Legal
My Pillow Guy Dropped By Kohls, Picked Up By Dominion Voting's Lawyers
Cray. Zee.
January 19, 2021 11:58 AM
Mike Lindell didn't get where he is in this life by being shy. The former addict turned pillow pumper built a successful company by just going for it, and he's not about to stop now. The problem with just saying whatever's on your mind, though, is that sometimes it gets you in trouble — particularly when your mind is filled with syphilitic ferrets shouting COUP! COUP! COUP!
And so it is that Lindell finds his company dropped by multiple major national retailers just as he receives a preservation letter from the company he's been shit talking for months. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
For reasons not entirely clear, the White House has consulted Lindell on everything from coronavirus treatments to election security. Lindell, who failed to graduate from the University of Minnesota, has expertise in neither area. But he's been an ardent supporter of the president, and in the Trump administration, that's good enough.
<p>On Friday night, he was spotted leaving the White House with a<a href="https://www.wonkette.com/pillow-salesman-invited-to-white-house-to-advise-president-on-enacting-martial-law" target="_blank"> memo laying out a plot</a> to overthrow the government involving martial law and the CIA. This is what we call fomenting rebellion against the US government, and there used to be severe criminal penalties for that sort of thing. Heck, maybe soon there will be again! In the meantime, Dominion Voting Systems would like a word in civil court about all the baseless accusations of fraud and vote rigging Lindell has been slinging about them.</p><p>"We write regarding your patently false accusations that Dominion has somehow rigged or otherwise improperly influenced the recent U.S. presidential election," Dominion's lawyer Thomas Clare wrote in a <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/pillow-salesman-invited-to-white-house-to-advise-president-on-enacting-martial-law" target="_blank">preservation letter</a> on December 23 and published yesterday by <a href="https://www.axios.com/dominion-mike-lindell-my-pillow-ceo-trump-meeting-df5ec714-0528-4d7a-b70d-5c7a5a012a7e.html" target="_blank">Axios</a>. "Despite knowing your implausible attacks against Dominion have no basis in reality, you have participated in the vast and concerted misinformation campaign to slander Dominion."</p><p>Note that defamation of a public figure requires actual knowledge that the claim is false, or at least reckless disregard of the statement's veracity. There's a decent argument that Lindell is so cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs that he actually believes all this horse shit about vote rigging by the Chinese and the Italians, although we're having a hard time picturing the Pillow lawyers making the case that their own client is too batcrap insane to know which end is up.</p><p>"Recently, you have positioned yourself as a prominent leader of the ongoing misinformation campaign," the letter continues. "Accordingly, Dominion formally demands that you (1) cease and desist making defamatory claims against Dominion and (2) preserve and retain all documents relating to Dominion and your smear campaign against the company." And just in case that wasn't clear, Clare added in a footnote, "For the avoidance of all doubt, this is a retraction demand pursuant to relevant state statutes and applicable rules of court."</p><p>Translation: <em>We are suing you in a minute. Don't destroy any evidence, you paste-eating charlatan</em>.</p><p>A month later, Lindell seems not to be heeding the warning. </p><div id="b58bb" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a035ed7cf45d395f1796906871b5d309"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1351355543097667587" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Lindell says he talks with Sidney Powell twice a day, and came to his (false) conclusion that the election was rigg… https://t.co/7HpkP7IZeA</div> — John Whitehouse (@John Whitehouse)<a href="https://twitter.com/existentialfish/statuses/1351355543097667587">1611023243.0</a></blockquote></div><p>"I have friends of mine that they're getting — they've been gone after by 'the machine people.' You know, these Dominion, these SOS, you know, SAS machines whatever. Or they did, I think, they're going after them," Lindell told Right Side Broadcasting Network in an apparent reference to Sidney Powell, who has already been sued by Dominion. "But you know what? Ha! That's great! I welcome 'em to come after me, 'cause I've got all the evidence. Then we'll finally see it, right?"<br></p><p>"I want Dominion to put up their lawsuit because we have 100% evidence that China and other countries used their machines to steal the election," Lindell told Axios.