Return from Market with Black Cat by Atelier de Jiel
Good Afternoon!!
The shocks to the system from the ousted madman and his crazy coup attempt are still coming. I’m sure you’ve heard about the story that broke in The New York Times last night. It seems Trump actually tried to get the Justice Department to overturn the election results in Georgia. I don’t know what he planned to do in the other states he lost. Will we learn more as time goes on?
The Justice Department’s top leaders listened in stunned silence this month: One of their peers, they were told, had devised a plan with President Donald J. Trump to oust Jeffrey A. Rosen as acting attorney general and wield the department’s power to force Georgia state lawmakers to overturn its presidential election results.
The unassuming lawyer who worked on the plan, Jeffrey Clark, had been devising ways to cast doubt on the election results and to bolster Mr. Trump’s continuing legal battles and the pressure on Georgia politicians. Because Mr. Rosen had refused the president’s entreaties to carry out those plans, Mr. Trump was about to decide whether to fire Mr. Rosen and replace him with Mr. Clark.
The department officials, convened on a conference call, then asked each other: What will you do if Mr. Rosen is dismissed?
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1919-1920
The answer was unanimous. They would resign.
Their informal pact ultimately helped persuade Mr. Trump to keep Mr. Rosen in place, calculating that a furor over mass resignations at the top of the Justice Department would eclipse any attention on his baseless accusations of voter fraud.
More details:
When Mr. Trump said on Dec. 14 that Attorney General William P. Barr was leaving the department, some officials thought that he might allow Mr. Rosen a short reprieve before pressing him about voter fraud. After all, Mr. Barr would be around for another week.
Instead, Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Rosen to the Oval Office the next day. He wanted the Justice Department to file legal briefs supporting his allies’ lawsuits seeking to overturn his election loss. And he urged Mr. Rosen to appoint special counsels to investigate not only unfounded accusations of widespread voter fraud, but also Dominion, the voting machines firm….
Mr. Rosen refused. He maintained that he would make decisions based on the facts and the law, and he reiterated what Mr. Barr had privately told Mr. Trump: The department had investigated voting irregularities and found no evidence of widespread fraud.
But Mr. Trump continued to press Mr. Rosen after the meeting — in phone calls and in person. He repeatedly said that he did not understand why the Justice Department had not found evidence that supported conspiracy theories about the election that some of his personal lawyers had espoused. He declared that the department was not fighting hard enough for him.
“Before the insurrectionist assault on the US Capitol, there was an attempted coup at the Justice Dept. — fomented by the President of the United States,” former Justice Department official David Laufman wrote on Twitter….
Throughout his four years in office, Trump persistently pushed the Justice Department to make moves to benefit himself and his friends, though his moves in his final days in office threatened to be particularly damaging. Even former attorney general William P. Barr — who had been one of Trump’s most loyal and effective Cabinet secretaries — had publicly broken with the president on the issue of voter fraud, declaring publicly that investigators had found no evidence of substantial malfeasance that might affect the result of the election.
Barr’s statements angered Trump, who, along with his allies, had been waging a public campaign to get Barr to appoint a special counsel to investigate election fraud. The men’s relationship was near a breaking point. Trump already had been angry that his attorney general had not taken public steps in two other investigations that might have helped his chances of winning: U.S. Attorney John Durham’s examination into the FBI probe of his 2016 campaign, and the Justice Department’s probe of Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son. On Dec. 14, Barr submitted a resignation letter indicating he would leave the department two days before Christmas.
For the last month of the Trump administration, Rosen would be in charge.
Barr was confident that Rosen shared his views and would thus not succumb to any pressure campaign to upend the election results, people familiar with the matter said. But soon, there emerged a bizarre plot to go around him, the people said.
Clark, the people said, somehow connected with Trump and conveyed he felt fraud had impacted the election results. Then Clark began pressuring Rosen and others to do more on voter fraud — such as holding a news conference to announce they were investigating serious allegations, or taking particular steps in Georgia — though Rosen refused.
Jeffrey Clark, the Justice Department attorney who reportedly schemed with the president to oust the acting attorney general, also played a leading role in bringing the DOJ to the president’s defense in a defamation case filed against him personally….
By Mimi Vang Olsen
Clark also served as one of the lead attorneys for Trump in the suit filed against him by E. Jean Carroll, an advice columnist who accuses him of defamation. Trump has denied Carroll’s claim that he raped her in a Manhattan department store decades ago.
The Justice Department made the controversial move in September to defend Trump in the lawsuit, which was filed against him in his personal capacity, saying Trump was “acting within the scope of his office as President of the United States.” Clark appears to have signed off personally on the decision for the DOJ to intervene, according to the court documents. Carroll wrote on Twitter Friday of Clark, “This is the chump who filed the DOJ case against me, saying it was the President’s job to slander women. The Trump Presidency was corrupt right down to the core of its spleen.”
House Democrats have renewed their long-stalled demand for Donald Trump’s federal tax records, but the Biden administration has not decided whether it will drop its predecessor’s objections and release the Treasury Department records to investigators, Justice Department attorneys told a federal judge Friday.
U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden declined Friday to lift a stay on a pending House lawsuit. Instead, the judge agreed to give Treasury and Justice Department officials two weeks to report back to him, acknowledging that President Biden’s team was just settling in after the inauguration this week.
McFadden also kept in place an order requiring the government to give the former president’s lawyers 72 hours’ notice before releasing his tax return information to allow them to file a request to block the release.
Tiger Cat with Bird, American Folk Art Painting by Diane Ulmer Pedersen
Separation-of-powers issues that have slowed the case “may fall out” now that Trump is no longer in office, the judge noted.
“It would be a former president trying to stop a political branch, rather than one branch suing another. At least that’s my instinct,” said McFadden, a 2017 Trump appointee to the federal bench in Washington.
House General Counsel Douglas N. Letter agreed, saying, “We’re not dealing with a president anymore. We’re dealing with a former president.”
The House has been stymied for months, “numerous investigations have been obstructed,” and “enough is enough,” Letter argued, saying, “The statute here is clear. ‘Shall’ means ‘shall,’ and therefore the Treasury Department should turn over these materials . . . and that should be the end of it.”
