Speaking at a Thursday event hosted by the Georgetown University’s Center on Faith and Justice, Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who is also a member of the committee investigating the Capitol riot, accused former President Donald Trump of attempting to organize a coup to circumvent Joe Biden‘s victory in the 2020 presidential election and stay in power. During the talk, he called special attention to a tense moment involving Pence, NBC News reported.
After being taken to an undisclosed portion of the Capitol during the riot, Pence’s Secret Service agents, whom Raskin suspected were reporting directly to Trump’s security detail, asked him to enter an armored limousine. The intent, some have theorized, was to drive Pence away from the building, preventing him from certifying the election results, after he had signaled his unwillingness to go against his duties and keep Trump in power.
“[Pence] uttered what I think are the six most chilling words of this entire thing I’ve seen so far: ‘I’m not getting in that car,'” Raskin said. “He knew exactly what this inside coup they had planned for was going to do.”
One, I think it’s time that the Secret Service is disbanded and presidential security assigned elsewhere. Surely there is some part of the nation’s huge national security section capable of taking on the job. The Secret Service appears to be hopelessly inept and corrupt. The bizarre story of the two guys who duped the Secret Service into believing they were federal agents is just the most recent example of how screwed up they are. It’s a wonder none of the people they are supposed to be protecting have been harmed.
Two, every time we turn around there is more evidence that the January 6 insurrection was planned as part of an attempted coup, and a whole lot of elected Republicans were in on it. This is from yesterday.
Republican members of Congress were heavily involved in calls and meetings with former President Donald Trump and his top aides as they devised a strategy to overturn the election in December 2020, according to new evidence filed in federal court late Friday.
Deposition excerpts filed by the Jan 6. select committee — part of an effort to force former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to appear for an interview — suggest that some of Trump’s top allies in Congress were frequently present in meetings where a handful of strategies to prevent then-President-elect Joe Biden from taking office were discussed, including efforts to replace the leadership of the Justice Department with figures who would sow doubts about the legitimacy of the election.
Of course they were. Of course they did.
Elsewhere — It appears Macron will get another term as President of France. That’s a relief; Le Pen would have been a disaster.
Julian Borger writes in The Guardian that Mohammed bin Salman is betting big that Trump will get the White House back in 2024.
Saudi Arabia appears to be banking on Donald Trump’s return to office by refusing to help the US punish Russia for the Ukraine invasion, and by placing $2bn in a new, untested investment fund run by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. …
…The kingdom’s de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, reportedly declined to take a call from Joe Biden last month, showing his displeasure at the administration’s restrictions on arms sales; what he saw as its insufficient response to attacks on Saudi Arabia by Houthi forces in Yemen; its publication of a report into the Saudi regime’s 2018 murder of the dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi; and Biden’s prior refusal to deal in person with the crown prince.
Instead, Prince Mohammed shows signs of betting on the return to office of Trump in 2024, and the resumption of the Trump administration’s cosy relationship with Riyadh.
MBS is the kind of guy that somebody, someday, is going to depose. And not gently. Not right away, but someday.
It is truly amazing how corrupt American politics has become. I guess you could say is has always been that way and you are kind of right on that one. I thought Pence was a pure Trump lacky and I stand corrected. Pence may just have been a sold out Chrisian with limits, the vestiges of a rudimentary conscious, who is to say? It has been reported he had to solicit moral guidance from Dan Quayle, which is a really scarry thought right there. Either way, the story history will tell will stay unsettled on that issue for at least near eternity IMO. The Pence had a spine theory, needs serious bone evidence and DNA collaborative data at a minimum to not trigger red line reading on any BS meter calibrated in recent history.
That the House of Saud has funded the Trump Crime Family of late. It would only be news if they had not. Who does not know that Satan owns Trump's soul, his family's souls, and the souls of about 30% of Americans? I don't, by I am a minority on that issue. It is an oil thing, and it is hard not to at least consider that oil creates a catalyst for the influence of Satan. You can be a total atheist and not give at least some credibility to that notion. Why some self-ascribed Christians miss that obvious evidence is shocking, but perhaps they prefer to search for dubious miracles.
I am beginning to think we avoided a Trump's second term by a miracle, or at least by the skin of our teeth.
IMO, Pence got legal advice with an emphasis on one aspect: "Could I go to jail?" And the answer was/is: "Almost certainly!" The USSC showed no affection for Trump or his style. Had Pence thrown the election in violation of the law, it would have certainly gone to the USSC and (again opinion) the attempt to overturn the decision of the voters by throwing the election into the House of Representatives would have been found unconstitutional. (Because the Constitution is clear: it goes to the US House for a vote ONLY if there's not a winner by electoral vote count. And there was a clear decision. Pence would have taken the criminal blame – a Trump specialty.)
I'm pleased with the decision Pence made, but IMO there was no spine in it. Pence is afraid of prison.
The key is drama. It shouldn't be that Americans are so brain-dead that you have to package events of monumental import as entertainment, but you do. Anybody who has been paying attention to the facts can see the coup attempt was real. Trump probably never called it a coup attempt and anyone in on the scheme knew the thin veil of legitimacy was the claim of voter fraud.
The GOP voters who want to believe Trump won (About 2/3 of GOP voters) will never let go of ridiculous claims of fraud. Combined with nutty independents, that's 30 to 35% of voters. According to Politifact, a review of 2021 polls showed 60 to 70% believed Biden's election was legitimate. Nothing has happened to change this perception since, certainly not the exposure of the conspiracy behind the J6 riot. The most telling fact since the J6 riot is that when Mike Lindell invested millions in exposing voter fraud to validate the claim Trump won, not a single A/G from any red state would sign on. There is nothing factual and no legal theory to overturn the election of support the screams of fraud.
So the numbers suggest about a third of voters can't be reached with reason or fact. The remainder are (or were) predisposed to think the election was "free and fair." Trump will run on the basis he was robbed the last time around and voters "owe" him the White House as compensation for the election loss that never really happened. Note that Trump is not going to participate in debates (unless his people are asking the questions.)
I suggested that 60% are "predisposed" to think Turmp lost. IMO, about half are informed of the facts and the other half are politely called, "low-information voters." The only way to reach people who do bother to vote but don't bother to check the facts is to package the facts in a palatable way. Entertainment. Drama. (Or comedy – SNL has done a nice job, but they have a limited audience) How many people tuned in for the OJ Simpson trial?
Democracy is at risk and the component we need to save government for the people starts with drama riveting enough to attract the low info voter. I want the House to have public hearings to lay out what they know but DOJ has to file charges and put people on trial and it has to be the news in 2024.
BTW, almost the same percentages apply to who you are rooting for/against in the Russia/Ukraine war. Trump will NOT cross Putin so this may be the cental issue when Trump starts to run, less than a year from now. (And Trump will have to jump in early or he will have to displace other Republicans who are in the race before Trump.)
A agree: mBS 😉 will eventually end-up DOA. He believes he's so, so very much smarter than he really is.
If there was any justice in this world, mBS will be torn limb from limb by the poor people of his "country."
That would be a fitting end, no?
I personally would like to add irony with the involvement of bone saws.
<i>The kingdom’s de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, reportedly declined to take a call from Joe Biden last month, </i>
Reportedly the Emirates also did not pick up the phone. Two major Gulf oil sates not wanting to talk to the US President is shocking.