</p><p>Which raises an interesting question, and one which Dominion's lawyers will likely raise in court. Presumably Lindell could have shared that evidence with the public at any point in the past 10 weeks — unlike his buddy Sidney Powell, he's still got his Twitter account. And instead he's tweeting out inscrutable screenshots of context-free gibberish, which will no doubt be cited as evidence that he knows his own numbers are garbage.</p><div id="51f85" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="037a53c2bde9d6b70f054a1fba2a31df"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1350298525549137921" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Here is one page of hundreds that prove President Trump got around 79m votes to 68m votes for Biden! Everyone shoul… https://t.co/NnQsJHTCTp</div> — Mike Lindell (@Mike Lindell)<a href="https://twitter.com/realMikeLindell/statuses/1350298525549137921">1610771230.0</a></blockquote></div><p>He's got hundreds of pages, you guys. He just can't show them to you right now. Don't ask why.</p><p>"I did my own math on November 4th, and I said 'This is mathematically impossible. Or improbable, for sure improbable. Close to impossible.' And then I got this guy four days ago, he brought it in 100 percent impossible!" Lindell gushed to the Right Side host Brian Glenn, assuring him that Trump's actual margin of victory was 11 million votes.</p><p>For those of you doing the math, turning a 7 million Trump vote deficit into an 11 million margin would require an 18 million vote tabulation error, or 11 percent. Which seems on the face of it 100 percent impossible. But, see, Mike Lindell knows a guy ...</p><p>And while we're on this little tangent, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_Side_Broadcasting_Network" target="_blank">Wiki</a> for Right Side notes that it was just some dude named Joe Seales posting YouTube videos of Trump rallies in 2015, until he decamped to Alabama to chow down on that sweet, sweet government cheese.</p><blockquote>After RSBN began taking off, Seales and his family moved to Auburn, Alabama, as the town had just equipped itself with $43 million worth of high-speed fiber optic cables. He and his wife transformed their new home into a news studio, hiring producers and on-air talent. Since then, RSBN has accumulated hundreds of millions of views on its YouTube channel.</blockquote><p>As every red-blooded conservative does!</p><p>As for Kohls, Bed Bath and Beyond, Wayfair, and H-E-B <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/mypillow-products-no-longer-stocked-these-companies-1562510" target="_blank">dropping </a>his product, Lindell knows who is to blame. </p><div id="43093" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2de21f5ac5f87238c62ce04c313445a1"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1351351525248032768" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">From an interview earlier this evening, Mike Lindell tells Right Side Broadcasting that he was just told that… https://t.co/Fj3sPtTvRF</div> — John Whitehouse (@John Whitehouse)<a href="https://twitter.com/existentialfish/statuses/1351351525248032768">1611022285.0</a></blockquote></div><p>That's right, it is communists! Or maybe it is bots! Look, who can follow this shit? The point is, Mike Lindell welcomes this lawsuit because then everyone will get to see all his very good evidence that the election was stolen. Evidence he can't share with you now because reasons. And he's definitely not a wacko who's going to lose his company in a lawsuit that proves to the public that all the claims about vote fraud which the GOP used to gin up a pack of lunatics to sack Congress were pathetic lies.</p><p>[<a href="https://www.wonkette.com/pillow-salesman-invited-to-white-house-to-advise-president-on-enacting-martial-law" target="_blank">Dominion Letter</a> / <a href="https://www.axios.com/dominion-mike-lindell-my-pillow-ceo-trump-meeting-df5ec714-0528-4d7a-b70d-5c7a5a012a7e.html" target="_blank">Axios</a>]<br></p><p><strong>Follow Liz Dye on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/5DollarFeminist" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">RIGHT HERE!</a></strong><br></p><p><strong>Please click here to support your Wonkette. And if you're ordering your quarantine goods on Amazon, <a href="https://amzn.to/2wbH77j" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">this is the link to do it.</a></strong></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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Trump
The Inside Story Of Trump's Delusional Three-Month Slide Into Outright Fascism And Eternal Loserdom!
This outstanding reporting comes from Axios, yes we said Axios.
January 19, 2021 11:14 AM
Twenty twenty twenty four hours to goooo, Trump might need to be sedated ... nothing to do, nowhere to goooo-oh ...
Oh hello! We're almost to the 24-hour countdown, where you start seeing footage of the ball drop in Australia and all the people cheering because at least where they live, Donald Trump is no longer president of the United States. Or at least they should do it that way.