Speaking for the Justice Department, attorney James J. Gilligan said the agency has so far not been able to confer with new Treasury Department leaders, “so we still have no idea whether any decision has been reached . . . whether any decision is imminent . . . or even . . . under active consideration.”
Gilligan said he could not guarantee a decision in two weeks but called a delay and the notice requirement a way to balance the interests of all sides.\Trump attorney Patrick Strawbridge supported maintaining the notice requirement to preserve the former president’s right to his day in court to object to any handing over of records.
McFadden said he agreed, adding that he was thinking of “entering an order along those lines if there is a change of view from the Treasury. But I’d love for all of us to agree together on a path forward. Then we can try to get some resolution here.”
Separation-of-powers issues that have slowed the case “may fall out” now that Trump is no longer in office, the judge noted.
“It would be a former president trying to stop a political branch, rather than one branch suing another. At least that’s my instinct,” said McFadden, a 2017 Trump appointee to the federal bench in Washington.
The order declares: “Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the rest room, the locker room, or school sports. . . . All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.” The order purports to direct administrative agencies to begin promulgating regulations that would enforce the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision Bostock v. Clayton County. In fact, it goes much further.
In Bostock, the justices held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited an employer from firing an employee on the basis of homosexuality or “transgender status.” Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for a 6-3 majority, took pains to clarify that the decision was limited to employment and had no bearing on “sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and dress codes”—all regulated under Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments. “Under Title VII, too,” the majority added, “we do not purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind.”
The Biden executive order is far more ambitious. Any school that receives federal funding—including nearly every public high school—must either allow biological boys who self-identify as girls onto girls’ sports teams or face administrative action from the Education Department. If this policy were to be broadly adopted in anticipation of the regulations that are no doubt on the way, what would this mean for girls’ and women’s sports?
“Finished. Done,” Olympic track-and-field coach Linda Blade told me. “The leadership skills, all the benefits society gets from letting girls have their protected category so that competition can be fair, all the advances of women’s rights—that’s going to be diminished.” Ms. Blade noted that parents of teen girls are generally uninterested in watching their daughters demoralized by the blatant unfairness of a rigged competition.
I’d love to get your reactions to this story. Will there be any legal organizations willing to defend biological women in this context?
Last night I slept better than I have in a long time. For the first time in four years, I actually felt safe. I know there will be times when I disagree with what Biden does as POTUS, but at least I don’t have to worry about him blowing up the world in a fit of pique. The images are from yesterday’s inauguration ceremony.
Whether or not related to the former president’s absence, a bipartisan lightness seemed to prevail across the stage. Snow flurries gave way to sun and an aura distinctly serene. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, and now former Vice President Mike Pence — both close allies of Mr. Trump who broke bitterly with him in his final days — were seen cracking grins, even chuckling with their counterparts in the opposing party.
Supreme Court justices greeted former presidents with elbow bumps and waved to masked members of Congress from several feet away, a literal separation of powers mandated by the pandemic. The rampage on Jan. 6 had brought on uniformed troops clustered in all directions across a Capitol complex otherwise abandoned by civilians. Still, the inauguration felt like a friendly gathering, a small step toward President Biden’s elusive promise of national unity.
After his inauguration in 2016, Trump took the weekend off. Biden got right to work signing executive orders that reversed some of Trump’s worst policies.
President Biden begins signing a tall stack of executive orders during his first Oval Office appearance for press. pic.twitter.com/oh1JqG0iJP
In 17 executive orders, memorandums and proclamations signed hours after his inauguration, President Biden moved swiftly on Wednesday to dismantle Trump administration policies his aides said have caused the “greatest damage” to the nation.
Despite an inaugural address that called for unity and compromise, Mr. Biden’s first actions as president are sharply aimed at sweeping aside former President Donald J. Trump’s pandemic response, reversing his environmental agenda, tearing down his anti-immigration policies, bolstering the teetering economic recovery and restoring federal efforts to promote diversity.
Head over to the NYT for the details. Here’s a brief list:
Biden Day One executive actions:
Re-engage WHO Unified fed COVID response Extend eviction & foreclosure moratoriums Extend student loan pause Rejoin Paris Agreement Roll back Trump environmental actions Reverse Trump census order Reverse Muslim ban Stop border wall construction
Hours into his presidency, Biden has already ousted three of his predecessors’ most unqualified and corrupt appointees. This clean break sends a clear message that Biden will not tolerate hostile Trump holdovers in his administration, including those with time remaining in their terms.
First, Biden terminated Michael Pack, who was confirmed to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media in June. Pack sought to transform the agency, which oversees the international broadcaster Voice of America, into a propaganda outlet for Trump—despite a statutory mandate that prohibits such political interference. He purged the staff of VOA and its sister networks, replaced them with Trump loyalists, demanded pro-Trump coverage, and unconstitutionallypunished remaining journalists who did actual reporting on the administration. In a perverse move, he refused to renew visas for foreign reporters who covered their home countries, subjecting them to retribution by authoritarian regimes. Pack also illegally fired the board of the Open Technology Fund, which promotes international internet freedom, and replaced them with Republican activists….
Second, Biden sacked Kathleen Kraninger, who was confirmed as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2018. Kraninger, who had no previous experience in consumer protection, immediately tried to undermine the agency’s role as a watchdog for the financial sector. She scrapped a landmark rule that restricted predatory payday lending, pressuring staff to downplay the resulting harm to consumers. And she refused to enforce a federal law that protected military personnel against a broad range of predatory lending. Her decision yanked federal support from military families who were defrauded by lenders. In the midst of the pandemic, Kraninger also approved a rule that allows debt collectors to harass Americans with limitless texts and emails demanding repayment….
Third, Biden demanded the resignation of Peter Robb, who was confirmed as the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel in 2017. The NLRB was created to enforce federal laws that guarantee workers the right to form a union and bargain collectively. Yet Robb is vehemently anti-union; during his tenure, he tried to limit employees’ free speech, give managers more leeway to engage in wage theft, hobble unions’ ability to collect dues, and prevent employers from helping workers organize. He also tried to seize near-total control of the agency by demoting every regional director and consolidating power in his office. If successful, this gambit would’ve given him unprecedented authority to bust existing unions and prevent new ones from forming.
