed to assure Democratic control of Congress and the White House.

Then we can talk about expanding the Supreme Court, enforcing a code of ethics, and impeaching the corrupt perjurers and insurrectionist Justices.

Even after jumping these hurdles, we must never forget the threat of fascism is always lurking in our radicalized Right.

Trump just emboldened them to come out of the woodwork.

Americans need to understand the struggle against fascism will never end, because its racist authoritarian roots run deep in our culture.

We defeated General Lee, but the racism and treason of the Confederacy still poison our Union.

We defeated Hitler and Mussolini, but Nazis and fascism still infect our population.

This is because radical Right propagandists keep religious, low-information white people as ignorant, misinformed, and frightened as possible. Gullible white Evangelicals make excellent sheep for fascism. It’s a good sign that some of them are finally turning from Trump, but they will always be the Republican base.

Trump's "I love the poorly educated", reveals their game plan. A powerful propaganda network still agitates, frightens, enrages, indoctrinates and deludes the radical white Right.

It boils down to our one last hope for democracy and human decency.

The Republican Party must be defeated and dishonored for their loyalty to Trump and their enthrallment with Trumpism. They must be defeated and dishonored for their embrace of the Big Lie, and their war on voter rights and fair elections.

There are cracks in the dam. Elderly voters are abandoning the Republican Party. Younger people are opening their eyes to the looming threats to their future.

We need more Republicans to find their conscience and learn what real patriotism is. They need to learn that Trumpism, voter suppression and partisan control of elections are the antithesis of patriotism and our experiment in a democratic republic.

If justice is not done, and we fail to unite and vote with most Americans in this cause, then we have only seen the beginning of a great darkness that will cover our land.

We did it last election. Let’s do it even better this year.

Can't Happen Here?

 

I used to get a lot of flack for comparing Trump and his cult to Nazis. “But they aren’t sending Jews, educators and communists to concentration camps”, I’m told.

Only by the grace of our democratic institutions of elections, checks and balances, I would respond.

Their hate and lies are every bit as toxic as Nazi hate and lies.

If you disagree, have a look at this Trump fascist:

==

"Former Trump White House aide who met with January 6 panel attacks witnesses, lawmakers in profane and sexist rant"

(CNN)A former Trump White House aide who met with the January 6 committee earlier this week went on a profane and sexist rant on a livestream after his testimony, where he railed against the lawmakers and attacked other witnesses, according to audio posted to his Telegram.

The aide, Garrett Ziegler, met with the House panel on Tuesday. Lawmakers were likely interested in hearing from him because of his ties to one of the most shocking episodes of the 2020 election saga: A White House meeting where then-President Donald Trump's outside allies tried to convince him to declare martial law and use the military to seize voting machines.

In the 27-minute livestream, Ziegler used vulgar and misogynistic language to attack Cassidy Hutchinson and Alyssa Farah Griffin, two women who worked for the Trump White House but have since publicly broken from the former President and cooperated with the January 6 panel.

He also accused the January 6 House select committee of being "anti-White," without any evidence. (The nine-member panel is led by Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, who is Black.)

"They're Bolsheviks," Ziegler said in the stream, referring to the far-left communists who led the Soviet Union, "so, they probably do hate the American founders and most White people in general. This is a Bolshevistic anti-White campaign. If you can't see that, your eyes are freaking closed. And so, they see me as a young Christian who they can try to basically scare, right?"

At the White House, Ziegler was an aide to Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro, who was charged with contempt of Congress for defying the panel's subpoena. (He pleaded not guilty.)

 On his Telegram channel, Ziegler continues to promote debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. He falsely claimed in recent posts that "the election was stolen" and that the January 6 attack on the US Capitol "was one of the greatest orchestrated false flags in history."

==

Is anyone else reminded of the line from Hamlet, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks"?

Herr Ziegler’s remarks sound exactly like those we’d hear at a Nazi rally.