While we're waiting, Axios, yes Axios, has been publishing an outstanding ongoing series with original reporting on Trump's unraveling, his utter collapse, and his descent into utter loser and victimhood, from his historic loss on election night to his present status as a twice-impeached loser whose legacy will be the terrorist attack he incited on the US Capitol on January 6.
Apparently it goes with a podcast, so that's exciting if you're into that sort of thing. Being Axios, though, each dispatch is little and bite-sized, just the 100-calorie snack pack of news you need to get through your day with the appropriate level of Trump schadenfreude.
<h2>Episode One: The Great En-Lose-ning Begins!</h2><p>Axios <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-election-premeditated-lie-ebaf4a1f-46bf-4c37-ba0d-3ed5536ef537.html" target="_blank">says</a> in Episode One that Trump's unraveling officially started when Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden on election night. Trump was indeed planning to "exploit" and "weaponize" the idea of a red mirage that night, where in-person vote totals looked better for him, to start his narrative that the election was rigged. But things went to hell when Fox News was first to realize Biden had flipped Arizona, on election night. By the end of the night, it was clear that "red mirage" would not work so well for Trump, so at 2:20 a.m., he went out and lied, "Frankly we did win this election," even though his then-favorite news network had been the one to drop the electoral turd in his punchbowl early and often. </p><p>He was a big loser.</p><h2>Episode Two: Attack Of The Clones! We Mean Krakens!</h2><p><a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-lawyers-biden-election-victory-debf79bc-750b-457b-a736-789b501d62a7.html" target="_blank">Episode Two</a> is where it starts to get more fun. The real campaign people were telling Trump there was an actual longshot way to steal the election by making Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin go their way. But the Kraken lawyers were already in the room:</p><blockquote>A bizarre routine set in. These meetings would begin with official staff raising plausible legal strategies. Then [Rudy] Giuliani and [Sidney] Powell, a lawyer with a history of floating "deep state" conspiracy theories, would take over, spewing wild allegations of a centralized plot by Democrats — and in Powell's view, international communists — to steal the election.<br><br>Bewildered campaign aides would look around the table at one another, silently asking what the hell was going on. </blockquote><p>And then they would leave. And then Rudy Giuliani would be like HEY WHERE EVERYBODY GO? DOIN' A BIG IMPORTANT KRAKEN MEETING!</p><blockquote>Eventually, Giuliani would realize that he and his crew were alone in the conference room. He'd walk down the hall and knock on the glass outside [campaign manager Bill] Stepien's office, where about eight aides had squeezed onto a pair of couches. "You guys, where did you go?" Giuliani would say. "This is serious!"</blockquote><p>And Trump believed them, because his Stable Genius brain is broken. He was already too far gone for them to try to steal the election in a "normal" way. He needed to believe the crazyass lies, because otherwise he was left whining things like "Can you believe I lost to that fucking guy? That fucking corpse?" But Axios says even in private, he clung to his denial like a gun and a Bible.</p><p>Somewhere in there, everybody else declared Trump the biggest loser of Arizona. </p><p>Sometime after that, there was a press conference at a landscape company on the outskirts of Philadelphia that claimed otherwise. </p><h2>Episode Three: It's Not That On Some Level Trump Didn't Know Sidney Powell Was Batshit ... </h2><p>He did, according to Axios in <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-off-the-rails-descent-into-madness-fd169833-9052-473d-87f5-7a1a4ffffb8f.html" target="_blank">Episode Three!</a></p><blockquote>President Trump was sitting in the Oval Office one day in late November when a call came in from lawyer Sidney Powell. "Ugh, Sidney," he told the staff in the room before he picked up. "She's getting a little crazy, isn't she? She's really gotta tone it down. No one believes this stuff. It's just too much."<br><br>He put the call on speakerphone for the benefit of his audience. Powell was raving about a national security crisis involving the Iranians flipping votes in battleground states. Trump pressed mute and laughed mockingly.<br><br>"So what are we gonna do about it, Sidney?" Trump would say every few seconds, whipping Powell more and more into a frenzy. He was having fun with it. "She really is crazy, huh?" he said, again with his finger on the mute button. [...]