Happy Impeachment Trial, Donald! You Are Also Under Investigation In Georgia.

Womp womp.

Good morning, Donald Trump! Your second impeachment trial starts today, around lunchtime, and no matter what 67 senators say, you are GUILTY. Also good morning, Donald Trump! You are under investigation for election crimes in Georgia. We know, we know, innocent until proven GUILTY, but we are pretty sure we know what happened there too.

Of course, these two things are related.

First, we'll let the New York Times fill you in:

The office of Georgia's secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, on Monday started an investigation into former President Donald J. Trump's attempts to overturn the state's election results, including a phone call he made to Mr. Raffensperger in which Mr. Trump pressured him to "find" enough votes to reverse his loss.

But it was a perfect call! Trump called and told Georgia elections officials to "find" him 11,780 votes as part of the months-long coup against America Trump tried to pull, but they refused to even check the couch cushions. How is that bad?

"So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state." That is one of the many things Trump told Raffensperger on that call. "I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. You know, we have that in spades already." That is also a thing he said. He just needed Georgia to do him a favor though, like a common Ukraine president.

So anyway, this may be a fuck around and find out moment for Trump. You spend months abusing the (Republican!) Georgia secretary of state and putting him, his family, and his staff in danger, it's possible that same secretary of state might open a li'l inquiry once you don't have the powers of the presidency to protect you.

As the Times notes, this isn't a full criminal investigation at this point. It's the step that comes before that, and if the secretary of state's office finds enough, it'll refer the matter to the full board of elections, which then could refer to the attorney general for criminal charges.

David Worley, the one Democrat on the elections board, talked to the Times :

"Any investigation of a statutory violation is a potential criminal investigation depending on the statute involved," he said, adding that in the case of Mr. Trump, "The complaint that was received involved a criminal violation."

Of course, the Times reports that Fani Willis, the DA in Fulton County (Atlanta), is also looking into starting a criminal investigation into Trump's perfect Georgia call as well, since she has jurisdiction over any crimes that happen in her backyard. CNN reports that the office is taking it "seriously as far as a potential case." Will she charge Trump with crimes? Maybe , DA Willis says she'll be making an announcement on that shortly.

What kinds of crimes, though? The Times helps out with a list of possibilities:

One is criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, which can be either a felony or a misdemeanor; as a felony, it is punishable by at least a year in prison. There is also a related conspiracy charge, which can be prosecuted either as a misdemeanor or a felony. A third law, a misdemeanor offense, bars "intentional interference" with another person's "performance of election duties."

So even if Trump secretly tried to pardon himself before he left office in disgrace, these would be state crimes, which means he could go to state jail.

Trump's remaining small-mouthed idiots say he did nothing wrong, because they always say that:

Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Mr. Trump, said in a statement: "There was nothing improper or untoward about a scheduled call between President Trump, Secretary Raffensperger and lawyers on both sides. If Mr. Raffensperger didn't want to receive calls about the election, he shouldn't have run for secretary of state."

We guess Raffensperger was asking for it.

Trump's perfect call with Raffensperger will also be used as evidence against Trump in his impeachment trial.

Starting at 1 p.m. Eastern today, senators will debate whether it is even constitutional to convict presidents of impeachment crimes if they're already out of office. (We've said it 1,000 times: Impeachment is whatever 67 senators say it is. )

Then, starting tomorrow, House impeachment managers will lay out their case, which will include everything Trump has ever done in service of his Big Lie that he won an election he clearly lost. The House's 80-page trial memorandum covers Trump promising he wouldn't accept the results of a free and fair election, and then fulfilling that one campaign promise repeatedly; his millions of loser Elite Strike Force lawsuits to overturn the results, all of which were laughed out of court; his perfect call with Raffensperger, and all his other attempts to manipulate state officials into overturning their own results; and oh yeah, how all his actions ultimately incited a terrorist attack on the United States Capitol. And so much more!

Join us for liveblog this afternoon! IT'S IMPEACHMENT-THIRTY (AGAIN), MOTHERFUCKERS!

And here’s the link to the ‘peach blog! 

[ New York Times ]

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