Trump, disrupter in chief, found guilty
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ump, January 6, election lies, myths vs. facts, indictment, trials
Updated 10-28-24. Originally published Feb. 2024.
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• Inside the Republican false-flag effort to turn off Kamala Harris voters
(Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey, Washington Post, 11-15-24)
A multipronged dark money effort by advisers to Elon Musk targeted liberals, Jews, Muslims and Black voters with ads that were not quite what they seemed.
'Muslims in Michigan began seeing pro-Israel ads this fall praising Vice President Kamala Harris for marrying a Jewish man and backing the Jewish state. Jews in Pennsylvania, meanwhile, saw ads from the same group with the opposite message: Harris wanted to stop U.S. arms shipments to Israel.
'Another group promoted “Kamala’s bold progressive agenda” to conservative-leaning Donald Trump voters, while a third filled the phones of young liberals with videos about how Harris had abandoned the progressive dream. Black voters in North Carolina were told Democrats wanted to take away their menthol cigarettes, while working-class White men in the Midwest were warned that Harris would support quotas for minorities and deny them Zyn nicotine pouches.
'What voters had no way of knowing at the time was that all of the ads were part of a single, $45 million effort created by political advisers to Tesla founder Elon Musk who had previously worked on the presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), according to a presentation about the group’s efforts obtained by The Washington Post.'
• Keeping Track of the Trump Criminal Cases (New York Times, 10-28-24) For the first 234 years of the nation's history, no American president or former president had ever been indicted. That changed in 2023. Over a five-month span, former President Donald Trump was charged in four criminal cases. Together, the indictments accused him of wide-ranging criminal conduct before, during and after his presidency. One of those indictments has now led to the first criminal conviction of a former president; the other three remain pending. This is POLITICO's guide to the four Trump criminal cases.
---Trump's federal Jan. 6 Case Related to Mr. Trump’s efforts to retain power after the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
---Trump Georgia Election Case Related to efforts to reverse Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia.
---Trump’s Classified Documents Inquiry Related to Mr. Trump’s handling of sensitive government documents he took with him when he left office
---Trump N.Y. Hush Money Case Related to payments to cover up a sex scandal during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Two cases against Mr. Trump at the state level have been led by district attorneys in New York and Fulton County, Ga. His handling of sensitive federal government documents when he left office is at the center of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department.
---Judge Declines to Toss Trump’s New York Hush-Money Conviction (Corinne Ramey, Wall Street Journal, 12-16-24) A New York judge ruled Monday that Donald Trump’s hush-money conviction this year remains valid, rejecting arguments from the president-elect that it should be dismissed on immunity grounds. Ruling concludes that Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity didn’t void prosecution.
---Trump Seeks to Delay His Sentencing Until After the Election Having routinely sought delays in his four criminal cases, he wants to use the extra time to fight his conviction on 34 felony counts in Manhattan.
---Trump is found guilty on 34 felony counts. Read the counts here (Ximena Bustillo and Hilary Fung, NPR, 5-30-24) Jurors in the New York criminal trial against former President Donald Trump have convicted him of 34 felony counts of falsified business records. This is the first time a former or sitting U.S. president has been convicted of criminal charges. The jurors said they unanimously agreed that Trump falsified business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
• Donald Trump Basically Admits to Interfering in 2020 Election, Makes Clear He Won’t Hesitate to Do It Again (Bess Levin, Vanity Fair, 9-3-24) Nothing to see here, just Trump claiming he had “every right” to interfere in a federal election. Meanwhile, this isn’t even the first time Trump has made clear he will very likely pull a 2020 again in 2024.
• "A third of Trump's campaign funding has come from billionaires, including several he's pledged to appoint to his cabinet. Fascism backed by Big Money is one of the most dangerous of all political alliances. We saw it in 1930s Germany, and we're seeing it again today."~Robert Reich
• Trump’s Final Days on the Campaign Trail (Antonia Hitchens, New Yorker, 11-3-24) 'As he wrapped up the speech, he quickly summarized his political beliefs: “Just very briefly, I am pro-life. I am against gun control. . . . I will fight to end Obamacare and replace it.” He ended on “Our country will be great again.”'
• The right place to make the best case against Trump (Washington Post Editorial Board,10-28-24)
"Donald Trump considers Jan. 6 a day of love. What might a day of hate look like?"
