Election integrity and the transfer of power

[LordMortis]

I don't buy this, but it did immediately trigger me:

Plane Sightings Fuel Rumors Trump Planning Escape to Scotland on Day Before Biden Inauguration

GOLF WAR

Warning, this was triggered:

Spoiler:

"Dennis Moore" has been running through my head for the last few months.

Also, I don't think he flees. I think his cadre take up in Florida and try to make a nuthouse stronghold. and they try stretch across the gulf with 3% rallying cries of no taxes the entire way.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

[hepcat]

I don't buy this, but it did immediately trigger me:

Plane Sightings Fuel Rumors Trump Planning Escape to Scotland on Day Before Biden Inauguration

GOLF WAR

Warning, this was triggered:

Spoiler:

"Dennis Moore" has been running through my head for the last few months.

Also, I don't think he flees. I think his cadre take up in Florida and try to make a nuthouse stronghold. and they try stretch across the gulf with 3% rallying cries of no taxes the entire way.

Trump's biggest desire is exposure, so he'll be either starting his own news network with the help of (Russian) friends, or he'll be given a daily show on OAN, NewsMax, etc..

[LordMortis]

Trump's biggest desire is exposure, so he'll be either starting his own news network with the help of (Russian) friends, or he'll be given a daily show on OAN, NewsMax, etc..

Oh absolutely but he can propaganda for profit from anywhere. My money is on OAN, though newsmax rose to prominence on his coat tail, so I could see him leveraging them just as easily.

[Paingod]

I wish any "organization" that picks him up all the best. He's a radioactive excremental and the second they contradict him or cease pandering, he'll turn on them with wild abandon.

[Smoove_B]

Oh look, Trump potentially murdering another career.

Cleta Mitchell's law firm says it's "concerned" she was on Trump's call and "are working to understand her involvement more thoroughly."

[Paingod]

Oh look, Trump potentially murdering another career.

Really no pity for anyone who signs up to go wade into the cesspool so they can dig for imaginary treasure.

[hepcat]

These people should absolutely face punishment for their involvement in this conspiracy laden attempt to overthrow democracy. Honestly, I'd like to see them disbarred, but I understand that that might result in lawyers becoming less likely to represent some clients in the long run. However, ruining their reputations will suffice.

[Kurth]

I think history shows that Trump supporters will find no wrong doing in that phone call whatsoever. As a matter of fact, they'd probably declare it perfectly fine and a sign that Trump is doing his job. That's the kind of disconnect we're dealing with when it comes to their cult.

Yep, that seems to be the common theme. He’s “fighting” against the corrupt powers that stole the election from him...and why shouldn’t he?

Also, here’s the full call and transcript, since I’m also seeing lots of “taken out of context” jabber.

Thanks for the link. Just read through that full transcript, and it's really incredible.

There's such a clear pattern that repeats itself again and again:

- Trump speaks for a long time about fraud allegations (dead people voting, fake ballots, shredded ballots, video of State Farm arena ballots in suitcases, etc.).
- Raffensberger rebuts and debunks.
- Meadows and Trump's lawyers on the call carefully avoid repeating or affirming any of Trump's specific fraud allegations and instead shift to asking for continued investigations and for records and other evidence that would disprove the fraud allegations.
- Trump contradicts his own people and says no further investigations are needed because he won by SO much more than the 11,779 vote margin and everyone knows it.

Rinse and repeat, over and over again. Not at all surprising, but it is jarring to actually read this stuff confirming what a clown Trump is.

That said, I do think the uproar over the request to "find 11,780 votes" is sensational and taken out of context. It's very clear from the call that Trump's position is he won so BIGLY - by 400K votes - that they only need to "find" 11,780 instances of fraud to shift the state. While I'm sure he'd have no objection to GA making up 11,780 votes from whole cloth, he's not actually asking for that on the call.

Doesn't make him any less stupid, but it's not a criminal act as I've seen suggested.

[Archinerd]

Doesn't make him any less stupid, but it's not a criminal act as I've seen suggested.

Attempting a crime is still a crime. But I'm not a lawyer, so I'll defer to the experts.