The director of the National Security Agency on Wednesday put the agency’s top lawyer on administrative leave days after the Pentagon ordered the installation of the ex-GOP operative in the job, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.
Gen. Paul Nakasone, the NSA director, placed Michael Ellis, a former Trump White House official, on leave pending an inquiry by the Pentagon inspector general into the circumstances of his selection as NSA general counsel, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
Nakasone took the action on the day Joe Biden was inaugurated as president.
The NSA chief was ordered on Saturday by then-acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller to install Ellis by 6 p.m. that day.
Meanwhile, the Senate approved Biden’s choice for DNI.
JUST IN: U.S. Senate votes 84-10 to confirm Avril Haines as Director of National Intelligence. https://t.co/wCYI2ZMGLP
The Bidens moved quickly on Wednesday to fire White House chief usher Timothy Harleth, who was installed by the Trumps, two sources with knowledge have confirmed to CNN.
Harleth was hired by Melania Trump in 2017 to fill the important role of chief usher. Harleth came to the White House from Trump International Hotel DC, where he was rooms manager….
Harleth took the place of Angella Reid, who was hired during the Obama administration. Reid made history when she took the job in 2011 as the first woman to serve in the position. She was previously the general manager at the Ritz Carlton in Pentagon City, just outside Washington.
She was let go by the Trumps a few months after they took over the White House….
The White House usher is responsible for the management of the building and oversees residence staff. “Construction, maintenance, remodeling, food, as well as the administrative, fiscal and personnel functions” fall under the role’s responsibilities, according to the White House Historical Association.
Reid was the White House’s ninth usher and the second African American.
The chief usher and residence staff are not political positions, and it’s highly unusual for someone to leave at the beginning of a new administration.
I wonder if they can hire Reid again.
There will be plenty of bad news for the new administration to discover about the mess Trump has left them, but they have already learned that there was no plan whatsoever for getting the coronavirus vaccine to desperate Americans.
Newly sworn in President Joe Biden and his advisers are inheriting no coronavirus vaccine distribution plan to speak of from the Trump administration, sources tell CNN, posing a significant challenge for the new White House.
The Biden administration has promised to try to turn the Covid-19 pandemic around and drastically speed up the pace of vaccinating Americans against the virus. But in the immediate hours following Biden being sworn into office on Wednesday, sources with direct knowledge of the new administration’s Covid-related work told CNN one of the biggest shocks that the Biden team had to digest during the transition period was what they saw as a complete lack of a vaccine distribution strategy under former President Donald Trump, even weeks after multiple vaccines were approved for use in the United States.
“There is nothing for us to rework. We are going to have to build everything from scratch,” one source said.
Another source described the moment that it became clear the Biden administration would have to essentially start from “square one” because there simply was no plan as: “Wow, just further affirmation of complete incompetence.”
“What we’re inheriting from the Trump administration is so much worse than we could have imagined,” Jeff Zients, the Biden administration’s COVID-19 czar, said in a call with reporters Wednesday. “We don’t have the visibility that we would hope to have into supply and allocations.”
“I think we have to level-set expectations,” added Tom Frieden, the former director for the Centers for Disease Control in the Obama administration. “There are lots of things that an incoming administration can do on Day One, including speaking honestly about the pandemic.”
The new administration is already behind, in part because the Trump administration was unprecedentedly hostile during the transition. The question now, however, is how Biden can get a handle on a raging pandemic when his team is already so far behind.
The task at hand is enormous. More than 400,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. Every state, territory and the District of Columbia is in a state of emergency. The number of people infected with the virus who are now hospitalized is more than double the number reached during the spring and summer peaks.
It’s not just the spread of the virus that the Biden team needs to tackle. Officials will also have to confront the disinformation and misinformation about the virus that has permeated all four corners of the country—where people still believe the virus is a hoax and that public health guidelines are too great of an imposition on their personal freedom to follow. But it’s unclear what power of persuasion the Biden administration will hold and if it will be enough to convince people to take the virus more seriously.
On his first full day in office, President Joe Biden released details Thursday of his sweeping plan to combat the coronavirus, announcing 10 executive orders and directing agencies to use wartime powers to require U.S. companies to make N95 masks, swabs and other equipment to fight the pandemic.
The president’s plan emphasizes ramping up testing for the coronavirus, accelerating the pace of vaccinations and providing more funding and direction to state and local officials. A key component of the plan is restoring trust with the American public. It also focuses on vaccinating more people, safely reopening schools, businesses and travel as well as slowing the spread of the virus.
“The National Strategy provides a roadmap to guide America out of the worst public health crisis in a century,” the plan says. “America has always risen to the challenge we face and we will do so now.”
Biden has taken office at a pivotal moment in the pandemic, many epidemiologists and U.S. health officials say. Nearly 3,000 Americans are dying every day of Covid-19, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, and newly discovered, more infectious strains are establishing footholds in the U.S., threatening to push the nation’s outbreak to even more deadly heights. The plan released Thursday expands on initiatives outlined last week and details how Biden plans to bring the outbreak under control and help the country recover.
So this seems like a good start. I’m beginning to feel somewhat hopeful again. It’s such a relief to know that I won’t be waking up to horrible tweets and stories about the childish man in the oval office throwing epic tantrums and demanding undying loyalty from everyone. How are you feeling today? As always, this is an open thread.
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Just five more days until Trump is tossed out of the White House. I’m so worried about the Inauguration plans I can hardly express it. The more we find out about the planned insurrection and the actual participation of MAGA Congressional Sewer Rats in aiding and abetting what could’ve been a mass murder site, the more I’m convinced it should be in a bunker or something akin to that. I’m also hoping they’ve made sure that all the remaining police and military present have been carefully checked since so many MAGA Sewer Rats have those backgrounds.
