and now it really begins ...

[latebloomer]

Trump faces difficult odds in classified-documents case
Jack QueenJune 10, 202311:11 AM UTCUpdated ago

June 10 (Reuters) - Donald Trump faces a formidable task defending against charges that he illegally kept top-secret documents upon leaving the White House in 2021, according to legal experts, who said neither the law nor the facts appear to be on his side.

The former U.S. president, who is a candidate to run again in the 2024 election, was charged in an indictment unsealed in Florida federal court on Friday. The 37 counts against him include violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice conspiracy and false statements.

National security law experts were struck by the breadth of evidence in the indictment which includes documents, photos, text messages, audio and witness statements. They said this made a strong case for prosecutors’ allegation that Trump illegally took the documents and then tried to cover it up.

“The details are pretty shocking in terms of the carelessness with which these documents were handled, and the concerted effort to keep them out of the hands of the FBI,” said Elizabeth Goitein, a national security law expert at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Trump’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Trump has proclaimed his innocence and called the case a “witch hunt” orchestrated by political enemies.

"There was no crime, except for what the DOJ and FBI have been doing against me for years,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform on Friday.

Trump's greatest peril could lie in the conspiracy to obstruct justice charges, which carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Legal experts said the evidence appears to show that Trump was aware he had documents in his possession that were subject to a subpoena but refused to turn them over and encouraged his lawyers to mislead the FBI.

"That's about as clear a case of obstruction as you could imagine," said Clark Neily, a legal expert at the conservative Cato Institute.

Obstruction of justice is a particularly difficult charge to defend against, attorney Mark MacDougall said. “It offends people. Hiding things from a lawful legal process. Most people understand why that’s a crime," he said.

Legal experts said Trump's alleged years-long effort to conceal documents was likely a major factor in special counsel Jack Smith's decision to indict him.

'WORSE THAN THE CRIME'

During the investigation, Trump's lawyers told the FBI that they had turned over all classified documents in their possession, which was false. They deny intentionally misleading investigators.

"This is a situation where the coverup is worse than the crime," the Brennan Center's Goitein said. "If he had only been negligent, no charges would have been brought."

The conspiracy element makes the obstruction charges far more serious, and all prosecutors must prove is that Trump worked with another person to try to hinder the investigation, regardless of whether they succeeded.

Cato's Neily said that based on his reading of the indictment, prosecutors likely have many witnesses who have given them similar accounts of Trump's efforts.

Trump has claimed he declassified the documents before taking them. That assertion is undercut by a taped conversation cited in the indictment, which said Trump showed a secret document to several people and said that he “could have declassified it” as president but did not.

But the classification issue will likely end up being irrelevant. Prosecutors charged Trump under the Espionage Act, a World War One-era law that predates classification and criminalizes only the unauthorized retention of “national defense information.”

National defense information does not need to be classified to be covered by that law, national security law experts said. The information need only be useful to the nation’s adversaries and be closely held by the government.

“Let’s say all of the documents were declassified. The Espionage Act does not care,” said Georgetown University law professor Todd Huntley.

COULD TRUMP PARDON HIMSELF?

However, Trump does have some potentially successful strategies. His lawyers could challenge witness accounts, blame others or argue he was following the advice of his attorneys and did not intend to break the law.

If it goes to trial, a Florida jury would hear the case since that is where the special counsel sought the indictment. In the conservative-leaning state, Trump would need only one juror to oppose his conviction for there to be a mistrial.

His defense team could also file motions that would delay a trial until after the November 2024 election. Legal experts disagree over whether Trump could pardon himself if he wins.

Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington, D.C.; editing by Amy Stevens and Cynthia Osterman

[drjohncarpenter]

In light of the ex-president's indictment.











Worth remembering.

Could there be a connection here?

I'll make a guess: yes.

[drjohncarpenter]

Trump federal indictment, explained.

Teri Kanefield

Part I: Trump’s Second Indictment (Over the Cliff Notes)
https://terikanefield.com/indictment-2-over-the-cliff-notes-and-more/

Lawyer and author Teri Kanefield writes clearly and concisely.

