Trump: America’s first illegally elected President
America is about to make a massive mistake! The U.S. Constitution has a lot of words. I know, it’s seems difficult to read. It’s not. Let’s explore the constitutional problems with Donald Trump as President Elect and why the 2024 Election results are invalid. Let’s explore.
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is a curious beast. It says a lot of things, but none more important than section 3 below:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Highlights have been added for brevity and clarity. The 14th Amendment describes ALL of the qualifications necessary for a person to run for any elected office. Failing any of these requirements means that the candidate is INELIGIBLE to run. Note this previous statement because it becomes very important to America and the 2024 Election.
January 6th
… is widely understood as an insurrection. It fits all of the qualifications for it. It was violent. It was an uprising. The uprising was against the United States government. The uprising was intended to subvert the will of the voters. The uprising was intended to aid Mr. Trump in remaining in office past his term. The uprising was fomented and incited by Mr. Trump at the ellipse the morning of January 6th.
More than this, Mr. Trump decided to sit idly by for 4 hours and do nothing to stop it. This is aiding and abetting… the very definition of what’s written in the 14th Amendment.
As a result, even Congress was forced to consult with the Supreme Court on whether what Mr. Trump did was considered an insurrection. The problem is, it doesn’t matter what the SCOTUS believes, it only matters what Congress believes.
If Congress was required to ask another authority in the government about Trump’s conduct, then it’s clear that Congress is unclear on Trump’s eligibility. This means that Trump is and should be considered ineligible to run for office until this question is 100% cleared by using the 14th’s prescribed VOTING mechanism. Trump is now considered a “grey area” candidate at this point.
The 14th Amendment is CRYSTAL CLEAR on what is required to ensure any “grey area” candidate is eligible. “But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
It says it right here in the 14th’s text. Congress may choose by a 2/3rds vote to lift such a disability and make any such “grey area” candidate eligible to run for office. Until such a vote, the candidate must remain ineligible.
Congress failed to vote on this! (IMPORTANT)
Keep in mind that nowhere in the 14th Amendment does it allow or authorize the SCOTUS to chime in on such and make any definitive choices. The ONLY choice given by the 14th is to have Congress VOTE on it. Any questions involving any candidate’s eligibility automatically means that a Congressional VOTE is REQUIRED.
2024 Election
What does all of the above mean for the 2024 election? Let’s break it down.
Since Donald Trump was then and is now an ineligible candidate per the 14th Amendment and because Congress failed to vote on Trump’s eligibility because of his “grey area” status, that means Trump is and remains an illegal candidate on the ballot.
Trump shouldn’t been on the ballot because he’s ineligible due to the failure of Congress to follow the procedures outlined in the 14th Amendment; procedures that are quite crystal clear in their intent and in their required actions.
But the SCOTUS…
The SCOTUS doesn’t play into this. Nowhere in the 14th does it say that the SCOTUS can intervene and offer up their opinion. Think of it this way. The SCOTUS’s opinion is tantamount to you having committed a crime, then asking a judge if they believe you are innocent of the crime.
If a judge gives you their opinion as “innocent”, that doesn’t mean you aren’t still responsible for having committed that crime. That judge’s opinion absolutely DOES NOT let you off of the hook for having committed that crime. It’s just an opinion. What matters is what the LAW says is required.
If the law says you should be indicted and charged, that judge’s opinion absolutely 100% WILL NOT get you out of that predicament. You will still be held accountable for what you did in whatever way the law requires. Talking to a judge absolutely does not get you a “get out of jail free” card no matter what that judge says. The same for the SCOTUS. An opinion is just an opinion. It is 100% not binding. What is binding is what the written law requires.
Election 2024 continued…
Because Trump is a “grey area” candidate due to his involvement in January 6th AND because Congress had questions involving his conduct on January 6th AND because Congress did not rule on Trump’s eligibility, Trump remains ineligible to run for ANY office… period.
Until or unless Congress votes on Trump’s eligibility as the 14th Amendment requires, Trump remains ineligible to be on any ballot.
Let’s break this down further…
Because Trump was on the 2024 ballot as an ineligible candidate, the results of the election are, likewise, invalid. This means that the 2024 Election technically has no winner because the Election results must be tossed out in their entirety. Trump is not the President Elect because the 14th Amendment is clear on this matter. Trump is ineligible.
Kamala Harris is not the winner either because the entire election results must be tossed out entirely. It’s a fraudulent election because an ineligible candidate participated.
Re-Run the Election
Because the 2024 Election results are 100% invalid, the election must be rerun with 100% ELIGIBLE candidates. Trump can only be made eligible by a Congressional vote in both houses. That would need to be done BEFORE any Re-Run election. If the vote fails or if Congress is unable to hold such a vote, then Trump must remain off of the Rerun election ballot.
Accepting an Illegal President
If America moves forward with this illegal Presidential charade, then we are complicit in breaking down the will of the Constitution. The Constitution is completely clear on how candidate eligibility matters need to be handled.
If we accept Donald Trump as President Elect under these ineligible circumstances and accept the results of this invalid election, America will have voted in its first ILLEGAL President in U.S. History. It also means the Constitution is null and void. Democracy is dead if we proceed here.
Technicality
Technicalities matter and this one matters a great deal to both America and the United States Constitution. Do we stand with the Constitution and uphold it? OR, do we stand with Donald Trump and vote against our Constitution?
Because Congress made a procedural faux pas in this matter, it is on Congress to right this wrong. In fact, it’s on the entirety of the United States Government leaders to stand up for our Constitution and call the 2024 Election invalid and require a re-run election.
Let’s do the right thing here! OR, there’s no stepping back from this precipice! We are at America’s decision gate and most of us don’t even know it. There is a short amount of time to correct our course here, but it requires ALL Americans and all American Leaders to bring attention to this situation regardless of their partisanship.
Trump can still be America’s President, but it must be voted on in the Constitutionally correct way.
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America has made the wrong choice
Much to the chagrin of so many, Donald Trump has managed to win the election and become President, but not by a landslide. Donald Trump will spin it that way, but it isn’t true. One thing that is absolutely true, however, is that lies are winning over truth. Lies are how Trump won. Let’s explore.
Over-Analyzed
The news media outlets are now over-analyzing Trump’s win, pulling out all manner of random talking heads to say whatever they think. These randoms, most of the time, make zero sense with their inane arguments as to why Trump won.
For example, one of MSNBC’s talking head randoms claimed that Trump won because Democrats called the Trump base biggots and racists. I don’t recall any Democrat candidates saying this. Media outlets may have been making these arguments, along with many talking heads on media outlets, but I can’t recall a single Democrat candidate saying this. Feel free to point how how I’m wrong in the comments below, however.
One thing that is absolutely certain is that media outlets have been calling Trump a biggot and racist. This is true. It seems if these talking heads are so out of touch that they can’t recognize the difference between a news media outlet and a Democrat, they’re living in a cave. They’re also clearly not thinking.
Spinning Lies
Trump won, not because Democrats did or said anything wrong. Trump won because Trump and his cabal are able to spew lies about the Democrats that seemed truthful to the masses. That’s the gist of it at all. At the heart of the matter, it comes down to lies over truth.
People seemed to have forgotten one cliché, but very salient and prophetic quote:
If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.
No where is this quote more applicable than towards Donald Trump. Trump is a conman, first and foremost. The word “conman” has a lot of negative connotations, but let’s break it down. The “con” prefix in “conman” is short for “confidence”.
This means that a “conman” gains your “confidence” by saying things that, you guessed it, “seem too good to be true”, leading to an initial skepticism. Then, the conman follows up those skeptical words with words that try to allay your fears about his statement being “too good to be true.” In a very real sense, leading you down a primrose path made of up plastic flowers. They’re pretty and may seem real, just don’t get too close.
He then hauls out 2, 3 or more shills who all backup his claims as the conman. These shills are paid accomplices who say whatever the conman wants because they were paid off. Think of them as paid actors.
These shills who come rolling out are intended to prove to you that the conman’s words are truthful. Some people may still be skeptical at this point, unless some of the shills are people like a mayor, your police leader or even your pastor. That’s where a conman’s words get a huge boost to seem “truthful”, even though they’re still all just a pack of lies.
The Wrong Decision
It seems that the vast majority of America has now been conned by a man who has enlisted far too many confidence shills like Elon Musk and Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott and Rupert Murdock (and sons) and this list goes on and on and on.
Gullible sorts believe what Trump says because they believe what his shills are saying. That rationale is, “if all of these people are saying the same thing, then it must be true.” Yet, shills are still shills perpetuating lies on behalf of the conman. Unfortunately, when so many are perpetrating the same lies, it can be difficult to undersatnd that these lies are, very much in fact, still lies.
Let’s not get bogged down into Trump’s continual lies.
4 years of Hell
America is literally in for 4 years of hell. You will begin to realize that the lies that Trump and his cabal have told are in fact truly lies. That you were, in fact, deceived by a legitimate conman. Unfortunately, you’re going to learn this fact in the most difficult ways possible. Let’s list out each of what Trump has made claims of “fixing” and then realize why he will be unable to actually do any of it. In fact, the economy will get far, far worse under Trump’s leadership than where we are right at this moment in time.
Trump’s lies:
- Trump will bring down inflation and restore what was the economy prior to Biden. This is both a lie and it is false. Trump has no ability to steer America’s economy to make it any better than it is right now. In fact, with Trump’s continual chaos, firings, distractions and age-related mental degeneration, America’s economy will actually get worse, not better. Expect higher rents, higher food costs, higher gas prices and higher inflation than where we are today. It could even get to twice higher than today.
- The Middle East and Russia wars will end. Lies. Trump has no influence to control or change the outcomes of what’s going on the Middle East or with Russia. The best he can do is attempt to befriend Putin again and play hardball with Netanyahu, neither of which will affect those wars in any way at all. Worse, though, is that for all of his meddling in these international affairs, he will see to it that No. 1 above absolutely comes true… a worsening economy, more inflation and higher prices. The only way that the Ukraine war ends under Trump is for the Ukraine to be handed over to Russia on a silver platter.
- Trump will deport many, many immigrants. Lies, mostly. Not in that he will deport people, but in HOW and WHO he will deport. While he may be able to round up immigrants and “deport” them, there’s no way to know what exactly he means by this. He could attempt to round up not only recent immigrants, but all immigrants of any nationality regardless of their legal citizenship status or how long they have lived in America. Then, deport ALL of them. MAGA isn’t just about “Making America Great Again”, it’s about “Making America White Again.”
- Trump will fix the border. Lies. Trump has no way to fix the border. Putting up a border wall will cost taxpayers trillions more in money. Instead of reducing taxes, you’re going to be paying even more to help put up that wall along the border… a wall, that incidentally, will do nothing to stem the tide of immigrants. Of course, Trump will lie about all of this and tell you it is working. Because you don’t live near the border, you will have to take his word at face value. Living near the border will tell you the real truth, but you don’t care about that because you don’t live near there.
- Trump will make the country better. Lies. Trump only cares about one person. Himself. Trump will make the country better for HIM only. Not for you, not for your family and not for anyone else you know. This ties back to No. 1 above, but it is markedly different because Trump wants to be President for not only the power he derives, but for the money he gains and the money he can skim from just about everywhere he can find. This, of course, costs the economy money and you, as a taxpayer, money. Trump wants to turn the country into a playground for the rich with those at the bottom becoming pawns for his pleasure, convenience and for the work he can make you do. He wants you to work even longer hours, get even less money in wages and effectively become slave labor to him. Well done voting for him.
Third World Nation
These above are the top things Trump has promised. However, he has also promised political retribution to his opponents. We’ll have to see how his political retribution ends, but that likely means completely getting rid of the Democrats entirely.