The crazy ass High School Drop Out/Gun Toting/ We don’t need no stinking metal detectors Maga Congressional Sewer Rat from Rifle, Colorado tweeted Nancy Pelosi’s whereabouts during the Trumpist Insurrection Riot. Deplorable doesn’t even begin to get close to describing her. Her name should be right up there with all the seditionists if this and more she’s suspected of is proven to be true in a court. This little MAGA sewer rat decided to apologize today. Too late you crazy little seditionist you! We will know soon!
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), a gun-rights hardliner who has vowed to carry her firearm around the Capitol, on Thursday backtracked on her accusation that Rep. Patrick Maloney (D-NY) had tied her to the deadly insurrection at the Capitol by President Donald Trump’s supporters.
…
In the interview, Maloney discussed a fellow Democrat’s account of seeing one lawmaker give a “tour” of the Capitol with the insurrectionists the day before the siege. Then Maloney expressed alarm over “some of our new colleagues” who “believe in conspiracy theories and who want to carry guns into the House chamber.”
“This conduct is beyond the pale and it extends to some of this interaction with the very people who attacked the Capitol,” he said.
Right before a House vote on Tuesday night, Boebert refused to hand over her bag to the Capitol police after she set off the newly installed metal detectors at the entrance of the House chamber. However, she wasn’t alone: Several of her GOP colleagues also set off the alarm or refused to go through the detector altogether and walked around it to enter the chamber.
As BB showed us yesterday, we’re just beginning to see what the folks tried to do and it still looks like they had inside help.
EXCLUSIVE: The rioting criminal mob came within 60~ seconds of seeing Mike Pence on Jan. 6. And they were just 90 feet away from a small office where Pence was hiding, before a cop steered them away.
The violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 came perilously close to Vice President Pence, who was not evacuated from the Senate chamber for about 14 minutes after the Capitol Police reported an initial attempted breach of the complex — enough time for the marauders to rush inside the building and approach his location, according to law enforcement officials and video footage from that day.
Secret Service officers eventually spirited Pence to a room off the Senate floor with his wife and daughter after rioters began to pour into the Capitol, many loudly denouncing the vice president as a traitor as they marched through the first floor below the Senate chamber.
About one minute after Pence was hustled out of the chamber, a group charged up the stairs to a second-floor landing in the Senate, chasing a Capitol Police officer who drew them away from the Senate.
Pence and his family had just ducked into a hideaway less than 100 feet from that landing, according to three people familiar with his whereabouts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. If the pro-Trump mob had arrived seconds earlier, the attackers would have been in eyesight of the vice president as he was rushed across a reception hall into the office.
The proximity of the Jan. 6 mob to the vice president and the delay in evacuating him from the chamber — which have not been previously reported — raise questions about why the Secret Service did not move him earlier and underscore the jeopardy that top government leaders faced during the siege.
…
One man who made his way into the Senate chamber reached Pence’s chair on the Senate dais. Shirtless, wearing face paint and a furry coyote-tail hat and carrying a six-foot-long spear, Jacob A. Chansley of Arizona left a note on the vice president’s desk that read in part, “it’s only a matter of time, justice is coming,” according to court filings.
Chansley — who has been charged with two felonies, including threatening congressional officials — told investigators he was glad to reach Pence’s desk because he believes the vice president is a child-trafficking traitor, but said he did not mean the note as a threat.
…
At 2:13 p.m., Pence suddenly left the Senate floor and was moved to the nearby office, according to C-SPAN footage and a Post reporter on the scene.
But the rioters were not far behind. They chased Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman up a flight of stairs, arriving on the landing at 2:14 p.m., video footage shows — seconds after the vice president had been whisked inside the office.
Federal prosecutors said in a court filing on Thursday that President Donald Trump’s mob that laid siege on the U.S. Capitol last week intended “to capture and assassinate elected officials.”
Prosecutors made the assessment in a court filing that requested QAnon conspiracy theorist Jacob Chansley, an Arizona man who stormed the U.S. Capitol last week outfitted in horns, fur and face paint, be “detained pending trial” on Friday.
“Strong evidence, including Chansley’s own words and actions at the Capitol, supports that the intent of the Capitol rioters was to capture and assassinate elected officials in the United States government,” government prosecutors wrote.
The allegations, written by Justice Department lawyers in Arizona, come as the government have begun describing in more alarming terms what transpired.
U.S. Attorney Michael Bailey and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristen Brook in Arizona warned in the filing first reported by Reuters, that Chansley had expressed interest in returning to Washington, D.C. for President-Elect Biden’s inauguration and “has the ability to do so if the Court releases him.”
Pelosi says she's appointed Retired Lt. Gen. Honoré to review Capitol security and that Congress has "strong interest" in a 9/11-style investigation https://t.co/jj4kq9TlFY
“Strong evidence, including Chansley’s own words and actions at the Capitol, supports that the intent of the Capitol rioters was to capture and assassinate elected officials in the United States government,” the prosecutors wrote in an 18-page memo demanding the insurrectionist’s detention.
The filing indicates that after posing for a photo at the Senate dais last Wednesday, Chansley left a note for Vice President Mike Pence, who had been swept away to safety amid the attack, warning the vice president that “it’s only a matter of time, justice is coming.”
Prosecutors suggested that the violent Capitol riot was part of an ongoing attempt to overthrow the federal government, saying, “the insurrection is still in progress” as law enforcement prepares for potential attempts at further violence ahead of Biden’s inauguration next week.
The prosecutors’ assessment comes as lawmakers on Thursday reported plans to purchase body armor and alter their routines amid death threats in the wake of the attack which left five people, including a Capitol police officer dead.
The court filing arrives as it grows increasingly clear that law enforcement and federal authorities had also failed to properly secure the Capitol complex and issue warnings amid clear threats of violence, ahead of the Jan. 6 session to reaffirm Joe Biden as the nation’s next president.
Federal prosecutors on Thursday for the first time described last week’s assault on the U.S. Capitol as a “violent insurrection that attempted to overthrow the United States Government” — and one they consider to still be underway.
The language was included in a filing in federal district court in Arizona, intended to deny bail to Jacob Anthony Chansley, a man they describe as “an active participant in” and “the most prominent symbol of” the insurrection.