Making sense of things that seem almost too big for the common person to grasp.

https://terikanefield.com/bio/

[drjohncarpenter]

Trump federal indictment, explained, part II.

Teri Kanefield

Part II: Trump has been indicted on federal criminal charges and his case was assigned to Aileen Cannon. Now what?
https://terikanefield.com/part-ii-trump-has-been-indicted-on-federal-criminal-charges-and-his-case-was-assigned-to-aileen-cannon-now-what/

Again, lawyer and author Teri Kanefield writes clearly and concisely.

Making sense of Trump court issues that are almost too much to take in and understand.

https://terikanefield.com/bio/

[BrianTCB]

Happy Arraignment Day to all who are celebrating!! Isn't it quite fitting that this page of this thread is 313 on Tuesday, 6/13?

[drjohncarpenter]

Bloomberg opinion.











About right.

[drjohncarpenter]

How can this be?











A real mystery here.

[drjohncarpenter]

And here we are.











A former U.S. president indicted and under arrest in Miami.

Let justice be served.

[drjohncarpenter]

Today, EX president.















Let justice be done.

[latebloomer]

Perspective: More than 20 years ago I invited a local attorney who had served as one of our area's Circuit Court judges, then been appointed to all a vacancy on our region's Appellate Court, to speak to our government watchdog group at one of our ongoing Meet Your Government public forums. He agreed to come. He gave us a fascinating and very educational look at the role of the Circuit Court and Appellate Court system and of Circuit and Appellate judges.

Toward the end of the evening, someone asked him if a judge can reverse the decision of a jury. He said, yes, he can and, sometimes, in the name of justice, must. He had done it himself. A plaintiff in circuit Court had, by the requirements of the law, utterly and absolutely proven her case. But she was an ugly person in character, disposition, voice, appearance, with not a single redeeming trait. The jury found for the plaintiff because she was so despicable. He reversed the verdict, because she had won her case and the defendant had not presented anything even remotely challenging her case. Any other verdict would have been reversed upon appeal; justice, based upon the facts and evidence presented at trial, demanded her victory.

Much has been written about Judge Aileen Cannon and her conduct earlier this year during the investigation phase of the case now assigned to her, after Trump's indictment for mishandling highly sensitive documents and his refusal to return them. Much also has been said abut the possibility of a hung jury. I share some of that concern.

But I hold in mind the comments of our guest speaker so long ago, and hope. I do not know if judge Cannon could override a hung jury; somehow, I doubt it. But I believe an Appellate Court might be able to remand for any judicial error she might commit, and, in the case of a hung jury, since the case against Trump is not a capital case (where he faces a death sentence if convicted), I think the DOJ would have the option to retry.

I am NOT an attorney, so my comments may be erroneous, but I continue to have hope....

[latebloomer]

Opinion: As Trump is arraigned, Republicans honor the insurrectionists

By Dana Milbank
June 16, 2023 at 6:45 a.m. EDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/16/house-gop-trump-indictment-reaction-jan-6/

Donald Trump could not have asked for a nicer arraignment-day celebration.

During the very same hour in which the former president surrendered to federal authorities in Miami, his Republican allies in the House were, in their most visible and official way yet, embracing as heroes and martyrs the people who sacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in hopes of overturning Trump’s election defeat.

In the Capitol complex, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), with sidekick Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and four other far-right lawmakers, held a “hearing” that honored participants in the riot, family members of Jan. 6 rioters and organizers of the attempted overthrow of the 2020 vote.

Technically, Gaetz couldn’t call such a hearing, because he isn’t a committee chairman. But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who is trying to win back the support of extremists such as Gaetz, let it happen anyway.

Gaetz did his all to make the proceedings look official. There were congressional seals on his nameplate and on the big screen behind him. A meeting room in the Capitol visitor center was arranged to appear like a committee room, with lawmakers facing the witnesses. Gaetz advertised the “field hearing” as part of how “the 118th Congress is investigating the weaponization of the federal government.”

