Tweets And Other Evidence
Jack Smith's new report
A 165 page document was created by US Special Counsel Jack Smith, basically to assist presiding Judge Chutkin on how to impliment the Supreme Court ruling on executive immunity on official acts as it concerns his case against Donald Trump.
The report opens with:
“When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office.”
There are no new charges here, but there are details and quotes from staff members and others that provide a stark view of Trump’s frame of mind on January 6th (and before). Apparently names have been redacted, but journalists already know who they are.
The President was willfully blind to the facts that he lost the election, that he was urging people to act in fraudulent and dishonest ways. Trump was not acting as President when he sought to overturn the 2020 election results. He sidelined existing campaign staff, who had been telling him what he did not want to hear. Which was he lost the election. Trump turned to a private attorney who falsely claimed victory and spread knowingly false claims of election fraud. Trump knew his claims were false. Pence tried gently to convince Trump that he lost in several phone exchanges.
Trump repeated the same lies of election fraud at his speech on January sixth and used these lies to inflame the large and angry crowd of his supporters.
Smith detailed a conversation between Trump and Pence on January 1, when Pence argued that he did not have the constitutional power to change the election. Trump berated him: “Hundreds of thousands of people are going to hate your guts, and people are going to think you’re stupid.”
He said, “You’re too honest.”
Smith argues that these conversations between Trump and Pence have no bearing on the function of the Executive Branch; arguments using the Supreme Court decision on Executive immunity will not hold water.
Donald Trump was not acting as President, he was acting as a candidate.
A lot of the evidence comes from Trump’s tweets, which Smith proves were sent by the former president himself.
And an aid to Trump apparently went to Trump on January 6th, when he was just sitting and watching tv and scrolling social media, and told him his Vice President’s life was in danger, Trump allegedly said,
“So what?”
None of this matters if Trump wins the election in November, because he will pardon himself.
For a very comprehensive overview of all this, I highly recommend Heather Cox Richardson’s detailed analysis today.
In other political news: Liz Cheney is campaigning with Kamala Harris.
In conclusion, another drawing for you. This is from a series of cloud gazing cartoons I am doing, many of you remember the past ones. I will keep it going.
Hope you’re all well, thanks again for being here. Happy Thursday!
I read the entire 165-page Jack Smith report, and it smolders with the ammunition of truth. The poor-excuse-of-a human it portrays -- with evidence, with direct quotes -- isn't fit to be dog-catcher (my apologies to those who do that job honestly) much less the highest elected official in the USA. What's most brilliant about Smith's report is that he defines all of Trump's crimes as being committed by a CANDIDATE FOR RE-ELECTION, not by a SITTING PRESIDENT. Which wipes out the Supreme Court's horrifying protection of a president's criminal behavior while in office.
This protection is NOT given to a candidate for the presidency but to a president in the course of his official duties. Trump was not performing his official duties when he created and then urged a hostile mob to attack the Capitol in order to halt the constitutionally legal process of officially declaring the winner of the 2020 presidential election, just because he lost. HE LOST! HE'S A LOSER! He is genetically incapable of "losing" anything, of not getting his way. But now he must pay the consequences of his criminal behavior, just like anyone else. (End of rant.)
Liza, wonderful summary and drawings. Lying is stealing the truth. We can't allow this thief anywhere near the White House. As I heard in Chicago in 1960, vote early and vote often.