<br><br>"Sometimes you need a little crazy," Trump told one official.</blockquote><p><span></span>We hate all these people but we enjoy the mental image of Donald Trump muting the phone so he could make fun of Sidney Powell to everybody else in the room. </p><p>But at core, he was still the tiniest man in the room, the one who couldn't accept that he had indeed lost the election to Joe Biden, and hard. So he kept listening to them. </p><p>Apparently America had no idea just how close Sidney Powell came to getting a high-level security clearance, so she could investigate her QAnon-infused hallucinations about a "foreign conspiracy to steal the election involved a coordinated cyberwarfare attack from China, Russia, Iran, Iraq and North Korea." </p><p>Really. </p><h2>Episode Four: Bill Barr Is Good Now! Did You Hear Bill Barr Is Good?</h2><p>We are just going to say that we are curious who Axios's sources are for <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-barr-relationship-off-the-rails-b33b3788-e7e9-47fa-84c5-3a0016559eb5.html" target="_blank">this,</a> considering how well former Attorney General Bill Barr comes off. Was it some secret source named "Mill Carr"? "Dill Farr"? "Hill Garr"? </p><blockquote>Attorney General Bill Barr stood behind a chair in the private dining room next to the Oval Office, looming over Donald Trump. The president sat at the head of the table. It was Dec. 1, nearly a month after the election, and Barr had some sharp advice to get off his chest. The president's theories about a stolen election, Barr told Trump, were "bullshit."<br><br>White House counsel Pat Cipollone and a few other aides in the room were shocked Barr had come out and said it — although they knew it was true. For good measure, the attorney general threw in a warning that the new legal team Trump was betting his future on was "clownish."</blockquote><p>That was the day Barr showed up at the White House after the AP released the <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/bill-barr-just-saying-donald-trump-dead-to-him-now" target="_blank">interview where he said</a> he hadn't seen anything remotely suggesting irregularities in the election that could sway it Trump's way. Aren't you glad Bill Barr puffed his chest out like a big toad and said "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH" to Trump? We are sure glad for that. </p><p>Here is how Trump reportedly reacted to Barr's AP interview:</p><blockquote>"Why would you say such a thing? You must hate Trump. There's no other reason for it. You must hate Trump," the president charged, speaking about himself in the third person.</blockquote><p>Haha, we believe that, because that idiot <em>does</em> talk about himself in the third person. </p><p>In this episode we learn that Barr also was really against Trump's fantasies this summer about declaring war on Portland, and he didn't want to send in the military. Trump yelled at him back then, "No one supports me!" and "No one gives me any fucking support!" Bill Barr is just really good. Did everybody hear how Bill Barr is GOOD? "They fought all summer," says Axios. And that it "was always Groundhog Day trying to explain things to Trump." Because Bill Barr is GOOD.</p><p>There are other things in that episode about how Bill Barr is good, but we don't care.</p><p><span></span>Thanks for your service, Bill, now go away.</p><h2>Episode Five: So Why Was Trump Trying To Stick One Of Devin Nunes's Idiots At CIA, Who What Now?</h2><p>Episode Five <a href="https://www.axios.com/off-the-rails-trump-cia-kash-patel-6c5ea317-43e9-48da-993f-5c7ab823c4c1.html" target="_blank">discusses that</a> whole thing involving Trump's grand plan to get Gina Haspel out at CIA to be replaced by Devin Nunes's absolute favorite idiot Kash Patel, who most recently was the star of MyPillow CEO <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/pillow-salesman-invited-to-white-house-to-advise-president-on-enacting-martial-law" target="_blank">Mike Lindell's White House notes</a> on How To Coup For Dummies. </p><p>They originally fucked the goat on that one back in December, apparently:</p><blockquote>In his final weeks in office, after losing the election to Joe Biden, President Donald Trump embarked on a vengeful exit strategy that included a hasty and ill-thought-out plan to jam up CIA Director Gina Haspel by firing her top deputy and replacing him with [Kash Patel,] a protege of Republican Congressman Devin Nunes.<br><br>The plan stunned national security officials and almost blew up the leadership of the world's most powerful spy agency. Only a series of coincidences — and last minute interventions from Vice President Mike Pence and White House counsel Pat Cipollone — stopped it.