He impersonated a chairman — “you are recognized,” “thank you for your testimony,” “I’ll recognize myself [for] questions,” “her time has expired” — and the others played along (“thank you for the opportunity to testify,” “I yield back”). Gaetz said testimony could be used “for the official record [of the] House” or for “work in the Judiciary Committee, upon which I serve, or the Oversight Committee.” C-SPAN carried the proceedings live.

The invited witnesses?

The wife of Ronald McAbee, who is awaiting trial for allegedly attacking a police officer and dragging him into the mob while wearing a black vest that said “SHERIFF.”
Underwear model John Strand, sentenced to two years and eight months for being part of the mob that breached the Capitol on Jan. 6 and pushed past police officers.
Activist Brandon Straka, sentenced to home detention and probation and fined for his Jan. 6 actions.
The aunt of Matthew Perna; Perna killed himself while awaiting sentencing for his role in breaching the Capitol.
Ed Martin, an organizer of the “Stop the Steal” effort leading up to Jan. 6.
And Jeffrey Clark, the Trump Justice Department official who tried to get states to toss the election results.

The lawmakers hailed them all.

“To all of you, my condolences,” said Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who added tenderly that “you know how I feel about Ashli” Babbitt, the woman police shot as she breached the last line of defense protecting lawmakers in the House chamber.

“This is heartbreaking,” added Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), “the way you all have been treated.”

Greene added “my deepest sympathy for each of you and all the pain and suffering that you’ve all had to go through because of this government.” She told them that they were the victims of “sick, evil people” and that she and other lawmakers had a “constitutional duty to object to Joe Biden’s fraudulent electoral college votes because we all believed that the election had been stolen.”

Gaetz opened the hearing with a video suggesting FBI culpability in the Jan. 6 attack. He claimed he “became aware of evidence” that the Justice Department had evidence of “fraud in the election” but Trump Attorney General “Bill Barr was suppressing evidence.”

Gosar blamed the attack on “people undercover, whether it be antifa, FBI, whatever.” Norman suggested that the FBI was framing people who weren’t involved in the attack.

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Tex.) offered his view that people in charge in the Capitol (Democrats, presumably) “hid the intelligence” showing that an attack was coming. “It’s like they wanted this to happen.” Nehls added that “I believe Ashli Babbitt was murdered that day,” and he said he hopes Trump will return to power and send the officer who shot her before a grand jury.

From the witness table came howls of “wrongful conviction” and “fascism.” From the dais came a cry of “tyranny.” From both came attacks on judges, juries and prosecutors. Audience members were wearing T-shirts saying rioters had been “murdered by Capitol police.” In the hallway, keeping the peace, were two Capitol Police officers, guarding the people accusing them of murder.

Straka, who on Jan. 6 yelled “go, go, go” to the mob as they tried to breach the Capitol and “take it, take it” when rioters grabbed a shield from a police officer, “testified” to Gaetz’s panel that “we, the defendants of Jan. 6, need to be able to have some sort of voice.”

And now they have that voice: the feckless House Republican leaders who let this week’s abomination occur.

IIn the Senate, Republican leaders have voiced little support for Trump, with GOP whip John Thune (S.D.) calling the charges “very serious” and Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.) calling them “not good.

But in the House, McCarthy has shown no such fortitude, hewing closely to the Fox News assessment of the situation, as expressed in an on-screen “news alert” this week: “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.”

McCarthy began by calling the indictment a “brazen weaponization of power” and a “grave injustice.” He threatened to block funding for a new FBI headquarters in retaliation. This week, he accused Biden of stealing classified documents from a secure facility, and he said Trump’s handling of documents (piled in a bathroom) was superior to Biden’s (in a garage) because “a bathroom door locks.”

Will Trump avail himself of the privacy-lock defense? And will anybody have the heart to tell McCarthy that garage doors have locks? Or that bathroom doors lock only from the inside?

In the Senate, Republican leaders have voiced little support for Trump, with GOP whip John Thune (S.D.) calling the charges “very serious” and Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.) calling them “not good.

But in the House, McCarthy has shown no such fortitude, hewing closely to the Fox News assessment of the situation, as expressed in an on-screen “news alert” this week: “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.”

