Finally Friday Reads: Trump Faces 641 Years in Jail

“Yesterday was a bad hair day.” John Buss, @Repeat1968

Happy Indictment Week Three, Sky Dancers!

We anticipate Fulton County, Georgia’s DA, will give us a week 4 shortly!  So, I’ll start right out!  What the fuck is wrong with one-third of the country?  Tal Axelrod of ABC News reports on this new poll. “Nearly two-thirds of Americans think Jan. 6 charges against Trump are serious: POLL  —  Trump was indicted for the third time on Tuesday and has pleaded not guilty.”

A majority of Americans (51%) think Tuesday’s federal indictment of former President Donald Trump related to Jan. 6 and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election is very serious, marking the highest figure yet of the three indictments he’s faced, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll.

Overall, 65% of adults think the charges are serious, including 51% who said they are very serious and 14% who said they are somewhat serious.

Only 24% said they are not serious, including 17% who said they are not serious at all.

Just over half — 52% — think Trump should have been charged with a crime in this case, while 32% said he should not have been. And a plurality of Americans (49%) said Trump should suspend his presidential campaign, while 36% said he shouldn’t.

At the same time, 46% think the charges against Trump are politically motivated, while 40% do not, per the ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.

The results show that the public believes the latest charges are more serious than those in two other indictments: one federal case in Florida concerning Trump’s alleged mishandling of and refusal to return government secrets after leaving office and the other state case in New York City over his hush money payments to an adult film actress in the days before the 2016 election, for which he is accused of falsifying business records.

He has pleaded not guilty in both of those cases and denies all wrongdoing.

In ABC News/Ipsos polls in the wake of the previous indictments, 42% of Americans said the documents-related charges were very serious and 30% saw the hush money-related charges as very serious, compared to 51% in this most recent indictment.

The asshole staged a violent coup attempt at the People’s House.  WTF are these complacent assholes thinking?  It was televised!  Some of his droggies are in jail for Seditious Conspiracy.  What will it take to wake these jerks up?  I agree with this Congress Critters.  Let the Trial be televised!  Let them resee how all the freaking witnesses against him are Republicans.  Trump even got charged under the KKK Act and will now face a tough Black Woman as judge.  How is that a political set-up by Democrats! Rebecca Shabad of NBC News has this story. “House Democrats call for live broadcasts of court proceedings in Trump criminal cases.”

More than three dozen House Democrats are calling on the policymaking body for federal courts to permit live broadcasting of court proceedings in the Justice Department’s cases charging former President Donald Trump with federal crimes.

In a letter led by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who served on the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, Democrats asked that the Judicial Conference “explicitly authorize the broadcasting of court proceedings in the cases of United States of America v. Donald J. Trump.”

“It is imperative the Conference ensures timely access to accurate and reliable information surrounding these cases and all of their proceedings, given the extraordinary national importance to our democratic institutions and the need for transparency,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter, sent Thursday to Judge Roslynn R. Mauskopf, the secretary of the Judicial Conference.

The letter, whose signatories also included other members who served on the former Jan. 6 committee, noted that the Judicial Conference has “historically supported increased transparency and public access to the courts’ activities.”

“Given the historic nature of the charges brought forth in these cases, it is hard to imagine a more powerful circumstance for televised proceedings,” the letter said. “If the public is to fully accept the outcome, it will be vitally important for it to witness, as directly as possible, how the trials are conducted, the strength of the evidence adduced and the credibility of witnesses.”

The letter was sent on the same day that Trump was arraigned at the federal courthouse in Washington during a proceeding that was not televised or live-streamed. He pleaded not guilty to four federal counts over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which led to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Federal prosecutors filed the grand jury indictment Tuesday.

Trump’s next court hearing in the case is set for Aug. 28. A trial date has not yet been set.

Before I continue, I should mention that the headline contains the number of years Trump could face so far, as calculated by the Washington Post‘s Philip Bump.  You can get a great list of all the indictments and charges there with their individual number of maxium years for conviction.

Dan Ladden-Hall writing at The Daily Beast had this interesting color from the courtroom. “Trump Was Seriously Salty About the Way a Judge Addressed Him. PRESIDENT GRUMP!”

Donald Trump was in a massive huff Thursday after he entered his not guilty plea to four charges stemming from his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, according to CNN. Sources told the outlet the former president was “pissed off” after departing the courthouse in Washington, D.C., and that he had been especially annoyed by one particular aspect of the hearings: namely, being referred to by Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya as “Mr. Trump.” He’s apparently grown accustomed to still being called “Mr. President” by supporters at his Bedminster golf club and Mar-a-Lago, despite being turfed out of the Oval Office over two years ago.