</blockquote><p>Oh good, Mike Pence and Pat Cipollone stopped Trump from firing Gina Haspel and installing an absolute moron! Aren't you glad Mike Pence and Pat Cipollone are good like Bill Barr? You are glad about that. </p><p><span></span>Apparently all these weird last-minute firings and replacements with Devin Nunes's idiots come down to how Trump, in his galaxy brain, is just CONVINCED that there are documents lying around everywhere that say Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did the Deep State to him. And if that proof is out there, then it must be declassified! </p><p>Therefore Trump is just pretty sure the idiots he stuck into the Defense Department (and we guess <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/white-house-tries-to-shoehorn-nunes-lackey-into-top-lawyer-job-at-nsa-speaker-pelosi-says-fafo" target="_self">the NSA</a>) will unquestionably obey his HEREBY ORDERS to declassify these documents that definitely exist. </p><p>So watch for some bullshit declassifications later today, probably! </p><p>The documents will not say what Fox News says they say. </p><h2>Episode Six: Trump Fucks Georgia, Fucks Self, Orders Terrorist Attack On Capitol, Gets Impeached, Will Be Gone In 24 Hours</h2><p><a href="https://www.axios.com/off-the-rails-trump-last-stand-georgia-96520903-6405-47e7-962b-beac06abdb68.html" target="_blank">Episode Six</a> is about how Trump lost Georgia for himself and for Mitch McConnell and for the entire GOP. </p><p>Key excerpt:</p><blockquote>Less than 48 hours after Trump's Georgia rally, both races had been called for the Democrats, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. The Republicans had lost control of the Senate.<br><br>Trump was right that everyone would blame him. After all, he had spent months puncturing confidence in the voting system, turning his fire on Georgia's own GOP leadership, and obsessing over states that he had lost fair and square.<br><br>He had allowed outsiders and conspiracists to supplant the professionals around him. He had fed a national sense of mistrust, rage and despair. Georgia was the last state where Trump would take his stand.<br><br>He was about to incinerate his legacy. Within 24 hours, the feral ground troops the president had summoned to execute his fantasy of overturning the election would storm the steps of the U.S. Capitol.</blockquote><p>Womp womp. </p><p>That episode came out this morning. It's not that exciting, otherwise. Will there be more episodes? Probably!</p><p>As we publish this, we are learning that Trump, as part of his further unraveling, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/melania-trump-final-days-white-house/2021/01/18/291239b6-59cf-11eb-b8bd-ee36b1cd18bf_story.html" target="_blank">is just really upset</a> about how all these big awesome performers are going to do Joe Biden's inauguration, when literally nobody wanted to perform at his, which wasn't during a global pandemic. </p><p>You happy now, Axios? We free-advertised your dumb podcast. Now give us the million American dollars we did not agree you would pay us to write this post. </p><p>[<a href="https://www.axios.com/off-the-rails-episodes-cf6da824-83ac-45a6-a33c-ed8b00094e39.html" target="_blank">Axios</a>]</p><p><strong>Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter <a href="http://twitter.com/evanhurst" target="_blank">RIGHT HERE, DO IT RIGHT HERE!</a><br></strong></p><p><strong>GIVE IT WONKETTE. We mean money. Thank you.</strong></p><p><span style="background-color: initial;"></span></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" target="_blank">Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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Right Wing Extremism
FBI Investigating 'Empathetic And Loving' Woman For Rioting, Stealing Nancy Pelosi's Laptop
Riley June Williams sounds like an absolute darling.
January 18, 2021 01:35 PM
The FBI is currently on the lookout for 22-year-old Riley June Williams of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who allegedly stole Nancy Pelosi's laptop or hard drive while storming the Capitol on January 6, supposedly for the purpose of selling it to Russian intelligence.
Williams came to the attention of law enforcement after a former romantic partner saw her in an ITV documentary about the storming of the Capitol. The ex, referred to in the complaint affidavit as WI, had also seen videos from other people who knew Williams, in which she was seen stealing Pelosi's "laptop computer or hard drive" (that's how the complaint reads) from Pelosi's office. Law enforcement sent officers to Williams's mother's house, where her mother told them her daughter had packed a bag and fled.
Since then, Williams has deleted social media accounts from "Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, Telegram, and Parler" and changed her phone number.