…
While prosecutors are recommending that Chansley be detained pending trial, the court’s pretrial services agency recommended that he be released with conditions on his movements to reduce the chance that he would pose a threat as he awaits his day in court. But the government said evidence it has uncovered made that recommendation imprudent.
“Media and FBI reports have detailed carefully-planned insurrection attempts scheduled throughout the country in the coming weeks at every state capital, including the Arizona’s capitol,” prosecutors said. “As he admitted, and as corroborated by the items in his car, Chansley expected to go there after his FBI interview (if he had not been arrested).”
The government also described releasing Chansley as particularly risky because of his association with Qanon, which it called a “dangerous anti-government conspiracy” that has treated him as a leader, helped him travel “off-the-grid” and “fundraise rapidly through unconventional means.” Prosecutors also note he is a “repeated drug user” who is “unable to appreciate reality.”
A federal magistrate judge in Phoenix is scheduled to hold a bail hearing for Chansley on Friday afternoon.
Well, FurrySex cosplayers, flag poles, and Q Anon seem to bring a deadly mix of crazy .
For many years here I am the one that provides our tribute to Dr. King on his birthday. It’s strange how on this day that he stands as someone who a lot of change while he did not need guns, seriously weird costumes and cult like slogans and hats. He never provided any messages of hate. He was arrested but never led a violent march or protest. The violence was done to him and those who joined him. The Trumpist Insurrection states as a clear opposite and I doubt they’ll change much of anything in the long run.
What might we learn from how King dealt with such mobs in his own time? It is reasonable to believe that King would support holding people accountable for crimes committed, but King also held a higher hope for at least some of those who were part of the mob. Namely, that they might be changed, and then included in the beloved community of American democracy.
It was toward the end of the Montgomery bus boycott, after enduring a year of death threats, false arrests and firebombings from white mobs, that King spoke of “the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization.”
It was precisely when others had shown themselves at their worst that it was most important for righteous people to “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.”
He continued, “This is the time for reconciliation. This is the time for redemption. This is the time to build the beloved community.”
Let us be clear about how remarkable this is. Some of the people he was advocating for had attempted to burn down King’s home, seriously endangering his wife and their new baby. And still King believed they could change, and be included in the beloved community of American democracy.
I’m not sure that some of these folks will ever join a beloved community. However, a recent poll has shown that an overwhelming number of Americans believe the Capitol Hill insurrection was wrong and violent while a majority believe Trump should be blocked from further public office and blame him for the riots. However, a majority of Republicans blame Biden of all people. Republicans are sadly out of touch with any notion of “beloved community”. This shocked me (last link via The Hill).
While 59 percent of voters who were aware of Wednesday’s events at the Capitol said they viewed them as more violent than peaceful, 58 percent of Republicans said the opposite, believing the actions of protesters were largely peaceful.
Republicans believe their own eyes lie to them evidently. The level of delusion in these folks is just incredible and any one that follows me on Facebook followed me trying to reason with one of them I knew from High School believing that the events unfolding would change some hearts and minds.
I just got the usual propaganda about the big lie than a whole lot of Clinton Derangement Syndrome. I’m still not sure we’re safe on our own streets as long as the folks stay ignorant and mean. And wow, did he throw some mean shit at me before I blocked his ass.
I don’t care what he said about me or anything else because obviously a highly disturbed individual but look at the KKK during MLK’s time and now during ours. Look at NAZI sympathizers during MLK’s life and now during ours. Have any of them ever shown an interest of becoming anything but an angry aggrieved mob of wipipo let alone a “beloved community”? They’re as mean and ugly and violent as ever.
Dr. King was only a few years older than me. I think of that often, especially on his birthday. We were young men when we first met. And already he was a once-in-a-generation leader. How much more he could have accomplished. How much more America, and the world, needed his voice.
So, I’m going to go try to get back to my actual job of teaching economics if my nerves and dancing stomach allow. There’s an ongoing Presser going on in DC with both Federal and local leadership. I placed the CNN breaking news tweet/link above but here ‘s a few more.
.@SpeakerPelosi says she has asked retired Lt. General Honore to conduct an investigation into Capitol security.
Speaker Pelosi condemns man seen in Auschwitz shirt during Capitol riot: "To see this punk with that shirt on…be part of of a white supremacist raid on this Capitol" requires review "to assign responsibility to those who were part of organizing it and incentivizing it." pic.twitter.com/ntKcyXViJu
Well, we’re close to a lot of things including the Trump Presidency. I just hope we can get out of this without going over the edge and down. At least we still have each other. I love you all! Hang in there!
What’s on your blogging and reading list today?
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Against the recent spectacle of an American president and his allies inciting an insurrection, such criminal misconduct by other chief executives appears almost quotidian. Illegally lining one’s own pockets is never good, but extorting public officials to manipulate election results is more than a difference of degree. One might assume, then, at this stage of things, that accountability for lawbreaking would be uncontroversial. And yet debate over the appropriateness of prosecutions for possible wide-ranging criminal behavior at the most senior levels of government is in full swing.
Various commentators have warned that prosecutions would “set a dangerous precedent” of punishing political opponents. Others have cautioned against the risk of creating martyrs or exacerbating polarization. After January 6, some changed their minds. But many others have not, speculating that the risks are still “just not worth it.” Even President-elect Joe Biden has made clear that he hopes to avoid “divisive” investigations. Although he has committed to a Justice Department that will operate with independence, “he can set a tone about what he thinks should be done,” as one adviser put it. And the president-elect has indicated that he “wants to move on.”
This would be a mistake. It not only contradicts the available evidence on how best to guard against the recurrence of serious transgressions, but also stands in odd contrast to how our own “laboratories of democracy”—the states—deal with misconduct by powerful executive-branch officials. Indeed, federalism provides the privilege to test government actions on a smaller scale in order to base more consequential federal decisions on evidence, not speculation. And the evidence from U.S. states is clear: When the rule of law runs its course, it typically prevails, and without precipitating a crisis.
A chief reason states prosecute their most powerful public officials is that prosecutions help deter future lawbreaking. Insofar as the law is applied consistently—without regard for the profile of the person in question—prosecutions send clear signals. Beliefs about the probability of punishmentoperate forcefully on people’s decisions.