We also have this reporting from CNN’s Caitlin Collins. “Trump was in a sour and dejected mood following his arraignment, sources say.”

Trump was “pissed off” after he motorcaded through traffic, the sources said.

After the 27-minute legal proceeding, the former president did not take questions as he had planned to do at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport before his return flight to New Jersey.

Trump did speak briefly to the media, criticizing the charges and claiming he was being persecuted because he was running for office.

Trump had been fingerprinted and processed at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse before he pleaded not guilty to four criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

One aspect of the hearing that irked the former president — who is still referred to by his former title when at his Bedminster golf club or Mar-a-Lago resort — was when Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya referred to him as simply “Mr. Trump.”

I just hope it has serious agita from the experience and chokes on a grizzly, greasy over-cooked Big Mac.

Lawrence O’Donnell had me glued to the screen last night discussing two press concerence held by Trump Lawyer John Lauro. Instance one had his panel talking about a mistep.  The second instance had them stumped. Was this simply a PR stunt to help find a hold out Trumper in the Jury?  This is from The Daily Beast. “MSNBC Panel Stunned by Trump Lawyer’s ‘Admission’ on Fox News. Attorney John Lauro appeared on Fox News Thursday night to discuss the events of Trump’s latest indictment—but analysts say he said too much.” This is reported by William Vaillancourt.

An MSNBC panel was shocked by a pair of television interviews Thursday where Donald Trump lawyer John Lauro seemed to confirm an allegation contained within the Jan. 6-related indictment of the former president.

Lauro had told Fox News host Laura Ingraham earlier in the evening that, leading up to Jan. 6, Trump voiced his approval for Pence to send the election back to the states rather than have the Electoral College vote be certified.

“What President Trump said is, ‘Let’s go with option D,’” Lauro said on The Ingraham Angle. “Let’s just halt, let’s just pause the voting and allow the state legislatures to take one last look and make a determination as to whether or not the elections were handled fairly. That’s constitutional law. That’s not an issue of criminal activity.”

Lauro said basically the same thing on Newsmax a bit later.

MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell was surprised at the revelation.

“That is a Trump criminal defense lawyer quoting Donald Trump committing a crime,” he said. “Donald Trump’s criminal defense lawyer tonight added information to Jack Smith’s 42-page description of Donald Trump’s crimes. The conversation that John Lauro just described appears on page 34 of the indictment against his client.”

There was fun to be had when two Former Federal Prosecutors had to figure out what they had just seen.

MSNBC contributor and former Department of Justice lawyer Andrew Weissman considered Lauro’s statements to be “an admission,” as he wrote in a tweet.

“So, I don’t know why a defense lawyer is going to start giving facts about a critical moment,” he said on air, prompting O’Donnell to exclaim: “It’s the whole case!”

Weissman added: “It is such a damning thing when you put it in context because remember what the indictment alleges…[that] the reason this had to be done with the vice president is because prior to that, all the efforts that Donald Trump took with respect to the secretaries of state did not work.”

“I just don’t know why John, who is a good lawyer, didn’t just zip it and not say anything,” he continued.

“They don’t teach TV in law school,” O’Donnell quipped.

Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, also an MSNBC contributor, was stunned as well, saying bluntly, “It makes no sense.”

A few cartoon characters preening like stereotypical white men with big signs and not much else. Why do they all look alike?

My additional favorite headline came from The Washington Post. “Among MAGA extremists, Trump charges draw big talk, small crowds. The threat of pro-Trump political violence isn’t gone but has shifted from organized movements, analysts say.”  They are all afraid of getting time in the Big House and that ain’t Mar-a-Lardo.

“Many people have really given up,” said Steve Corson, 66, of Fredonia, Ariz., standing alone outside the courthouse in a “We the People” hat, a starkly different experience from Jan. 6, 2021, when he marched to the U.S. Capitol alongside thousands of other Trump fans.

For all the online outrage, only a handful of Trump supporters turned out to protest the latest charges against the former president, continuing a shift in the right-wing fervor that once drew thousands to D.C. rallies, clogged lakes with boat parades and mobilized a de facto “MAGA militia” in the armed groups that took his extremist rhetoric to the streets.

So, that’s it for me today.  I’m trying to beat the heat and do what I can around the house.  Right now, it’s my ritual cold bath and blasting fan and something to read.  Stay safe out there!  Cross the street if you see any dude in his maga militia playsuit!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?