[Kurth]

Doesn't make him any less stupid, but it's not a criminal act as I've seen suggested.

Attempting a crime is still a crime. But I'm not a lawyer, so I'll defer to the experts.

That's not the point. It's just not a crime or an attempted crime. What happened on that call is not criminal.

[LordMortis]

Oh look, Trump potentially murdering another career.

Cleta Mitchell's law firm says it's "concerned" she was on Trump's call and "are working to understand her involvement more thoroughly."

Lincoln Project posted their number and asked people to call and give their opinion of the lobbying group. I'm trying to figure if this falls under doxxing or not. I will say the fact that they are a firm for lobbying makes it somehow poetic and whether rational or not, it offends me less.

[Jaymann]

Oh look, Trump potentially murdering another career.

Cleta Mitchell's law firm says it's "concerned" she was on Trump's call and "are working to understand her involvement more thoroughly."

Lincoln Project posted their number and asked people to call and give their opinion of the lobbying group. I'm trying to figure if this falls under doxxing or not. I will say the fact that they are a firm for lobbying makes it somehow poetic and whether rational or not, it offends me less.

Apparently their dildo supply is running short...

[Skinypupy]

From the "well...duh" files:

[hepcat]

It is jarring to actually read this stuff confirming what a clown Trump is.

That said, I do think the uproar over the request to "find 11,780 votes" is sensational and taken out of context. It's very clear from the call that Trump's position is he won so BIGLY - by 400K votes - that they only need to "find" 11,780 instances of fraud to shift the state. While I'm sure he'd have no objection to GA making up 11,780 votes from whole cloth, he's not actually asking for that on the call.

Doesn't make him any less stupid, but it's not a criminal act as I've seen suggested.

I disagree.

There are clear threats of legal action against Raffensperger if he doesn't overturn the election results and give Trump a victory. Just because Trump believes the conspiracy theories and thinks he DID win does not absolve him of criminal action in trying to force Raffensperger to do so.

As a lawyer on twitter noted earlier, mob bosses have been convicted on less.

And Trump is asking Raffensperger to get him just enough votes to win. That's the most damning part for me. If he truly believed this was about election fraud, he wouldn't be asking for the specific results he needs to win the state.

[malchior]

Several top former DOJ staffers have said they think it was a crime but would be very hard to prosecute.

[hepcat]

Biden won't pursue it after he takes office. He wants Trump to just go away at this point. I can see his point that going after that orange ass won't do anything but rile up his base and further divide this country, but the part of me that believes this country deserves a reckoning would prefer to see Biden completely destroy him.

[Paingod]

Biden won't pursue it after he takes office. He wants Trump to just go away at this point.

The fascinating thing about this is Biden doesn't have to do it himself. He can simply dial a number on his magic 8-Ball and ask a commission to look into it and let it run from there while he concentrates on everything else.

I believe that healing the nation needs to start with a reckoning that includes demonstrating that flouting the law does not go unpunished. The fools willing to ignore reality will never be swayed back to sanity, but the people who can should know how it plays out when you cross some very real lines.

[LordMortis]

Biden won't pursue it after he takes office. He wants Trump to just go away at this point. I can see his point that going after that orange ass won't do anything but rile up his base and further divide this country, but the part of me that believes this country deserves a reckoning would prefer to see Biden completely destroy him.

This. The best I can hope for is no one wants to touch him. That the name is so toxic not even the underworld has a use for him. But the people around not pardoned? There could be a whole lot going on.

[Holman]

Biden won't pursue it after he takes office. He wants Trump to just go away at this point. I can see his point that going after that orange ass won't do anything but rile up his base and further divide this country, but the part of me that believes this country deserves a reckoning would prefer to see Biden completely destroy him.

I think there will be investigations ongoing for a long time, and I think we'll be into President Harris' terms before they're all fully settled.

[hepcat]

The metaphor of rats infesting a home and being extremely difficult to remove once they're let in keeps coming to mind lately.

[Little Raven]

I'm all for Trump being destroyed, but Biden probably isn't the best avatar of justice in this scenario.

It would be much better for everyone if, say, Georgia took him to task.

