Pence faces fierce resistance from GOP’s pro-Trump base

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Former Vice President Mike Pence is facing strong resistance from members of his party’s pro-Trump base over his role in certifying the Electoral College results in the 2020 election.

Pence has stepped up his public appearances recently and is set to appear at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa next month alongside other high-profile Republicans. But his political future is complicated by his refusal in January to bow to pressure from then-President Trump to help deliver him a victory in the race against Joe Biden.

While garnering praise from Democrats and Republicans, that decision has led to howls from members of the party’s right flank — a swath of voters Pence will need should he launch a presidential campaign in three years. Continue reading.

Bill Barr’s ‘clean-up exercise’ to save his reputation actually reveals he was far more corrupt than anyone realized: columnist

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Former Attorney General William Barr is attempting to resuscitate his image after two years of using the Justice Department as a partisan defense agency for former President Donald Trump. In a new interview with reporter Jonathan Karl, Barr claimed he always knew Trump’s election conspiracy theories were “bullsh*t” and that then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) begged him to help push back on them.

But on Monday, writing for The Washington Post‘s “The Plum Line,” columnist Greg Sargent argued that far from exonerating him, Barr’s new revelations show the depths of his corruption.

“Having gone to extraordinary lengths to help Donald Trump corrupt the presidency, William P. Barr is working overtime to launder his post-Trump reputation,” wrote Sargent. “But the former attorney general’s latest clean-up exercise may end up showing that the stain of his corruption is even darker than we thought — in a way that soils other Republicans as well.” Continue reading.

Donald Trump’s January 6

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The view from inside the Oval Office.

Seems like quite a few crazies,” said the president.

A little more than three weeks before rioters and revelers stormed the Capitol on January 6, several thousand Trump fans and fanatics gathered in Washington, D.C. There were the Proud Boys in elaborate dress, ZZ Top beards, and tie-dyed kilts — Enrique Tarrio, a Proud Boy organizer, got in line and took a public tour of the White House — who seemed to have appointed themselves Trump’s protectors and vanguard, as the Hells Angels had once done for the Rolling Stones. There were Trump impersonators and a wide variety of other made-for-the-cameras MAGA costumes. There were veterans — or people in military gear trying to suggest patriotism and firepower. There were older men and women, too — more Las Vegas than Altamont. Virtually all without masks.

“It’s like Let’s Make a Deal,” said Trump the next day to a caller, referencing the long-running game show from the 1960s — many of his references have never left this psychic era — on which audience members dressed up in foolish costumes to get the attention of the host.

The speakers at the December 12 event were themselves a retinue of Trump attention seekers: Michael Flynn, the former general who had briefly served as Trump’s national security adviser before being rolled out of office for lying to the FBI, had, after pleading guilty, reversed himself and abjectly reaffirmed his Trump loyalty, finally getting his pardon just days before the rally. Sebastian Gorka, a figure of uncertain provenance and function in the Trump White House during its first months, was one of the early oddballs to be pushed out when John Kelly became chief of staff and had pursued a Trump-based media career ever since. Also speaking: MyPillow entrepreneur Mike Lindell, a former drug addict and a current fevered conspiracist. Continue reading.

DC investigators seek Weisselberg testimony as they compile case against Trump kids for ‘self-dealing’: report

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According to a report from the Daily Beast’s Jose Pagliery, the case being made against Donald Trump’s children — Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric — for cashing in on Donald Trump’s inauguration after his 2016 presidential win is being delayed while investigators seek testimony from Trump Org executive Allen Weisselberg.

The report states that Sunday, the District of Columbia’s attorney general was notified he will have to wait “…to find out if three more people in the Trump family circle can be forced to testify, as investigators continue to look into whether Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration committee misspent more than $1 million and enriched his own company.”

In an interview with the Beast, lead witness Stephanie Winston Wolkoff — who helped oversee the inauguration events — said the investigation is looking at “self-dealing” by the Trump family. Continue reading.

Documents Show Ivanka Trump Didn’t Testify Accurately in Inauguration Scandal Case

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She said she played no role in planning inaugural events. These records suggest otherwise.

The Trump family has trouble with depositions. In 2007 testimony, Donald Trump was repeatedly shown to be a liar. In February, Donald Trump Jr. was deposed in the Trump inauguration scandal lawsuit, and on several key points, under oath, he provided false testimony. A review of documents filed in that case and other material obtained by Mother Jones shows that Ivanka Trump also testified inaccurately during her deposition in this lawsuit. 

The inauguration probe was launched last year by Karl Racine, the attorney general of Washington, DC. He has alleged that Trump’s inauguration committee misused charitable funds to enrich the Trump family. As Racine put it, the lawsuit maintains “that the Inaugural Committee, a nonprofit corporation, coordinated with the Trump family to grossly overpay for event space in the Trump International Hotel… The Committee also improperly used non-profit funds to throw a private party [at the Trump Hotel] for the Trump family costing several hundred thousand dollars.” In short, the attorney general accused the Trump gang of major grifting, and he is seeking to recover the money paid to the Trump Hotel so those funds can be used for real charitable purposes. 