• Candidate threatens Liz Cheney with a firing squad (Lucian K. Truscott IV, 11-1-24) "In the closing days of this campaign, Trump is defaulting to threats of violence and arrest.... The New York Times reported this week that Trump’s threats against election officials appear to be having some effect. In an article entitled The Army of Election Officials Ready to Reject the Vote, the Times describes efforts in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania by election boards to reject certification of the vote if the election does not go Trump’s way. The people described in the article are partisan Republicans. When even they fear arrest and prosecution by their own candidate, something is seriously wrong in this country." The idea of “battleground states” has become a reality, where armed police officers may be necessary to secure the Constitutional right to vote. One political party and one presidential candidate are responsible for turning this election into a warzone."
• In Nov. 1 Milwaukee rally, Trump offers falsehoods on economy, climate change (Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact, 11-2-24) He said "today’s economic conditions are "like a depression," which is wrong. The unemployment rate is 4.1%, compared to about 25% during the Great Depression, and the economy is growing at 2.8% a year.
"Trump cast claims about climate change as alarmist. He said, "The ocean will rise in 500 years one-eighth of an inch. Who the hell cares?" This Pants on Fire claim drastically undercounts how fast the oceans are rising.
"Trump also said illegal immigrant gangs are taking over apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado (local officials disagree), that countries such as the Congo and Venezuela are emptying their prisons and "insane asylums" to send people to the U.S. (claims that are unsupported), that he signed the largest tax cut in the history of the country (False), that Americans will become "rich as hell" from his plan to hike tariffs on imported goods by 10% to 20% (economists almost unanimously disagree), that "we have more liquid gold under our feet than any other nation in the world … including Saudi Arabia and Russia" (the U.S. ranks ninth, behind both of the countries he mentioned), and even that he was the first Republican to win all 77 Oklahoma counties (George W. Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney beat him to it).
• Trump aides who don’t want him on the ballot (Mariana Alfaro, Washington Post 4-2-24)
---Former Trump officials are among the most vocal opponents of returning him to the White House (Michelle L. Price, Associated Press and PBS News, 4-5-24)
• Trump has made more than 100 threats to prosecute or punish perceived enemies (Tom Dreisbach, All Things Considered, NPR, 10-21-24) Two weeks before the presidential election, Donald Trump has used his most recent appearances on podcast and cable interviews to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived opponents, fellow Americans he calls “the enemy from within.” Vice President Kamala Harris “should be impeached and prosecuted,” he says. “I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Trump said last year. A review of Trump’s rally speeches, press conferences, interviews and social media posts shows that the former president has repeatedly indicated that he would use federal law enforcement as part of a campaign to exact “retribution.”
• How to Prevent the Worst From Happening (Peter Wehner, The Atlantic, 10-24) On just one issue (immigration): "Trump is cut from a very different cloth. He curtailed legal immigration during his presidency. Temporary visas for highly skilled noncitizen workers were reduced. Refugee admissions were slashed. Trump, who peddled outrageous lies against Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, says he plans to strip them of their legal status. (At his rallies, Trump has whipped the crowds into a frenzy, getting them to chant, “Send them back! Send them back! Send them back!”)
Support for that paragraph:
---President Trump Reduced Legal Immigration. He Did Not Reduce Illegal Immigration (Cato Institute)
---Visa denial rates for highly skilled workers were already hurting Texas businesses before Trump administration ordered new limits (Texas Tribune)
---What Did America Lose from Trump’s Mass Exclusion of Refugees? It Includes Billions of Dollars per Year (Center for Global Development)
---Trump says he would revoke the temporary protective status of Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. (Libbey Dean)
---Trump urges getting Haitian migrants out of Springfield, Ohio (X.com) One comment: "Meanwhile the residents of Springfield, OH are rallying around the Haitians."
• This Is Not the End of America (McKay Coppins, The Atlantic, 11-1-24) "Trump has, in his third campaign, been more explicit than ever about his illiberal designs. He has talked about weaponizing the Justice Department against his political enemies, replacing thousands of civil servants with loyalists, and revoking broadcast licenses for TV networks whose news coverage he doesn’t like." But "The power of the people doesn’t disappear overnight just because the White House is occupied by an illiberal leader."
• Who REALLY Knows Trump? Maggie Haberman Does (YouTube video, Maggie Haberman with Anthony Anthony Scaramucci ("The Mooch"), 6-20-23, 59 minutes) An excellent overview of the man.
• Maggie Haberman, the Confidence Man’s Chronicler (Katy Waldman, New Yorker, 1-7-23) In her book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, Haberman 'presents Trump as a bullshit artist whose grand theme is his own greatness. Trump, Haberman writes, “was usually selling, saying whatever he had to in order to survive life in ten-minute increments.” He “was interested primarily in money, dominance, power, bullying, and himself.”