<p>ITV reporters interviewed Williams's mother, who explained that her daughter had recently become very pro-Trump and enjoyed participating in "far-right message boards," while still insisting that "[s]he's a 22-year-old who [is] very empathetic and loving." </p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
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</p><p>"Empathetic and loving." Seems like I should probably mention here that the skull mask Williams is wearing in the main picture, where she is also holding an assault rifle, is traditionally worn by members of the white supremacist neo-Nazi organization, <a href="https://gazette.com/news/militant-neo-nazi-group-surfaces-in-colorado-springs/article_e6e524da-fc23-11ea-8a02-c3acbd5f1c8e.html" target="_blank">Atomwaffen Division</a>. But sure, she's "empathetic and loving."</p><p>Williams, who went down to Washington for the January 6 rally with her father (he says they split up for the day), appears in the ITV videos charging into various areas of the Capitol and pushing others to go further in. </p><p><a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.226160/gov.uscourts.dcd.226160.1.1.pdf" target="_blank">According to the complaint</a>, Williams planned to send the laptop or hard drive to a friend in Russia who was supposed to sell it to SVR, Russia's foreign intelligence service, but this plan "fell through for unknown reasons." I would guess one of those reasons would be someone in that chain being full of shit, but I also assume that anyone who claims to have connections to any intelligence service is full of shit until proven otherwise. It's like the <em>number one</em><em> thing</em> pathological liars lie about. I could be wrong, but it just <em>would not</em> surprise me if the Russian friend Williams thought was her "in" to sell the laptop to Russian intelligence was just some rando with delusions of grandeur. </p><p>Still, Williams is in the wind and we won't know anything until she's found, at which point she will likely be charged with pretty much the same charges as everyone else who was there and has been identified, <em>i.e.</em> entering a restricted building without lawful authority to do so and engaging in disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building. She is not yet being charged with the theft of Speaker Pelosi's laptop and/or hard drive. </p><p>Williams is far from the first person to be turned into law enforcement by friends or family members. Theresa Duke, the woman who got punched by the Black woman law enforcement officer whose phone she tried to steal, was identified <a href="https://www.bostonherald.com/2021/01/15/therese-duke-i-did-nothing-wrong/" target="_blank">by her own daughter</a>. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/16/capitol-riot-family-fbi/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Several others</a> have been turned in by those who know them well, and who say their parents or friends or relatives are a danger to themselves or others. </p><p>It takes a lot, I would imagine, to report someone you know and have cared about to the police, knowing they will likely face time in prison. This must have been the last straw for a whole lot of people. </p><p>[<a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.226160/gov.uscourts.dcd.226160.1.1.pdf" target="_blank">CourtListener.com</a>]</p><p></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" target="_blank">Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons</a>.</p><br><p></p><p><strong>Wonkette is independent and fully funded by readers like you. Click below to tip us!</strong></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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Impeachment
Giuliani Thinks Trump Should Just Tell The Senate Why He Ordered The Code Red
It's like he wants Trump convicted.
January 18, 2021 09:02 AM
Donald Trump was impeached last week for inciting an insurrection against the United States government. That's more serious than a parking ticket, so Trump should consider competent legal representation at his second annual Senate trial. However, Rudy Giuliani, one of the lead Kraken wranglers in Trump's “elite strike force" of COVID-19 superspreaders, was at the White House Saturday. The MyPillow Guy could probably provide better legal counsel than Giuliani.
Giuliani confirmed with ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl that he was working on Trump's defense, and it's a doozy. He's prepared to argue that Trump's pre-siege speech didn't constitute incitement to violence, because Trump's fascist Big Lie about winning an election he lost is true!
"They basically claimed that anytime [Trump] says voter fraud, voter fraud -- or I do, or anybody else -- we're inciting to violence; that those words are fighting words because it's totally untrue," [Giuliani] said. "Well, if you can prove that it's true, or at least true enough so it's a legitimate viewpoint, then they are no longer fighting words."