During a December 1 deposition—in which she swore to tell the truth—Ivanka Trump, the eldest daughter of Donald Trump who was an executive at the Trump Organization before becoming a White House adviser to her father, was asked if she had any “involvement in the process of planning the inauguration.” She replied, “I really didn’t have an involvement.” Ivanka testified that if her “opinion was solicited” regarding an inauguration event, she “would give feedback to my father or to anyone who asked my perspective or opinion.” And that was as far as her participation went. Continue reading.

Former Trump Organization executive agrees Trump probably deserves to go to jail after ‘what I’ve observed over 20 years’

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Speaking to CNN host Jim Acosta on Sunday, former Trump Organization executive Barbara Res agreed that former President Donald Trump probably deserves to go to jail, from her observation.

The two discussed the deepening seriousness of the Manhattan District Attorney’s case against the Trump Organization. 

“I hear them talk about going after the Trump Organization, but the Trump Organization is not General Motors,” Res explained. “It was just a kind of loose thing that we called ourselves. I think it was incorporated, but later, after I started there. I’m sure that everything, every operation that he has, is held in a holding company or an LLC. So I’m not exactly sure what entities or where they’re going with this. Now, as far as Trump was concerned, if they were to get evidence against Trump, it would be to the extent that really nothing major has ever happened, to my knowledge. And this is confirmed by other people that worked for him much later, that he didn’t know about, nothing major. So, he is in with both legs.” Continue reading.

Republican Congressman can’t understand why Trump supporters went to ‘worship a loser’ at Ohio rally

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Former President Donald Trump’s Ohio rally is being mocked by many for being a celebration of a “loser.” Now Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) is joining in on the mockery.

Speaking to CNN Sunday, Kinzinger called the rally, eight months after the election, “a rally for a loser.”

“There are a lot of people that I’ve talked to that are mad at me for just telling the truth, which used to be a pretty basic low bar,” he told CNN host Pamela Brown. “That really truly believes that Donald Trump was elected president again. What you saw yesterday was a recycling of all his old talking points. It was a rally of a loser president. He’s the first president to lose re-election in decades. And I don’t know why these folks would go there and just short of worship a loser. They did. The interesting thing is he didn’t talk much about the candidate running against Anthony Gonzalez, who is a fantastic person, Anthony is. The guy running against him, at one point, Trump made it sound like he negotiated world peace in North Korea. The guy worked advance, which is really an entry-level position, not to put it down, but not negotiating with world leaders. And then he went into old recycled talking points. The problem is people believe this. They really do. And there are enough people that, frighteningly, believe he’ll be president again in August.” Continue reading.

Bombshell Barr interview reveals Trump had ‘criminal intent’ in election lies: ex-prosecutor

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On his YouTube channel, where he generally explains legal things for the layperson, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner walked through the recently posted interview with former Attorney General Bill Barr in The Atlantic

The report revealed one thing that could ultimately work against Trump in the investigation over whether he committed voter fraud in Georgia. After the state was called for Joe Biden, Trump called the governor and secretary of state to urge them to “find” him votes to overthrow the election. 

According to Kirschner, the interview with Barr proved that Trump was well aware that there was no voter fraud, no election problems and that he lost the 2020 election. Barr told him and Trump acknowledged it, speaking about himself in the third person saying, “you must hate Trump.” Continue reading.

Wisconsin GOP leaders call Trump ‘misinformed’ after the he claims they’re hiding election corruption

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Almost eight months after now-President Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in Wisconsin in the 2020 presidential election, the former president continues to falsely claim that he was the real winner in Wisconsin — and he is bashing the Wisconsin Republicans who refuse to join him in the Big Lie. In an article published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on June 26, journalist Molly Beck takes a look at “divisions” among “Wisconsin Republicans over whether and how far to litigate the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.”

Those divisions, according to Beck, were evident during the Wisconsin GOP’s annual convention on June 26. A small group of delegates, Beck reports, want to oust Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican over the 2020 election. At the convention, Beck reports, Vos announced that he “was hiring, at taxpayer expense, a former conservative Supreme Court justice to oversee an investigation by retired police detectives into the election — the third such review Vos has called for.”

However, Trump has been railing against Vos for not doing more to promote the Big Lie. Continue reading.

Wisconsin Republican used leftover funds from his failed campaign to attend Trump’s ‘Stop the Steal’ rally

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After losing to incumbent Democratic Rep. Ron Kind in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District in the 2020 election, far-right Republican Derrick Van Orden had some campaign funds left over — and according to the Daily Beast reporter Roger Sollenberger, he used some of that money to attend then-President Donald Trump’s Stop the Steal rally in Washington, D.C. on January 6. 

Van Orden is running for Congress again in 2022, and he has been endorsed by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy despite the fact that he openly promoted Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.

In an article published by the Beast on June 27, Sollenberger explains, “Van Orden, a former Navy SEAL and small-time actor, has previously acknowledged attending the January 6 rally, but has repeatedly claimed he never entered the Capitol grounds. However, social media posts from the riot suggest that isn’t true. A Facebook image from January 6 shows Van Orden standing on a wall on the Capitol grounds that was inside a restricted area. The Daily Beast recreated the photo on Friday and confirmed that Van Orden would have had to cross police barricades to reach that area.” Continue reading.