That above and his promise of toppling the constitution. These here are additional promises he has made. The problem is, toppling the constitution means toppling America. Toppling America means putting America into not only a great depression, but the biggest depression that America has ever seen. It also means America will cease to exist as a country and will instantly become a third world nation. The dollar will cease to have value across the globe. Think of what the peso is worth in Mexico and devalue the dollar by even more than that.
If the constitution is toppled, your rights are gone. Your home is gone. Your land is gone. Your money is gone. Everything you hold dear is absolutely, 100% completely and utterly gone. Without a constitution to protect your rights, you have no rights at all.
Trump can come in and seize everything you have and everything you own. Trump can then rearrange the state boundaries, remove voting entirely, disband the military or rearrange the United States to his will and effectively cause one of the most catastrophic changes to what was formerly known as America.
If we get to this point, and yes it is entirely possible we will in less than 4 years, Trump will have to begin selling off parts of American territory to continue to fund his own lifestyle choices, that and to avoid becoming part of a coup. That probably won’t work. Don’t bet that if we get to this point that Mexico, Russia, China and North Korea won’t eye our land for conquest. World War III? Forget that. We won’t be able to even defend our nation once Trump brings us to this point. Our military will be so disjointed and disbanded, that we won’t have a military to speak of. Nukes? They probably won’t even work.
You Voted For This!
This is exactly what you voted for. You bought into Trump’s con. You think he’ll make America better, but that’s not going to happen. He’s too old and too unstable to produce any results. Trump has no moral compass nor ethical boundaries. Trump is, as some media outlets have stated, transactional. He does things on a whim, but also does some planned things with as minimal planning as possible. When something is planned, it’s usually planned and executed in hours, with absolutely not enough time to judge the consequences.
Trump offers no real plans. He isn’t a planner. He’s not even a doer. He’s a leach and a conman. He takes and takes and takes. He almost never gives back.
This is what you wanted? No? It’s absolutely what you’re going to get.
The next 4 years are going to be a living hell for not just Democrats, but equally for all Republicans. You wanted to open Pandora’s Box. Well, now you did. Now we get to see exactly what’s inside of Pandora’s box… and no, it’s not going to be pretty.
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Inside Job? Suspicious Shooting at Trump’s Butler Rally
As the investigation into what went on at Trump’s Butler, Pennsylvania rally progresses, one question that should be on everyone’s mind is, “Was this shooting was an inside job?” There are too many suspect things involving this shooting, least of all the 20 year old suspect.
Disclaimer: This article is intended to be speculative in its nature and in handling this sensitive topic as this situation is still unfolding. Not all information is yet available. This article is not intended to accuse or defame any individual person or entity stated. This article is only intended to ask the pertinent questions that need to be asked based on what we know so far.
Let’s explore.
What happened?
Trump, as he does on the campaign trail, was holding a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13th. Trump was at the microphone at the time speaking. Several shots rang out and Trump’s ear was allegedly grazed by a bullet along with a bullet striking and killing one rally attendee.
Secret Service then stepped in to protect the former President by attempting to hold him down. Before that happened, he defiantly raised a fist, displaying his bloody ear.
Election and All Stops
Trump will pretty much stop at nothing to secure the Presidency. He’s already made that abundantly clear with the January 6th event using his failed attempt at halting the counting of the state electoral vote. Then, as a part of that, setting up and fomenting a violent riot that followed at the Capital.
The question then remains, “Was the shooting at Trump’s Butler, Pennsylvania rally an inside job?” Let’s see if we can at least understand better why this is even a question.
Inside Job?
Again, this is a speculative article in its nature. It’s not intending to accuse anyone. It is intended solely to ask questions. Let’s get right to the meat of this article. There are so many suspicious activities involving this Butler, Pennsylvania Trump shooting that we need to understand them all. Let’s make a bulleted list:
- The CIA and FBI are primo at sniffing out early notifications of possible mass shootings. Yet, they missed this one? No social media ramblings at all?
- The Secret Service didn’t scope out the crowd in advance or even during the event?
- The Secret Service didn’t wand or otherwise run the crowd through metal detectors?
- The Secret Service seemingly didn’t have close building rooftops covered to prevent someone from taking pot shots at Donald Trump or the crowd? Hmm…
- The Secret Service was able to neutralize the shooter in seconds? Even more, hmm…
- Donald Trump fist pumps for the camera with a bleeding ear after a supposed gunshot. Yeah, that’s a big hmm…
- That a 20 year old is able to circumvent Secret Service’s security measures? Okay, hmmm.
- Donald Trump’s sends up a defiant fist while Secret Service is attempting to secure him. Uh, nokay.
- Let’s label this what this really is, another a mass shooting.
Let’s break this all down. Neither the CIA nor the FBI had any advanced notice of a possible shooter at this rally? That’s suspect. It’s like no one said anything prior to the rally. I find it difficult to believe that a 20 year old doesn’t have a social media presence, let alone have potential discussions about what went on. Alone, this one miss isn’t a problem if other safeguards catch a would-be assailant. They didn’t.
It’s unclear if the Secret Service was able to properly vet the entire crowd through Magnetometers or by wand device, but it seems that at least one person slipped through that process. The question then is, what happened here? How did this happen? Did this assailant remain far enough away from the event to not need to be vetted by Secret Service?
The building where the shooter camped was not too far from the rally site to fire a weapon reliably, but also it was also not too close to be detected, apparently. I’m guessing that because of this distance, the Secret Service didn’t require vetting people at this distance? Really? Below is the alleged building involved where the suspected 20 year old shooter allegedly camped.
Unfortunately, there is yet another metric that supports that this may have been an inside job. It seems highly unlikely that this building wouldn’t have been fully secured (even the rooftop) in advance of the rally by the Secret Service, including either having SS staff on the rooftop or at least standing outside of this building location to prevent trespassing.
Clearly, at least according to various news media reports, the shooter was neutralized moments (seconds?) after the shots rang out by a Secret Service agent, with one of the suspect’s earlier shots allegedly grazing Trump’s ear while killing a rally participant.
Suspicious
This whole building security situation is highly suspicious. How did a shooter manage to get on top of a building that should have been fully secured by the Secret Service? That either means that Secret Service was not securing that building properly or, this is an even worse thought, that Secret Service ignored the individual as they traversed onto the rooftop with their weapons.
Yet, clearly the Secret Service was able to neutralize this rooftop target in moments after the shots rang out? Secret Service apparently had that rooftop covered as it has been reported that a Secret Service sniper was able to locate, take aim and shoot at the assailant all within a matter of seconds. All of this action by the Secret Service implies that this building was, indeed, being fully covered by Secret Service protection. Yet, a 20 year old shooter can manage to get past that security, pull out a weapon, take a position on the roof and begin firing shots… all without being detected? Yeah, this author is not buying that idea.
The question remains, how would such a shooter manage to get past Secret Service and traverse onto a rooftop of a building that was apparently so well secured? Yes, this is A really big and suspicious question.
Inside Job Part II
As we delve into all of the above, we come to realize that either the Secret Service was highly inept at performing their security responsibilities (doubtful) or that this was an inside job.
Donald Trump and all of his closest confidants, particularly the ones participating in the rally, would likely have known of the Secret Service’s plans (or at least many of them) to secure the rally site. Information that could potentially “leak”.
If the rooftop building was so well covered so as to neutralize the target in moments, it’s inconceivable that a random person could randomly and with extreme luck happen upon a Secret Service blind spot to infiltrate and make their way onto the rooftop all without being seen or, more importantly, heard by Secret Service. Again, either Secret Service was ignoring this situation or it seems likely that something else was going on here. It’s all too suspicious and this author is not buying it.
Why not a Lone Wolf Shooter?
For a person to cart a weapons bag onto a rooftop that is being actively secured by Secret Service and not be seen or heard doing this is infinitesimally small. By infinitesimally, I mean the chances are next to zero. Clearly, if Secret Service were able to neutralize this shooter as rapidly as they did, the Secret Service had coverage on or near the building involved. Having that level of coverage implies that the shooter may have had help to get around the Secret Service detail.
This means that the shooter would have needed to get help to find a blind spot in Secret Service coverage, a blind spot that only an inside person would know. That means that the shooter may have been fed this information prior to traversing onto the rooftop, which allowed that person to avoid being detected by Secret Service, arm up and then take the shots.
Fist Defiance
One highly suspect issue during this whole event is Trump’s behavior immediately following the shot where he realized a bullet had allegedly struck him. Instead of going into panic mode as one might do, he decided to stand up with a fist in the air for a photo opportunity. It’s almost like Trump knew that the threat was over, somehow. That’s not a normal behavior after having been shot and nearly assassinated. Instead, he should have wanted to leave the rally as quickly as possible to secure the safety of his person. Instead, he seemed willing to defy his Secret Service detail as they attempted to pull him to safety.
Seriously, who thinks about photo opportunities when someone is shooting a weapon in your general direction?
Trump involved?
This is a question, not an accusation. We already know that Trump is not avert in taking drastic and unusual steps to make a point and in his attempt to win and/or hold the Presidency. Just look at January 6th as an example. Disclaimer: this is question that must be asked. It is not intended to accuse.
Democrat Involvement?
Clearly, Trump’s sycophant Republicans are going to play the lone-wolf must-be-a-Democrat card, even though it has been confirmed that the now deceased 20 year old shooter was a registered Republican. It also seems like almost every time something happens involving Trump, it is inevitably Trump who had a hand in its outcome. Yet, Trump (and his sycophants) will inevitably and hypocritically blame it all on the Democrats in one breath, while calling for unity in another. Because of all of the suspicious goings on involving this shooting, the entire situation does seem highly suspicious and dubious.
Trump’s Repeated Calls for Violence
Trump has repeatedly used veiled words and rhetoric to call his “troops” into action. What troops you ask? Well, obviously troops like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and other Republicans. Trump is willing to and understands that through various broad rhetoric, it will call “his” troops into action. His veiled words tell these various groups to do things up to and including performing violence when necessary. Again, look at January 6th as a prime example. It’s not the only example (e.g., NY trial), though.
As a person with the amount of public sway that Donald Trump holds, his seemingly innocent words are put into sometimes threatening and violent actions by his followers. Just look at the rhetoric that Trump used against various judges and various court staff and what ultimately resulted onto those people after Trump’s words were unleashed. His words even went so far as to force a judge to issue a gag order against Trump during his New York Trial. Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s biggest hired sycophant lackeys at the time of Trump’s Presidency, was even sued and lost a defamation suit against election workers as he spread many lies about those workers involving the 2020 election; lies that fomented negative action towards these workers by Trump followers. Rudy Giuliani has even been disbarred as a lawyer over his 2020 election lies.
While what Rudy Giuliani said didn’t personally result in threats and violence against those people, at least not by Giuliani’s own hand, it did foment many, many uncomfortable situations for these election workers by others from within Trump’s “troop” camp; well-meaning workers who were simply hired to do a job during an election. Fomenting these kinds of unchecked threats and violence against others is clearly something Trump (and his lawyers) shouldn’t be doing. And yet, perhaps one third to one half of the nation want to reelect this man?
Fomenting violence, regardless of how veiled the rhetoric may be, is still fomenting violence. It’s no wonder that eventually Trump’s own veiled words would turn back around on him. Trump likely knew that this would be an eventuality. Based on all of the suspicious goings on above, it seems more likely that what occurred may have been an inside job, taken as a step to quell that violence by potentially doing it as an inside job; one that looks like it isn’t? We just don’t know.
Unfortunately, one rally goer died as a result.
Is Trump, the Secret Service or his inner circle involved?
There’s no way to know, yet. But, this question must be asked and answered. This situation is still unfolding and we don’t yet have all of the details. This article is written solely using logical speculation based on the details known at the moment of this article and it is based solely on the logical deduction around these rather dubious situations so far. This article is not intended to accuse anyone. It is simply here to ask pertinent questions. After all, even as infinitesimal as it is, a 20 year old lone-wolf shooter managed to slip through Secret Service’s grasp and gain access to an unsecured rooftop to take shots at Trump? It’s not likely he did this without help.