McCarthy began by calling the indictment a “brazen weaponization of power” and a “grave injustice.” He threatened to block funding for a new FBI headquarters in retaliation. This week, he accused Biden of stealing classified documents from a secure facility, and he said Trump’s handling of documents (piled in a bathroom) was superior to Biden’s (in a garage) because “a bathroom door locks.”

Will Trump avail himself of the privacy-lock defense? And will anybody have the heart to tell McCarthy that garage doors have locks? Or that bathroom doors lock only from the inside?

McCarthy is acting, as he often does, out of weakness. Taking an honorable position on Trump, as his Senate counterparts did, would antagonize the far right and could topple his historically weak speakership.

And so, there is nobody to tell the looniest members of his caucus to take it down a notch — just as there was nobody to tell Gaetz et alia not to hold a “hearing” glorifying insurrectionists.

There is nobody, for example, to tell Rep. Clay Higgins to cut it out. The Louisiana Republican, who has militia ties and previously threatened violence on social media, tweeted this message about Trump’s arraignment in Miami: “This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors. Hold. rPOTUS has this. Buckle up. 1/50K know your bridges. Rock steady calm. That is all.”

Most won’t recognize such QAnon codes: “rPOTUS” means Trump is the “real” president, 1/50K is a military map scale, and “know your bridges” is a reference to preparing attack points, author Jeff Sharlet, an authority on extremism, has explained.
Scary? Now consider that this dangerous hooligan is the chairman of the border security subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee.

For a group purporting to be concerned about the “weaponization of government,” House Republicans sure seem intent on turning their own corner of the federal government into a tactical nuke.

On the same day as Trump’s arraignment, far-right first-term representative Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), previously best known for her creatively written résumé, introduced a “privileged resolution” to censure and fine Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) $16 million for his role in leading Trump’s first impeachment. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise promptly pledged to “help it pass” — and put it on the floor Wednesday afternoon.

Luna, full of confidence that her attack on her senior colleague would prevail, told Politico’s Olivia Beavers before the vote that she was acting against Schiff “at the suggestion of a member of leadership.”

Scalise, GOP whip Tom Emmer (Minn.) and GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) all voted with Luna. Alas for her, 20 Republicans retained more integrity than their leaders and joined with Democrats to kill Luna’s censure gambit.

It was a temporary reprieve for good sense. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) this week threatened to use the same “privileged-resolution” procedure to bring articles of impeachment against President Biden to the House floor. She joins a crowded impeach-Biden field: At least 11 House Republicans have introduced or co-sponsored impeachment articles against the president.

But first comes the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The proceedings began this week. They’re just not allowed to call it “impeachment” yet.

“We haven’t even gotten to that word,” Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) said at a news conference Wednesday, making quotation marks with his fingers.

Green was unveiling the GOP’s don’t-call-it-impeachment inquiry, a “five-phase deep dive” authorized by McCarthy that would prove Mayorkas “has been willfully derelict” and “disregarded his oath.” Explained Green: “We’re going to get more information about the failures of this secretary, and when we’re done we’ll make a recommendation to the Judiciary Committee.”

It’s yet another move by McCarthy to placate the hard right. Reps. Pat Fallon (Tex.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Greene and Higgins have introduced articles of impeachment with a combined 68 co-sponsors. But Republicans don’t have the votes to impeach — in part because they don’t have the goods on Mayorkas.

Illegal crossings of the southern border have dropped 70 percent from their record highs, despite the end of pandemic border restrictions. That’s due in part to toughened Biden administration policies, including restrictions on asylum. Heightened enforcement has also led to the seizure of record amounts of fentanyl.

Still, Green kicked off the proceedings with a Trumpian flourish. “Murderers released into the United States! Rapists released into the United States!” he shouted in the House television studio. “One-hundred-seven thousand dead Americans … Alejandro Mayorkas’s policies are the cause of all of this!”

Disagreement with Mayorkas’s — and therefore Biden’s — policies doesn’t qualify as “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Those trying to weaponize the government against Mayorkas are going to need a better weapon.

