Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Trump should face these two federal charges based solely on public information: former prosecutor



Donald Trump should be charged with two federal crimes based solely on publicly available information, according to former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade.

McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor, appeared on MSNBC on Tuesday night to discuss her 26-page "model prosecution memo" for Trump published by Just Security.

McQuade said that based on public reporting and Jan. 6 documents, "I think there's a strong case both as to what Donald Trump did, and what his intent was."

"If you look at this, it seems to me that there's very strong evidence that Donald Trump sought to pressure Mike Pence to overturn the election, and that he knew, because of all the information he had, that it was based on a false premise that the election was stolen," McQuade said.

"So what the prosecution memo does is it amasses all that evidence, it puts it in one document, and then it analyzes it," McQuade added. "What are the elements of the offenses, and does the set of facts satisfy the elements of those offenses? And I submit that these two charges that I've laid out here — conspiracy to defraud the United States, and obstruction of an official proceeding — are met by the evidence of Donald Trump pressuring Mike Pence to overturn the election as he did in private meetings, as he did in pubic remarks, as he did on Twitter."

"And, importantly — and I'm not sure it's been gathered in one place — all of the information that Donald Trump had that should have led him to believe that he knew that the election was not stolen," she said. "You know, he has said repeatedly it was stolen, but at some point, when enough people tell you it wasn't, at what point is it a reasonable inference to believe that he never believed it at all? He made it up out of full cloth. A person can say all day, 'The sky is green, the sky is green, the sky is green.' But after dozens of people tell you the sky is blue, and there's not a wit of evidence that the sky is green, I don't think a reasonable juror in America would think that he believe the sky is green."

Watch below.

[Rick Plant]

A Coup in Plain Sight

This is a coup in plain sight. History will judge where we stand in this moment. Which side are you on?

Watch:

[Richard Smith]

Trump tried to warn NATO and Germany back in 2018 about the risks of buying oil from Russia.  The United States pays for their defense from Russia, but they decided to send Russia billions for oil.  And Biden lit the fuse with his disastrous energy policy that made even the US dependent on Russian oil (buying over 250 million barrels).  Thankfully 2024 is a day closer.  After the stock market collapses when the oil prices reach all-time highs and gas prices are over $6 per gallon, Old Joe will go down as perhaps the worst president in US history.  And that is assuming the Russians don't go even further in the face of his weakness and invade other East European countries.  As Obama famously said, "don't underestimate the ability of Joe to F things up."

[Rick Plant]

Truck convoy backers tied to Capitol riot — including MAGA lawyer who called for hangings on Jan. 5: report

A new report claims that groups who are backing the so-called "Freedom Convoy" that was scheduled to leave from California on Wednesday include a political action committee that has focused on defending Florida GOP Congressman Matt Gaetz, as well as a group led by former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn.

"Though it was billed as a grass-roots, nonpartisan event intended to oppose government Covid-19 mandates, a trucker demonstration that left California for Washington, D.C., on Wednesday appeared to be tightly aligned with far-right organizations and activists," the New York Times reports. "Many of those behind the demonstration, which was planned as an American version of last month’s chaotic Canadian protest, have connections to the violent attack on the Capitol in January 2021, or supported the lie that fraud in the 2020 presidential election was to blame for Donald J. Trump’s loss."

About 40 truckers reportedly gathered for the kickoff of the convoy Adelanto, Calif., on Wednesday.

A flag-strewn send-off rally that resembled a Make America Great Again event drew about a hundred more vehicles," the NYT reports. "Unlike in Ottawa, where a recent weekslong protest shut down parts of Canada’s capital, the activity near Barstow, Calif., on Wednesday seemed highly staged, with memorabilia stands and food trucks."

Last month, the Great American Patriot Project PAC, which focused on defending Gaetz amid allegations that he sex-trafficked a minor, issued a call for people to support the convoy.

"Darrel Courtney, the chief executive of the Adelanto Stadium and Event Center, said he received a call last Tuesday from Leigh Dundas, an Orange County lawyer and Republican activist, who wanted to rent the parking lot," the NYT reports. "Ms. Dundas, a lawyer for an anti-vaccine group whose leader was charged with entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Ms. Dundas was videotaped the day before the riot rallying pro-Trump crowds with calls to kill any “alleged Americans” who might have helped undermine the 2020 elections."

Dundas told a crowd in DC on Jan. 5, “We would be well within our rights to take any alleged American who acted in a turncoat fashion and sold us out and committed treason — we would be well within our right to take them out back and shoot them or hang them."

Other organizations supporting the convoy include those led by anti-vaxx leader Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Flynn.