Is it possible it could be done? Yes. Is it probable? No.
Secret Service is way too meticulous in planning its security details involving the former President. Either the Secret Service lapsed in its responsibilities for security at this rally or this was an inside job designed to circumvent the Secret Service.
Unfortunately, even if it was an inside job, the Government will likely squash all evidence of that to make it seem like it was strictly a lone-wolf operation. Only time will tell if the Government will be honest with us over what really happened.
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A gag order won’t work on Trump
Trump is quite the chatterbox! This guy has about as much respect for the law and the judicial system as a cat has for water. Trump genuinely thinks he’s the star of his own show, that rules simply don’t apply to him.
Judges might as well be invisible, because their orders go in one ear and out the other! If you’re thinking a gag order will shut him up, you might as well try silencing a parrot with a whisper. Let’s dive into the delusional world of Trump and his disregard for legal boundaries. Grab your popcorn, folks, let’s explore!
What is a gag order?
A gag order is an order, typically a legal order by a court or government, restricting information or comment from being made public or passed onto any unauthorized third party.
In other words, a gag order is a legally binding order against an individual by a judge that if breached will cause the judge to apply penalties against the person who breached the order. The penalites could include fine and/or jail time. If the gagged person is indicted and out on bond pending trial, that bond could be rescinded and the person could be remanded into custody, then placed into jail and detained until the trial.
Donald Trump’s Mouth
The difficulty is that Donald Trump cannot shut up. He’s a voluminous talker and will not allow anyone to prevent him from speaking, least of all people who work for the agencies he believes to be corrupt.
What exactly does that mean for a gag order from the Department of Justice? It doesn’t mean a gag order will work. It does mean that that the government will have to end up making some hard choices. The only thing that issuing a gag order will do is cause Trump to breach it, thus the reason for those hard decisions.
From Trump’s so-called “raid” on Mar-A-Lago (which wasn’t a raid at all), we already know Trump doesn’t respect such legal matters and simply won’t abide. The question is not whether Trump can respect a gag order, it’s whether Jack Smith and the Justice Department are willing to rescind Trump’s bond after Trump breaches the gag order to then place him into protective custody until the Justice Department’s trial. Yeah… unlikely.
Why rescinding Trump’s bond is important!
The only way Trump can truly be gagged is to place him into protective custody until the DOJ (or any other) trial commences. Additionally, while in protective custody, Trump must be forced to surrender all of his electronic devices and have no contact with anyone until the trial begins. Unless (or until) this step is taken, Trump will not stop attempting to interfere with the trial including tampering with evidence, destroying evidence, tainting or coercing witnesses, threatening judges and threatening or tainting the jury pool.
Trump’s being under 4 indictments for many different alleged criminal activities has not cooled Trump at all in performing even more criminal activities. The average person placed under criminal indictment would stop doing whatever it was that got them there. Not Donald Trump.
Why is he continuing? Because Trump absolutely 100% wants to ensure that he will not receive a fair trial. Trump is doing everything in his power to ensure that his trial is entirely problematic and unfair from the start. That means that during trial or even after it, he will have sufficient evidence to prove that the trial wasn’t handled in a fair and equitable manner claiming that the jury judgement must be thrown out. It doesn’t mean that a judge will agree with Trump, but he’ll keep appealing all jury decision (assuming guilty) all the way to the Supreme court (where Trump has a lot of “friends” who will likely rule in his favor).
Presidential Election
As we should already know, Trump is again running for President in 2024. The difficulty is that Trump seems intent on using his campaign as a crutch to keep himself out of prison… or more specifically out of detainment before trial. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to be President again. He does. But… that won’t stop him from using his campaign as a means of preventing his detainment in jail pending trial.
As it is now, Trump is out on bond for all of his pending trials. Bond agreements stipulate that any further violation of laws or of court orders may result in rescinding that bond which means remanding the person into custody.
Trump’s Legal Woes
Just to be crystal clear, Trump is now facing 4 criminal trials, two of them federal. Let’s enumerate each of them now:
- Jack Smith’s Federal trial involving Classified Documents. This indictment contains 37 felony counts.
- Jack Smith’s Federal trial involving the January 6th Insurrection. This indictment contains 4 felony counts.
- Fani Willis’s trial involving Georgia State Election Interference. This RICO indictment contains 13 felony counts against Donald Trump, but also includes more counts against 18 other co-conspirators.
- Alvin Bragg’s trial involving Falsifying Business Records in New York State. This indictment contains 34 felony counts.
For more information on each of these trials, Politico has a good article on this.
Daring the Courts to Take Action
Trump is intentionally taunting the justice department, every judge and every prosecutor presiding over his court trials by inciting his cabal into action. By taunting, I mean calling out his cabal of goons to dox and death threaten these officials performing their jobs. There is also no sign of him stopping this behavior.
In fact, if Trump is given a true gag order, there is zero doubt he will breach that gag order, not once, but many, many, many times. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when… but that’s not what matters.
What matters is how each trial judge will handle the breaches and what decision they will make involving those breaches. There are 4 pending trials, but only one trial judge can put him behind bars until their trial. If that judge is the one presiding over the federal trial, how will the 3 other trials proceed if he’s stuck in federal detainment?
It’s worse than simply just detaining him. Trump is absolutely begging the judges to attempt to gag him because he knows they won’t detain him in jail pending trial. They know that these judges do not have the spine to place a Presidential candidate behind bars pending trial. If the gag orders don’t work, and they most certainly will not, then what besides protective custody? Fining Trump again is fruitless. Not only will he not pay that bill, he won’t stop talking.
Gag orders won’t work because they simply can’t work on Donald Trump. With anyone else, a breached gag order for someone indicted would instantly lead to detainment in jail pending trial. With Trump, that’s not easily possible.
Again, it’s not what Trump does after he breaches a gag order, it’s what will each of the trial judges and the indicting prosecutors do when he does… and he most definitely will.
Will they attempt to detain him? Likely not.
Will a fine work? Definitely not.
Will Trump stop talking? No.
Where do we go from here?
Clearly, the prosecuting attorneys and the judges will have some intense soul searching to do. How do you reign in a person in this situation? Either they’ll need to devise a creative new solution or they’ll have to let Donald Trump slide.
I’d love to see these judges remand Trump into custody pending trial. However, I just don’t see that happening. No judge is likely willing to put their own career on the line to jail a former President… especially when he’s the purported front runner of the GOP. I personally don’t think that makes any difference. If a person has committed an alleged crime, then they need to be treated as any other person, regardless of their present role or aspirations.
The only clear choice for penalities is to move the trial up after each breach. Just as Judge Chutkin warned Trump, so too must Jack Smith and every other trial judge. For each breach Trump makes against a gag order, the trial gets moved earlier by one month. It’s the only solution to this dilemma. If they can’t or won’t jail him and take away his voice, then they must penalize him in other ways that hurt his chances at trial.
Trump should be sitting in pretrial detainment today. He shouldn’t even have been given a bond. On the campaign trail? Too bad, so sad, not my (or anyone else’s) problem other than Trump. If Trump wanted to be on the campaign trail, he should have ensured he didn’t break any laws prior to getting there. Pretrial detainment is the only answer to get Trump to comply with a gag order. Unfortunately, it will likely never happen.
Overall, these judges must make some hard choices if they wish to retain civility in their courts. Trump is intent on turning every trial into an unfair circus. It is the judges who must determine the best way to reign in Trump, but it is also crystal clear that Trump will not abide by any traditional legal approaches.
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Analysis: Jack Smith’s 2020 Election Indictment
Let me start this article out by saying that I am not a Republican, nor do I much like Donald Trump either as a politician or as a person. He’s a vile, pathological lying, bigoted and overall crass person. The man literally has almost no redeeming values. With that said, I also don’t like when even the vilest of persons, like Donald Trump, isn’t getting a fair shake. Let’s explore.
Jack Smith’s 2020 Election Indictment
I recently published a news article discussing this very indictment. I’ve withheld making any comments over this indictment solely because that information was newsworthy. Meaning, passing along this information timely to Randocity’s readers was important. Yes, it is important. However, there are some problems with this indictment that few news channels are discussing. The first and biggest problem is…
Presidential Immunity
Many of the statements included in Jack Smith’s indictment were made while then President Trump was still a sitting President. He made the statements while officially holding the office of President of the United States.
The President of the United States is entitled to Absolute Presidential Immunity, shielding the President from lawsuits while performing business as President. However, some in the judicial system believe that Presidential Immunity is not absolute, meaning that criminal conduct performed by the President (outside of Presidential job responsibilities) may not be immune from prosecution.
I’m not convinced that that’s the correct course for the United States. While I don’t want rogue Presidents performing illegal criminal actions, I also don’t want the DOJ able to apply spurious lawsuits on either a sitting President or, more importantly, a former President after-the-fact.
The question remains, were the statements that President Trump made regarding January 6th and those involving the placement of fake electors considered within the job role of President? While I would love to say, “No”, I am not in a position to make that judgement. Only a court can. That means it’s the responsibility of Jack Smith to have a court determine if Trump’s statements are admissible towards the case he is bringing. Meaning, many of the statements made by Trump included in Jack Smith’s indictment were made while Donald Trump was still President.
The question is then whether the statements are protected by Presidential Immunity. Jack Smith would need to first establish if any or all of Trump’s statements can be admitted as evidence or if they must be excluded as part of Presidential Immunity that Trump held at the time.
“At the time”
Here’s another problem that is born out of the above. Presidential Immunity is clearly active while a person is actively holding office as President of the United States. Once a person leaves office and becomes a former President, all of the acts performed AS PRESIDENT should still remain protected under Presidential Immunity. If not, it means that as a former President, all actions made by a then President can, at the time they become an ex-President, become fodder for criminal litigation.
If America starts trying and convicting each and every President as soon as they leave office, where are we as nation? More than this, does Presidential Immunity really exist? No. Actions performed by a President during his or her tenure in office must remain sacrosanct even after leaving office. Those actions were performed while faithfully executing the duties as President. Even when the person leaves office and becomes an ex-President, those Presidential years remain a sacrosanct bubble protected by Presidential Immunity in perpetuity. That means that an ex-President cannot be tried for actions performed WHILE President after becoming an ex-President.
This should go without saying. If America allows the justice system to begin prosecuting every former President for actions performed while in office, who would ever want to become President?
However, any person who is not President CAN be tried and convicted for actions performed while NOT President, either before being elected or after becoming an ex-President.
Jack Smith is Barking up the Wrong Tree
There were many ways a lawsuit could manifest against Donald Trump involving January 6th, such as involving Treason and Sedition, neither of which are named in Jack’s current lawsuit as charges. Both Treason and Sedition are high enough and serious enough crimes that these charges would easily negate Presidential Immunity by a landslide. After all, no President should need to ever perform Sedition or Treason in the execution of Presidential duties and responsibilities.
On the other hand, the four counts levied by Jack Smith are as follows:
- 18 U.S.C. § 371 — Conspiracy to Defraud the United States
- 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k) — Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding
- 18 U.S.C. §§ 1512(c)(2), 2 — Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding
- 18 U.S.C. § 241 — Conspiracy against Rights
These obstruction and plain-old conspiracy charges don’t instantly negate Presidential Immunity. In fact, these charges are a bit open for being contested. These above crimes are not necessarily serious enough to warrant dropping Presidential Immunity over them and can also be interpreted in ways that make the prosecutor appear prejudicial (i.e., biased) towards the defendant.
Thus, the indictment Jack Smith has brought is fraught with problems, specifically around statements and actions made and also the specific charges being levied, all while Donald Trump still actively held Presidential Immunity.
