Tag: Trump attempt to steal a second term

Trump ripped William Barr as a ‘phony’ who would have ‘licked the floor’ if he’d won: new book

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Donald Trump ripped into Attorney General Bill Barr as a “phony” who “would have licked the floor if I won,” after the former president unsuccessfully tried to get U.S. attorneys in swing states to open investigations into his false claims of election fraud, according to Landslide, a new book from journalist Michael Wolff.

The Daily Beast reports that it obtained a copy of Landslide in advance of its publication next week. 

“‘Trump had been personally calling around to various U.S. attorneys in swing state districts, among them his appointee William McSwain in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania,’ to try and convince them to open their own probes,” the Daily Beast reports. “When they did not, Trump blamed his A.G., saying that ‘if I had won, Barr would have licked the floor if I asked him to. What a phony!'” Continue reading.

Toyota to stop donating to GOP lawmakers who objected to certifying Biden’s win

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Toyota announced Thursday that its political action committee would no longer make donations to Republican members of Congress who objected to certifying the presidential election results in January, after uproar over newsthat the automaker’s corporate PAC had supported those lawmakers at a higher level than other PACs.

“Toyota is committed to supporting and promoting actions that further our democracy,” the company said in a statement Thursday. “We understand that the PAC decision to support select Members of Congress who contested the results troubled some stakeholders. We are actively listening to our stakeholders and, at this time, we have decided to stop contributing to those Members of Congress who contested the certification of certain states in the 2020 election.”

Supporters of President Donald Trump overran the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, in large part to protest the certification of Joe Biden’s victory because Trump asserted, and they might have believed, that the election was “stolen.” The violent siege left five people dead, including a police officer; two other officers who were on duty that day later died by suicide. Continue reading.

Report: 2 Seattle police officers broke law during DC riots

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SEATTLE — Two Seattle police officers who were in Washington, D.C., during the Jan. 6 insurrection were illegally trespassing on Capitol grounds while rioters stormed the building, but they lied about their actions, a police watchdog said in a report released Thursday.

“They were both standing in the immediate vicinity of the Capitol Building in direct view of rioters lining the steps and climbing the walls,” the Office of Police Accountability said in its report, citing video evidence. “OPA finds it unbelievable that they could think that this behavior was not illegal, contrary to their claims at their OPA interviews.”

After the release of the OPA report, Chief Adrian Diaz said he will hold accountable any Seattle Police Department officer involved in the insurrection, including disciplinary action up to and including termination. He said he would make a decision within 30 days. Continue reading.

Senator’s Photos From Capitol On Jan. 6 Show Violent Insurrection Wreckage

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The pictures show yet again that the deadly riot at the Capitol was no “normal tourist visit,” as one Republican lawmaker previously put it.

Shattered glass. Overturned chairs. Broken furniture. This was some of the wreckage at the Capitol after the violent riot of Jan. 6, captured in newly released photos from a Democratic senator.

“I took these exactly six months ago – the morning after the insurrection,” Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown tweeted Wednesday, noting it was the first time he was sharing the footage. “This is what I saw in the Capitol.”

On Jan. 6, an armed mob of hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol where lawmakers were set to certify the results of the U.S. presidential election, which President Joe Biden had won. Five people died in the riots, including a Capitol Police officer.  Continue reading.

Kraken Lawyer Tells Judge ‘Any Attempt To String Cite [Caselaw] Would Be Insulting To All Involved’

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Listen, Judge. We’ve got cases backing us up. You wouldn’t believe how many cases we’ve got over here. In fact, it’s so many cases that I’m not even going to waste your time by pointing them out. 

While that sounds like something that a pro se litigant might have written, in this case it was Stefanie Lambert Juntilla, the local counsel for the Michigan Kraken lawsuit. A motion had been filed asking the court to take judicial notice of the Michigan legislature’s report debunking the facially bonkers election fraud claims that gave rise to the Kraken suits. Juntilla responds that the court should ignore the report because the legislature admits that the report is not “exhaustive” and a rogue member of the Michigan House claims that she — and she alone, apparently — is “in receipt of evidence reflecting systematic election fraud in Michigan that occurred in the November 2020 election.”

Italian space lasers? No… but apparently it’s Taiwan and Germany now?

Which brings Juntilla to this gem: Continue reading.

Reporters point to a simple sign that Trump’s social media lawsuit is ‘unserious’

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It took Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee (RNC), the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) just “minutes” to begin fundraising off of what some are calling the former president’s “frivolous” lawsuits against Twitter, Facebook, and Google.

Politico’s Sam Stein posted this text from the joint Trump-RNC fundraising committee:

Continue reading.

The death of Ashli Babbitt offers the purest distillation of Donald Trump’s view of justice

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The night of May 29, 2020, was a frightening one for President Donald Trump. The killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer had spawned massive protests throughout the country, including on the streets of Washington. Concerned about the unrest, the president’s protective detail moved him into a bunker inside the White House, a precautionary measure that Trump would later claim involved nothing more than a tour. (This was not true.)

Always seeking to project strength, Trump the next morning presented the situation as though he was a conquering general.

“Great job last night at the White House by the [Secret Service],” he wrote on Twitter. “ … I was inside, watched every move, and couldn’t have felt more safe.” He praised agents for letting the protesters “scream & rant,” noting that if any “got too frisky or out of line, [agents] would quickly come down on them, hard — didn’t know what hit them.” Continue reading.

Mike Lindell’s lawsuit that he vowed would put Trump back into the White House already facing court setbacks

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Trump-loving MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has been saying this week that former President Donald Trump will be returned to the Oval Office next month — a claim that even Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) shot down this week for being outlandish.

One of Lindell’s purported weapons in his war to put Trump back in the White House is a lawsuit that he filed against Dominion Voting Systems that he claimed would expose the company’s supposed role in stealing the 2020 election for President Joe Biden.

According to Reuters judicial reporter Brad Heath, however, Lindell’s big lawsuit is already facing setbacks in court. Continue reading.

Rudy Giuliani suspended from practicing law in D.C. court

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The D.C. Court of Appeals has temporarily barred Rudolph W. Giuliani from practicing law, following a similar decision in New York.

A committee of judges in New York determined last month that Giuliani was unfit to keep practicing law after he “communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large” while representing former president Donald Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with their efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

A day after the ruling, disciplinary counsel in D.C. recommended suspending Giuliani’s license in D.C. until the New York case is resolved. On Wednesday the D.C. Court of Appeals agreed. Continue reading.

Arizona secretary of state asks AG for a criminal investigation into election interference by Trump

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Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has asked her state’s attorney general to investigate election interference from President Donald Trump and his allies.

The Arizona Republic reported Wednesday that Hobbs believes the communications “involve clear efforts to induce supervisors to refuse to comply with their duties,” which she thinks could have violated Arizona law. 

She went on to cite a report from last week that text messages and voicemails came from surrogates of Trump’s, Rudy Giuliani and then ultimately from the White House itself.  Continue reading.