Criminal affirmance—the tacit condoning of dangerous behavior in the absence of prosecution—also sends a clear signal. Research shows that, especially with elite criminal behavior, not pursuing punishment works to undermine confidence in government by visibly carving out exceptions in the rule of law, and broadcasts to other powerful actors that criminality is rewarding. As Mary Ramirez, a former trial attorney with the Justice Department, observed in the aftermath of the 2009 financial crisis: “A petty thief that evades prosecution has virtually no impact on the rule of law, but a CEO that evades prosecution … is an advertisement.”
Former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder was charged Wednesday with willful neglect of duty after an investigation of ruinous decisions that left Flint with lead-contaminated water and a regional outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease.
The charges, revealed in an online court record, are misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
The charges are groundbreaking: No governor or former governor in Michigan’s 184-year history had been charged with crimes related to their time in that office, according to the state archivist….
Besides Snyder, a Republican who was governor from 2011 through 2018, charges are expected against other people, including former officials who served as his state health director and as a senior adviser.
The alleged offense date is April 25, 2014, when a Snyder-appointed emergency manager who was running the struggling, majority Black city carried out a money-saving decision to use the Flint River for water while a regional pipeline from Lake Huron was under construction.
The corrosive water, however, was not treated properly and released lead from old plumbing into homes in one of the worst manmade environmental disasters in U.S. history.
Despite desperate pleas from residents holding jugs of discolored, skunky water, the Snyder administration took no significant action until a doctor reported elevated lead levels in children about 18 months later.
Trump cannot be allowed to escape accountability for the damage he has done to the country, no matter how long it takes. In addition, Republican Congresspeople who aided and abetted Trump in his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election should also be punished, ideally by expulsion from the House and Senate.
Even as Democrats on Wednesday impeached President Trump, they turned their attention to allegations that Republican members of Congress encouraged last week’s attempted insurrection, possibly providing help that enabled the mob who stormed the Capitol.
“Their accomplices in this House will be held responsible,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in a speech during the impeachment debate, without mentioning specific members or allegations.
In the days since the Jan. 6 attack, immediately preceded by Trump’s remarks at a rally, a number of Democrats have pointed to speeches, tweets and videos that they have said raised questions about whether the attackers may have been inspired or helped by Republican members of Congress.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) said in a Facebook Live broadcast that she saw Republicans “who had groups coming through the Capitol that I saw on Jan. 5 for reconnaissance for the next day.” She said some of her GOP colleagues “abetted” Trump and “incited this violent crowd.” [….]
She and other Democrats sent a letter Wednesday asking congressional security officials to investigate what they called “suspicious behavior and access given to visitors” the day before the attack. The letter said that Democratic lawmakers and staffers “witnessed an extremely high number of outside groups” visiting the Capitol, which was unusual because the building has restricted public access since March, when pandemic protocols were enacted. Since then, tourists can enter the Capitol only when brought in by a member of Congress.
Among the visitors, according to the Democrats’ letter, were some who “appeared to be associated with the rally.” Sherrill and the other Democrats asked that any logbooks, videos and facial recognition software be examined to identify visitors and determine if they could be matched with those who stormed the Capitol.\Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said in an interview that “I do know that, yes, there were members that gave tours to individuals who participated in the riot.” She said an investigation is needed, adding, “What I don’t know is whether they were aware of what their plans were for the next day.”
After seeing one of their colleagues killed last Wednesday, Capitol Police officers are angry that Republican members of Congress refuse to submit to the security changes put in place since then, and say they wouldn’t even be surprised if some lawmakers helped organize the attack.
Officers told BuzzFeed News that members of Congress often see security as optional. Even after last week’s deadly attack, some Republican members refused to go through metal detectors, pushing their way past Capitol Police officers.
“Officers are fuming and there are mumbles of several walking off the job,” one officer with more than 10 years on the force told BuzzFeed News — just as Republicans took to the floor last night to rail against even basic security measures. At one point today, officers set up tables around the metal detectors in an effort to block Republicans from just walking by them.
One of the officers said it’s not unusual for members of Congress to bring dozens of people at once and insist that visitors be waved past security. Officers’ concerns were echoed by some Democrats who have been speaking out about the state of security at the Capitol, and the potential involvement of members in the planning of the insurrection….
Two of the officers who spoke to BuzzFeed News said it wouldn’t surprise them if lawmakers had been involved. “There are definitely some members who need to be held to account once an investigation shows the totality of circumstances,” one said, in a sign of how betrayed some officers feel in the aftermath of the assault on the Capitol.
National Guard forces from a growing list of states moved into positions around Washington on Wednesday as authorities scrambled to understand the extent of threats surrounding President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration and prevent a repeat of last week’s deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Federal officials led tabletop exercises to rehearse inauguration security and strengthen coordination among a massive patchwork of police, National Guard troops and federal personnel that is expected to fan out ahead of protests this weekend and the Jan. 20 transfer of power.
By next week, the D.C. police chief said, upward of 20,000 guardsmen were expected to be in place to guard against violence, days after supporters of President Trump smashed their way into the Capitol as lawmakers met to certify Biden’s electoral win….
Authorities have been operating in a heightened state of alert as the Secret Service orchestrates inauguration security and the FBI runs down possible threats in D.C. and state capitals.
On Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray briefed local law enforcement across the country about the “state of play,” and the agency moved to establish new command posts nationwide.
Senior FBI and Secret Service officials also briefed Biden and some of his national security aides Wednesday, the transition team said. The officials are now expected to receive daily updates on security and operational plans.
Evidence uncovered so far, including weapons and tactics seen on surveillance video, suggests a level of planning that has led investigators to believe the attack on the US Capitol was not just a protest that spiraled out of control, a federal law enforcement official says.
Among the evidence the FBI is examining are indications that some participants at the Trump rally at the Ellipse, outside the White House, left the event early, perhaps to retrieve items to be used in the assault on the Capitol.
A team of investigators and prosecutors are also focused on the command and control aspect of the attack, looking at travel and communications records to determine if they can build a case that is similar to a counterterrorism investigation, the official said….
