In his first post-election TV interview, on NBC.
In case you’re wondering, this is not, nor should it ever be confused with, normal. At least, not in a democracy.
Tag Archives: January 6
“Trump Refuses to Concede 2020 Election: ‘Why Would I Do That?’”
There’s also (another) pledge to pardon Jan. 6 rioters on his first day. (And to end birthright citizenship – a portion of the Constitution, of course — on day one.)
“Democrats say they’ll avoid election challenges on Jan. 6”
Democrats have protested election results in every cycle when a Republican won the White House for at least two decades, so the lack of protests will be a real change.
These past objections have always been symbolic, designed to highlight restrictive election laws or alleged violations of the Electoral College process in specific states.
They have come after the Democratic presidential candidate had already conceded defeat, with no chance — and no intent — of overturning the election results.
“As Jan. 6 Criminal Cases Against Trump Fizzle, Civil Cases Plod Ahead”
Trump and Cheseboro filings in the Georgia conspiracy case
As expected, President-elect Donald Trump has filed a motion in the Georgia Court of Appeals to dismiss the conspiracy prosecution against him in Georgia on the basis that “a sitting president is completely immune from indictment or any criminal process, state or federal.” (The argument behind that claim isn’t only from the Trump v. United States SCOTUS case this past summer: the claim is well beyond what the Supreme Court decided.)
At least as interesting to me, in many ways, is the filing of Kenneth Cheseboro, in the Fulton County trial court, on the same day. Cheseboro pled guilty in October 2023 to one conspiracy count of filing a false document, based on the filing of a fraudulent certificate of electoral votes with a Georgia federal court. In September 2024, the Fulton County court declared that count unconstitutional with respect to John Eastman and Shawn Still as applied to these facts: the judge said that the state law couldn’t be used to prosecute false filings in a federal court. That decision is now, I believe, up on appeal. But in the meantime, Cheseboro has argued that a guilty plea to a charge that has been invalidated must itself be invalidated.
Special Prosecutor Jack Smith seeks delay to assess implications of SCOTUS ruling on Trump Jan. 6 case
Axios‘ article offers a summary of the implications of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request for a two-week continuance to further analyze the Supreme Court’s immunity cases. Meanwhile, Politico provides a helpful analysis of the nuances of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling and the difficulty of applying them.
“Trump pledged to pardon Jan. 6 rioters. He faces pressure to name names.”
An excerpt from the WaPo piece about the law-and-order candidate:
Trump has steadily escalated his glorification of Jan. 6 defendants, often known in the MAGA movement as “J6ers,” describing them as hostages and patriots who have been mistreated. After his conviction in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records, Trump proudly adopted the term “political prisoner” for himself.
“2020’s ‘fake elector’ schemes will be harder to try in 2024 – but not impossible”
Derek Muller, for The Conversation, recounts some of the ways that both the law and enforcement have changed in the last four years.
Speaking of which, Wisconsin Public Radio reports that an attorney charged last week in the Wisconsin false-elector scheme has been temporarily suspended from a panel advising state judges on ethics.
“He Said He Was Ashamed of Storming the Capitol. Now He’s Running for Office.”
This NYT piece profiles the dynamics of a primary for a South Carolina House race, in a district without a major-party opponent.
“Prosecutors Ask Appeals Court to Reject Trump’s Immunity Claims in Election Case”
NYT:
Federal prosecutors asked [the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit] on Saturday to reject former President Donald J. Trump’s claims that he is immune from criminal charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election and said the indictment should remain in place even though it arose from actions he took while in the White House. . . .
. . . In their 82-page filing to the appeals court, prosecutors focused on legal arguments and said that nothing in the Constitution or the country’s other founding documents supported the idea that a former president should not be subject to federal criminal law.
“Exclusive: Recordings, emails show how Trump team flew fake elector ballots to DC in final push to overturn 2020 election”
CNN:
Two days before the January 6 insurrection, the Trump campaign’s plan to use fake electors to block President-elect Joe Biden from taking office faced a potentially crippling hiccup: The fake elector certificates from two critical battleground states were stuck in the mail.
So, Trump campaign operatives scrambled to fly copies of the phony certificates from Michigan and Wisconsin to the nation’s capital, relying on a haphazard chain of couriers, as well as help from two Republicans in Congress, to try to get the documents to then-Vice President Mike Pence while he presided over the Electoral College certification.
“Colorado GOP asks U.S. Supreme Court to keep Trump on the ballot”
WaPo:
The Colorado Republican Party on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to ensure that Donald Trump’s name can appear on the state’s primary ballot after Colorado’s high court said he had engaged in insurrection and was ineligible to hold office again.
“Don’t blame democracy’s woes on the GOP or ‘tyranny of the minority’”
Jennifer Rubin in the WaPo:
Two of the year’s best books on politics present contrasting diagnoses for what ails American democracy.
Liz Cheney’s “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning” lowers the boom on the mendacious and cowardly Republicans and the now four-times-indicted former president Donald Trump, whom they enabled in nearly destroying our democratic system. “Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point,” by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, cites structural protections for the minority that have been exploited to the point that self-government is threatened. Both books have a point, but neither puts the blame squarely where it should be. . . .
Plainly, we need both structural change and public virtue to repair our democracy. But there is another element the analyses do not fully acknowledge: voters. We get the government we want and deserve.
“From Bush v. Gore to ‘Stop the Steal’: Kenneth Chesebro’s Long, Strange Trip”
N.Y. Times has an in-depth profile of Kenneth Chesebro.
“Some former colleagues say Mr. Chesebro’s 180-degree turn came after a lucrative 2014 investment in Bitcoin and a subsequent posh, itinerant lifestyle. Others, like Mr. Tribe, see Mr. Chesebro as a ‘moral chameleon’ and his story an old one about the seduction of power.
‘He wanted to be close to the action,’ said Mr. Tribe, who is among 60 lawyers and scholars who signed an ethics complaint in New York that could result in Mr. Chesebro’s disbarment. At Harvard, Mr. Chesebro assisted Mr. Tribe on many cases, including Bush v. Gore, which Mr. Tribe, as Mr. Gore’s chief legal counsel, argued before the Supreme Court.”