[pr0ner]

Congresspeople Ted Lieu and Kathleen Rice have asked the FBI to open a criminal investigation into Trump's call.

[hepcat]

I'm all for Trump being destroyed, but Biden probably isn't the best avatar of justice in this scenario.

It would be much better for everyone if, say, Georgia took him to task.

I would love to see Dominion take him for a crap ton of money after he leaves office. There has got to be some validity to a libel suit considering how often he's called them corrupt and criminal without proof.

[El Guapo]

Biden won't pursue it after he takes office. He wants Trump to just go away at this point. I can see his point that going after that orange ass won't do anything but rile up his base and further divide this country, but the part of me that believes this country deserves a reckoning would prefer to see Biden completely destroy him.

I think there will be investigations ongoing for a long time, and I think we'll be into President Harris' terms before they're all fully settled.

So this is the thing. I know that Biden doesn't *want* to pursue it after he takes office. However, there's enough public that there's going to be investigations into various parts and aspects of TrumpWorld for some time. What are the odds that none of this ties back to Trump? What are the odds that no one in Trump World offers to flip on Trump once Trump loses pardon power and his ability to directly influence prosecutions?

So Biden doesn't want to, but I think it's fairly likely that Biden (Biden's AG) gets presented with a pretty compelling case against Trump at some point. And I tend to doubt that Biden will want to not pursue a clear and compelling case against Trump.

I will say that a self-pardon by Trump is very very likely at this point, and that would complicate any case against Trump.

[LordMortis]

I'm all for Trump being destroyed, but Biden probably isn't the best avatar of justice in this scenario.

It would be much better for everyone if, say, Georgia took him to task.

That would be soooo awesome.

[Blackhawk]

I want to see Trump get stepped on so hard that he becomes a cautionary tale that Republican mothers tell their little Republican children to keep them in line. But more than that I want us to have a functioning, democratic nation in twenty or thirty years when my children and grandchildren are living their lives.

I don't know what series of actions will lead to that, but I'll gladly let Trump keep his assets and his freedom if that's part of the cost.

[pr0ner]

I'm all for Trump being destroyed, but Biden probably isn't the best avatar of justice in this scenario.

It would be much better for everyone if, say, Georgia took him to task.

Someone in Georgia wants that to happen:

[Jaymann]

Congresspeople Ted Lieu and Kathleen Rice have asked the FBI to open a criminal investigation into Trump's call.

Some berks are saying they should investigate Raffensperger for recording the call. If Agolf gets nailed it would be totally worth it. It will never happen, but can you imagine the sweet irony if Biden pardoned Raffensperger.

[stessier]

Congresspeople Ted Lieu and Kathleen Rice have asked the FBI to open a criminal investigation into Trump's call.

Some berks are saying they should investigate Raffensperger for recording the call. If Agolf gets nailed it would be totally worth it. It will never happen, but can you imagine the sweet irony if Biden pardoned Raffensperger.

DC and Georgia are both one-party consent states.

[pr0ner]

[Jaymann]

Congresspeople Ted Lieu and Kathleen Rice have asked the FBI to open a criminal investigation into Trump's call.

Some berks are saying they should investigate Raffensperger for recording the call. If Agolf gets nailed it would be totally worth it. It will never happen, but can you imagine the sweet irony if Biden pardoned Raffensperger.

DC and Georgia are both one-party consent states.

Great hill for the deplorables to die on.

[hepcat]

Hot damn! This makes me forgive them for what they tried to do to Alpha Quadrant!

[Kurth]

In reference to that NYT article linked to above, Trump Call to Georgia Official Might Violate State and Federal Law, that is such a shitty piece of journalism and a click-baity title that it belongs in the demise of the 4th Estate thread.

The amount of equivocating and caveating going on in there is through the roof. I'm just going to quote the opening paragraphs:

The call by President Trump on Saturday to Georgia’s secretary of state raised the prospect that Mr. Trump may have violated laws that prohibit interference in federal or state elections, but lawyers said on Sunday that it would be difficult to pursue such a charge.