It’s all there. Racism, red baiting, demonization, false victimhood, sexism, anger and hatred, and of course the “Big Lie”, all wrapped in his whiteness and religion.

He’s just another of the many Trumpists who’ve proven the axiom, “When fascism comes to America, it will be carrying a Bible wrapped in the flag”.

Andrew Torba, CEO and founder of the Trumpist neo-Nazi social media site Gab said, “We’re building a parallel Christian society because we are fed up and done with the Judeo-Bolshevik one.”

Gab is the site used by the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter to spew his racism and anti-Semitism.

The campaign to elect Republican candidate Doug Mastriano as Pennsylvania's governor paid Gab $5,000 on April 28 for “campaign consulting,” according to the latest campaign finance disclosures.

On a visit to Europe to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the first world war, Donald Trump insisted to his then chief of staff, John Kelly: “Well, Hitler did a lot of good things.”

Am I exaggerating their rhetoric?

Let’s compare their words to the words of Adolf Hitler.

"National Socialism neither opposes the church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary it stands on the ground of a real Christianity."
Hitler, 1934 speech

“The National Government...regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life." - Adolf Hitler "My New Order" - Proclamation to the German Nation, Berlin, February 1, 1933

"The Marxists will march with democracy until they succeed in indirectly obtaining for their criminal aims the support of even the national intellectual world, destined by them for extinction."

“The German state is gravely attacked by Marxism."

"When I recognized the Jew as the leader of the Social Democracy, the scales dropped from my eyes."

"God the Almighty has made our nation. By defending its existence we are defending His work. . . (Hitler radio address, 30 January 1945)

The American radical Right have the distinction of openly sharing other Nazi values.

Suppressing democracy is important to them. "The [Nazi party] should not become a constable of public opinion, but must dominate it. It must not become a servant of the masses, but their master!” 

The far Right’s primary Big Lie is “liberal media” in their war on journalism. Journalism has always been seen as a threat to totalitarians and authoritarians.

The German Nazis used the term “Lügenpresse”, or lying press, in their campaign to destroy journalism. Now American fascists cry “liberal media” and “fake news” when the truth threatens their agenda.

Trump echoes this in every way he can: “Just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what's happening.”

On October 10, 1936 Heinrich Himmler created the Reich Central Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortion, or Special Office (II S), a sub-department of Executive Department II of the Gestapo.

The question now is, when will, or can, decent Republicans like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who respect our Constitution regain influence in their party?

Former Republican strategist Stuart Stevens is among them.

Stevens described the GOP under Donald Trump as a party of cynics, stooges, racists, and obsequious enablers whose profiles in cowardice bear an uncomfortable resemblance to 1930s Germany. “When I talk to Republican politicians, I hear Franz von Papen,” he says, referencing the German chancellor who convinced Germans that so-called radical leftists were a far greater threat than Adolf Hitler. “They all know that Trump is an idiot. They all know that he’s uniquely unqualified to be president. But they convinced themselves that he was a necessity.”

Stevens calls Trump a “traitor” to his country. “I really think he is against America,” he says, blaming the Republican Party for “a complete collapse of responsibility that they had to defend democracy in America.” 

Essentially the fate of our republic lies in the hands of brave Republicans who renounce Trumpism.

God help us. 

Righteous Trumpists

 

You gotta love radical Right religious Trumpists. Salt of the Earth and light of the world.

Have you noticed how self-righteous Trumpists have no sense of humor? 

I'm kidding, of course. They love to laugh... at the misfortunes of people they hate.

But they are truly the enlightened ones...who know a zygote is a person.

What would Righteous Trumpists do if they went to a restaurant and ordered a chicken dinner... and were served a poached fertilized egg?

Enjoy a nice poached "chicken" dinner, or have egg on their face?

Nothing like a "chicken" dinner to fill you up when you're hungry.

I'm also hearing people say religious Righteous Trumpists appreciate good solid oak furniture... made from acorns.