Unnamed co-conspirators hold no such immunity from prosecution. These people should be brought up on charges for the actions they performed and statements they made around the 2020 Election, including newscasters and congressional members. However, Donald Trump’s statements and actions shouldn’t be used to prosecute Donald Trump while Trump still held Presidential Immunity, at least not until Jack Smith has a court determine which statements (and actions) ARE and ARE NOT protected by that Immunity. Until the Presidential Immunity issue is resolved, Jack Smith is barking up the wrong prosecutorial tree.
In fact, Jack’s whole indictment now actually does look like a witch hunt as Donald Trump suggests. Without first resolving whether Trump’s statements were protect by Presidential Immunity, transcribing those statements into an indictment is extremely risky and premature AND makes Jack Smith look like he’s rushing to get this lawsuit done, but quite improperly and with prejudice.
A prosecutor can’t simply dismiss steps because they’re inconvenient or slow the process. Unfortunately, making missteps like this only serves to weaken Jack’s case against Donald Trump, probably giving Trump the opportunity to have the entire case dismissed based on prejudicial treatment.
Instead, I would have preferred if Jack Smith had had a court first determine whether the statements transcribed are or are not, in fact, protected by Presidential Immunity. Let’s resolve this issue first. If some or all statements are protected by Presidential Immunity, then the statements cannot be held as evidence against Donald Trump or against Donald Trump’s alleged actions for the charges being levied.
Better, revise the charges to include Sedition and Treason so that there is no question as to whether Presidential Immunity is involved.
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News: Donald Trump Indicted over 2020 Election
Donald J. Trump is, once again, criminally indicted on 4 counts for his participation involving the 2020 election and in attempting to overturn the peaceful transition of power. Jack Smith says everything he needs to say about Mr. Trump’s indictment. Let’s listen.
Below is the full text of the Department of Justice’s most recent indictment. If your device is unable to read the embedded PDF inline, please click the link to download and read it separately.
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Fact Checking the Donald Trump Rhetoric
Donald Trump makes many claims and assertions which have no basis in fact. He does this almost every time he speaks at a podium anywhere. Additionally, misguided Republicans (aka his sycophants) blindly accept Donald’s rhetoric and believe Donald to be, and I quote these misguided people, “The Best President Ever.” Let’s explore how much of Donald Trump’s rhetoric is false.
Donald Trump’s Claims after Indictment
Let’s start with claims stated by Donald Trump’s own mouth following his indictment. Many of these claims may seem to hold weight until you realize that Donald Trump is a pathological lying narcissist. What that means in layman’s terms is that he habitually lies about almost every single thing he says. While there may be grains of truth in a few of his statements, they usually end with a massive lie.
I honestly don’t see the appeal or attraction in listening to someone whose lies outnumber truths and who continues to lie constantly, even when there’s absolutely no need to do so. Why so many Republicans are so willing to accept and embrace Donald Trump’s habitual lying needs to become the subject of an educational research paper that has yet to be written.
Let’s jump right into Donald’s claims…
Claim 1: Presidential Records Act requires Negotiation between National Archives and ex-President to return classified documents.
Claim Status: False. At the time a new President is sworn into office, all previous documents by the previous President must be returned, handed over to and automatically become property of the National Archives. Nothing in the NARA statute requires or even suggests “negotiating” with any former President for document turnover.
Claim 2: Joe Biden has over 1800 boxes of classified documents.
Claim Status: False. A small number of documents in boxes were found and returned from Joe Biden’s home in Delaware and Boston to the National Archives. It is entirely unclear whether those documents had been there from when he left office as vice president or if they were acquired and carried there after he became President. Additionally, the documents may not even be classified or sensitive. How would a Vice President gain access to such highly classified documents anyway?
Claim 3: All past Presidents have taken home classified documents after their administration ended. Trump actually admits to having done this himself (see below).
Claim Status: False and True, respectively. While Trump’s admission of taking boxes of classified documents to Mar-A-Lago is True, the remainder is False. No past presidents have intentionally and willfully taken boxes of classified documents from the White House or any other facility operated by the government upon departing their role as President. Donald Trump is the first and only President to have both done this upon departing the role and he is also the first ex-President to have admitted to having done this.
Claim 4: Trump’s call to Georgia soliciting votes was a “Perfect Call”
Claim Status: False. Trump’s call to Georgia’s elections official to solicit those officials to “find” 11,780 votes for Trump is not only NOT a “Perfect Call”, it very likely constitutes malicious intent to willfully solicit conspiracy and interfere with the 2020 election in Georgia. Willful election interference is a crime in Georgia.
Claim 5: Trump claims that America is experiencing the highest inflation in 60 years.
Claim Status: False. In 1979, 42 years ago, the annual inflation rate was 13.3%, 7.3% higher than our current 6% annual inflation rate as of February 2023. Let’s further put his statement into broader perspective. Donald Trump ushered in our current inflation rate as part of his own failure in handling the first year of the COVID pandemic. The United States is presently in the midst of inflation, not because of Biden, but because of Trump’s economic mismanagement of the pandemic his final year in office.
Claim 6: Trump’s claims about ballot box stuffing in the 2020 election were “all caught on government cameras.”
Claim Status: Mostly False, but also slightly True. It is categorically False and was never proven in Donald Trump’s over 63 election lawsuits that ballot box stuffing ever took place at any actual 2020 election polling places. Such activity was also never caught “on government cameras.” If it had been, he wouldn’t have lost over 63 lawsuits with this exact argument. However, Donald Trump himself did attempt to use the court system and the Insurrection itself to stuff his own ballots into ballot boxes to sway the election in his favor. Thus, his statement is somewhat True that ballot box stuffing was attempted, but only by Donald Trump himself and, by extension, those in the Republican party. In fact, many Republicans are still attempting to sway elections by heavy gerrymandering, which should be considered a form of ballot box stuffing and election interference.
Claim 7: $85 billion worth of equipment was left in Afghanistan after US withdrawal.
Claim Status: False. Around ~$83 billion total was spent on managing portions of the US occupation of Afghanistan. On withdrawal, around $7 billion in total equipment was left behind, much of it left in an inoperable state. Let’s understand the further subtext over Trump’s statement. Donald Trump was instrumental in negotiating with the Taliban in his final year in office over the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was planned for early 2020. Thus, the Afghanistan withdrawal and any associated costs of equipment left behind was a direct result of Donald Trump’s meddling in Afghanistan’s affairs. Donald Trump left behind an exceedingly short timetable for Joe Biden to execute a proper withdrawal, forcing this action just a few months after his inauguration. Thus, Donald Trump is actually at least partially responsible, along with Joe Biden, for the cost of any equipment left behind and any casualties after withdrawal from Afghanistan due to Trump’s exceedingly short timetable that Biden likely felt forced to uphold.
Claim 8: Illegal and unconstitutional raid on Mar-A-Lago
Claim Status: False. After months of the failure in negotiations back and forth between Trump and the National Archives to return documents, the FBI was sent with a legally issued, judge authorized, properly signed and carefully executed search warrant to search and seize the documents that Donald Trump brought with him from the White House to Mar-A-Lago. The search was not a “raid”. The search was conducted in an orderly fashion as written in the warrant. Documents were seized by the FBI in relation to those required by the warrant. Further context follows. Donald Trump was given every opportunity over many months to surrender all documents involving the National Archives, but chose to ignore those requests. The search and seizure was only required by the FBI because Donald Trump himself failed to comply with repeated requests by the National Archives to return requested documents; documents that Donald Trump claimed he did not have, but which were subsequently found during the legal search.
Claim 9: DOJ / FBI lying to FISA Court to gain access to spy on Trump Aide
Claim Status: Somewhat True and somewhat False. At the time, the FBI was investigating a Trump aide for possibly spying in relation to the 2020 election. When the FBI submitted its request to FISA, it believed that it then had probable cause for the investigation (False). It was later determined that the FBI’s probable cause might not have been valid (True). Further context is warranted. Because this situation happened under Trump’s Presidency, he should have done something as President. Clearly, he didn’t. As the then sitting President, Trump complaining after-the-fact about a situation that he could have handled then is his own fault and of his own making and no one else’s.
Claim 10: Alleged democrat unconstitutional changes to election laws by not getting approvals from state legislators
Claim Status: Ambiguous. Trump is guilty of this himself. By Trump attempting to seat false electors in the 2020 election, who would then vote in Trump’s favor instead of the duly authorized electors during the electoral college vote, this is actually an unconstitutional change to election laws unapproved by states. Second, by requesting Mike Pence to throw the electoral college confirmation in Trump’s favor (remember, the “‘Hang Mike Pence’ chant?”) during the insurrection, this is also another example of unconstitutional changes to election laws not state approved. While Trump may be calling out a different event in his own mind, these are the two events that most people will remember that Trump perpetrated on the United States… events which fully fit Trump’s claim.
Claim 11: The DOJ was working in collusion with Facebook and Twitter to hide and suppress data involving the Hunter Biden Laptop.
Claim Status: False. Twitter and Facebook have never colluded with anyone in the government. Information about the Hunter Biden laptop was never hidden from anyone on Twitter or Facebook. Any posts removed or hidden were done so by each respective company’s staff. Further context is required. The alleged Hunter Biden laptop has never been proven to have ever been owned by Hunter Biden himself. A person purporting to be Hunter Biden, but never properly identified, dropped off a laptop at a repair shop. The repair shop owner turned the laptop over to the FBI. The laptop has never been proven to have ever been owned by anyone in the Biden family. The contents of the alleged laptop hard drive were supposedly copied prior to being handed over. The alleged hard drive content supposedly has incriminating data, but again nothing on that hard drive has been shown to implicate Hunter Biden or indeed even hold incriminating evidence. The data, the laptop and the situation were likely fabricated to disparage the Biden family. This one is solely a false talking point by the Republicans intended solely to disparage the Democrats and, more specifically, the Biden family.
Claim 11: Massive election interference (via Alvin Bragg)
Claim Status: False, but true in other ways. Context required. In point of fact, there is massive election interference occurring today, but not by the Democrats. It is actually a point of fact that Republicans are perpetrating massive election interference through heavy gerrymandering in their respective states. By redrawing district lines in convoluted and complex patterns solely designed to dilute Democrat voters into fewer numbers and concentrate Republican voters in greater numbers, this ensures Republicans win state (and federal) elections when they otherwise would not. Gerrymandering is a form of election interference on a massive scale. Gerrymandering is designed to allow politicians and legislators to pick their voters, subverting the will of the voters to pick their candidates. Additionally, Republican led states have tampered with voting laws by attempting to outlaw vote-by-mail and other similar proxy voting mechanisms in favor of in-person day of voting. These law changes are intended to exclude many legal voters (such as disabled individuals and veterans) as yet another means to allow Republicans to pick their voters, not the other way around as elections should require. Further, Donald Trump allegedly sought to interfere with both the 2016 and 2020 elections. See above to cite DJT’s interference with the 2020 election.
Claim 12: Alvin Bragg case “never should have been brought”
Claim Status: Wishful thinking. Donald Trump lived and worked in New York prior to his Presidency. Bragg’s indictment states 34 counts of falsifying business records with intent to commit “another crime” prior to the election. With this article, it’s pretty much proven that Donald J. Trump is a pathological liar. Lying this pathologically goes to prove that Donald Trump is not a trustworthy person and is not credible. Alvin Bragg has not proven himself to be a pathological liar or untrustworthy. As such, the Alvin Bragg indictment is a whole lot more credible than Donald Trump’s wishful thinking and statements of being “Not Guilty.” However, “guilty until proven innocent” is how the United States rolls. In that goal, let’s allow Alvin Bragg’s indictment to be brought to trial so Donald Trump can prove that Bragg’s indictment is indeed not valid, which will allow a jury to decide the matter of Donald Trump.