Remember when House Republicans cared about the federal debt? That was so two weeks ago.
During the debt ceiling standoff, McCarthy said he was fighting to relieve the crushing burden of the federal debt on future generations, insisting “it’s got to end now.”

But this week, the House Ways and Means Committee passed a three-part bill that would, over the next three years, add $325 billion to the federal debt, according to calculations made by Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation. That would more than wipe out the $186.1 billion saved over the same period by the debt deal — which Republicans had nearly tanked the economy to achieve just two weeks earlier.

“Republicans, including those on this committee, held our entire U.S. economy hostage, purportedly because you’re concerned about Washington spending and our national debt,” Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) protested at the day-long markup of the bills. “But now, less than two weeks later, you brought before us a bill that would add over a trillion dollars to our national debt.” The trillion-dollar figure comes from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a think tank that calculated that if temporary tax cuts in the bill were made permanent (as often occurs), the bill would actually add $1.1 trillion to the debt through 2033.

How to explain this sudden change of heart about the federal debt? Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) tried objectivism.

“I’m slogging through right now … a 1957 book written by a lady named Ayn Rand, called ‘Atlas Shrugged,’” said Murphy, who apparently just discovered the 20th-century champion of self-interest. He cautioned that “it’s very laborious” but “a wonderful lesson.”

Perhaps he was taken by Rand’s admonition to “never live for the sake of another man.” That could account for the House GOP’s approach to this year’s appropriations bills.

McCarthy, in one of his many efforts to placate the far-right dissidents in his caucus, this week agreed to jettison the spending levels he and Biden agreed to in the debt deal. House Republicans will now try to slash spending even further — essentially reneging on the agreement after just two weeks and putting the government on course for a shutdown this fall.

After an appalling spate of mass shootings, the House finally took action on guns this week. Republicans passed, largely along party lines, a bill making it easier to obtain firearms.

Specifically, they voted to strike down new regulations on “stabilizing braces” that make handguns more powerful and deadly — and have been used in several recent massacres.

The primary sponsor of the legislation was Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), a gun dealer by trade. If that conflict of interest weren’t jarring enough, the Republican floor leader for part of the debate was Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.), known for his Christmas card showing each member of his family holding an AR-style weapon.

Massie, railing against gun-free zones, told the House about a former aide whose husband was shot in a bar. She couldn’t fire back, as she had left her own gun in her car because “the sign said ‘No Guns Inside’ because they served alcohol.”

An incredulous Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) took issue with Massie “suggesting that it’s okay for people to carry guns into bars when they are drunk.”

Added McGovern: “This place is crazier than usual.”

All week, it was demonstrably so.

[latebloomer]

Reading the day's news and comments this morning, I came across a link to this article. Although old, it seems still relevant.

British Writer Pens The Best Description Of Trump I’ve Read
MARCH 8, 2019 ~ Michael Stevenson

Someone on the question-and-answer website Quora asked “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?” Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response:

A few things spring to mind.

Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.

For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.

So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.

But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.

And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.

Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.

Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.

And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.

Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.

He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.

That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.

There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.

After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of sh*t. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.

God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.

He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.

In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?'

