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Nevilledog

(51,125 posts) Sat Jun 25, 2022, 02:53 PM Jun 2022

Jonathan Alter: The Coup Plot Thickens -- Day Five

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Jonathan Alter
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“'Ken, I’m told it’s your job to seize machines and you’re not doing your job,' Trump barked. Even Cuccinelli, a dyed-in-the-wool MAGA man, wouldn’t buckle to that tinhorn dictator demand."
Amid your attention to other huge news, my Day Five take:

oldgoats.substack.com
The Coup Plot Thickens — Day Five
New Evidence of a Trump Conspiracy
11:27 AM · Jun 25, 2022

https://oldgoats.substack.com/p/the-coup-plot-thickens-day-five

*snip*

Clark is a familiar figure to anyone who has ever worked in an office — an almost comically-ambitious second-rate schemer who goes around the back of his superior to do the bidding of the big boss. It almost worked. If it had, the Department of Justice would have been pulled into the plot to have state legislatures re-certify the election and send slates of fake electors to Vice President Pence on January 6th, plunging the nation into a constitutional crisis.

This part of the story began in mid-December, 2020. After Attorney General William Barr told Trump the vote fraud allegations were “bullshit” and resigned, he was replaced as AG by Jeffrey Rosen, who on Thursday joined two other DOJ officials—Richard Donoghue and Steven Engel—in appearing in person before the committee. Like most of the Committee’s other Republican witnesses in the last two weeks, all three should have come forward during the second impeachment. But better late than never, and they will all make highly credible prosecution witnesses at trial.

Say the election was corrupt': Jan. 6 panel details Trump's DOJ pressure campaign
Steven Engel, Jeffrey Rosen and Richard Donoghue being sworn in on June 23, Day Five
Rosen testified that between December 23 and January 3, Trump was in touch with him “virtually every day.” Rosen, Donoghue and Engel resisted Trump’s outlandish conspiracy theories, like the one about the Italian defense contractor who uploaded data to a satellite and used it to change votes to Biden in the U.S.; ignored Trump’s request for a “meritless” (Engel’s words) lawsuit in the Supreme Court; and sidestepped Trump’s demand that a special counsel be appointed to investigate vote fraud, a job he had promised to kooky Sidney Powell. As Rep. Adam Kinzinger put it, the idea of a special counsel was just “fake cover” to provide an “illusion of legitimacy” to the idea of further probing non-existent vote fraud.

One of Trump’s scariest ideas was to “seize voting machines.” When informed that DOJ had no authority to do so, Trump immediately called Ken Cuccinelli, the right wing acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. “Ken, I’m told it’s your job to seize machines and you’re not doing your job,” Trump barked. Even Cuccinelli, a dyed-in-the-wool MAGA man, wouldn’t buckle to that tinhorn dictator demand.

*snip*