Claim 13: Crime statistics in Democrat run cities are the likes of which we have never seen before.
Claim Status: False. Republican led states far outpace crime over Democrat run states. Democrat run cities within Republican run states do have higher crime rates, but that’s only because the states are Republican run, operating under much more lax Republican state crime and gun laws. In fact, gun violence in Republican run (Red) states far outpaces gun violence perpetrated in Democrat run (Blue) states. It is actually Republican led states that have far higher crime problems than Democrat states. Most Democrat run cities in Democrat run states do not have the same crime rate problems as Democrat run cities in Republican run states.
Claim 14: In the 2020 election, DJT claims he won 75 million votes, “which is more than any sitting President in the history of our country.”
Claim Status: False. In the 2020 election, Donald Trump did not get 75 million votes. He received 74,222,958 votes. Rounding that, you’d round it down to 74 million votes. It gets worse, though. Joe Biden, in fact, won 81,283,098 votes (or 81 million votes). If anyone has the distinction of winning the most votes in United States Presidential history (based solely on Trump’s statement), it is in fact, Joe Biden who gets that honor. And yet, here we have Donald Trump taking credit for an honor which he didn’t earn and doesn’t deserve. Note that in 2016, Donald Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, but still managed to win the electoral college.
Claim 15: “[Documents] that I openly and in very plain sight brought with me to Mar-A-Lago from our beautiful White House…”
Claim Status: True. Donald Trump has confessed to having brought classified documents from the White House to Mar-A-Lago after having left office as President for a few hours, but then as ex-President after Biden’s inauguration. As ex-President, these (still classified) records were no longer Trump’s records and he had no more right to remain in possession of these classified documents after becoming ex-President. Admitting to having taken classified documents without authorization is probably exactly the admission and evidence that DOJ’s Jack Smith needs to majorly help indict and convict Trump’s case. Donald Trump needs to learn to shut his mouth.
Claim 16: “As President, I have the right to declassify documents, and the process is automatic.”
Claim Status: True and False, respectively. It is True that as sitting President, the President holds the rights to declassify some documents. It is absolutely False that the process is automatic. To declassify documents as President, forms must be filled out and submitted so that the National Archives can ascertain validity of the request and so that the documents can become properly reclassified in the archive. It does not and cannot happen automatically. However, the President cannot declassify certain types of statutorily protected documents at all, not even by thinking about it or by using paperwork. As an ex-President, however, the power to declassify documents is forfeit and lost. Simply walking out of the White House with boxes of documents in hand as soon-to-be-ex-President is not sufficient to ‘automatically’ declassify documents. The appropriate paperwork must be filled and filed to both verify if the document can be declassified and also to request the archive to update its classification, if so. If the President didn’t request these actions prior to becoming ex-President, then the documents should not be considered declassified. As stated, statutorily protected documents simply cannot be declassified at all by a sitting President. Possessing any of these statutorily protected documents as ex-President should be considered a felony. If Trump’s team had submitted declassifying document forms within 30 days of having exited the White House, the now Biden controlled government would probably have been lenient enough to accept the declassifying requests on Trump’s behalf, with the exception of statutorily protected documents, of course. I mean, how hard is it to do the right thing?
Republican Claims
While many of the Republican talking points have been covered by Donald Trump’s claims above, with those talking points lifted almost verbatim from Trump’s speeches, let’s discuss the delusions that many Republican voters are under about Donald Trump. Further, let’s validate these continually regurgitated Republican talking points.
Delusion 1: Donald Trump ushered in and presided over the best economic prosperity ever seen in the United States as the 45th President.
Delusion Status: False. Donald Trump didn’t usher in United States economic prosperity during his tenure. This economic prosperity is falsely attributed to Donald Trump. The prosperity that carried through Trump’s first 3 years during his Presidency was as a direct result of Barrack Obama. Obama ushered in this prosperity after the 2008 mortgage meltdown almost tanked the entire economy. It was Barrack Obama who spent the time and effort to rebound the economy to the prosperous level seen in 2015, just prior to Trump taking office. Once Trump took office, Trump rode Obama’s economic wave for his first 3 years, until the economy slowed in early 2019 and then COVID happened and fully tanked the economy. If Trump were the economic savior he is so readily touted and claims to be, Trump’s fourth year in office should have remained as prosperous as the 3 years prior, regardless of COVID. Note that economic prosperity includes job gains, inflation, wages and all manner of other metrics that Donald Trump rode and took personal credit for, but which happened because of Obama. One thing that Trump can take full credit for is tanking the economy once COVID arrived. Yet another dubious honor.
Delusion 2: Unemployment was at its lowest rate ever under Trump.
Delusion Status: False. Donald Trump presided over 2.9 million lost jobs over his 4 years in office. The unemployment rate went up by 1.6% to 6.3%. Compare that to the end of 2022 when the unemployment rate was 2.2% under Biden.
Delusion 3: The deficit was at its lowest rate ever in the history of the United States.
Delusion Status: False. Under Donald Trump, the United States deficit actually increased almost exponentially, skyrocketing from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion, the most ever for a one term president. A dubious honor to be sure.
Delusion 4: There were no wars under Donald Trump.
Delusion Status: False. While the United States entered no “new wars”, existing and inherited wars grew both in size and in monetary expenditures under Donald Trump. Trump even exacerbated these inherited wars causing even more death and destruction by his own actions, including the use of expensive drones. Trumps claims are just that, claims… and false ones at that.
Delusion 5: Gas prices were the cheapest ever under Trump.
Delusion Status: False. Donald Trump presided over somewhat cheaper gasoline prices between 2016 and 2019 than between 2010-2015 (which averaged over $3). The average price of a gallon of gas during Donald Trump’s presidency ranged between $2.00 and $2.75 per gallon. In fact, when Biden took office, gas prices began to decline a little over Trump’s term for at least Biden’s first year in office. After that, the gas price gouging situation began, echoing similar prices seen during some of Obama’s term in office. In the year 2000, though, the United States had seen gas prices drop to around 99¢ per gallon at the time, far cheaper than was ever seen during Trump’s time in office. More false rhetoric.
Delusion 6: Democrats are ushering in higher crime rates.
Delusion Status: False. In fact, this situation is truthfully the opposite. Republican led states are ushering in some of the highest crime rates in the nation. This is mostly because Republicans are NRA friendly, if not NRA backed. Thus, Republicans refuse to write legislation to control guns. Many Republican led states are now crafting and signing new legislation to both legalize guns even more and allow such activities as concealed carrying without a permit. For example, Republican Ron DeSantis recently signed a permitless concealed carry into law in Florida. Republicans are clearly very, very gun friendly legislatively, to the point that it is now facilitating skyrocketing crime rates and homicide statistics in Republican led states.
Delusion 7: Democrat cities are ushering in higher crime rates.
Delusion Status: Ambiguous and False. The subtext of this false narrative is to disparage Democrats without explaining that Republicans are actually responsible for this situation. Democrat run cities that are now experiencing higher than normal crime rates in those cities which exist within Republican led states. It is then no surprise that because Republicans are writing state legislation to relax gun laws, allowing open carry and even permitless concealed carry and easier access to buying guns, that the crime rate in all cities in those Republican states is skyrocketing. Thus, this false rhetoric is designed to ignore the fact that it is the Republicans who are actually responsible for the skyrocketing crime rates in those Democrat run cities.
Delusion 8: Democrats are responsible for the open border crisis.
Delusion Status: Mostly false. While Joe Biden has made a few questionable maneuvers regarding securing the border, Republicans are the ones making this situation worse. With Greg Abbott human trafficking immigrants across the country to other states along with Ron DeSantis, which is a federal crime, this action is backfiring on the Republicans. Abbott’s trafficking is actually having the opposite effect by encouraging even more immigrants to arrive at the border so they can be bussed into the United States. While Biden hasn’t sufficiently secured the border, it is the Republicans who are causing the borders to become clogged due to their cushy busses, free transportation and free food and lodging that Greg Abbott is giving to the immigrants the moment they get here. It is Abbott who is welcoming the immigrants with open arms, not Biden. The border security is actually the responsibility of Greg Abbott, in coordination with the border patrol. It is not Joe Biden’s responsibility. If Greg Abbott is not actively trying to secure the border, that failure falls almost squarely on Texas and Abbott, not on Biden. Once again, the false delusional rhetoric is the responsibility of the Republicans, not the Democrats.
Delusion 9: Donald Trump is the best president EVAR!
Delusion Claim: False. Donald Trump has actually proven himself to be the worst President in United States History. What other sitting president fomented a violent insurrection against the government? Donald Trump has had a lot of firsts, but none of these firsts are something to be proud of, nor do any of these firsts prove Trump to be a great or even good President. These firsts are of dubious distinction:
- President Donald Trump fomented and incited a violent Insurrection on the United States Capitol building for the sole purposes of causing election interference, entirely for the purposes of keeping himself in power as the President of the United States beyond his Constitutionally mandated 4 year term.
- President Donald Trump took many boxes of allegedly classified documents from the White House back to his home in Mar-A-Lago in Florida; boxes that hadn’t been proven to be declassified at the time. Trump argues that he declassified them simply by thinking about it. That’s not one of the legally adopted US Government processes required to declassify documents. The legal process involves filling out paperwork, submitting it to the archives and having that request accepted and acknowledged. If the archive staff wasn’t aware the documents were declassified, then they are not declassified. Attempting to declassify them as an ex-President also isn’t possible.
- President Donald Trump was the only President to have been impeached by the House of Representatives twice. He was also the first President to have been denied conviction by the Senate twice.
- Donald Trump is the first former President of the United States to have been criminally indicted by any prosecutor.
There are likely many more firsts yet to come, but these above are the highlights (err… lowlights) of Donald Trump’s dubious Presidency. In addition to the false rhetoric already refuted above, Donald Trump’s term wasn’t spectacular by any Presidential standard. While Trump certainly wasn’t the first president to serve only one term, Trump most definitely shares in a very small group of Presidents who have only served one term including:
- James Buchanan
- Andrew Johnson
- Franklin Pierce
- William Henry Harrison
- John Tyler
- Millard Fillmore
- Warren G. Harding
- Herbert Hoover
- Zachary Taylor
- Martin Van Buren
- Rutherford B. Hayes
- Benjamin Harrison
- Chester A. Arthur
- Gerald Ford
- James Garfield
- Jimmy Carter
- William Howard Taft
- George H. W. Bush
- James K. Polk
- John Quincy Adams
- John Adams
- John F. Kennedy (for obvious reasons)
- Donald J. Trump
Donald Trump served as President, yes, but didn’t really help the United States very much. Most countries laughed at Trump like a clown and easily saw through Trump’s crass veneer. He raised the deficit by tremendous amounts, spending vast amounts of money, but not really providing much benefit to United States citizens. Because Obama had already set the economy on an upward trajectory, Donald Trump didn’t have to do much to keep that trajectory on track. He simply needed to not interfere with it and that’s what he did (or rather, didn’t do). Donald Trump’s legacy, however, wasn’t that he was mostly a do-nothing President. It would be how he handled his final year in office and specifically what happened on January 6th that effectively eclipsed his previous 4 years of service and rewrote his historical legacy as the 45th President.
Because Donald Trump was ill-prepared to handle the pandemic, he first tried to ignore it. When that didn’t work, he then tried to do as little as possible. This left the United States open to the rapid spread of it. While the CDC and other health agencies tried to steer Donald Trump in the right direction, he was having none of it. This meant that many hundreds of thousands of people died of COVID-19 in the early days because Donald Trump failed and refused to do anything.
It wasn’t until his approval ratings dropped to all time lows that he began to work on such projects as Operation Warp Speed, to develop and push through vaccines quickly. While he did preside over such health projects, it was too little, too late… at least for his legacy. If he had acted much sooner to the pandemic, many more people could have lived.