The presence of corruption prosecutors and agents is in part because of their expertise in financial investigations. “We are following the money,” the official said.
Today will undoubtedly be another bit news day. Please feel free to post links on any topic in the comments. There is less than a week to go until Trump gets booted from the White House!
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I’m still feeling emotionally overwhelmed by the events of last week and the subsequent day-by-day revelations that the coup attempt was so much worse than it first appeared. Furthermore, the danger of violent insurrection by Trump supporters isn’t over by any means.
Since last Wednesday, people have been arguing what to call what happened at the U.S. Capitol — was it a riot? An uprising? An insurrection? I’ve been public in calling it a coup, but others disagree. Some have said it’s not a coup because the U.S. military and other armed groups weren’t involved, and some because Donald Trump didn’t invoke his presidential powers in support of the mob that broke into the Capitol. Others point out that no one has claimed or proved there was a secret plan directed by the president, and that Trump’s efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election could never have succeeded in the first place.
These observations are based on the idea that a coup is a sudden, violent seizure of power involving clandestine plots and military takeovers. By contrast, Trump’s goal was to keep himself in power, and his actions were taken over a period of months and in slow motion.
But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a coup attempt. Trump disguised what he was doing by operating in plain sight, talking openly about his intent. He normalized his actions so people would accept them. I’ve been studying authoritarian regimes for three decades, and I know the signs of a coup when I see them.
Technically, what Trump attempted is what’s known as a “self-coup” and Trump isn’t the first leader to try it. Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (nephew of the first Napoleon) pulled one off in France in December 1851 to stay in power beyond his term. Then he declared himself Emperor, Napoleon III. More recently, Nicolas Maduro perpetrated a self-coup in Venezuela after losing the 2017 elections.
The storming of the Capitol building on January 6 was the culmination of a series of actions and events taken or instigated by Trump so he could retain the presidency that together amount to an attempt at a self-coup. This was not a one-off or brief episode. Trump declared “election fraud” immediately on November 4 even while the votes were still being counted. He sought to recount and rerun the election so that he, not Joe Biden, was the winner. In Turkey, in 2015, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan successfully did the same thing; he had called elections to strengthen his presidency, but his party lost its majority in the Parliament. He challenged the results in the courts, marginalized the opposition and forced what he blatantly called a “re-run election.” He tried again in the Istanbul mayoral election in 2019 but was thwarted.
Thousands of armed pro-Donald Trump extremists are plotting to surround the US Capitol ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, according to a member of Congress who was among those briefed late Monday on a series of new threats against lawmakers and the Capitol itself.
“They were talking about 4,000 armed ‘patriots’ to surround the Capitol and prevent any Democrat from going in,” Rep. Conor Lamb, a Pennsylvania Democrat, told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on “New Day.” “They have published rules of engagement, meaning when you shoot and when you don’t. So this is an organized group that has a plan. They are committed to doing what they’re doing because I think in their minds, you know, they are patriots and they’re talking about 1776 and so this is now a contest of wills.”
He continued, “We are not negotiating with or reasoning with these people. They have to be prosecuted. They have to be stopped. And unfortunately, that includes the President, which is why he needs to be impeached and removed from office.”
Monday’s briefing followed an FBI bulletin warning of “armed protests” being planned at all 50 state capitols and in Washington, DC, and provides the latest sense of a heightened state of alarm among lawmakers and law enforcement officials following last week’s deadly siege at the US Capitol.
Two Democratic lawmakers who participated in the briefing told CNN that they were walked through several scenarios on a call Monday and officers were sober about the threats. An effort was made to emphasize how different security is right now, the members said.
“They are very strong when we are weak. That is when the mob psychology takes hold and they are emboldened, but when met with actual determined force, I think a lot of these fantasy world beliefs about what will happen when they come to Washington will melt away,” one of the members said.
President Donald Trump is leaving America in a vortex of violence, sickness and death and more internally estranged than it has been for 150 years.
The disorientating end to his shocking term has the nation reeling from a Washington insurrection. The FBI warned Monday of armed protests by pro-Trump thugs in 50 states, which raise the awful prospect of a domestic insurgency. Lawmakers have been briefed about a plot to surround the US Capitol by extremists inspired by Trump’s false and dangerous claims the election was stolen. Health officials fear 5,000 Americans could soon be dying every day from the pandemic Trump ignored. Hospitals are swamped and medical workers are shattered amid a faltering rollout of the vaccine supposed to end the crisis.
It took 200 years for the country to rack up its first two presidential impeachments. Trump’s malfeasance has led the country down that awful, divisive path twice in just more than a year. With House Democrats expected to formally impeach the President for inciting a mob assault on Congress on Wednesday, he will rely on the Republican enablers who refused to rein in his lawlessness to save him from conviction again.
Millions of Americans have bought into the delusional, poisoned fiction that an election Trump lost was stolen, and there are signs that some police and military forces have been radicalized by the grievance he stokes.
The city Trump has called home for four years is being turned into an armed camp incongruous with the mood of joy and renewal that pulsates through most inaugurations. In a symbol of a democracy under siege, the people’s buildings — the White House and the US Capitol — are caged behind ugly iron and cement barriers.
This is the legacy President-elect Joe Biden will inherit in eight days when he swears to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution — an oath that Trump trampled when inciting the Capitol attack last week from behind a bulletproof screen while buckling the cherished US chain of peaceful transfers of power.
Republicans in Congress are playing a dangerous game, again, this time trying to dodge responsibility for having incited the violent mob attack on the U.S. Capitol, rather than address the ongoing threat head-on.
Their new posture is premised on the notion that what happened last Wednesday was a one-off protest that got out of hand. This is false.
That attack was merely part of—note, not “the terminus of”—an ongoing, multi-pronged assault on the foundation of our democratic system by hostile actors.
It is an assault that nearly all members of the Republican congressional caucus have taken part in; some as witting pro-insurrection cultists, and others as cowardly, cowering coddlers.
Where do we go from here?
1) An FBI bulletin reports that “Armed protests are being planned at all 50 state capitols from 16 January through at least 20 January, and at the U.S. Capitol from 17 January through 20 January.”