'Haberman sees herself as a demystifier. Her coverage is often grounded in statements about Trump's character—that he thrives on chaos but loves routine, or that he stirs up infighting among his cronies. When I asked her about these conceptual scoops, she corrected me: "They're contextual scoops."
'Context is key to Haberman's project. A characteristic article, which she co-wrote in July of 2017, emphasized that Donald Trump, Jr.,'s huddle with a Kremlin-linked lawyer proved "unusual for a political campaign" but "consistent with the haphazard approach the Trump operation, and the White House, have taken in vetting people they deal with." It was a quintessential Haberman balancing act, which underlined both the meeting's extraordinary nature (for Washington) and the mundane pattern that it fit (for the Trumps). A reader wondering whether to be surprised by such carelessness, such corruption, gets her answer: yes and no.'
• Maggie Haberman on What an Unleashed Trump Might Do (YouTube, The Ezra Klein Show, 10-25-24) This conversation was taped before Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly went on the record saying that Trump met the definition of a fascist and that the former president had told him, “You know, Hitler did some good things, too.”
"His relationship to the truth is what he can get away with, and what he can get away with saying. He does not look at truth the way most people do."
What if he loses [in 2024]? "He'll still be dealing with prosecutions, although they're in limbo. He will face a sentencing in New York, maybe... "He has said he won't run again. I am very skeptical...I suspect he will say that he will run again, because it freezes the field for two years, and the Republican party is the most successful endeavor he has ever had."
• White people without college degrees (men more than women) are Trump's most reliable demographic.
• Trump claims abortion is infanticide at election events (KFF Health Misinformation Monitor, 10-24-24) False claims about abortions later in pregnancy are often spread to distort perceptions of when and how often pregnant people have abortions. Some have exaggerated these claims even further, falsely stating that individuals seek abortions after birth. During the presidential debate on September 10, former President Trump falsely claimed that Democrats support "abortion after birth," equating it to execution.
• Rush Limbaugh, Talk Radio’s Conservative Provocateur, Dies at 70 (Robert D. McFadden, NY Times, 2-17-21) A longtime favorite of the right, he was a furious critic of Barack Obama and a full-throated cheerleader for Donald J. Trump. For more than three decades he led attacks on liberals, Democrats, feminists, environmentalists and many others. Using often misogynistic and racist language and trafficking in conspiracy theories, he pushed conservative talk radio into extreme right-wing territory while building a regular audience of as many as 15 million Americans. In the Limbaugh lexicon, advocates for the homeless were “compassion fascists,” women who favored abortion were “feminazis,” environmentalists were “tree-hugging wackos.”
• Trump’s closing argument: full-throated fascism (Robert Reich, 10-24) Trump's fascism is now in the open. On Sunday, Trump told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo that the biggest problem on Election Day will “not be the people who have come in, who are destroying our country,” but, rather “the people from within — we have some very bad people, sick people, radical left lunatics. And it should be easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”
"Retired General Mark A. Milley, whom Trump picked to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that former president Donald Trump is a “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country” in new comments voicing his mounting alarm at the prospect of the Republican nominee’s election to another term (according to a forthcoming book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward)."
• Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini (Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, 10-18-24) 'The word vermin, as a political term, dates from the 1930s
and ’40s, when both fascists and communists liked to describe their political enemies as vermin, parasites, and blood infections, as well as insects, weeds, dirt, and animals. The term has been revived and reanimated, in an American presidential campaign, with Donald Trump’s description of his opponents as “radical-left thugs” who “live like vermin.”
'This language isn’t merely ugly or repellant: These words belong to a particular tradition. Adolf Hitler used these kinds of terms often. In 1938, he praised his compatriots who had helped “cleanse Germany of all those parasites who drank at the well of the despair of the Fatherland and the People.” '
"His talk of mass deportation is equally calculating. When he suggests that he would target both legal and illegal immigrants, or use the military arbitrarily against U.S. citizens, he does so knowing that past dictatorships have used public displays of violence to build popular support. By calling for mass violence, he hints at his admiration for these dictatorships but also demonstrates disdain for the rule of law and prepares his followers to accept the idea that his regime could, like its predecessors, break the law with impunity."
• Trump gets profane at Catholic charity dinner (Peter Weber, The Week, 10-18-24) Trump "rushed through prepared remarks, stumbling at times as he read through pointed political jokes, bitter grievances and crude and at times profane personal attacks," The New York Times said. He "seemed most energized when he ditched his script, caught between being an insult comic or just being insulting."