If Donald Trump had left well enough alone regarding the election and accepted his defeat gracefully during the 2020 election, you know by actually conceding to Biden, his legacy would have remained fully intact. Instead, Donald Trump took a different, highly questionable and very unethical approach to leaving office (or rather, to prevent his leaving office). Trump attempted to perpetrate many dubious (and probably very illegal) schemes in this process which ultimately fomented into a violent Insurrection on Capitol Hill by his supporters, all in the goal of attempting to halt the counting of the Electoral College votes with the sole intent to interfere with the Election and halt the peaceful transition of power.
Though, Donald Trump (and his cabal) claimed those violent rioters weren’t his supporters at all, instead suggesting they were actually Democrats and/or ANTIFA, even though this idea makes zero sense at all. Why would Democrats show up to a Trump rally at the Ellipse and support Trump? Then see those same Democrats march to the Capitol Hill buildings only to rip apart the buildings and violently attack police officers? It wasn’t a Democrat rally. It was a Republican led rally. Why would Democrats attend a Republican rally in those numbers? No, those people were definitely Donald Trump supporters.
Worse, for 4 hours and a handful of minutes, Donald Trump allowed the rioting to continue unabated instead of calling an end to it as President and sending in troops to stop it. The President should ALWAYS call for law and order, but instead this President stayed entirely silent, aiding and abetting the rioters silently.
Donald Trump’s historic legacy will be forever overshadowed and tainted by Trump’s incredibly dubious and stupid choice to foment a violent insurrection, followed by his over 4 hours of (in)action on January 6th, 2020… fully and completely eclipsing any good that may have been accomplished during his previous years as President. No one will care ultimately what he did in his early years, but everyone will remember that a President of the United States attempted to tear up the Constitution solely for personal gain.
Sychopant Supporters
Donald Trump’s sycophants, however, act like parrots. These delusional people simply repeat everything Donald Trump says almost verbatim, as if he’s somehow the voice of reason and/or the voice of truth. If anything, this article should illustrate exactly how misguided Donald Trump’s sycophants are and how much Donald Trump lacks the ability to tell the truth. Truth is just not something Donald Trump does.
The Washington Post estimates that of Donald Trump’s 4 years in office, he perpetuated well over 30,000 false or misleading claims. That’s not insignificant. Unfortunately, too many of his sycophants are blind to his lack of morals and ethics. Anyone willing to stand around for 4 hours while cops are beaten within inches of their lives is not someone you should endorse as “The Best President EVER” as you’re obviously delusional. Only someone delusional can look beyond the criminal, the unethical and then condone downright evil behavior only to claim they see someone who they believe to be “Good”. Good? That’s a laugh. Wolf in sheep’s clothing is more like it.
Donald Trump is not a good person. He’s not even an ethical person. There are things that Donald Trump most definitely is, though. He’s a manipulative person. He’s a sociopath. He’s a classic narcissist. He’s a philanderer. He’s bigoted. He’s misogynistic. He’s may even be somewhat delusional himself. However, there are almost no redeeming qualities about Donald J. Trump. How can you look in the mirror and state with a straight face that this man, a man who is willing to allow people to be injured and killed during a 4 hour period when he could have stopped it, a man who sat around allowing hundreds of thousands to die of COVID when he could have helped, is someone to look up to? No. There is simply no excuse here.
I don’t personally hate Donald Trump. I pity him. He’s a man who is caught up in his own delusional world and simply cannot break free. He is out for himself and what others can give him. This is why he relies on delusional people to continue to hand over their money to him. Donald Trump likely needs some major psychiatric counseling and therapy along with possibly some medication. He doesn’t need to be running the United States, however. This man should have, in fact, been barred from ever holding office ever again as he is simply not fit to hold it.
Those sycophants who parrot Donald’s every word AND who also hold governmental office must likewise be shown the door. Anyone who is that much of a blind follower of someone else cannot be working towards the benefit of their own constituents. If Donald Trump is more important then a congress person’s own constituents, voting them out and replacing them with someone who can think for themselves is the only answer. The current Republican party is blinded by a man who is ultimately a huge problem, not just for the Republicans, but for the entire world.
Let’s hope that Jack Smith, special counsel brought in by the DOJ, can bring this man to justice for the pain, suffering and, yes, death he has inflicted on far too many. If Donald J. Trump is elected again as President, his delusions won’t stop with an Insurrection. America as we know it will end… and along with it your freedoms, your home, your families, your beliefs and possibly even your very lives. Donald Trump is not the answer to America’s problems. America’s last gasp will be at the hands of Donald Trump. Donald J. Trump will end America. There will be nothing at all great about that, but then there won’t be many left to worry about it either.
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Is Trump Guilty or Not?
I know there’s a lot of speculation, particularly since the January 6th Select Committee Hearings. Let’s explore what might make Trump guilty of something and what that something might be.
Electoral College Vote
To begin to understand how the January 6th riots became a reality, we must jump back in time to the Trump “Save America Rally” at the Ellipse the morning of the riots. However, before we discuss the content in this rally, let’s talk about what it takes to put together such a rally. More than this, why was January 6th chosen for this specific rally in the first place?
Election Lost
We all should now know and understand that Trump lost the 2020 election. We actually even knew it long before January 6th, but Donald Trump is a major sore loser. He simply cannot stand to lose. Thus, to avoid having to admit defeat, he chose to lie and claim the election was stolen. This lie is ultimately how the Save America Rally began.
Invitations to this rally began to circulate perhaps weeks before the actual event. In fact, I saw a tweet requesting attendance to the event on January 2nd, before the event from Donald Trump’s now suspended Twitter account. I even replied to a tweet in this stream.
More than this, this invitation was also sent to extremist groups known for violence, such as The Proud Boys, the Oathkeepers and others. Donald Trump was well aware of whom were being invited to the Rally. Of course, he didn’t know which groups might show because it wasn’t an RSVP thing, but he assumed at least some of these groups, if not all of them, would show… and show up, they did.
This is the precursor that must be understood to what later transpires at the “Save America Rally” the morning of January 6th at the Ellipse.
The Ellipse
The morning of the Ellipse began with a mostly RA RA session, but with some inciting rhetoric from both Trump and a bunch of Trump sycophants, including Rudy Giuliani. Trump, during his speech, included certain key phrases to work up the crowd and to specifically incite them to take action. Let’s read his closing words from that speech!
But I said, “Something’s wrong here.” Something’s really wrong. Can’t have happen. And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore. Our exciting adventures and boldest endeavors have not yet begun. My fellow Americans for our movement, for our children and for our beloved country and I say this despite all that’s happened, the best is yet to come. So, we’re going to… we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I love Pennsylvania Avenue, and we’re going to the Capitol and we’re going to try and give… the Democrats are hopeless, they’re never voting for anything, not even one vote… but we’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help, we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. So, let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I want to thank you all, God bless you and God Bless America.
Thank you all for being here, this is incredible, thank you all very much.
— Former President Donald Trump at the Ellipse on January 6th
Donald Trump was, after this speech concluded, advised by his team not to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and he took that advice and did not march along side the crowd. Instead, they did so of their own accord, but at Donald Trump’s prompting.
Let’s take a few more words of this apart. For example, “the bold ones”. For this he is specifically referring to those like The Proud Boys and The Oathkeepers. He didn’t mention them by name, but he knew such “bold” groups were in attendance. He could see them in the crowd from the podium. For “the weak ones”, he’s trying to incite the people who don’t normally perform violent acts to step up and “take back our country”. For “take back our country”, that rhetoric is specific to the “Stop the Steal” lie discussed below.
Because Trump and his followers believe the election was stolen, he wanted everyone at that rally to “take back the country” from those who have been labeled as “thieves”… when, in fact, it was Trump who was the thief and who, at the time, was attempting to dismantle Democracy and the Constitution and illegally take a position from the duly elected candidate, Joe Biden and harm the rest of America by setting aflame the fabric of Democracy.
“Fight Like Hell”
A lot of people claim that these words are innocent. They aren’t. They’re actually fighting words. Let’s understand fighting words.
Violent actions began almost immediately (within a few minutes) after this speech concluded at the Capitol… as it was stated by Trump where “fight like hell” needed to occur. Once the people had walked down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, all hell broke loose and the violence began. In this definition above, it says “incite an immediate breach of the peace”. How quickly “immediate” must be is a matter of debate, but I’d say it also matters based on its context… context that Trump supplied in his speech. “We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue… we’re going to try and give them (the weak Republicans) the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
Trump told the crowd exactly what to do, where to do it and when to do it… and then followed through.
Once the rioting began, there were 187 minutes of continuous rioting that remained until Donald Trump broke his silence and requested the rioters to leave the Capitol grounds. However, by that time, the police may have been getting the crowds under control, no thanks to the President’s 187 minutes of inaction and silence.
It’s not just the “fight like hell” words, though. It’s all of the subtext in his and other people’s speech both before and after and the Save America Rally. It’s even in the name of the rally, “Save America” as though America needed saving. Saving from what exactly? The peaceful transition from one president to the next.
Stop the Steal
Again, we must step back in time to understand where this rally began and why. The “Save America Rally” wasn’t a one-off rally that appeared out of nowhere without context. No. It began as part of the “Stop the Steal” campaign that Trump initiated.
As we all know, Trump rejected (at the time in 2020) the idea that he had lost the election. In fact, he so rejected the notion that he lost the election, he fabricated all sorts of scenarios as to why it cannot be possible. From bad voting machines, to dead people voting, to faked ballots, to voting fraud, to election rigging on the part of the Democrats. He even attempted to rig the election himself in his favor by trying to replace the legitimate Electors with a set of his own choosing, Electors that would be faithful to Donald, not to Democracy.
Anything Donald could wrap his little greedy paws around, he’d use as a possible reason for Biden having won illegitimately. This included many, many failed lawsuits and paying for independent third party auditors to re-audit ballots in some key states. None of this worked… not the lawsuits, not the audits and definitely not his lies. The states that were accused of “rigging” or “cheating” have since audited and re-audited each and every vote cast many times to prove Biden legitimately won the election.
All of this was to no avail. Nothing has convinced Donald Trump that he has lost the 2020 election. As of this article’s date, Donald Trump is still attempting to perpetuate this lie.
No, the Save America Rally was intended for one singular purpose: to storm Capitol Hill and prevent the Electoral College from completing its job. That was the single, solitary purpose behind the Save America Rally. The rally was simply a precursor to rile up the crowd and give them a purpose. That’s exactly what Trump did in his speech.
The crowd, however, knew exactly the reason why they were there… to “Stop the Steal”. Of course, there was no steal involved. The election was free and fair and just. Nothing was stolen from anyone, least of all Donald Trump. Trump lost the election in the same way he had won it four years earlier. The voters cast their vote for Joe Biden in 2020 just as they had cast their vote for Donald Trump in 2016.
However, because the rally attendees knew exactly what “Save America” meant and knew exactly why the rally came to exist, it opened the door for exactly what happened on January 6th on the Capitol grounds.
Violence
Because it was known to at least some people in Trump’s administration, and likely to Trump himself, the types and groups of people who were invited to the rally, not just everyday citizens, but groups of extremists, it should have been known that violence was an inevitable outcome. Instead of attempting to quell that possibility during the Save America Rally, Trump did the opposite. He told them to “fight like hell” because “something is wrong”. The crowd knew exactly why they were there and it wasn’t to stand and listen to Donald Trump.
The day was January 6th, the day the Electoral College votes were to be counted. Having a rally specifically on that day with a march down to the Capitol was handwriting on the wall. There’s no way to “stop” the Electoral College by standing there peacefully outside. No. The crowd knew this. They didn’t need to be told, even though Trump more or less spelled it out with “Fight like Hell”.