"That latter group, the America Project, has combined its attempts to challenge Covid-19 policies with the relentless promotion of pro-Trump election conspiracy theories," the NYT reports. "The group is run by Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive of Overstock.com who, with General Flynn, was central in a bizarre plot to persuade the former president to use the military to seize voting machines in a bid to stay in power."

https://www.rawstory.com/convoy/

[Rick Plant]

Trump ally pressed Arizona Republican to pass bill to erase 2020 election results: report



One of Donald Trump's key advisors pushed Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers to advance a bill to erase the 2020 election results, The Arizona Republic reported Wednesday.

"In a Feb. 11 call, Boris Epshteyn, a lawyer and former special assistant to Trump, pointed again to baseless claims of widespread election fraud as he tried without success to rally support for a vote on a bill by state Republican Rep. Mark Finchem to set aside the results in three Arizona counties, Bowers told The Arizona Republic’s political podcast The Gaggle during a wide-ranging interview this week," the newspaper reported.

Finchem, who praised the Jan. 6 insurrection, is running for Secretary of State in Arizona on a platform of Trump's "big lie" of election fraud. In 2018, Finchem spread conspiracy theories about so-called "MAGA bomber" Cesar Sayoc, who pleaded guilty to 65 felony counts after mail pipe bombs to Trump critics.

Speaker Bowers revealed what he said to Epshteyn when asked why he would not advance Finchem's legislation.

"I said, ‘Because I think it’s a slap in the face of the people of Arizona. It’s a slap in the face of the House of Representatives that we’re going to decertify and take away the sovereign vote of 3.5 million people based on no proof that I’ve ever seen,'” Bowers explained.

He also said he is still waiting for Rudy Giuliani to substantiate his allegations of fraud.

“I said, ‘Right. Send me their names. Send me their names,’” Bowers said. “Rudy didn’t send them. Finchem’s never produced them. Where are they? Where is this proof? It’s been only 15 months. How long do I got to wait?”

In a statement to the newspaper, Epshteyn did not substantiate his debunked allegations of fraud, but instead claimed the resolution takes action regarding "what is widely known as fact, that the 2020 election in Arizona was rigged and stolen from President Trump."

Epshteyn has been subpoenaed by the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"The outreach from Epshteyn is a reminder of Finchem’s close connections to Trump’s political network, and of the continued efforts by Trump’s supporters to recast the 2020 election resultsThe outreach from Epshteyn is a reminder of Finchem’s close connections to Trump’s political network, and of the continued efforts by Trump’s supporters to recast the 2020 election results," the newspaper reported. "Epshteyn, a strategic adviser on Trump’s 2020 campaign, has acknowledged he was part of the pro-Trump effort to set up 'alternate electors' in key states, which involved transmitting certificates to the federal government that indicated a Trump victory where Biden was the certified winner."

Read the full report:

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/02/23/ex-trump-aide-pressed-arizona-house-speaker-erase-2020-election-results/6888315001/

[Rick Plant]

Three white supremacists plead guilty in plot to attack US power grid -- and spark a 'race war'



The United States Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that three avowed white supremacists have pleaded guilty to plotting to attack the United States power grid.

According to the DOJ, Christopher Brenner Cook, 20, of Columbus, Ohio; Jonathan Allen Frost, 24, of West Lafayette, Indiana, and of Katy, Texas; and Jackson Matthew Sawall, 22, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, all pleaded guilty this week to one count of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.

The DOJ alleges that the plot was first hatched in 2019, when Cook and Frost began discussing it after meeting in an online chat forum. Sawall was recruited to join them shortly afterward, the DOJ alleges.

As part of the conspiracy, each defendant was assigned a substation in a different region of the United States," DOJ claims. "The plan was to attack the substations, or power grids, with powerful rifles. The defendants believed their plan would cost the government millions of dollars and cause unrest for Americans in the region. They had conversations about how the possibility of the power being out for many months could cause war, even a race war, and induce the next Great Depression."

Assistant Director Timothy Langan of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division said in a prepared statement that the three men "wanted to carry out such a plot because of their adherence to racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist views."

https://www.rawstory.com/white-supremacist-terror-plot/

[Rick Plant]

Criminal Donald and the GOP weakened the United States by pushing a bogus election fraud lie causing even further division amongst Americans. Not only that, it damages our democracy and our election process. The GOP attempted coup allowed a thug like Putin to overthrow Ukraine when he sees right wing fascists in America doing it to our own country. The radical right's relentless attempt to delegimaitize President Biden is an absolute disgrace as they praise and root for Putin to take Ukraine. The GOP are the ultimate anti American traitors.     