<p>Yikes. There's so much wrong here. First place, Trump's campaign lost more than 60 court cases contesting the election results. Judges consistently <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/03/voter-fraud/" target="_blank">rejected the suits</a> as lacking merit or standing. Trump's “elite strike force," despite what was said in public, <a href="https://time.com/5914377/donald-trump-no-evidence-fraud/" target="_blank">rarely argued sweeping voter fraud in court</a> because there are legal penalties for lying to judges.</p><p>The House of Representatives isn't charging Trump with defamation. It doesn't matter if what he said was true or not (and it wasn't). The House impeachment managers will focus on Trump's <a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-save-america-rally-transcript-january-6" target="_blank">repulsive words</a> that inspired a violent attack against Congress. As<em> GOP Rep. Liz Cheney</em> said: "The president of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the president." She's right.</p><p>Yes, there is a rightfully high bar to charge a private citizen with incitement, but impeachment isn't strictly a legal proceeding. The Senate can determine that Trump's actions make him unfit to hold office, now and forever. </p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
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</p><p>Giuliani laughably argued that Trump's second impeachment isn't even legal and should be dismissed outright like a common Kraken suit.</p><blockquote>"If they decide to bring it to a trial, he should move to dismiss the impeachment as entirely illegal. That it was the only impeachment ever done in what, two days, three days," Giuliani told ABC News. "We would say to the court, 'You are now permitting in the future, basically in two days, the Congress can just impeach on anything they want to."</blockquote><p>Not to get all originalist on Giuliani's scraggly ass, but the Constitution says nothing about an appropriate timeframe for impeachment. <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii" target="_blank">Article II, Section 4</a> says simply: "The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." It's perfectly legal for Congress to impeach and remove the president in the time it takes for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIplHKoJS8c" target="_blank">Domino's to deliver a pizza.</a></p><p>Giuliani also conflated a quickie impeachment with a baseless one. Trump is charged with a serious offense, which arguably justifies haste. This isn't a blowjob impeachment, where you can take your time and tease out a satisfying conclusion. Congress should probably move quickly when the president has sicced a mob on them. </p><p>He went on to claim that if “[incitement] is going to happen, it's got to happen right away." This argument is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2021/capitol-insurrection-visual-timeline/" target="_blank">unsupported by the actual events of January 6. </a> The mob had grown violent, storming the outer barricade of the Capitol, <em>during</em> Trump's speech. The thugs had overtaken the police and made their way up the Capitol steps just 20 minutes after Trump said, "If you don't fight ... you're not going to have a country anymore." They'd breached the Capitol when Trump tweeted that Mike Pence didn't have the “courage" to unilaterally reject the electors. </p><p>I don't even play a lawyer on TV but I think Trump's speech easily <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brandenburg_test" target="_blank">meets the Brandenburg test</a> for incitement. He was advocating for imminent unlawful action, as there were <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/gop-senator-object-electoral-college-results-forcing-congress-vote-overturning-n1252546" target="_blank">no legal means</a> to overturn Joe Biden's victory. Pence had already told him that what he wanted was impossible and unconstitutional. What did Trump mean when he urged his mob to go to the Capitol and "give ["cowardly" Republicans] the kind of pride and boldness that they need to <strong>take back</strong> our country"? Don't worry, Trump can explain it all for the Senate himself because Giuliani hasn't ruled out the former (thank God) president testifying at his trial. This is great news for <em>A Few Good Men</em> fans.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
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</p><p>Sunday morning, in an interview on Fox News, <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1350851941778272258?s=20" target="_blank">Karl Rove said</a> that if Trump uses Giuliani's coup-coup defense, it “raises the likelihood" that 17 Republican senators will vote to convict. We're all for it, but White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley <a href="https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1350810827293679624?s=20" target="_blank">released a statement</a> claiming Trump hasn't determined which lawyer or law firm will defend him against the “impeachment hoax." </p><p>Late Sunday, Karl reported that Giuliani <a href="https://twitter.com/jonkarl/status/1351020777261424640?s=21" target="_blank">apparently realized</a> he was present at the pre-siege rally, where he delivered a bonkers speech about “trial by combat." That makes him a witness and “unable to participate" in the Senate trial.</p><p>Shucks.</p><p>[<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/giuliani-working-trumps-impeachment-defense-argue-voter-fraud/story?id=75302032" target="_blank">ABC News</a>]</p><p>Follow Stephen Robinson on <em><a href="https://twitter.com/SER1897" target="_blank">Twitter.</a></em><br></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons</a>.</p><p><strong>Yr Wonkette is 100 percent ad free and supported entirely by reader donations. Please click the clickie, if you are able!</strong></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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