But they know what's really happening. Just ask them who won the 2020 presidential election.

Thank you. I'll be here all week. 

Who's Next?

 

At the US Holocaust Memorial Museum:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

 - Pastor Martin Niemöller

This was 1930's Germany. 

This is the USA now:

Trump and his bigots continue to call Democrats socialists or communists.

The Party of Trump is as anti-union as they come.

Now women are losing their right to reproductive freedom, just as they did under Himmler's Reich Central Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortion in 1936.

Jewish women are also being denied the right to their religious faith. Jews believe life begins at first breath, but are now being forced to live under right-wing Christian rule.

What happens when Jews are no longer allowed equal rights and their freedom of religion?

Most Republicans, white supremacists, and Nazis don’t care...

An acorn is not an oak tree. A zygote is not a person. The great majority of Americans understand this.

But the radical Right theocrats will give a cell cluster more rights than they would for women and Jews.

We can be certain the radical theocrats will not be satisfied with overturning Roe v. Wade. They've admitted it.

Authoritarians will always continue their assault on democracy and equality. They've only just begun.

Who's next on their list of targets? LGBTQ rights will be attacked. Even inter-racial marriage and the right to contraception are in their sights.

For them the First Amendment matters only in allowing their lies and hate speech. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” not so much.

As if being massacred in Temples wasn’t enough...

The Anti-Defamation League has been documenting radical Right terrorism:

“A Dark and Constant Rage: 25 Years of Right-Wing Terrorism in the United States”

 To illustrate the threat of right-wing terrorism in the United States, the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism has compiled a list of 150 right-wing terrorist acts, attempted acts, plots and conspiracies from the past 25 years (1993-2017).  These include terrorist incidents from a wide variety of white supremacists, from neo-Nazis to Klansmen to racist skinheads, as well as incidents connected to anti-government extremists such as militia groups, sovereign citizens and tax protesters.  The list also includes incidents of anti-abortion terror as well as from other, smaller right-wing extremist movements.

Right-wing extremists annually murder a number of Americans, but only some of those murders occur in connection with terrorist acts.  There are, after all, hundreds of thousands of adherents of right-wing extremist movements in the United States and all such movements have some degree of association with criminal activity.  No one should think, therefore, that the incidents listed here represent the breadth of right-wing violence in the U.S.  But, as acts of terrorism, they do show right-wing movements at their most vicious and ambitious.

The reactionary response to the Obama presidency and rise of Trump reveal the vast breadth and depth of racist hate and extremism in our country.

This history of racist terrorism is ongoing.

“New ADL Data: Far-Right Extremists Responsible for Overwhelming Majority of Domestic Extremist-Related Murders In 2021”

 New York, NY, February 15, 2022 … Right-wing extremists were linked to at least 26 extremist-related murders in the United States in 2021 and have been responsible for 75 percent of such murders in the last ten years, according to new data from ADL (Anti-Defamation League).

According to an annual analysis of extremist fatalities by ADL Center on Extremism, domestic extremists were responsible for killing at least 29 people in the United States, in 19 separate incidents.

Murder and Extremism in 2021: Summary of Major Findings

Domestic extremists killed at least 29 people in the United States in 2021, up from the 23 murders documented in 2020, but far fewer than the killings in any of the years 2015-19 (which ranged from 45 to 78).

White supremacists killed more people in 2021 than any other type of extremist

Of the 443 people killed at the hands of extremists over the last 10 years, 333 (or 75%) were killed by right-wing extremists.

Of the 333 right-wing extremist-related killings over the last 10 years, at least 73 percent have been at the hands of white supremacists.

This is horrifying to decent Americans.

And it doesn’t even include Trump’s thousands of terrorists who tried to seize our Capitol to overturn our election.

As it is, Trump’s anti-democracy insurrectionists at the state level are rapidly seizing control of elections to deny the will of the voters.

They are fascists. Period. Or have I said that before?