Trump's praise for Putin will look 'atrocious' when tens of thousands die: former ambassador



Donald Trump's recent praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin will look "atrocious" if, as U.S. intelligence predicts, tens of thousands of people die during an invasion of Ukraine, according to Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia.

"There's going to come a moment of truth very soon," McFaul said on MSNBC on Wednesday. "There is a good and evil in the world."

McFaul pointed to not only Trump's comments praising Putin, but also those of his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.

"There is an autocratic Putin that's about to attack a democratic Ukraine, and if all the predictions that we have, all the intelligence is right, tens of thousands of people are going to die, and Mr. Pompeo's comments that he just made yesterday or today, and Mr. Trump's comments that he just made, are going to look really, really silly. They're going to look atrocious that when it was good and evil, they were standing next to evil."

"And the second thing that they fundamentally don't get, they always talk about 'Biden's weak, Biden's week, Biden's weak,'" McFaul said. "What makes us weak in the world is this kind of division. This is exactly what makes us weak, when we are divided amongst ourselves when it's a clearcut thing between good and evil. We are on the eve of probably the biggest war in Europe since 1939, and what are they focused on? Attacking the president of the United States. That makes us weak."

Watch below.

https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-2656780239/

[Rick Plant]

Just another example of Russian collusion. 4 years of weakness with Criminal Donald got us where we are today. Nobody hides info like that unless they are up to no good. And the GOP looked the other way and allowed this criminality to go on. Not to mention Criminal Donald took Top Secret documents to Florida. Who knows what he was doing with it. 

Trump went to 'extraordinary lengths' to hide details of Putin meetings, report says

January 14, 2019



Donald Trump went to "extraordinary lengths" to keep details from his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin secret – even from officials within his own administration, The Washington Post reported this weekend, citing unnamed sources.

After meeting with Putin at the 2017 Group of 20summit in Hamburg, Germany, Trump took his interpreter's notes and told him not to discuss the meeting with anyone, including other U.S. officials, the Post reported.

The paper said Trump's handling of the Hamburg meeting was "part of a broader pattern by the president of shielding his communications with Putin from public scrutiny and preventing even high-ranking officials in his own administration from fully knowing what he has told one of the United States’ main adversaries."

No detailed record exists from five of Trump's interactions with the Russian leader since taking office, the Post reported. It was unclear if that was the only time Trump took his interpreters' notes, but the paper said several administration officials have been unable to obtain a readout from his meeting last year with Putin in Helsinki.

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was present at the meeting in Hamburg. The Post said Tillerson did not answer questions about Trump asking the interpreter to keep details of the meeting quiet, or if Trump took the interpreter's notes.

Fiona Hill, a senior Russia adviser on the National Security Council, and former State Department official John Heffern asked Trump's interpreter for more information about the Hamburg meeting, which is how they learned of the president's request to keep the details under wraps, the Post reported.

In a news conference after the meeting, Tillerson said Putin denied interfering in the 2016 election, but refused to say how Trump responded to the denial, per the Post. Officials told the Post that the only detail from the meeting that the interpreter did share was that Trump told Putin, "I believe you."

Democrats were alarmed by The Washington Post report.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., has sought details from Trump's meetings with Putin and, after the 2018 Helsinki meeting, called for the president's interpreter to testify before Congress.

In August, she and Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., sent Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a letter requesting records from that meeting, including the interpreter's notes. They cited the "extraordinary and, to our knowledge, unprecedented circumstances of President Trump’s two hour, one-on-one meeting with a leader identified as a threat to the United States by President Trump’s own National Security Strategy."

"When he takes the interpreter's notes and wants to destroy them so no one can see what was said in written transcript, you know it raises serious questions about the relationship between this president and Putin," Sen. Dick Durbin said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said if the Post's report is accurate, Trump "broke all protocol."

"The American government does not know what was discussed between Trump and Vladimir Putin in that, frankly, pathetic, embarrassing encounter where Trump was kowtowing on the world stage to Vladimir Putin in Helsinki," Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on CNN's "State of the Union."

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., plans to seek more information about Trump's meetings with Putin.

"It’s been several months since Helsinki and we still don’t know what went on in that meeting," Engel told the Post. "It’s appalling. It just makes you want to scratch your head."

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Sunday that he accepted Trump's denial and said those one-on-one meetings are part of the president's personal style.

"He likes to create a personal relationship, build that relationship, even rebuild that relationship like he does with other world leaders around," McCarthy said on "Face the Nation."

When asked if thought Trump's interpreter should be asked to testify, McCarthy said, "I want this president to be able to build the relationship, even on a personal level, with all the world leaders."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/13/trump-putin-meetings-interpreter-notes/2565471002/