The people handling this Electoral counting activity in the Capitol could only be stopped from within. That meant breaching the grounds and entering the building… which is exactly what the crowd proceeded to do and ultimately did. However, Pence and the rest of the House and Senate took shelter away from where the crowds were, thwarting advances by the crowds… only delaying the counting process.
The point to all of this is that Donald Trump’s prior rally lies combined with this Save America Rally speech lead directly to the violent outcomes of the crowd that commenced. If the Save America Rally hadn’t taken place, there would have been no riot. The riot was a direct result of the Save America Rally and, more specifically, because of Donald Trump’s words immediately prior to the crowd walking to the Capitol.
Motives
Clearly, Donald Trump had motive, opportunity and intent here. We know what that motive is. We understand the opportunity because of the Rally. We also understood the intent and outcome he desired. The motive was to stop the Electoral College and prevent them from continuing with their vote count so that he could continue his Presidency. How exactly that was to happen, Trump didn’t really care. Stopping the Electoral College vote would have been simply a stopgap measure. Meaning, even if the House and Senate hadn’t performed their vote count, President Biden would have still taken office. The vote was already official. The Senate and House portion is simply a formality. It is a formality which could likely be forgone without any problems in the system.
Exactly what Donald Trump thought he could accomplish by stopping that vote count with people breaching the Capitol is unknown.
Mike Pence
As Vice President, at the time, Mike Pence was requested by Donald Trump to reject some or all of the Electoral College vote counts. However, that’s not a power that the Vice President holds during the Electoral College vote count procedure. His role is procedural and as a facilitator of the process. The Vice President holds no power to veto, change or alter Electoral College votes in the way that Donald Trump had requested.
Why is this information important? It goes to motive on the part of Trump. Clearly, Trump was willing to try any and every avenue at this disposal to try to retake the office come January 20th, inauguration day. Trump wanted to be the one being inaugurated. Unfortunately, there was no way forward to that end short of dispensing with Democracy and the Constitution entirely… which is likely what Donald Trump wanted. Clearly, Donald Trump didn’t care whose toes he stepped on, whose coat got wet, or who fell in his puddles of water, so long as the outcome he wanted materialized.
When Pence told Trump he would be unable to do as requested by attempting to change the outcome of the Electoral College, Trump effectively tweeted that Pence had effectively turned on him. This, at the time that Pence and other representatives were holed up in fear of their lives against rioters… and at that time the tweet went out, the rioters began chanting “Hang Mike Pence”. Trump’s tweet alerted the rioters to the fact that Pence was not on board with keeping Trump in power.
Pence remained steadfast and continued with his oath and duties all while Trump did nothing to quell the rioting for 187 very long minutes.
187 minutes
Here’s a turning point. If you didn’t believe Trump had any hand in launching the riots, then you should after you understand that it took Trump 187 minutes to make a statement to stop the rioting, which he himself launched at the Ellipse. He wanted the Electoral College vote count to stop. He wanted to remain in power as President. This is all a given.
So, for that 187 minutes, he sat quietly (mostly), Tweeting only a few times. None of those communications were to tell the rioters to stop. No. Instead, they were, like the Pence tweet mentioned above, more or less attempting to egg the rioters on.
Even still, at the end of those grueling 187 minutes (at least for the cops there at the Capitol), Trump finally called a halt, but then rewarded the rioters with “Go home. We love you. You’re very special”.
You don’t reward people for bashing other people’s heads with barriers, fire extinguishers and flagpoles all while dousing them with pepper spray. That’s not what you say to people involved in violent activities. That statement was, in fact, so inappropriate as to be distasteful. It also goes to show, once again, motive, opportunity and intent. A person truly wanting the violence to stop doesn’t offer up rewarding words. Truly disgusting.
Motive, Opportunity and Intent
All three of these indicate a mindset of Trump at the time. Let’s support these with Trump’s actions:
- Trump knew he had lost the election, but created the big election lie
- Trump began the Stop the Steal rallies
- Trump sued states to attempt to prove voter fraud
- Trump invited people to the Capitol on the day of the Electoral College vote count specifically to interfere and stop the count
- Trump incited and fomented the riot at the Capitol from the people who attended the “Save America Rally”
- Trump more than likely knew violent extremist groups were present at the rally
- Trump incited the crowd with phrases like “Fight like hell” and “Save America”
- Trump did nothing for 187 minutes while these groups continued attacking the Capitol
- Trump rewarded the attendees at the end of those 187 minutes once he knew they couldn’t succeed
- Trump lost at this attempt
The motive, then, is to attempt to stay in power as President illegally beyond his Presidential term. The opportunity is to use his public power and words to wield citizens as weapons against the U.S. Government. The intent is to stop the peaceful transition of power.
What was the intent during his 187 minutes of mostly silence? The same as stated above. However, there’s no way to know what was going through Trump’s head. That’s the reason for the January 6th hearing testimony. To uncover conversations people had with Donald Trump during those 187 minutes. These conversations and other information may be very relevant to see a glimpse into the mind of Donald Trump, to see what he was thinking and possibly doing (or not doing).
Guilty or Innocent?
While 187 minutes with him doing nothing to stop the riot may not be considered a crime as part of his Presidential duties, as part of a wider and larger operation, including his election lie, the Stop the Steal concept, the Save America Rally insurrection incitement and the subsequent riot when combined, it may point to other illegal activities. It certainly leads to this conclusion.
That Trump is likely guilty of attempting to overthrow the election to remain in office. What he did is actually a form of Advocating to Overthrow the Government, which is highly illegal and carries a fine and up to 20 years in prison, along with a 5 year ban on holding any government position. Advocating to overthrow may be further considered a form of treason if other conditions are present (i.e, 187 minutes of silence).
At the time of the Capitol riot, the rioters should be considered an enemy of the United States. As a result, Trump doing nothing during those 187 minutes to stop the rioters could see him considered guilty of “adher[ing] to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort in the United States.” The very definition of Treason. If the rioters are labeled an enemy of the United States for the duration of the riot, then Trump should be considered “giving aid” during that 187 minutes of silence. He started the whole thing and then did nothing to stop it. That’s very much “giving aid”. His “rewarding” words stated when he asked the rioters to go home solidifies the fact that he was “giving aid”.
Anyone who attacks a Federal building should automatically be considered an enemy of the United States for the time they continue to attack. It doesn’t matter if the person is a natural born citizen or not. It’s the action of attacking which changes the status of the person to an enemy of the United States.
Some argue, well Trump would be overthrowing himself as he was still in power at the time. No, he was actually attempting to overthrow the future Biden administration, which was just days away from taking office. Trump’s tenure was ending and he knew that. Trump wasn’t overthrowing himself, he was attempting to overthrow Democracy (and Biden). He was attempting to light the Constitution on fire and burn it all to keep himself in power and keep Biden out of the office after Biden was so duly elected.
Clearly, it failed. Trump failed. It wasn’t for lack of trying and it wasn’t without damage and consequences to police who lost their lives, to the Capitol building that needed repairs and to at least one rioter who was killed… not to mention, the damage it has done to the reputation of the United States around the world.
This all means that because of Trump’s direct actions, not only is he likely guilty for Advocating to Overthrow the Government, not only may he be further guilty of Treason, he is likely also responsible for the deaths during the Capitol riot. After all, if he hadn’t held the “Save America Rally”, those extremists might never have showed up. It was due to his Tweet and his prompting that led people to the Ellipse and ultimately to the Capitol that day. Therefore, at the very least, Trump is partially responsible for the deaths of those at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. Because of his 187 minutes of inaction, he likely intentionally let the rioters continue unabated which appears that he had “given them aid and comfort in the United States”, the very definition of Treason.
Trial and Consequences
All of this means, especially after all of the January 6th Select Committee’s investigation, that there should be more than sufficient evidence for the Department of Justice to hold a trial over Donald Trump’s actions prior to and leading up to the January 6th riot event.
Leave the trial up to a jury to decide whether or not Trump is guilty of any or all of these charges. Personally, I don’t see innocence here. There is nothing at all innocent about lying about election fraud, then inviting violent extremists to the Capitol, unleashing them onto an unsuspecting police force and then giving them 187 minutes to perform their damage, kill people, all in an attempt to halt the Electoral College vote process. That doesn’t at all say innocent to me. No, Trump definitely needs an indictment and a trial over all of this.
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Politics: What happens if Trump runs again?
While I’ve pretty much avoided political debate and politics on Randocity, I also recognize that this blog is called Randocity. Political discussion is never off of the table. I’ve avoided politics because it’s like playing with Playdough. It’s salty, dries out and becomes no fun after just a few minutes. Because democracy actually hangs in the balance with this former President, I’ll grit and bear my way through this article as this needs to be said. Hopefully, you’re willing to do the same. Let’s explore.
Prophetic
I’m not one to try and be a prophet, but let me don this hat for this next few sections of the article. We all know what Trump did during the 2020 election. Let’s just list his actions leading up to and after the election:
- Trump began his lead up to the 2020 election by sowing seeds of mistrust and doubt in the election system by claiming that mail-in ballots are a major source of fraud. Don’t trust me on this? Follow the link. Trump made this claims many times well prior to the election. Trump’s action intended to sow distrust in the United States’s election system. For better or worse, it worked. It also set the stage for what came after. This is the start of Trump’s “Big Lie”.
- Election day arrives and Joe Biden wins. Yet, according to Trump (and his followers), Biden and Democrat party somehow managed to “rig” the election (and 50 states worth of voting systems) to see Biden win. See #1 for the beginnings of this “Big Lie”.
- Trump refuses to concede the election on election day, the day after or even today as I write this article. Instead, he begins a concerted effort to prove that he won and that Biden lost. This effort includes a number of steps including discrediting election officials, discrediting election workers, discrediting election polling places, discrediting election equipment and basically discrediting anyone involved in the election system. Make no mistake, this discrediting tactic was systematic and entailed making wild claims about the entirety of the election system… which, of course, those claims could not at all be supported or corroborated. Courts all over the country were entangled in many (frivilous) lawsuits set up by Trump and his followers to challenge the election integrity and discredit many people in the process. Trump didn’t stop here. However, Trump lost every single one of those lawsuits, over and over and over. No election fraud was (or is) ever uncovered.
- On January 2nd, 2021, in a vain attempt at overturning the election results in the state of Georgia, Trump calls Brad Raffensperger, the Secretary of State over Georgia, requesting that Raffensperger “find” 11,780 votes for Trump. Of course, he made no mention of exactly how Raffensperger might go about “finding” those votes. Clearly, this was an attempt at persuading election officials into performing actual voter fraud on behalf of Trump using veiled words. It’s most definitely not the first time Trump has used veiled words to prompt someone take potentially illegal actions which greatly benefits Trump. However, those words can then be claimed by Trump as “innocent”. It also wouldn’t be the last time Trump uses veiled words to do his bidding.
- Trump organizes a rally at the Ellipse near Capitol Hill on January 6th, 2021. January 6th was the day the winning candidate was to be confirmed as the Presidential winner by the Electoral College. This congressional procedure is primarily symbolic in nature, but it also serves a purpose for congress to go through the motions to ensure the candidate is fully recognized as having been duly elected. Trump’s rally brought throngs of Trump supporters to Washington DC on the day of the Electoral College vote in the hopes that he could somehow disrupt the Electoral College process.
- On the same day of the Rally, Trump calls Mike Pence, the then Vice President of the United States, to request him to discredit Electoral Vote counts from key states. States that, if discredited, would aid in Trump remaining in office by overturning the election results. Pence refuses and performs his duties as President of the Senate. Pence, as Vice President, is the person who facilitates and presides over Electoral Vote tabulation in front of the House and Senate. In fact, the Vice President doesn’t appear to have such requested power even if he had wanted to do as Trump asked. Again, Trump likely used veiled words with Pence to “get him” to do something untoward that, again, greatly benefits Trump.