2) Militia members are plotting a January 19 action in Washington, D.C.
4) The president who incited the insurrection is set to speak today in Alamo, Texas. This symbolism is not lost on his supporters.
5) After the insurrection, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell—who has sponsored and funded the “news outlets” that fomented the insurrection—put a video on Instagram saying that the effort to overturn the election is not over; that this is “the biggest crime in election history”; that Biden’s inauguration should be delayed if Trump does not stay in power; and that keeping Trump in power will “prevent civil war.” As of yesterday, Lindell was not backing down from his continued claims of fraud.
Now consider how Republicans in government are continuing to try to derail the transfer of power:
1) The FBI, DOJ, and DHS have all been silent about the attack, avoiding any public briefing for fear of offending the president who perpetrated it. (Though it should be said that the FBI seems to be doing a fair job of tracking down and arresting suspects.)
4) For the first time in the last ten transitions, the GOP Senate is not confirming Biden cabinet members prior to the inauguration. That’s right: There will be no Homeland Security secretary, attorney general, secretary of State, or secretary of Health and Human Services when Joe Biden takes office in the wake of a domestic terror attack during a pandemic which has killed nearly 400,000 Americans.
6) Several Republican officials have threatened the possibility of more violence if Trump is held to account for his actions.
Take all of these data points together and what you have is an active, ongoing threat to our democratic system from forces both inside and outside the government.
Meanwhile, Trump is headed to the Alamo to brag about his border wall. My guess is that destination is no coincidence. He hasn’t given up on overturning the election and becoming a dictator like his idols Putin and Erdogan. On his way out of the White House, Trump made clear that he takes no responsibility for the violent attack on the Capitol.
Reporter: "What is your role in what happened at the Capitol? What is your personal responsibility?"
Trump: "If you read my speech … People thought that what I said was totally appropriate." pic.twitter.com/pxdfCLi6Rm
An unrepentant Donald Trump has denied inciting an insurrection at the US Capitol last week, claiming his speech before the violence was “totally appropriate”.
The president spoke to reporters for the first time since a pro-Trump mob rampaged through the Capitol last Wednesday, leaving five people dead. Democrats accuse him of stoking violence and could vote to impeach him on Wednesday.
“So if you read my speech, and many people have done it, and I’ve seen it both in the papers and in the media, on television, it’s been analysed, and people thought that what I said was totally appropriate,” Trump insisted at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, ahead of a trip to Texas.
As he left the White House on Tuesday, Trump said: “The impeachment is really a continuation of the greatest witch-hunt in the history of politics. It’s ridiculous. It’s absolutely ridiculous. This impeachment is causing tremendous anger and it’s really a terrible thing that they’re doing.”
Hoping to turn impeachment into another partisan fight and rally disenchanted Republicans back to his side, Trump condemned Democrats for pursuing the charge.
“For Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to continue on this path,” he said, “I think it’s causing tremendous danger to our country and it’s causing tremendous anger.”
But he added: “I want no violence.”
There’s another blatant lie. We still have to survive eight more days of this madness. Take care everyone. Be kind to yourselves today.
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
Throughout his four years in office, Trump persistently pushed the Justice Department to make moves to benefit himself and his friends, though his moves in his final days in office threatened to be particularly damaging. Even former attorney general William P. Barr — who had been one of Trump’s most loyal and effective Cabinet secretaries — had publicly broken with the president on the issue of voter fraud, declaring publicly that investigators had found no evidence of substantial malfeasance that might affect the result of the election.
In the comments to Dakinikat’s post yesterday, we were discussing the potential effects of Biden’s executive order on discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. This is from The Wall Street Journal: Joe Biden’s First Day Began the End of Girls’ Sports.
More stories to check out today:
Second, Biden sacked Kathleen Kraninger, who was confirmed as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2018. Kraninger, who had no previous experience in consumer protection, immediately tried to undermine the agency’s role as a watchdog for the financial sector. She 
She was let go by the Trumps a few months after they took over the White House….
“I think we have to level-set expectations,” added Tom Frieden, the former director for the Centers for Disease Control in the Obama administration. “There are lots of things that an incoming administration can do on Day One, including speaking honestly about the pandemic.”
Good Day Sky Dancers!
TPM reports that 
In other news, a judge has ordered that the costumed whackadoo will be fed his ‘organic’ foods diet. 
For many years here I am the one that provides our tribute to Dr. King on his birthday. It’s strange how on this day that he stands as someone who a lot of change while he did not need guns, seriously weird costumes and cult like slogans and hats. He never provided any messages of hate. He was arrested but never led a violent march or protest. The violence was done to him and those who joined him. The Trumpist Insurrection states as a clear opposite and I doubt they’ll change much of anything in the long run.
I’m not sure that some of these folks will ever join a beloved community. However, a recent poll has shown that an overwhelming number of Americans
A chief reason states prosecute their most powerful public officials is that prosecutions help deter future lawbreaking. Insofar as the law is applied consistently—without regard for the profile of the person in question—prosecutions send clear signals. Beliefs about the 
Did some lawmakers go further by actually helping the rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6? The Washington Post: 
“Officers are fuming and there are mumbles of several walking off the job,” one officer with more than 10 years on the force told BuzzFeed News — just as Republicans took to the floor last night to rail against even basic security measures. At one point today, 
Evidence suggests that the attack on the Capital last week was planned rather than spontaneous. Evan Perez at CNN: 
Technically, what Trump attempted is what’s known as a “self-coup” and Trump isn’t the first leader to try it. Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (nephew of the first Napoleon) pulled one off in France in December 1851 to stay in power beyond his term. Then he declared himself Emperor, Napoleon III. More recently, Nicolas Maduro perpetrated a self-coup in Venezuela after losing the 2017 elections.
He continued, “We are not negotiating with or reasoning with these people. They have to be prosecuted. They have to be stopped. And unfortunately, that includes the President, which is why he needs to be impeached and removed from office.”
It took 200 years for the country to rack up its first two presidential impeachments. Trump’s malfeasance has led the country down that awful, divisive path twice in just more than a year. With 
Where do we go from here?
Now consider how Republicans in government are continuing to try to derail the transfer of power:
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