If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.

~~~

Posted here, complete with comments, which are blistering:

https://thehobbledehoy.com/2019/03/08/british-writer-pens-the-best-description-of-trump-ive-read/

[drjohncarpenter]

Past week, twice-indicted EX president.











Once a scumbag, always a scumbag.

Let justice be done, and soon.

[drjohncarpenter]

Past week, CURRENT president.











God bless President Joseph R. Biden.

All his hard work is starting to pay off.

It's sinking in with more and more people in this country.

President Biden is doing a great job for ALL Americans.

[drjohncarpenter]

LEADERSHIP from the President of the United States.











President Joseph R. Biden.

Standing up to the gun lobby supporting lethal weapons of war in the hands of non-military.

"We will never yield on this issue . . . we can get this done."

He represents EVERY decent American, including all the children killed by these horrible guns.

It must end, and he is fighting for every single one of their precious souls.




'

[drjohncarpenter]

More SCOTUS corruption.

















Full article:

Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court
https://www.propublica.org/article/samuel-alito-luxury-fishing-trip-paul-singer-scotus-supreme-court





The Roberts Court will be historic for all the wrong reasons.

Dobbs. Citizens United. Illegitimate appointments. Justice corruption.

[drjohncarpenter]

Historic economy.











President Joseph Biden.

What a difference. Voting is important.

[drjohncarpenter]

Historic judiciary.














President Joseph Biden.

What a difference. Voting is important.

[drjohncarpenter]

On tour, 2023.











President Joseph Biden.

What a difference. Voting is important.

[drjohncarpenter]

Russia's evil Ukraine invasion now backfiring.




























Hoping this turns the tide and ends the unlawful invasion of Ukraine.

And, yes, thank God Joe Biden is President of the United States right now.

[latebloomer]

Speaker McCarthy supports expunging Trump’s impeachments over Ukraine and Jan. 6

By LISA MASCARO, June 23, 2023
https://apnews.com/article/mccarthy-trump-impeachment-greene-stefanik-expunge-0a8466e34566ad7ff94c95642884952c

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Friday he supports the idea of expunging the two impeachments of Donald Trump as hard-right Republican allies of the former president introduce a pair of proposals to declare it as though the historic charges never happened.

McCarthy told reporters that he agrees with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Elise Stefanik who want to erase the charges against Trump from the former president’s impeachments of 2019 and 2021.

“I think it is appropriate,” said McCarthy, the Republican from California. “Just as I thought before — that you should expunge it, because it never should have gone through.”

Pressed on his views, McCarthy said he agreed with expunging both of Trump’s impeachments — the abuse of power charges in 2019 over pressing Ukraine’s president to dig up dirt on rival Joe Biden and the 2021 charge that Trump incited the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol as Trump supporters tried to overturn Biden’s election.

In both cases, Trump was acquitted by the Senate after his impeachment by the House. But expunging the charges from his record would be an action he could further tout as vindication as he seeks another term in the White House.

The effort is the latest by Trump’s allies to rewrite the narrative of the defeated president’s tenure in office. And it underscores the pressure McCarthy is under from his right flank.

Just this week, McCarthy beat back a proposal from Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., to impeach President Biden, sending it instead to committees for review.

In explaining his views, McCarthy said the first Trump impeachment, in 2019, should have never happened, conflating it with a separate investigation by the Justice Department into Russian interference into the 2016 election.

As for the 2021 trial that was conducted swiftly in the week after the riot at the Capitol, he said: “The second impeachment had no due process.”

The speaker gave no indication he would move quickly to bring forward the proposals from Greene, R-Ga., and Stefanik, R-N.Y., who is the fourth-ranking GOP leader, for House votes. Pressed if the proposals were a priority, he shifted to listing other GOP goals.

Asked if he had spoken to Trump about expunging the impeachment record, McCarthy said he had not.

Trump, who is campaigning to return to the White House, is the first president in U.S. history to be twice impeached by the House, though he was acquitted by the Senate of all charges.

Democrats have defended their decision to quickly impeach Trump a second time after the mob attack at the Capitol in 2021. They argue that the evidence played out for the world to see as the defeated president rallied his supporters to Washington and encouraged them to march to the Capitol as Congress was certifying Biden’s election.

Trump was first impeached in 2019 after it was disclosed that he encouraged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to dig up political dirt on then-White House rival Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential campaign — while Trump was withholding U.S. military aid to Ukraine as it faced Russia.

~~~

More ridiculousness from the House Republicans. And, MTG and the other Freedumb Caucus members have a list of cabinet members they also want to impeach, besides, of course, Biden. And for this their constituents (and the rest of us) are paying them $174,000 (McCarthy gets $223,500) per year!

Heaven help us!

[drjohncarpenter]

Past weekend, EX president.



















This is not a surprise.

Once a crook, always a crook.

[drjohncarpenter]

Getting closer.























Truth matters. Justice matters. Elections matter.

In a democracy.

God bless America.

[drjohncarpenter]

JFC.











A threat on every level.

A liar to his core.

LOCK. HIM. UP.

[drjohncarpenter]

Today, CURRENT president.












President Joseph R. Biden.

Leading the country, making things better for all of us.