The recording of the conversation between Mr. Trump and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of Georgia, first reported by The Washington Post, led a number of election and criminal defense lawyers to conclude that by pressuring Mr. Raffensperger to “find” the votes he would need to reverse the election outcome in the state, Mr. Trump either broke the law or came close to it.

“It seems to me like what he did clearly violates Georgia statutes,” said Leigh Ann Webster, an Atlanta criminal defense lawyer, citing a state law that makes it illegal for anyone who “solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage” in election fraud.

At the federal level, anyone who “knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds or attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a state of a fair and impartially conducted election process” is breaking the law.

Sure, it "raises the prospect" that Trump "may" have violated laws . . . but most reasonable people who know something about the statutes involved and have read the entire transcript would agree that it doesn't.

Trump is arguing on the call that but for election fraud, he would have carried GA by a large margin and therefore GA should be called for him. At the state level, he's not attempting to cause or get Raffensberger to engage in election fraud. In his twisted world, he's asking Raffensberger to correct election fraud. And at the federal level, it's pretty much the same analysis. Given the statements Trump made, his state of mind and intent are key elements, and there's nothing on the call that would be sufficient to establish that Trump is making his requests to Raffensberger while knowing that they are baseless.

A criminal charge over this call would be frivolous.

[Smoove_B]

Hot damn! This makes me forgive them for what they tried to do to Alpha Quadrant!

I'm watching this right now so I get your joke!

[hepcat]

At the state level, he's not attempting to cause or get Raffensberger to engage in election fraud. In his twisted world, he's asking Raffensberger to correct election fraud.

Except for the part where he explicitly asks Raffensperger to find just enough votes for him to win.

If belief that your actions in a criminal activity were just and necessary was enough to exonerate a person, we'd have a lot fewer people in prison.

Trump literally told a secretary of state to find him just enough votes to overturn an election. And I use the word literally to its fullest meaning. I mean, we have tape.

Will Trump go down for this? Probably not. But that doesn't mean he's innocent of criminal activity. It just means he's broken our system so much that we can't do the right thing while he's in office.

[Kurth]

Oh look, Trump potentially murdering another career.

Cleta Mitchell's law firm says it's "concerned" she was on Trump's call and "are working to understand her involvement more thoroughly."

Lincoln Project posted their number and asked people to call and give their opinion of the lobbying group. I'm trying to figure if this falls under doxxing or not. I will say the fact that they are a firm for lobbying makes it somehow poetic and whether rational or not, it offends me less.

That's not doxxing, and I'm 100% fine with publishing Cleta Mitchell's affiliation with Foley. Just to be clear, though, Foley & Lardner is not actually a lobbying group. It's a very large (top 10 in the U.S.), international law firm and does a shit ton more than just lobbying. Foley has 24 offices around the world and over 1K attorneys. Cleta Mitchell is just one partner in the firm's political law practice group.

I've actually worked with and against Foley several times. There are a lot of good lawyers over there. Just wouldn't want anyone to tar the whole firm based on Cleta Mitchell.

[Kurth]

At the state level, he's not attempting to cause or get Raffensberger to engage in election fraud. In his twisted world, he's asking Raffensberger to correct election fraud.

Except for the part where he explicitly asks Raffensperger to find just enough votes for him to win.

If belief that your actions in a criminal activity were just was enough to exonerate a person, we'd have a lot fewer people in prison.

Trump literally told a secretary of state to find him just enough votes to overturn an election. And I use the word literally to its fullest meaning. I mean, we have tape.

Will Trump go down for this? Probably not. But that doesn't mean he's innocent of criminal activity. It just means he's broken our system so much that we can't do the right thing while he's in office.

Did you read the full transcript? To the extent you think Trump's use of the word "find" means he wants Raffensberger to fabricate 11,780 votes, I disagree with you and don't think that's a reasonable interpretation of what Trump said.

[Jaymann]

"Recalibrate" sounds more criminal than "find" to me.

[LordMortis]

Hot damn! This makes me forgive them for what they tried to do to Alpha Quadrant!

I heard there was a Kardashian plot to form an alliance with them and install Kanye West as a figurehead until Dominion pulled the rug out from under them.