- Trump, along with a bunch of Trump allies, make veiled, but now inflammatory rhetoric riling up the crowd at the Ellipse, effectively making it appear as if the election was about to be stolen from Trump by the Electoral College. Again, Trump uses flowery veiled rhetoric to incite the crowd into a frenzy. Trump knew exactly what his rhetoric would have the crowd do, particularly knowing a large extremist Trump-supporting fringe element had also shown up. The vote, at that time, was just several hours away. Trump and Co’s inflammatory, but veiled rhetoric lead to the riotous results which immediately followed on Capitol Hill.
- After the walk from the Ellipse, the riots begin in earnest. As a result, this riot forces the Electoral Vote count proceedings to halt for a period of time while the House and Senate staff take cover in a safe location until the grounds can be brought back under control with the rioters gone. Until that time, the Electoral Vote count remains suspended. Yes, Trump was instrumental in encouraging this action. Yes, Trump, the then sitting President of the United States, based on his veiled rhetoric speech, intentionally caused suspension of the prescribed formality of counting and tabulating the Electoral College vote counts. Keep in mind that this intentional suspension was all for the purpose of overturning the election results… IN TRUMP’S FAVOR.
- Several hours later after the rioters had gone and the DC police had brought the grounds under control did the vote count resume, with Mike Pence presiding. The vote count was uneventful and, as the voting had concluded, Biden was confirmed as the next President by the Electoral College.
These above facts are irrefutable, even though Trump would have you believe it’s all fake. Let’s stop here. I think I’ve included enough pertinent information to predict the outcome should Trump run again. Trump is, if anything, predictable.
Trump hates Losing
It’s clear, Trump hates losing. In fact, he hates it so much that he began planning his road to the “Big Lie” months before the election to ensure he couldn’t lose, at least in his own mind. If he can drag some people into his “world” of lies, then all the better. To date, Trump has still not conceded the election and still insists that the election (and election system) was (and is) rigged.
In fact, Trump is so adamant that he had won the election (both before and after) that he filed many, many lawsuits in an attempt to “prove” the election was somehow rigged, sometimes forcing a vote recount. In some places like Arizona, the votes were recounted a number of separate times all confirming and proving that Biden had won, even by his own requested staffers. Yet, Trump simply won’t take, “No” for an answer. Trump still insists that the election was rigged, is fraudulent and that he is the rightful winner of the 2020 election. No such evidence has ever been shown that this claim is, in fact, true. In fact, all evidence points to the fact that the 2020 election was free, fair and without major fraud. Sure, every election has its irregularities, but no more than any other past election.
Trump simply can’t look at the irregularities and call foul when the statistics indicate no such fraud exists.
Election Lies and Rigging
Let’s understand the preposterousness of Trump’s lie claims and understand better who is actually doing the rigging here. In order for Joe Biden and others in the Democrat party to have truly rigged the election in favor of Joe Biden, this action would have required an extremely enormous coordinated effort from many, many election officials, election workers and modification of election equipment all over the United States, in every single state. Such an enormous coordinated effort would have required many thousands of people’s synchronized participation at the polls and many, many hours of planning.
If our election system is truly that easily compromised, then there’s no way possible we can possibly use it for any future elections… ever.
Let’s examine what’s more probable, plausible or even possible? Trump’s Lie that thousands and thousands election workers all conspired against Trump to make Biden win? Or, the American people voted correctly, accurately and fairly… and that Biden was duly and fairly elected! Let’s even qualify this more. Whom do you trust in the above scenario? One single person who is known to lie (i.e., Trump) or thousands of election workers all over the country who voluntarily devote their time and resources to ensuring we have a free and fair election? Again, I ask, “Which situation is more probable?”
Just to be sure we’re on the same page, I’ll answer that question. Trump has more than proven he is not trustworthy. Thousands of election workers and election staff cannot ALL be at the level of untrustworthy that Trump claims in his “Big Lie”. It is, therefore, Trump who is lying.
Obviously, Trump’s lie is THE ludicrous and unbelievable claim here. It is way more probable that Trump is lying than suggesting an enormous coordinated effort existed to place Biden into the Presidential seat over the will of the voters. Further, if such a coordinated effort truly existed, why stop at such narrow voting margins and not go for an all out landslide victory? If the election machines can be truly compromised and modified, then why bother with slim margins? No, Trump’s claims just don’t hold water.
Biden didn’t win by any sense of a “landslide”. Oh, no no. The votes were so close that some battleground states weren’t able to call the election results for days after the election. By ‘close’, this could be as few as several thousand votes. This meant election workers were forced into counting and recounting to ensure the vote counts are all counted accurately and tabulated properly. With that many recounts all showing Biden won, there is no possible way that Trump’s “Big Lie” is in any way plausible, let alone realistic or even true.
Trump and 2024
Looking ahead, let’s really talk about what’s likely to occur should Trump end up on the ballot again. In fact, Trump is already sowing the seeds of distrust even deeper right at this very moment. As long as Trump maintains his “big election lie”, he WILL continue to both expand and reuse it against the 2024 presidential election should he choose to run again. Believe me, he will most definitely use it again and will up his game based on what he learned during the 2020 process! He’s that predictable. Prediction noted.
Let me say right now that this man should never be able to run for President again. In fact, Congress performed a major disservice to this country for not finding Trump guilty in his final Impeachment hearing. If they had found him guilty, that would have prevented Trump from ever holding office as President again. This would be a blessing come 2024. The man cannot be President again or even be allowed to run or else this country may entirely lose the meaning of the word, “Democracy.” Prediction noted.
Trump Wins?
Assuming Trump were to win in 2024, Trump will not only continue to do everything with his reacquired Presidential power to discredit the election system entirely. It’s nearly guaranteed he will want to ensure that he remains in office indefinitely by attempting to halt everything to do with future elections. That’s just the beginning of his tirade. Trump will see to it that not only can he not be voted out again, that no one else can be voted in. At this point, Democracy and the Constitution’s power ends. Worse, Trump’s “back pocket” GOP will likely follow the leader here and continue to do Trump’s bidding by seeing to it that legislation is passed that allows Trump to remain in power beyond 4 years, possibly even indefinitely. Prediction noted.
Election Lie 2.0
What if Trump loses? The outcome is just as bad simply because he was allowed to run. If we think Trump’s election lie is bad now, just wait. If Trump is allowed to participate and again loses, not only will Trump parade his next version of the Election Lie v2.0, he will see to it that both he and the GOP make sure the elections are so undermined that we can’t even use our election system come 2028. The courts will also be so completely saturated with meritless case after meritless case all for the sole means of attempting to prove that the election was, once again, rigged and stolen from Trump.
Trump will most definitely up his lying game to make sure everyone knows he was, again, cheated out of his win. That somehow the election system was (and is) majorly rigged against him with yet more fabricated evidence. This will then lead to even more voter law changes by Trump supporting states. Prediction noted.
Let’s put this into a bit more perspective with how Trump can leverage the GOP leadership team. The GOP (aka Republican party), is hanging onto Trump’s coattails for all it’s worth. These elected officials continually and constantly push Trump’s lie, but not verbally. They do so by introducing legislation that is tantamount to a modern version Gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is technically redrawing district lines around population centers so as to change the outcome of an election from a Democrat win to a GOP win. It is a form of political scam. When districts are drawn correctly and properly, the vote distributions are fair. When redrawn using Gerrymandering, it unfairly rigs voting in favor of one party over the other. Gerrymandering is an old tactic, but there are many new age tactics that can also be used in addition to redrawing districts in unfair ways.
States have now taken it upon themselves to craft laws that restrict voting in ways that make it easier for Republicans to vote and much more difficult for Democrats to vote. This is a legal form of Gerrymandering. Laws, in combination with actual district Gerrymandering, pretty much ensures a win for the party who set all of these scams up, even if that party is in the minority. This is a form of…
Election Rigging
Who is actually doing the rigging here? The problem I really have with all of Trump’s (and by extension, Trump’s GOP) hoo-ha above is that the reverse is actually true. Everything that Trump has crafted in an attempt to discredit the election results was actually performed with the intent to rig the 2020 election in Trump’s (and, more specifically, the GOP’s) favor. His “Big Lie” wasn’t intended to uncover any truth as there was no “truth” to actually uncover. Instead, his claims of election fraud by Biden were all intended to allow him to rig the elections in Trump’s favor. It’s a reverse ploy. He takes a functional, legitimate, working system and twists it into something that appears broken, corrupt and perverse for the sole means of turning it around and using it to his own benefit. It’s a classic victim ploy.
It’s also diabolical. Rigging is rigging whether by Trump or by someone else. Trump’s attempts to use the justice system, the media, his supporters and veiled words are simply attempts to get people to do his bidding, which meant overturning the 2020 election results by illegitimate means and usurping the 2020 election for himself. Can we say, “Rigged by Trump”? Yet, for whatever reason, people actually fail to see this diabolical scheme that Trump has concocted. It’s a plot that seemingly turns Trump into a victim rather than exposing him as a con man. Trump is, plain and simple, a con man. He intended to deceive his followers into believing fake information and, thus, attempt to take a legitimate free and fair election system and actually twist it by rigging it to Trump’s will.
Let me ask. Who exactly is doing the rigging here? It’s certainly not Biden.
However, few Trump supporters want to believe that they’ve been conned by Trump. It’s way easier to accept Trump as a victim than to view themselves as being duped by Trump. If you accept Trump’s lies, however, you ARE being duped. Accepting a known lie is the very definition of being duped.
Can Trump be Trusted?
A very good question. Let’s examine. At this point, it should be completely clear that this man cannot be trusted, not with Presidential power, not even with participating in the election system as a candidate. Anyone so intent on treating our election system so recklessly, callously, with disdain and with so much malice of intent cannot be trusted. Trust is earned. It’s clear that Trump has failed to earn trust and respect from almost anyone. Yet, followers still flock in his direction. I’m still at a loss as to why. The man has proven that he has no morals, moral compass, ethics or scruples.
It’s one thing for a politician to make boasting claims about doing great deeds while in office, then fail to accomplish those goals. It’s entirely another when the President of the United States holds a rally intended to halt counting the Electoral Votes which undermines the election system and the basic fundamentals that hold Democracy together.
Lies and Fraud
Trump’s deception has not ended and will not end until he is pushed out of politics entirely. That means that the GOP must force Trump out of the party. The GOP cannot continue as a legitimate political party when someone so corrupt and so ill-intentioned remains within. Someone who was (and still is) willing to sacrifice the entirety of the United States Constitution and Democracy’s fabric itself simply so that he can remain in office, that’s someone we absolutely do not need running this country, let alone even being allowed on the ballot.
If Trump is placed on the ballot in 2024, Democracy literally hangs in the balance. If we think we’re in a constitutional crisis after the January 6th Capitol attack, that’s simply the first salvo in what will likely bring down the United States if Trump regains the office of President. Prediction noted.
Trump absolutely in no way cares about the continuance of Democracy and only cares about one thing… Trump and his ability to gain and retain power, particularly Presidential power. He also wants to take that power and bastardize it into something that was never intended by the framers of the Constitution.
Regardless of whether Trump wins or loses in 2024, the United States faces a serious existential threat, one that Trump seems to want to seriously undermine (at best) and dismantle (at worst). No, Trump cannot be allowed to even participate in the 2024 election process at all. His corruption will taint the election system, win or lose. The GOP leadership must eject Trump from the party and shun any further interaction with him. That is, unless the GOP (Republican party) wants to become known as the party that brought down United States Democracy, which also likely means the GOP (and all other parties) will cease to exist once Democracy dies. No need for Democratic processes once the President wields all of the power, forever.
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